Fun times in the neighborhood

It has been an interesting couple of months.

The tagline of this blog used to be "Occasional notes from a happily married Mt. Baker Geek and Cider Maker..."

It has been revised to "Occasional notes from a Mt. Baker Geek..."

Jen filed for separation today. We had been seeing a councilor but in the last couple of years we have drifted apart and it was her decision to separate. Still plan to do the hard cider but that is realistically pushed back a couple of years.

To add a little fun to things, one week ago today I received a call from the father of the guy who opened the bakery that I was managing. The father physically owns the property, the son and his wife were just running the business. He told me that the son was coming into town to change the locks and that I had to vacate the business by Friday at close of business day. This is totally out of the blue and he didn't have the common @#$% grace to allow me to give my employees two weeks notice. Ran the final payroll this morning and will spend the next couple of days closing out the books and doing 3rd quarter taxes.

There is a tentative interest in the property and business. I don't know if they want to keep it as a bakery or turn it into more of a restaurant but if this is the case, the father just shot himself in the foot big-time.

In our county, if someone was to buy the bakery when I was running it, they would be grandfathered in on all the health permits and building codes -- even if they closed for a month to renovate, they would still be exempt. Now that the business is closed, anyone coming in to re-open it as a food business will have to upgrade from 2007 code compliance to 2011 code compliance. Septic, range hoods, fire alarm, wiring; I do not know what would be required (better things to do with my time) but it's gonna be expensive...

Anyway, that is why I have been so quiet in cyberspace -- actually enjoying the peace and quiet at home and planning to devote more time to the blacksmithing. I was planning on shutting the bakery down in November anyway so this just moves the timetable up a bit.