All Systems No-Go. Except the Friend Network!

This week has been highlighted by structural issues. On Tuesday I arrived at the shop to find that one of the hot water pipes had sprung a leak. Chris and I searched everywhere for a valve to turn it off, but no luck. I did find a valve that turned on the sprinkler system in the smoke room, and got a nice quick cold shower for my efforts.

The guy who lives next door to our house is a contractor who is renovating his building, and we ran into him on the way home, and asked him to a refer a plumber. He generously volunteered to come over with one of his employees to check out the scene. They confirmed that the plumbing in the store building is WACK. The valves coming up from the hot water heater are completely rusted and broken.

But they offered to come back the next morning and turn off all the water to the building and replace the leaky pipe. I went door-to-door to all the apartments upstairs to explain that the water would be off for 30 minutes, and all the tenants were surprisingly understanding. Our buddies replaced the pipe within a few minutes and once again I thanked the gods for surrounding us with awesome people. I have a feeling I'm going to owe our neighbor and his crew a few cases of beer before this project is over.

So, the water system still needs some serious work. I need to convince the landlord that he needs to do some preemptive repair work to the building's system before something worse happens. I have a feeling he won't be easy to convince!

Meanwhile, yesterday, Chris and I were working on taking out all the debris from the ceiling removal, and the electricity started acting funny. First one section of the shop would lose power, then another one did. It's impossible to tell which section is connected to which fuse, so we went around flipping every fuse we could find, with very few results. Fortunately Chris has befriended an electrician at his other job, and he just happened to be stopping by that afternoon for a visit. Of course he couldn't fix everything immediately, but he took a look around and agreed to come back and help us. We'll have to pay him, but at least we'll be working with someone we know and trust and like, and who is happy to teach us to become a little more self-sufficient in this area.

One thing that did get finished this week is the liquor license application, which was a doozy. I kept thinking I was almost finished, then I'd realize there were dozens of other little things to fill out and copy. So that's a big thing to cross off the list. One of the things I had to do for the this was a detailed floor plan of the whole space. And why should the NYS Liquor Authority be the only ones to enjoy my work? This could be interesting to those of you who haven't seen the space:



Let's see, what else got done this week?

• Brian returned to help Chris tear out a bunch more crummy stuff
  
• Verizon wasted more of my time and did not get the DSL line working
• Insurance was finalized and I completed the other license applications
• Went to a seminar on the SBA and other financing options with Ali (Dear Mr. President: real small businesses need your help!)
  
• Found out that I do not need to appear before the community board for the liquor license after all, since my sales will be strictly for off-premises consumption
• Got more info on our refrigeration retro-fitting project
• And of course, MORE CLEANING!