Grand Opening!
So, remember when we posted a couple of weeks ago and there was only the beginning of a roof out at the site of our future pine nut processing facility? Yeah. Take a look at that (points upward)!
Indeed, though, the trash heap has turned into a lot which has turned into a foundation which has turned into a hangar roof. Now we just need to add the end walls and we'll have turned the whole thing into a usable building!
Not to get too carried away, though, this is where we are now. The insulation gets cut into little chunks and then unrolled between two layers of metal which are bolted to the foundation. Then we bought our most expensive construction material yet - a few tons of steel I-beams for the end walls. They get welded together like so:
But enough about construction. The really exciting news is that our facility is now officially open!
No, we're not using it to process nuts yet - that won't happen until the delivery of the rest of the processing equipment next month. We did, however, have our Grand Opening celebration during a recent visit from a representative from the investment group who supplied the capital to get this whole thing off the ground. We had a ribbon-cutting (which I managed to get video of but no pictures) and a tour of the facility with the investor and some government officials. We even had two different TV channels onsite to document the event for the evening news, it was that big a deal.
My photographer (ahem!) wasn't the best, so you'll just have to trust that these silhouettes are of me, my business partner and important government officials touring the site and getting an explanation of what will happen there.
Our friend, D, who helped with getting all the land documents and in the process became good friends with Bobbie.
Between my business partner's wife and my wife, they put together quite a spread! It was the talk of the event, with some of the officials even asking when she planned to open a restaurant so they could enjoy food like this on a regular basis.
Our investor rep gave a speech of his own (in English, with Russian translation), much to the delight of the assembled crowd. They were especially pleased to hear how much he enjoyed the beauty of the area and the potential for growth in the pine nut industry.
And now, since I'm out of pictures, I'll leave you with a picture of one of our cute kids just being cute.
Thanks for stopping by. Please do keep me lifted up this coming week as I have some travel coming up, and for Bobbie and the boys as well at home without me. We'll try to update you sometime toward the end of the month; hopefully by then we'll have the building all put together and will be working toward completing the interior - exciting times!
