Amazing People

We know some truly amazing people.

We're less than two weeks away from our planned opening (and still on track) and more and more friends are popping out of the woodwork to help us!

There's a guy we know who is going beyond the call of duty to help us change the look of the bar itself to something that's going to be really, really cool.  (We think.)  And it'll make the background of our website make a little more sense, too.

There're others who are helping just do "whatever we need".  Yesterday, our ceiling got painted by one such of these.  Our fence has been strengthened. A toilet was fixed (it was broken by one of two of our contractors but everybody denies it was them.  Patches have been made for stucco.  There are many, many examples; these are just a couple that I can think of right now.

Frankly, we could not even think about meeting our June 20 deadline without these people.

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Now, back to work.  The electrical and A/C guys are at the bar today finishing their work and should be done by early afternoon.  Our refrigeration guy is coming tomorrow and he'll be done with his stuff tomorrow.  Then, we think we're ready for our final building inspection on Friday.

(We did have a vandalism "issue" again this past Thursday night/Friday morning and again Monday night/Tuesday morning.  Some donkey--and by donkey, I mean jackass--broke into the back yard and destroyed the old walk-in refrigeration roof unit as it was waiting to be put onto the roof.  It should be covered by insurance (adjuster arriving this morning to check into it) but it has caused a bit of a delay; and that delay shouldn't be too bad.)

Chugging Along

Wow....

I just updated the status page on our website.  I was struck by how damn close we are to finishing up everything that's required of us.  We're nearly done!

It's been an unusual time for both Karl and me.  Periods of massive stress followed by periods of major relief. Whatta rollercoaster this has been!

Passing Gas

It's been a long damn day.  But we're closer to opening.

We were up and out of the house at 7:00am this morning and got back home about 8:00pm.

We had a plumbing and mechanical inspection today.  Part of the plumbing inspection is a pressure test on the line.  The gas line passed inspection.  And, we passed the rough electrical inspection as well as the mechanical inspection. (That's the A/C and duct work.) Indeed.  We passed gas.

All we have left to do for the city is get the dry wall up and the finish work for the A/C and the electrical.  Then it's Final Inspection time.  And final inspection could happen as early as June 9.  (There will probably be a few issues that need to be addressed so we'll probably have a final final inspection on the 13th; which still gives us some time before opening on the 20th.)  Unless we're misreading something, this is the final Magical Hoop™ we have to jump through for our building permit!  (Thankfully, the Magical Hoops™ have stopped moving quite so much...)

We also figured out what to do with the bar wall coverings that the health department wants us to put up on the server side of the bar.  (Ok, it's not a want; it's a requirement.)  And we picked the fiberglass reinforced panels we need back there today as well.

And the final milestone passed today was we got our phone line installed!  Our Phone number:  "A.K.A. Buzz" which is pretty darn awesome if you ask me.

We're looking forward to Pride this weekend.  You'll probably see Karl and I handing out little fliers about the bar.  We would have done a float or something (Karl even toyed with the idea of just walking around with signs like those you'd see at a protest) but, quite honestly, we've had other major issues on our minds lately.

And that's today in a nutshell.

(P.S.  The posting I made earlier today was done with the voice recognition thing on my phone.  It doesn't capitalize anything and you have to speak the punctuation.  It's a little annoying but it's a little faster than the on-screen keyboard and it does work.  Mostly.)

update later

we are at the bar now. Waiting on inspectors. I'll update later what happened today.

Weekend Update

Opening day is three weeks and one day away and we've gotten everything done this weekend we were planning to get done! (Well, we had to adjust a few things because the schedule for yesterday was a little ambitious.)

Coming up next is finishing the stucco work and putting the siding up on the south end of the building and getting set up with vendors.  We'll also continue planning our grand opening.

Giant Silver Octopus

The bar was recently attacked by a giant silver octopus missing half of its legs.

HELP! We're being attacked!

Opening Day Fallout

Thank you all for the positive response to our opening date announcement(s) yesterday!  For the first time in a while, I became excited about the bar.

It's really been a struggle at times to make this work out.  On top of that, it's taken far longer than I had anticipated it would back in October when the discussions turned toward purchasing the building.  It seems amazingly naive now but I first thought we'd be open by February!  And we know how that worked out.

And, as it turns out, we'll be opening about three months after we got our building permit.  Had things moved a little faster with engineering and The City, and we got the permit in November like I thought we might have (and we were told) we would have opened in February.

Which brings up another positive thing.  As we get bids from contractors and the like, I've learned that my out-of-the-blue guesses on how much they'll be have been pretty darn close.  That means we've been "Under Budget" since the beginning.  (I'd still like to have a little more breathing room in that budget but what can ya do?  Especially at this point...)

We're a tad behind on our contractor schedule right now (but by only about two or three days) but I still think we're on track.  (We wouldn't have broadcast to the Interwebz the June 20 and 25 dates if we thought otherwise.)  We came up with this schedule about two weeks ago when we were trying to find an opening day so there's bound to be a few little hiccups.

Regardless, Karl's at the bar today again with (I think) the electrician and (definitely) the AC dudes.  I envy him that; one of the AC guys is kinda cute.  He even seems alright with gay folks, too.  He mentioned yesterday he saw our news story on ABC30 about the graffiti and laughed when I told him what it said and spelled it for him (F-A-G-E-T) he laughed.  So, he's cool.  Hopefully, we'll see him at the bar; regardless of whether or not he's straight.  The world needs more Cool-With-The-Gay folks.

Opening Day

We are planning on opening our doors on Monday, June 20 at 4:00pm.

That Saturday, June 25, we are planning a grand opening party complete with food, prizes, and other stuff!  We'll post details as we get closer to the dates.

The next four weeks will be frantic, I'm sure.  We got to get all the bridesmaids dresses made...

We'll see you on June 20 and the party on June 25!!!

A Roof With a View

Remarkably exciting picture of the parking lot and dumpster from the roof.  This is the first time this view has been posted on the internet and has previously only been seen by taggers and various tradesmen.

Enjoy!

Evolution of Karl

Just a silly picture of Karl at the bar while we were getting our roof installed.

Weekly Theme Nights

A new survey to find out when you would likely come to a weekly theme night is up on our website. The URL is http://fresnophoenix.com/survey/index.php?sid=55435&lang=en

The survey expires on June 10 (the Newslink advertising deadline) so please hurry if you want your voice heard!

Tell your friends!

Theme Night Survey Results!

Remember our survey from almost two months ago?  We asked for your opinion on which theme nights and events sound like fun to you.  We've finally gone through the results and this is what we got.

63.33% of you either love theme nights or will attend if it sounds fun.  (One of you hates them and 10% just don't give a rat's ass one way or the other.)

43.33% can't be counted on to show up but will occasionally.  Fully one third of you will show up whenever the theme night you like is happening.

By far, the most popular was "underwear night" at 80% responding either that they'd be there or thought it sounded like fun.  Next was Pizza and Beer night at 70% saying that they'd be there or that it sounded like fun.  (Only one person said he or she would vomit at the thought of pizza).

Other popular themes were Open Mic, Stripper and/or porn star shows (all in the once-a-month category), Uniform , the new Five-minute happy hour, drink special nights.  The only unpopular ones were Trivia Night, the Pool Tournament and Amateur Proctologist night.  So those won't be showing up on the schedule on a regular basis. (Ok, so Amateur Protologist night was never really a serious question; though 10% of you said "Dude!  I'm totally there!"  Y'all worry me....)

The Secret Discount night came in at 50/50.  So, it may not be a weekly theme but I still like the idea so it may stay as an special thing.

Thank you all who participated!

"What a Dump!"

This morning, I'm updating our Building Status page with updated info.  (Why would I update it with outdated info??)  I do it somewhat irregularly but mostly consistantly after certain items are completed.  I made the list months ago when I still had this nice rosy idea of what the process would be like.  Step 1 would be followed neatly by Step 2 and then closely by Step 3 and so on.

And, well, that's not quite the way it worked out and the previously nicely ordered list is now a jumbled mess.  Kinda like the bar in this picture:

It almost looks like a bar!

If I thought the Status Page would be used much beyond June XX (Oops!  Almost accidently announced our expected open date!) I'd go back and reorganize it to make more sense now that opening day is only about X weeks away (Oops!  Almost did it again; it's a number less than 6 but more than 1).  After that time, the list becomes obsolete for evey purpose other than academics.

(Yes, I'm a tease....)

Power UP!

Another tiny bit of progress.  Karl tells me we now have electricity supplied by PG & E and no longer have to rely on generators at the bar to do work!

The new electrician is also at the bar working and we should have the roof and insulation inspected later today!

After so many delays and so much time in the past just watching nothing getting done this is starting to move quickly.

The Way It Should Be

We have a roof.

We spent all day yesterday at the bar with the roofers.  And, despite having to provide our own generator for them (for which we nicknamed the roofer "Blanche DuBois") the work was done and completed exactly as we expected to be.  THIS is how hiring a contractor should be.  Why couldn't Demo Guy have done the same?

Finally, aside from paint, the outside of the bar won't change very much from here on out.  (Well, that you can see from the street anyway.)

Here are several progress pictures taken throughout the day.