The Dojo of Karate

You guys remember that song called “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve? That’s exactly what last week entailed. Not to go off on a tangent, but some interesting things have been going on at my current job, leaving me to wonder about my future. However, on Tuesday I received probably one of the best phone calls in awhile. My property manager called to tell me that State Farm had finally moved… And, I can come by the new State Farm to pick up the keys from Larry. That’s right… I did not stutter. The space was finally available for me to take! I was pretty excited.

I went by Larry’s office to pick up the keys on Wednesday. He walked through the place with me really quick to show me a couple of things about the space, and went over the . After we chatted, I stayed in my NEW KARATE SCHOOL for about 45 minutes, calling my sister, dad, and mom - letting them know where I was standing. I almost felt like a kid on Christmas morning - seeing all the presents you got from Santa Claus. Except this was a HUGE present!

After talking with the fam, I walked around the space trying to get an idea on what I wanted to do with the layout. I kinda got an idea, but I think once the walls all come down, I’ll be able to get a better feel on how the school should look like. My only big concern is the bathroom. There’s already one bathroom, but I’m sure I’m going to need another one because of city code. I’m just hoping the additional bathroom won’t cost me a bunch. I’ve got a budget, and I’m slowly realizing that I’ll be stretching it. It’s really starting to scare me… I’ll contact some General Contractors to see what kind of estimate they’ll give me and how much work will be required, otherwise, I need to weigh out all of my options. If I decide to pull a license myself, then I can control most of the costs. Otherwise, I’m at the mercy of the contractor.

I’ll be doing some demo work on April 5th, 2008 with a few friends of mine. There will be quite a bit of work, but it should be fun. I’m really looking forward to all of this. I’ve got 90 days to finish the build out, and I think that should be plenty of time. I’ll start taking some pics next week and posting them on my blog, so that everyone can start getting a really good idea about all of this and how it looks.

All this is just crazy though. Opening a Karate School has been a dream of mine since I was about 14 or 15. Twelve years in the making. And those 12 years haven’t been easy too. But, it has finally come true. All those hours of training, dreaming, talking, thinking, sharing, wishing, praying… and more. They’ve all paid off. Don’t ever let someone tell you that dreams don’t come true.

Out!