the Map

When you stay at the Linkous House, please note the map on the 2nd. floor.  That map was a brilliant idea from yours truly.  It is not a scientific survey, nor is it meant to be.  What it does show though is the wide ranging area of the people who stay with us.  They're are pins in about every state and many of the provinces of Canada represented. 

We are very proud of this map and are very pleased to have people stick their pin in the map.  I have had people say that they didn't put thier pin in the map because they say "there was already a pin in that spot"  Well, that's the point isn't it?  We want to show our guests that their neighbors and friends have already stayed with us.  Anyway when you're here, check out the map.

Check out the pin from Alaska.  that guy was interesting.  He was here for a reunion of the High School in Williamson, we were talking and the subject of bears came up.  I said that all we have here are black bears.  He shook his head and said, "We got both black bears and grizzlies.  Grizzlies will knock you down but if you play dead they will leave you alone.  Black bears will eat you."  I now give black bears a little more respect in the woods.

Check out the pins from Massachuesetts (SP?)  This was a group of ladies staying with us in 2005.  May 2005.  Same as Mikey's birthday 2005.  We had planned to be empty the week he was to be born but (for those of you who know Mikey you will understand) he did not cooperate.  He showed up early (at Walmart) and I had to cook for all those ladies (12) having never cooked for anyone but myself before.

Also check out the flags on the top of the map.  These represent different countries.  These would include Australia, Sweden, Italy, Jordan, Russia and probably others.  We are always suprised by the variety of cultures that come here.  The Russian lady was nice, the Swedish couple were a treat, the Italians are close friends now.

As a final note their are several states that we haven't heard from yet.  Those states include New Hampshire, Hawaii, Oregon and Vermont (i think)  so....

Come and see us (especially if you are from New Hampshire, Hawaii, Oregon, and Vermont (I think)

Michael J.

Here's a recipe I have been making for guests

Ok, when we started this blog, I said I would occasionally give you a recipe, so here is a recipe that

I like to fix for our guests occasionally.  It takes about a ton of bacon to fix but it has been well received by everyone so far.  When you have a Bed and Breakfast, bacon is a big expense.  Kinda like the power bill, you just pay it and go on.  You gotta have heat and you gotta have bacon.  Anyway...

this is kind of a stupid way to write out a recipe but this is a first for me.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit

Take a length of bacon and spread it out on a baking sheet.  Then put down one right beside of it and keep doing them side by side until you are looking at a square of bacon.  Then "weave" in bacon by putting a piece of bacon running in the opposite direction of the first ones and put one on top and then on the bottom of the next piece as close together as you can get it. 

When you get finished you should see a square of "weaved" bacon. Bake this in the oven for about 20 minutes. Check this often,  When it looks crispy take it out.

Now while this mess is baking, you should cook on the stovetop about a 1/2 bag of hash browns according to instructions on the bag.  When this is finished, your bacon is probably crispy.  (Mine usually is) Now take your bacon out of the oven and place your hash browns in the center of the bacon and roll into a log,  Bake for another 5 minutes and  pull out your weaved log.

I then take out the log and slice it into sections.  Kinda looks pretty and tastes great.  If this is too complicated or if i haven't done a good job telling you how to make it, come to the Linkous House and watch and I will show you how its done.  It won't cost much, our rooms are very clean  and you'll get a great night stay out of it as well.  Anyway, I think that I should get Wendy to take a picture of this tomorrow and have her post it here....

The secret is out, I am a great chef.  Just ask me ! LOL

If you wanna try this and then you eat it and die you can come and haunt us for free !

Come and see us

Michael J.

PS (This is Wendy) Michael J has been running the kitchen here for the better part of five years....he has yet to kill anyone ! Hehe ! He fixes the best fancy pancakes I have ever seen or tasted...I will add photos of those too ! yummy !

One of My favorite things

As a junior partner in the Bed and Breakfast business here, one of my favorite things to do is to come downstairs and read the big red book at the Guest Entrance door.  I get a kick out of what is written about our business and it is immensly gratifying to read. 

I get a real kick out of our guests from different parts of the country who have written about their stay or some other comment.  Once someone wrote "go Steelers" or maybe it was "Go Pens" and another guest had written under it: "and take the Pirates with you!"  I howled at that one.

I had told a joke to one of our every year visitors last year and the punch line had something to do with "Ed Zachiary."  The Guest this year signed the book "Ed Zachiary"  That one was an inside joke that I have laughed at ever since. We have drawn pictures, and smiley faces, and all kinds of doodles in the book, which by the way I honestly would take a million dollars for but I don't think you could get it for much less than that. 
Each name, comment and drawing brings a smile to my face (and Wendy's too) so if you stay here and see the book laying there, take a second too glance through it.  It probably won't mean as much to you, but it is a tremendous compliment to us and a compliment to the quality of people who we have gotten to know over the years.
And as a side note, please note the map upstairs.  We encourage everyone to put thier pin in the map.  It doesn't have to be exact as some places are incredibly crowded but come as close as you can.  IF you look up to the top of the map you will see several flags.  These flags indicate different nationalities of those people staying here,  There are about 10 countries now shown there and they do not indicate persons who are from different countries but who call the US home now. 

One of my favorite was the couple from Sweden who had landed in the US on the same day that they arrived here.  They were great and I hope that someday they get back here. 
Once we had a group who was the Security Staff for our General, General Foglesong who at that time was the Commanding Officer for all Air Force operations in Europe.  He is from here and we are very proud of him and his achievements.  One of his Security Officers was from Australia and Wendy made the comment, "Oh you aren't american, you could never understand" when she was telling a story about something.  His reaction was absolutely hilarious and Wendy tried to make it right and only made things worse.  We laughed over that one during his entire stay.
Anyway, If you come here, read the little red book downstairs and you will get an Idea about what I am talking about.  It is just another reason that I love the B & B business.


And if you are reading this from Detroit Mi, I just watched the best video called "The day the Robot Came."  I have watched it 4 times already and I love it.


Come and See us


Michael J

My Wife

Wendy is an amazing woman.  Seriously,  she can be an absolute whirlwind.  And Generally is.  She gets more done in an hour than I can get done in two days.  I don't understand how she can come into my office and clean everything in sight and straighten it up in the time I go to the bathroom.

This happens a lot.  (the cleaning stuff) (And me going to the bathroom).  I suppose it has something to do with her list.  These things are endless and perhaps you have seen them.  She has a list of places where she want to visit, lists of projects, lists of things to do today and so on.

Her list today included bank, postoffice, taking pictures, making videos, going to the school for more pictures, fixing dinner, fixing breakfast, cleaning two rooms for guests, taking Mikey to school (my list is not in order)  picking Mikey up from School, editiing pictures, fixing the fax for one of the guests, posting her videos to the internet and I am sure there was more.  Just today.  And she got it  all done.  I probably left out two or three.

In spite of this, she gets the craziest comments from people all of the time.  Things like "since Mikey is in School you probably are lost" or "Why don't you come and join __________club or society or organization.

She gets people wanting her to donate her time for this and that or to show them how to do this or that when all along she has her list to complete.  I admire her for her stoicism.  I would bout have to strangle someone who made any demands on my time if I were that busy. 

She keeps things going here daily and always has a list ready for tomorrow.


Michael J.

Wendy's Ghost Problem

If you read Wendy's blogs earlier this week, she wrote about the so called "Ghosts" in the Linkous House.  And Now I, Michael J. Baisden would like to go on record here to state catagorically there are no ghosts in the Linkous House.

The fact that, for a while, I did not go to the third floor because of an incident that took place there while She and I were up there is only purely coincidental.  I would not go up there alone because it was uh uh uh too far to walk. Yeah, that's it, it was too far to walk. 

And the time when Mickey and I were downstairs on the first floor and someone knocked on the door and I absolutely knew before I opened the door that no one would be there was uh uh uh, a very localized earthquake that was centered in WIlliamson on that Door and was not detected anywhere else.  Yeah that's it an earthquake.

And the several times when my back is turned and the grill gets turned down and when i look the knob on the grill has been switched to "zero" is uh, uh, uh, the wind.  Yeah that's it, its the wind.  In the kitchen with all the doors and windows closed. 

Now, I cannot attest fully with the Train incident.  If you read her blog, she covers the fact that the model train came on by itself when only Mikey and her were here.  That could've been the wind as well.  I wasn't here.  I do know  that when she called me, she was very scared and wanted me to come home.  (I was in Indiana and drove home late that night)  but I wasn't here.  The ghost seems to have a thing with knobs.  I mean the incidents seem to have a thing with knobs quite a bit of the time. 

Anyway we still have tons of repeat business, so it ain't all that bad and when you stay if something gets moved or gets bumped or you hear an odd noise or two just remember, It's probably just the wind.  Or something.

And finally, Mrs Linkous, where are my car keys?


Come and See us

Michael J. Baisden

The Lock, Key and Battery Problem

The two hardest things to maintain in this bed and breakfast are keys and batteries.  This fact is not at all meant to be a slam against anyone staying here.  Over the past 6 years we can count on our fingers the number of times a guest has taken a key with them and in all of these circumstances they were returned to us. 

With that said, you cannot (or at least we) cannot keep the locks always the same.  We rotate them from time to time to make sure our security for ourselves and our guests is a number one concern.  The last time we changed the keys at the house it took all day to do it.  Our son, Michael 2 was determined that he would be the one that changed the locks.  Just to put you in the picture and if you haven't been here, Mikey is a very precious 4 year old and can be very strong willed when he wants to be.  Anyway Wendy has pictures of him doing the work.  It took all three of us and most of the day to do it.  After a few days, Wendy changed them again for some reason (I can't remember what, I believe the key fit was the issue) but I personally had a ball helping Mike install the lock.

Batteries are constantly being lost, running down, and getting recharged around here.  We have probably a total of 10 Televisions here.  Each television has its own remote and a majority of them have a different remote for the DVD player.  In addition to these devices we have battery powered locks at three different locations.  When those batteries fail, we go into a mildly paniced zone until those batteries are replaced.  Throw in flashlights, toys (for Mickey) Battery powered screwdrivers, cell phones and leaf blowers and you see the problems. 

Anyway it seems a little trivial i suppose but it can drive me (in particular) bonkers.  I do not see an end to the battery/key/lock problems coming to an end any time soon.  I suppose if you asked Wendy she wouldnt list these items as paramount in her life. 

This however is my blog.

Come and see us.

Michael J.

First things first

My Wife and I are successfull inn owners in the Eastern United States. To be more precise in southern West Virginia. I say we are successful because we enjoy our business and so far it hasn't cost us any money (except for remodeling, purchasing, and running) to own a bed and breakfast.

We are very proud of our home and our business and it is very enjoyable most of the time. Well, its enjoyable by me but I do very little work here. I work outside of the home through the week but in all fairness to moi I do cook breakfast and sometimes i even clean up some of my mess.

MY spelling is poor, grammar lacking and I believe punctuation is a foreign language. I will do my best and I hope that you read and enjoy the posts here.
I look at life in kind of a skewed manner and everyone says that my sense of humor is a taste to be acquired. I will report on a regular basis what goes on here at the Linkous House. When speaking of guests be assured that real names will not be used to protect the innocent (and those not too innocent.)
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In the future i will report on the happenings here; give you recipes that I enjoy cooking and hopefully brighten the day for those of you in my hospital industry.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this blog

Michael J. Baisden (not my real name)
The Linkous House Bed and Breakfast(Not its real name)
Williamson, WV. (you guessed it)