so, saturday
I spent down at the new dojo. We worked on it all day long, moving mats from the temporary dojo quarters to the new, plus getting all our stuff out of storage and into the new location. It's really a lovely new place, it's a good size (though not as big as the old place; we will probably never regain our former size, although who knows what is in store down the road) with plenty of light, a good layout for the mat space, dressing rooms and office. There's even a tiny kitchen (really tucked into a hallway). If we do well, there's another corner of the builing we could rent out as well and add possibly bathrooms, a larger kitchen and/or a lounge/hangout spot. (The bathrooms are shared facilities within the strip mall we're located in, not inside the building but right close by). We even have a small patio space outside between the building and the sidewalk and it's in a great location -- visible right on the street, which gets a decent amount of traffic etc, but is still pretty quiet especially as compared to the main artery streets of downtown. There's also any number of restaurants all up and down the streets (and a creperie next door that I *MUST* try at some point!) all of which look tasty. We got pizza from one of them which was fantastic and I'm not generally a big pizza fan, but perfect crust, perfect spiciness and flavor, fresh ingredients, etc.
Anyway, so we spent most of the day painting the place, and organzing the stuff -- of which there's quite a bit. We are still mudding the dressing rooms -- I thought that was to have been done yesterday but they were still at it today, so those can't be painted until the mud's dry. But we cleared out most of the mat area and sorted out the mats and got much of the storage materials (somehow) stored into the utility/kitchen hall. The dressing rooms both have storage lofts being put in, which should definitely help with that once it's done. We also started putting up weapons racks and other stuff along the walls, discussing how we're going to put in the window guards (that we kept from the old place, but of course the dimensions are different, etc) when we ran into a wee bit of trouble.
Seems that the wall we chose to put up one of the extra weapons racks was where the natural gas pipe was. The guys managed to drill screws through the pipe not once but twice (top and bottom brackets, how's that for precision) -- OOPS! We couldn't find a shutoff accessible anywhere so we tore out that wall and duct taped the pipes (fortunately all doors and such had been open) and called in the gas company. Then there was some business about whether it was an indoor or outdoor pipe and who works on what and yap yap yap -- the upshot was that the guy put in temp plugs on the two holes but we have to call in someone else to properly fix that pipe *facepalm*. So that pushes opening day from Monday to Tuesday.
Afterwards we went over to one couple's house for dinner and hung out for a while till it got fairly late and we all went home. I'm actually getting to know this city fairly well. About time, after three years, I guess (!).
Anyway, so we spent most of the day painting the place, and organzing the stuff -- of which there's quite a bit. We are still mudding the dressing rooms -- I thought that was to have been done yesterday but they were still at it today, so those can't be painted until the mud's dry. But we cleared out most of the mat area and sorted out the mats and got much of the storage materials (somehow) stored into the utility/kitchen hall. The dressing rooms both have storage lofts being put in, which should definitely help with that once it's done. We also started putting up weapons racks and other stuff along the walls, discussing how we're going to put in the window guards (that we kept from the old place, but of course the dimensions are different, etc) when we ran into a wee bit of trouble.
Seems that the wall we chose to put up one of the extra weapons racks was where the natural gas pipe was. The guys managed to drill screws through the pipe not once but twice (top and bottom brackets, how's that for precision) -- OOPS! We couldn't find a shutoff accessible anywhere so we tore out that wall and duct taped the pipes (fortunately all doors and such had been open) and called in the gas company. Then there was some business about whether it was an indoor or outdoor pipe and who works on what and yap yap yap -- the upshot was that the guy put in temp plugs on the two holes but we have to call in someone else to properly fix that pipe *facepalm*. So that pushes opening day from Monday to Tuesday.
Afterwards we went over to one couple's house for dinner and hung out for a while till it got fairly late and we all went home. I'm actually getting to know this city fairly well. About time, after three years, I guess (!).