Porn Haunting

Lots to get caught up on, so let's just jump in and get right to it!

The books came just before noon on Monday in a truck bigger than our building (yes, our shop is somewhere back there)...



Not knowing what roughly 5,000 books looks like, I wasn't sure what to expect - but a freaking semi? Seriously?!?




A peek inside...






Ahh - about 140 boxes - that's not too bad...



The first shelf done (books about pets, of course); although I ended up taking them down and putting them in another shelf. And taking them down and putting them in another shelf. And taking them down...



Oy - my aching back. Seriously. I need a chiropractor...or a massage therapist...or some really good drugs.



Don came to help us unpack books on Tuesday...



And on Wednesday, the awnings arrived...



It was such a pretty day yesterday; a little chilly, but a typically gorgeous Denver day...






After a month of having someone else's signage on the shop, it was cool to finally have *ours* show up...







It's a good thing they came when they did, because today Mother Nature decided to get all up in our business. Literally.

We got to the shop early this morning - before the snow really got going. By 8:30 the snow was coming down hard and, by noon, there was about four or five inches of snow on the ground. We were both trying to get as much done as possible knowing that we'd have to bug out early and get home before the roads got any worse when, at about 11:30, I heard Gary exclaim (yes, exclaim) something along the lines of, "Holy crap! It's snowing in here!" I stood up and saw snow pouring down from the ceiling. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was a blizzard in the shop. A freaking blizzard.

It was super-cool looking but seeing as how there was about a half an inch of water already collecting on our new not-so-water-resistant floor, I opted to go for the paper towels instead of the camera. What a sight, though. In order to stop the hemmorrhaging, Gary had to ascend the ladder into an angry, swirling funnel of snow! It was the darn craziest thing I've ever seeen.

So - why the snow inside? Well, there's some sort of a fan thing in the roof with little more than a mesh screen to block out the elements. Yes, I know - hindsight is 20/20. It's getting fixed this week - it was just a crazy timing thing. Anyway, it was the one place in the shop where we hadn't started shelving books - we still had to take apart a section of bookcases to mop up the water that had accumulated underneath, but all in all we were lucky, lucky, lucky; it could have been much worse - especially if we'd left any earlier! Oy. I can't even bring myself to think about how bad it could have been.

We have so much to do and we've put ourselves under an incredibly tight deadline, but we had to abandon the shelving project to get home (fie on you, Mother Nature!). We drove separately this morning so we ventured off in our own directions to get home. Even though our points A and B are the same, we rarely travel the same path to get there.

I opted to avoid the more hilly areas (where cars were endlessly backed up) and took a route that brought me all the way west to I-70 - about a mile or so before it hits the foothills. Well, every vehicle on that stretch was at a standstill and while this photo doesn't even come close to doing the scene justice, it was breathtaking to see hundreds of cars and semis stopped in their tracks...



Then I came across this; a massive bus that had obviously slid into a perpendicular position blocking most of the lanes of the highway. Traffic was stopped both in front of and behind the bus, so the bus wasn't actually stopping anyone from getting anywhere. How fortunate that it didn't tip over on its side...



These folks are actually bailing off the highway from the on-ramp - again, the pictures don't do it justice - it was a hot, crazy mess.



Well, if not for the storm, I probably wouldn't have taken the time to get a post up - it's just been super busy trying to get through the books and learning a new computer and inventory system all at the same time. We're still hoping to open on the first - quietly - but it'll take a bit of a miracle at this point with this whole weather sitch.

I'm going to stay positive and say that we will make it happen.

I'm zonked right now, so I'll save the porn haunting story for another time...