The space is coming along nicely. I’m still not ready to take photos, but I wish I’d taken some “before” shots, because it’s really undergoing a transformation. We had the internet service hooked up last week. That was a laff riot at one of our co-op meetings where some potential members had strong opinions of which service provider we should use and how the installation should go. It went smoothly and has been working fine. Those members showed up for our “soft opening” on March 3 and brought friends, too. They were even happy with our present internet situation and plans for the future. All’s well.
I saw a billboard today, on my way into The City, for alarm company. It read, “Making Nothing Happen Since” whenever. I thought it a fine tag line for an alarm system and pictured the advertising copywriters that came up with it. How do we differentiate our product from others? What does an alarm do? Hopefully nothing. Hopefully it just monitors the good and deters the bad things from happening. How uneventful. How do we sell a non-event? Through the strength of its efficacy…etc…
This has something to do with the shop and gallery, because we had the alarm system installed yesterday. We took four competitive bids from security system designers and got the best contract, terms, and equipment we could (not) afford. Which is to say that I have personally lent more money to this endeavor to front the costs of the alarm and internet installations, because I believe in this endeavor’s success. I’m sorry to report that we were not able to go with either of the local companies I wanted. We couldn’t afford it and the equipment and the service were inferior. We’d be getting a lot less coverage for a lot more money. I did take an extra week and a half in order to even be able to get the two local bids and it was a big pain in the rear, so at least I tried.
The system we got is pretty neat. Won’t go into details here, for security reasons, but suffice it to say that there are dual motion sensors involved that sense motion and heat, so as long as our sophisticated cat burglars don’t happen to be reptilian or insects, I think we’ll be ok. I am still expecting microbial and fungal intrusion, but not much I can do about that.
I need to treat my antique furniture with more love and kindness next time we move. Still working on building the office and refurbishing the staff kitchen. More on that soon.
