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)