Shelving

Back in the day I worked for a supplier/dealer/installer of commercial kitchen equipment called CKS (Commercial Kitchen Supply- that was redundant). One of the owners was my young mens leader throughout the years named Layne Walker, and the other owner was his brother in law, Keith Eubank (yes son and brother of the infamous weather guys, although Keith is like twice the size of squeaky).

I started doing odd things off and on for CKS when I was still in high school. Later I worked for them for a few months before my mission and then started up again with them 4 days after I got home from my mission. That was kind of awkward because I spoke really bad English with a HEAVY Brazilian accent. Sometimes I would talk to other people and accidentally drop a few Portuguese words mid sentence. I never understood why they looked at me weird. It was especially hard to talk to girls. I'm better now, I think. Anyway Seester (Nacho), I then worked for them up to my marriage except for a 5-month intern stint over to the Layton City Engineering Department. I had to quit CKS because I had to leave home to cleave to Megan in Provo. They wanted me to stay, but couldn't offer me the health insurance and stuff that I felt was necessary for my new family. Keith sent me off with his 1989 Magnavox TV (you may have seen this before) and then the CKS crew gave us our barbeque grill for our wedding present. If you haven't seen that yet, then we owe you a bbq. The grill cooks like a champ.

I went back to their office this week looking to buy some heavy duty shelving from them to use in our storage room of the new house. Keith greeted me with a big smile and was glad I had swung by to visit. He said that since I was such a great employee that I could just have some of their surplus shelving. I was overjoyed, what a blessing. The free shelving was not the exact size of what I had come up with in my original request; I actually ended up with more bigger and better shelving than I had anticipated. I just ran the numbers through a website that sells similar stuff and I actually ended up with over $1,100 of free shelving!

One thing that I always did when I worked for CKS was compare the price of the equipment to my car back then, the blessed Toyota Tercel Blue Dart station wagon. That only worked because my parents don't know what a real blue dart is. Nobody better blow that, ya hear?!?!! So, for example, the shelving that I got was the price of 1 Blue Dart (after installation and setup)!! We used to work with some ovens and stuff that cost 25 Blue Darts. We had to be real careful with that stuff.Those pictures aren't my Blue Dart, my mom kind of stole it from me and then sold it for $500. Best $500 car that somebody could have ever bought. I hope to get another one someday and then restore it and really make it ultimate.

I am grateful for having had the experiences to work and for the things I have learned therein. I have been blessed with developing talents that have enabled me to do a lot of different things and I feel grateful for those who have been patient with me and taught me so much. I remember that while I was on my mission CKS had their first million dollar year (grossed business). I have learned that this year they will do around $13M in business. I am happy for them. Keith and Layne are some of the best, most honest and smartest guys I have ever worked for. If I hadn't been so infatuated with dirt, maybe I could have stuck around and had a piece of the $13M pie. I guess I should visit more often, we could really use a new toaster.