New Update...

Sorry it has been so long since my last post...
We've been very busy with Ethan breaking his leg, birthday parties, judo tournaments, sick kids, etc.
Before I get to the shop stuff, here are a few photos...
First, this is Ethan 'not' participating in the judo tournament:


And here are some shots of Josh in action:



And here is Jonah at his Laser Quest birthday party!



OK, on to the shop...
We are nearly ready to start putting up drywall. The electricians are almost complete with rough in, the plumbers started Friday night and are calling for inspection tomorrow (they are fast and have earned the project MVP award so far).
One of our biggest fears was that the waste water main would be at too high an elevation to tie our plumbing into. Regional already stated that they would not approve a pit and sump pump (for absolutely no reason, other than to cause pain and suffering to the masses). We were in for big trouble if the elevation were too high. I jackhammered the concrete slab out of the bar and backroom areas on Friday, and we dug up the waste main. It is only 24" below grade, so it was a little scary at first. My plumber did some quick calculations based upon the grease trap inlet and outlet, as well as the floor drains feeding into the grease trap, and determined that we have about 3" to spare! What a relief! I am so happy that at least one 'unknown' item on this project went our way!
By the way, here is a shot of me running the jackhammer:



And this is what your hands look like when you move a ton or so of concrete without gloves:




Time to go wrestle with the boys...
I'll post more tomorrow.
JD

Bummer Weekend...

Well, our plumbing backed up into our house this weekend, and we had to call a roto-rooter service to clean out our drains. The kids have been sick, and to top off the weekend, Ethan (our 5 year old) broke his leg yesterday and we spent most of the day in the Emergency Room...

We are hoping for a better week than the weekend was... Keep us in your prayers!
JD

The Holy Grail of Construction

It was a struggle, but we finally have all of our plans approved and got our Building Permit yesterday!

Here are a few photos of the new computer build for the Point of Sale system. I put this together Thursday night...

A quick update

I'm really tired and heading for bed...
A quick update though:
We received the plumbing and electrical drawings from Sol Chavez Engineering.
We went to Regional and did plumbing and electrical review.
Electrical was happy, but wanted additional details for the fault current calculations for the new 200amp service we are installing. We tracked down Josh from Sol Chavez and got the information added to the drawings.
Plumbing was happy, but would not approve until after CSU Wastewater and the Health Dept signed off.
We took it to Wastewater (Crazy Grease Trap Lady) expecting the worst. Her receptionist told us that she usually takes the drawings and gets them back to us in a week or so. We don't want to wait, so we insisted on seeing her. She was actually very pleasant, and signed the drawings with no issues. Woo Hoo!!
We went to the Health Dept, but the plan reviewer was not in the office. I set up an appointment for the next day.
We went to the Health Dept today and went through the plan review. They wanted an unbelievable amount of information. He had to fill out three applications, one of them being a 24 page application. We had to provide a detailed, item by item menu (including sources for everything, recipes for anything we are going to make, etc). We also had to supply a layout with all equipment that will be in use, along with manufacturer's cutsheets with technical data for every piece of equipment.
Then came the next thorn in our side. She did a hot water capacity calculation and decided we needed a hot water heater big enough for a hotel (roughly). Our engineer spec'd out a 30 gallon, 6KW unit. This unit would be small enough to fit on a platform over the mopsink and would cost $275. The one the health department wants is a huge commercial unit, 12,000 watts, and a recovery rate of 49 gallons per hour with a 100 degree rise. They assume a 40 degree inlet, so they want us to have 140 degree output potential. By code, we cannot set the unit for a temperature higher than 110 to any sink fixtures. The 140 mark is for commercial sanitizers, dishwashers, etc. The Crazy Grease Trap Lady won't allow us to have a dishwasher, so we only need a 110 setting. The Health Department is requiring us to meet he 140 degree requirement, even though we don't have any equipment that requires it. The larger hot water heater costs $1200. What a waste of money...

I received all of the computer components to build the POS computer today. I put it together (without using the instructions!) and everything pretty much worked. I have a computer I built for the kids last year based on an AMD Sempron (slow) processor. The kids games (like I Spy, Learning Adventures, SpongeBob, etc) would cause it to crash. As a result, it has been a big paperweight for a long time. I decided to use that copy of Windows XP for the POS computer, instead of buying a new copy. I couldn't find the installation disk, so I took the hard drive out of that computer and put it in the POS computer ( and took the new hard drive out of that one). Everything worked, but it said my hardware configuration had changed significantly and I have to reactivate Windows within three days.

Our drywall bid came in at $5600, and we were expecting about $3500. One of my friends from Intel (Steve Griego) is coming to the shop Monday to bid the drywall work. We are hoping to get a better price from Steve...

Tomorrow we are getting the phone lines installed, and we had our construction dumpster taken away yesterday. They will be bringing us a new dumpster tomorrow, in a much smaller size. That will be the start of our weekly service.

Tracy is continuing to work on our vendor line up and preparing our first orders. I am hoping to get all the construction done, get up and running, and still have about $25,000 in operating capital in the bank. I need to do some serious number crunching this weekend to see where we are in comparison to our budget...

That's enough for now. It is midnight and I'm getting up fairly early tomorrow. I need to be at the shop by 7:00am. Have a good night!
JD

Death of an Apple

OK, so I assume some of you have seen the apple photo I posted on Sunday night (scroll down if you haven't).
I've received feedback from all over the world about that photo, and many people have grown quite attached to that apple. I'm afraid I have bad news for the blog viewing public...
The apple suffered a tragic accident this morning, and I'm afraid to say he's not going to make it. Jonah asked for sliced apples in his lunch today, and well, here is the resulting aftermath:


I know this is a little graphic, and that's not really what this blog is all about. I hope you are not overly traumatized. Have a great day!
JD

Shop Security, and other things

As we are getting closer to being ready to open, I have been thinking about shop security. There are several factors to consider...

1. Automated alarm system - I have already contracted a local company to install an alarm system. It will have door sensors, motion detectors, and a siren; it will be a monitored system that will notify police on an alarm event. I need to ask them about a duress button that will active a silent alarm/police notification when pushed.

2. I am going to install my own video surveillance system. Samsung makes a four camera system with a split screen monitor that shows all four views at the same time. It has a digital signal out that you can send to a DVR recorder. I am going to either purchase a DVR system, or just build another computer with a large hard drive to copy to... I will also set this system up to be an Internet monitoring system. This will act as a webcam, where anyone can take a look at the shop at anytime. I plan to have one camera on the register/bar, one on the cafe, one in the studio, and one in the back room.

3. Then comes the debate on defensive handguns... I very firmly believe that the police are not here to protect us. They are here to investigate a crime and try to catch the bad guy before he does it again. If you have ever been in a bad situation, and the police arrived in time to protect you, then count yourself blessed. I don't want to put the safety of our shop, including us, our employees, our customers, and our kids if they are there in the hands of police who may not arrive in time if things get ugly, God forbid.

Most petty criminals used to just take the money, or merchandise, and leave. In today's society fueled by violent video games, violent movies, violent song lyrics, etc. etc. there are just too many people willing to kill someone for $50 out of the cash drawer. Colorado Springs isn't that bad, as compared to larger metropolitan areas, but we do have our instances of store clerks being killed during a robbery.

I am leaning towards arming myself with a 9mm handgun (concealed, not out in the open). Tracy is in agreement and wants to take classes, including getting her concealed weapon permit. I hope and pray that we will never have a situation in our shop, but you never know when the next crazy person is going to walk in the door. People shoot other people on the Interstate, at the Mall, in the workplace, in high schools and everywhere else now. There was a time when you could pretty much avoid this kind of violence by not walking in alleys at 2:00am, not being involved in drugs, etc. Now it is much more random, and more common.

I have put a great deal of thought into this, and some prayer time as well. I feel that taking responsibility for your own safety is the only way you can insure that you will be defended in a bad circumstance. I think police are great (and I teach my kids to honor and respect them), but I just don't believe they should be our first line of defense.

I'd love to hear any feedback you might have on this topic.
My email is jdanderson-nemos@hotmail.com

I've had a few comments on the apple photo... Here is the color, black & white, and original versions together for comparison. Click on the image to see it larger:



Sol Chavez Engineering finished our plumbing and electrical plans today and emailed me PDF versions for review. The Elec dwgs look good, but the PDF conversion from Autocad did not work for the plumbing drawings. We will get them incorporated into the official two sets, and rout them through Regional tomorrow. We can really let construction rip after that...

I spent the day moving things around in the wood shop. We are going to need lots of space to build cabinets. I'm looking forward to this part of the project. DJ has asked me to post photos of the shop, and of the cabinet making process. I won't have time to do a documentary, or make a how to DVD, but I'll take lots of photos as we go. I'll get some shots of the shop tomorrow and post them...

Tracy set up our phone installation today. They will be onsite Friday to run the lines. We are not really ready for phones yet, but we can't get a phone number secured until the installation and activation happens. We need the phone numbers so we can get business cards and other documents printed.
I worked with Tracy yesterday on a business card design for her. Here is what she likes:
As always, click the image to see it larger...


Tracy and I ordered 13 hard wood chairs, and a few bar stools. I received a call that they have arrived by freight, and will be delivered tomorrow. My computer hardware for the POS system will be here Thursday. Jonah is really excited and wants to help me build it. I'll post a few photos of that process... Of our three kids, Jonah is really into technical things.

Speaking of technical things, I have never taken the time to learn about networking. I set up wireless Internet access at our house (we have five computers on it) and it works fine. As for the shop, here is a diagram of what I want to set up:



I won't go into details, but please let us know if this is possible, if you know about these things... We want to have one cable feed and split to an unsecured wireless network (free WIFI for the shop) and to a secured network (wired) for the POS computer, main office computer, and the credit card processing machine.
Feel free to email me with suggestions or information. Or, just come to Colorado Springs and set it up for me!

Well, it is 11:30 pm and I'm very tired. I have been staying up until midnight or later, and getting up between 5:30am and 6:30. I used to live on 3-4 hours a night on a regular basis. Now I'm old and can't take it as well. I can do it, but I feel more tired than I used to...

Good night to all and God Bless,
JD

Electrical Plan approved by the city...

Our electrical engineer met with the city today and they agreed to install a new transformer for us.We will then run new power to the building with a new disconnect and meter, then to a new 200 amp panel in our space. The city said they would expedite this (due to our electrician's working relationship with them - they are second generation local business) and have the new transformer up in a week, as opposed the the typical weeks... That is good for us! I spoke with our property manager and he said they don't have the money to complete these repairs, and that they didn't make the illegal changes to the electrical following a previous fire. I explained that this is a building electrical distribution system problem, not an issue with my space. I also explained that the city may shut off power to the entire building, which would affect the existing businesses. He asked me to get a price together and we can talk about splitting it...

Ryan and I met at the shop and did a layout of all the cabinets we need to build. We have to build front and back bar cabinets, high wall cabinets for the back bar, a dedicated cabinet for the stereo system, a merchandise display wall unit, a merchandise storage wall unit, book cases from the half wall to ceiling, and the built in bench seating. He is putting together a material list tonight so we can order the material tomorrow. Tracy and I have a full woodworking shop and we will be building the cabinets there. I spent the remainder of the day in the shop re-organizing to allow room for building cabinets, and for cutting 4x8' panels on the table saw. Tracy and I put the shop together to do custom furniture on commission. We had kids instead, but have had a killer wood shop just sitting there, only getting occasional use. I'm happy to be using it finally for some 'real' work!

Gotta run...
Everybody have a good night!
JD