The time has come, Gamerz Depot will be open come 5pm TODAY! I’m taking the day off to spend with family, so the mantle of the last finishing work goes to others. Which is good, because I was worn out and in pain last night. I hung the electric open sign, the notification board, and more like 70 feet of slat board, rather than the 100 feet I thought it would be. In no air conditioning. We didn’t get power until late afternoon. So, doing all of the stuff that I did, especially what I did by myself, had me drenched in sweat the whole day until the power came on.

The new store shelving (hopefully) comes today, and from now on our product will be put up on shelves, rather than on the floor.

I would like to thank all of the gamers who showed up yesterday and lent their backs and hands to help out. Without them, we couldn’t have made it to this point by last night.

Pictures will come Sunday, so look out for those.

Well, it’s almost complete. After two hard and sweaty days of packing, and a hard and sweaty day of moving, Gamerz Depot is completely in our new space. Now the only thing left is to setup and unpack. That will be the fun part. Today is “slat board day,” where I’m going to hang about 100 feet of slat board, all the way down the left side of the wall. Hanging that much of used slat board straight will be a real challenge. I also want to commend Greg, the owner for putting his real business on hold for three days while he waded through the Memphis bureaucracy getting us utilities, a business license and all of the other paperwork necessary for us to operate. It might sound like he had the easier job, but I’m not quite sure about that.

We should get our power today, so once the lights are on, everything will be copacetic. And cooler.

This has been a hard week, and the rest of the week isn’t looking any better. But with a bit of luck, and a lot of help, Gamerz Depot should be open tonight for Magic Constructed.

Come on by and check us out, and if you do show up, be prepared to be put to work!

Gamerz Depot is now located in the Hacks Cross Centre, 4205 Hacks Cross Rd, Suite 104, Memphis, TN 38125. This is on the West side of Hacks Cross, just South of the Bill Morris Parkway/385. We are behind Chow Time, right next to “Nuttin But Wings.” We hope to see you there!

Well, the air conditioner at Gamerz Depot has finally been “fixed.” They did a half assed job, with used equipment that is underpowered. It still gets hot in there when there’s more than five people in the store. Which is killing our business. Who wants to game in a hot store?

So, we are counting down to the move. There are a lot of things going on that I can’t talk about, but keep your fingers crossed that they all break the right way to make things smooth. I am hoping that the lease on the new space is signed on Tuesday. That gives me Monday to pack up and inventory the store, and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to unpack it. If I get the orders I need in for the fixtures I need and delivered by Thursday, I’ll be a happy camper. The bad news is I probably won’t get the order in until Tuesday, and delivered by Friday.

I have to wait until the painters and carpet cleaners to do their thing hopefully on Monday, then cut and hang a bunch of slat board. You see, the space used to house an HR Block office, and one wall is that atrocious green they use.

So, as always, I have a long way to go and not a lot of time to get there. Hopefully I will have some help this time.

I’m also beginning to get suspicious here. Every time I take a week off, I work harder on my days off than I do at my day job. I have got to stop doing this!

Well, I have to stop from time to time and remember to breathe. In. Out.

The lease for the new Gamerz Depot location is not signed as yet. But I been kept on the edge of my chair for the last three days. Depending on when we can get the numbers together that the new landlord likes, we are talking anywhere between this instant and Monday. The packers are primed for Saturday, the movers are set for Sunday, so this has got to happen soon. I have it set for me to take all of next week off, and I figure it will take that entire time to set up the store to my liking. So, either everything goes off smoothly and I get to work reasonable hours next week, or things get signed late and I work like a madman. Everything is an unknown at this moment, and if there is anything that bugs me more than this kind of situation, I can’t remember what it is. I’m a real detail oriented kind of guy. I live by my Gantt chart.

I am scheduled to see the property this afternoon, so I can start making mental plans on where to put what. The only view I have gotten to see as yet has been through the front windows. I want to see the storage room in the back and the bathroom. I need to step out the size of the bay and see how much of what we need.

I plan on getting all of this done during the day, then opening up in the afternoon and continue working. Now that we have more staff, we plan on opening earlier in the afternoon, hopefully to even catch the lunch crowd at the local eating establishments before or after they have eaten.

We have lots of plans for this new location. As soon as I have the exact address I’ll be sure to post it here and tell everybody I know. If you could do the same when you learn where we landed, I’d greatly appreciate that.