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

Photo a Week

OK, so this blog has been all about construction and coffee. A big part of what we are doing is the photography studio, but I have been too busy to take many photos lately. I have decided to post at least one decent photo a week in the blog. Here is the first in the Nemo's Blog Photo Exhibition:





I shot this with a Canon 20D and Canon EF 24-70 f2.8L lens. I placed an Alien bees 800 strobe with Brolley directly behind and above the apple. I placed an Alien Bees 400 strobe with Brolley off to the right at approx 20% power, as compared to the main light. I used Alien Bees radio transmitters and receivers to fire the strobes wirelessly. The apple is sitting on a nice piece of Bubinga hardwood I had left over from a woodworking project. I wanted to enter an online contest that had a 10:00 pm deadline. I started pulling out equipment and setting up at 9:05pm. I was ready to shoot at 9:20 and started snapping shots with different lighting setups. I used the water bottle we spray our lizards with to 'make the dew'. All of a sudden, I saw that the clock said 9:46! I had to download the images to the computer, go through about 40 shots, select one to use, import into Photoshop, edit, save for web, go to the contest site and upload the photo. I was done at 9:59pm! Just barely made it... I hope you like the shot.
JD

Logo

This is the logo that Tracy came up with. I did a little more work on it, changing the font for the text. It was a little too stoic and 'normal', so I changed the letter O in both Nemo's and Coffee with the O that has a little curly thing. I think it adds some interest, and ties in with the swirly front legs on the turtle, which is meant to represent steam rising from a hot cup of coffee.

Feel free to email us with any feedback on the logo... We would be very happy to hear it...

JD

Electrical Disconnect Photo

Here are some photos of the fire damage to the electrical disconnect I was talking about the other day. The first several show the fire damage, and the fact that there are missing parts. The disconnects are 40+ years old, so parts are no longer available. It also shows that it is rated for 60 amps, and there are two panels inside with 70 amp mains (140 amps total) coming out of the same 60 amp disconnect.

The last photo is a shot out by the meters and disconnects. My GC Ryan Thompson is on the left, Johnny from Rogers Electric, and Josh from Sol Chavez Engineering on the right.

Fire Rated Studio

I forgot to mention that Vic got the plans approved at Regional for construction, but they are requiring us to make the Studio area have a 1 hour fire rating. That won't be too big of a deal. We are changing the drop ceiling tiles for fire rated tiles, installing fused link fire dampers for the HVAC that serves the studio, and installing fire rated doors at the Studio entrance, and the studio storage area. The cost will be a little higher, but not significantly...

Tracy went to a place in town called Old World Bagels this week. He gave her some samples and I had a cheddar bagel, a cream cheese danish, a raspberry muffin, and a pepperoni calzone. They carry a full line of pastries, bagels, and sandwiches. They also deliver at 5:00am and have no minimum order quotas! The food was all incredible (although I did not try the bagel dog - a hotdog wrapped inside plain bagel dough and cooked). We will definitely be using them for some of our food items!


Here is some info from their website:
Olde World Bagel & Deli was founded in 1997 as a franchise of Chesapeake Bagels. From the outset, the concept was to provide authentic, high quality, fresh, and healthy products in a quick-serve, yet upscale setting. Olde World operates its own bakery within the store to guarantee that customers have fresh products from which to choose. In 2000, management decided to operate as a fully local operation and cancelled the franchise agreement, changing the name to Olde World Bagel.

The store is located in a commercial center on the south side of Colorado Springs within walking distance of seven hotels, shopping, a 20 screen movie complex and the 8,000 seat World Arena, an event center for conventions, concerts, and sporting events.

Olde World Bagel and Deli provides retail services from its single location. In addition, it provides bagels on a whole basis to a large number of food service operations, businesses, restaurants and cafes. Finally, the company provides catering services to businesses, events, and organizations for breakfasts, brunches or lunches.

New POS Computer Build

I've been thinking about our computer needs for the shop. Here is what we will be needing:
Office server - We will use our new laptop
POS (Point of Sale) - New Build
Photo Studio - New High End Build
Kid's Room - New Dell
Marketing - JD's current Photoshop machine

When I say new build, that means a computer that I will buy parts and put together myself. The POS does not have to be a screamer, and here are the components I ordered just moments ago for that build:


I started by choosing a Micro ATX motherboard and CPU. The case is a Micro ATX Slim case and is only 3.8" high. I will build in a 4.5" shelf under the POS area to house it.

I like both Intel and AMD, but I chose an AMD processor and MB for this build because the price was right. I paid nearly $300 just over a year ago for an AMD 64 3700 San Diego core, and the one I bought today was $64 after the combo deal discount (CPU and motherboard). It is amazing how fast prices drop on these things, especially for a CPU that is so capable. Most POS systems run on a Celeron or Sempron platform (slow) so this processor will be blazing fast compared to any POS computer available for purchase. I added a solid CD burner/DVD combo drive, and Crucial Value Ram (1 GB - double the RAM most POS systems have), and a BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M9 Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard. I rounded the system out with an Antec case (can't do better than Antec in my opinion) and a Western Digital 160GB hard drive. You might notice that I did not list a video card, sound card, or ethernet card. Those functions are included on the Biostar motherboard. I would normally purchase discreet components for those functions (video and sound, at least), but they are not needed for a POS system. The onboard functionality will be fine. Total cost for a very solid mid-grade computer?? $365.94 Not a bad price for a fully functional, super fast POS system! This is very inexpensive compared to buying a POS dedicated computer, and it will smoke the performance of any available POS dedicated computer.

If you have never built your own computer, you should check into it. It's really not that hard, doesn't take very long, and makes you feel great when you fire it up and everything works perfect! I have built a number of computers now (both for me and for other people) and every single one has worked perfect the first time! I suppose if you fired it up and it caught on fire it would not be so satisfying!


If you are prone to catching things on fire, just stick with Dell, or call and have me build one for you...

Cole's Photography

We plan to show local artist's work in our shop and studio. I have been heavily involved in online photo communities since about 2001. The ones I've participated at the most are:

www.dpchallenge.com
www.fredmiranda.com
www.pbase.com
www.digitalphotocontest.com (no longer in service)

As a result of my activities at these and other sites, I have become familiar with other photographers from around the world. I have recently been in touch with Cole, a photographer from the Toronto area who also participates at DPChallenge. Tracy and I really enjoy is style and creativity, and we have arranged to show his artwork in our shop. He recently gave me permission to show some examples of his work in this blog. I had planned to choose five or six photos to show, but there are too many that I really, really like. I put together about 20 images in three different frames below. Click on the images to see them larger:







As you can see, his work is unique and captivating. He is very excited to have his work shown, but I say it is well deserved and we are excited to be able to display his artwork in the shop! Thanks Cole!

Star Struck!

Tracy and I ordered cabinet door knobs that have stars on them. Let me see if I can find a photo of them ath www.knobgallery.com (where we ordered them)...


Neil Dana is custom making our menu boards and I just had an idea with regard to the counters... When you do concrete counter tops, you can embed items in the concrete itself. They will show flush with the surface. I just had an idea to have Neil CNC some star shapes of various sizes to embed in the counter top surface! I think it would look great! I have always been very patriotic, and served on Submarines in the US Navy for 12 years. I would love to play up a patriotic theme in the shop by having stars in the counter tops. I also plan to get a flag flown on the US Capitol building and hang it in the shop. I had one that was presented to be by Joel Hefley (Colorado Congressman), but I gave it to my little brother Aubrey after his second tour in Iraq. Today is Aubrey's birthday... He is away from his pregnant wife and one year old son serving our country in Iraq (3rd tour). Please take a moment to pray for and honor our troops who serve our country here and around the world!
Here is a shot of my brother:

And a couple of photos I did for him:

Happy Birthday Aubrey! We love you!




We have played some with the logo concept that Tracy came up with. Tracy's friend Tiffany worked with it in editing software to refine the concept. Here is what she sent to us:





I played a little with it in Photoshop yesterday and did this:
Click to see a larger version...

Friday, another week goes by...

Another whole week is nearly gone, but I feel really good about the progress we have made. I fired the mechanical engineer that didn't come through for us. We now have a firm called Sol Chavez Engineering involved, and they are doing awesome. I wish we had found these guys from the very start. All we have left to complete are electrical and plumbing drawings, which will both be done on Tuesday. They came up with a 220# grease trap that is 23" x 31" x 41" and costs just $1500 (significantly less than other grease traps of this capacity). I am really happy to have this grease trap issue resolved. I wanted something that would fit in the building and not break the bank, which is why we were contesting the CSU Wastewater decision. Now we found something that will work for us and meet Wastewater's requirements!

As for the electrical, we are moving forward with our plans to run new service to a 200amp panel and bypass all of the old gear that is fire damaged and not to code. I took photos yesterday, but I have not edited them yet on the computer. I'll post photos sometime this weekend. My hope is that our property manager will pay for the new panel install, or at least split the cost with us. We'll have to see how that pans out. My friend Kevin Coulthurst is a master electrician, but he is working a job in Utah and we were not able to use him for this project. I spoke with him yesterday and he has some wire we need for the new service in his garage that he said I can have. It is amazing how expensive wire is these days. The cost of copper is making electrical work very expensive. Kevin's offer will be a big help!

I am meeting Ryan at the shop in a little while and we are going to 'storyboard' the cabinets and do a layout template. Based on that, we will be putting together a material list and buying what we need to custom build the cabinets. Since our construction budget is higher than expected, we are going to build inexpensive boxes and put a solid wood face frame and doors on them. That will give it a very nice look, but save on cost. We are going to go with an inexpensive hardwood (like Beech) instead of Maple for another cost savings... We are going to do custom concrete counter tops, probably in a blue color (undecided right now - blue, charcoal, or dark espresso brown). Here are some images of concrete counter tops from the Cheng Concrete Exchange website:
Click on the image to see a larger version


And this is work that Ryan has done:


Time to go...
JD

Electrical Challenges

Well, I got really bored with Grease Trap issues, so I decided to tackle a few electrical issues.
We have three 100 amp panels in our space, which is enough to meet our needs. We noticed that the main breakers are 70 amp breakers, which drops us down to 210 amps. That makes it a little tight, but still OK. We then noticed that the disconnects out at the meters are 60 amp disconnects. That drops us to 180 amps, which is really tight. We then noticed that a fire occurred in the past in one of the 60 amp disconnects, and that they abandoned it. How you might ask? They illegally moved the feeds from the burned disconnect and tied it into the other existing electric meter (down stream of the disconnects). That means we have two panels rated at 100 amps each with 70 amp mains being fed from one 60 amp disconnect.

We no longer have the power we need to run our shop, not to mention that it is not up to code and is dangerous.

I plan to keep the one good 60 amp panel (out of three) and run a new 200 amp service to the shop. I don' know how expensive that will be just yet. We have to run some heavy duty wire about 120 feet, as well as install a new panel and breakers. It is going to be very pricey, but I'm hoping to get the landlord/property owner to pay for the upgrade. They currently have an illegal installation that is not up to code. I'm hoping he will pay for the new panel, or at least subsidize it. We still have to do it, even if they don't help cover the costs.

I fired the plumbing engineer who was supposed to be working on the grease trap issue. He kept saying that he would go over the crazy grease trap lady's head, but never did. He put her requirements in the plans and told me that the 250# grease trap is 24" and costs about $750. I have already researched it and I know that a 250# grease trap is not available as a stock unit and has to be specially ordered. Its dimensions are too large to fit in the building, and the purchase cost is $4000 (without installation). He said I was wrong and that he knows of lots of units that will meet our needs for under $1000. I told him to spec out a manufacturer and model number on the plans prior to getting approvals at Regional. We haven't heard back from him for several days and he won't return calls. Apparently, he checked on it and found out he doesn't know what he is talking about. I find it helps to research these things myself. Most people don't and they get hosed by bad advice or input from hired professionals. It takes a lot of time to reaserch and learn about this stuff, but it is saving me a great deal of heartache in the long run. I can challenge these guys when they are screwing up, instead of getting the plans, paying him, and finding out later that he lied to me. Luckily, I didn't pay him up front. So, his inability to get this done cost us a little time, but no money. I'd really be furious if we had paid him... I just wonder if he is going to have the nerve to send me a bill after lying to me and getting caught...

Anyway, we have a new plumbing engineer on board and we are hoping to have final plumbing drawings complete and signed off by the end of the week. Our electrical engineering will be complete by close of business on Tuesday Feb 13th.

Tracy and I went and put a down payment on the remainder of our shop equipment today. It includes our milk refrigerator, our espreasso bar refrigerator, our sandwich refrigerator, our freezer, three compartment sink, glass fill station, ice machine with filtration, a 5' stainless steel food prep table, food warmer with both food and soup inserts, microwave, toaster, and some other stuff...

We also met with a food service vendor. He is going to provide pricing quotes for all of our paper products and food items. We have obtained pricing from a whole slew of vendors, but we want to get a price from one huge supplier who can do everything...

We are still shooting for a March open, but it is looking like end of March as opposed to beginning or mid March...

Keep praying for us! If you aren't the praying type, then wish good things for us (God will know what you mean anyway).

JD

Photography Studio Layout

Now that the layout is finalized and the walls are framed, I started taking a look at studio layout today.
I can set up in different ways, depending on the subject to camera distance needed. This set up shows a 9' wide backdrop, with a softbox and an octabox at 45 degree angles to the subject, with a backlight on a boom.




This is the same set up turned in the studio to allow more camera to subject distance:



For decades, there have been stock photo houses that charged hundreds to thousands of dollars for a single image. The internet and digital photography has changed all of that. There are numerous stock image sites online now. I plan to shoot stock images in the studio for upload to various sites. Some poeple make pennies per month on downloads, others make thousands of dollars per month. I'd be happy get to the point to make enough money in downloads per month to cover the rent on the studio (approx $700 per month).

Time for lunch...
Gotta run.
JD

Color Scheme

Tracy started putting together a color board with various examples. We need to come up with our color scheme pretty soon. Feel free to comment with suggestions/feedback!
JD

Too much to list...

I've been really busy with the shop for the last several days and have not had a chance to post. I'm not even going to try to list everything that has happened in detail. Some of the highlights are:

-Received notification that our Engineer received approval for an appropriate sized grease trap
-All blue prints are done!
-Received our Point of Sale system and software
-Finalized our menu board design and met with my friend Neil to choose powder coat options
-HVAC crew began work
-Electricians demo'd old circuits and began rough in of new
-Received word that the crazy grease trap lady changed her mind and wants us to install an utterly rediculous size trap again...
-Found out that our engineer never obtained approval for the appropriate size, as reported, and that he never went over this lady's head at CSU like he said. Notified him that he needs to obtain an acceptable answer by Monday morning or he is fired and we are going to hire a different engineer.
-Finished framing
-Scheduled an appointment to have a security system installed
-Had a big electrical capacity scare... We have three panels rated for 100 amps each, but they have 70 amp main breakers. The plan was to replace the mains with 100amp breakers if needed. We found that the main feed is ran in #6 copper wire, which has a max capacity of 75 amps. We went out to check the electrical disconnects at the main distribution center for the building and those disconnects are only rated for 60 amps (3 phase). Our capcity went from more than enough to possibly not enough. We have it worked out to not have to run new electrical service, but it was a little for awhile.
-Lots more that is not coming to mind right now.


Here is a panoramic image (made up of multiple images shot with a 20mm WA lens) showing the framing from the entry door:

Click image to see larger



And here is what it looks like from the bar point of view:

Click image to see larger