Compared to what we were doing at our family business and
future plans meeting tonight, nothing else that happened today was very
important; so I’m just going to cover the evening highlights and skip the
non-news from an otherwise uneventful day.
Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Deborah were
our only attendees tonight; and they even had Leah and Zack spending a few
hours with their respective, available grandparents to make it easier to keep
the meeting going without major interruptions.
Though we still have lots of winter left to go, we have
things to do over the next couple of months that are really going to be fun to
watch happen. For Ethan and Ehlana, the
Solar-Wind Farm project is right at the top of the list; and we’ll be ready to
hire the manager for it by the end of February.
While it’s a pet project for them, they’re also happy about who we’re
going to offer that job to because it’s going to make a huge difference for one
of their KidZone and Sunday school friends and his family. The ground-breaking for the power farm won’t
start until the end of March, but we’ll have all of the equipment and crews
ready to go by then; and our new manager will be able to hit the ground
running.
The first ground-breaking project this spring is going to be
the Witch Falls Professional
Building that will house
the new medical and dental center along with a handful of other
businesses. It’ll be next to the lab to
the east side; approximately at the bend in the river and across the road from
the new section of town. That’s
obviously Uncle Adam’s second-favorite future plans project next to the lab;
and he and Uncle Mark are going to have a very cool new place to practice
medicine – with a lot of new toys that most small-town doctors could only dream
of having. They still have nearly a year
and a half to go before they’ll be able to move into the new medical center;
though we’re actually going to have Uncle Mark co-ordinate a lot of the finishing
work on that project because Uncle Adam will be busy with the lab – both this
spring and summer with the set-up, and with actual research when it opens in
September.
I guess we might as well keep going with the lab while we’re
there anyway. The interior
infrastructure is pretty much done now; and the floor plan construction is in
full swing. While the most-secure bio
labs in the basement were modules, the labs, offices, and greenhouse on the
second floor are all being built now; as are the main floor offices and
conference rooms that will mostly house Aunt Grace and her administrative and
operations staff. Researchers and lab
techs will mostly be on the second floor; while the level five labs in the
basement will not really get a lot of ‘official’ use at first.
Ethan is fairly fired up about the progress in the lower two
basement levels, since that’s where our archives will have their new home; and
the work there is ahead of schedule.
We’ll wait until the construction crews are finished before moving any
of our archive books there; but we’ll probably be ready for the first
deliveries by Easter – when Grandma Eleanor and Grandpa Grant are due home from
their next archive packing and retrieval trip.
A little further out still is going to be Mom’s work at the
lab with the computer systems, but that ties into the plans we worked on
tonight for college teen summer jobs.
Violet and Dillon are at the top of the list for that, and while we’re
going to talk Aunt Grace into hiring Violet for the summer to work with her;
Uncle Adam is going to hire Dillon to help out with the lab and greenhouse
set-ups. Mom’s going to hire Andrew
Jennings to help out with the computer work; though she may have him work with
Owen too – both with hardware set-up and maybe at Emerson’s new data center so
that Andrew can learn about that side of the systems that will be nearly
identical to those she’s putting together for the lab and medical center.
If Andrew thought our home office was cool; he’s going to be
delirious when he sees the high-tech we’re bringing to town over the next few
years! That’s a good thing; since we
have plans for Dillon’s future brother-in-law.
We haven’t planned anything specific right now for Christina
McEwan, but expect that she’ll want to find a job here next summer and be close
to Josiah. While having her do something
for the family business is an option; she could also work at the Emporium or
somewhere else in town too – like for Josiah’s Aunt Abby; so we’re not worrying
about that right now. There will be some
other teen jobs being offered at the lab; but I won’t go over every one of them
tonight.
The only other big project on the go right now is the first
apartment building; and it’s on-track to be ready for first move-ins by the end
of June. Aunt Leanne and Claire will
have a showroom apartment available to them by Easter, and while some of the
units will be rented to locals; Aunt Leanne expects to have most of the
apartments rented to construction workers – particularly the men and women who
want to bring spouses to live here while they’re working the bigger
projects. We’ll have some new house
rentals that will help with that problem for families; but we’re not taking
that into consideration to any major degree for the new home build-out plan. We don’t want to build too far ahead of what
the town will need.
There will be new homes and townhouses built this year, and
that’ll start in the spring again too, but some of those homes – or the land –
are pre-sold; while others will accommodate the influx of new permanent
residents that will come this year with the dozens of new jobs that will be
created at the lab and elsewhere around town.
Most of those new homes will likely be move-up sales for locals too; so
it’ll be a busy year in real estate for Aunt Leanne and Claire; as well as even
more work for Dad on the legal side of those sales.
On the financial front for the family business, all of this
work means that we have a pile of money going out this year with minimal
income, and that’s going to continue for another couple of years; but we’re not
doing any of this for the money anyway – even though we will eventually make a
lot of it through the products developed at the lab. The only part of these projects that seems
strange to me is that we’re actually spending that money so close to home and
seeing the impact with our friends and neighbors. We have larger projects on the go all of the
time, with the same kind of initial outflows of cash, and though what we’re
doing here is different; the long-term impact is going to be immense, amazing,
and world-changing.
Yes, Ethan, Ehlana, and I do know something, but I can’t
write about that here; since this journal will likely be available to other
Magi here before a lot of what we can ‘see’ comes to pass.
Speaking of that, there are a few things coming up soon that
we didn’t talk about at the meeting; but that’s only because we don’t want to
spoil any surprises for Mom, Dad, or our aunts and uncles. I’m sure that you, future reader, either
know, or can check, what’s going to be big news for my family and around town
over the next few months; so you’ll understand why my brother, sister, and I
are so excited about everything that’s going to be happening this year.
That is pretty much all I have from the meeting. After our uncles and aunts left for their
homes, I helped Mom with Ethan and Ehlana’s bedtime routine while Dad got some
work done in the office. She did my Magi
lesson once the twins were tucked in for the night; and then I got started on
my bedtime studies and computing after getting changed and into bed with
Mandy. I haven’t gotten as much work
done tonight as I wanted to do, but I’m still ahead this week; and too tired to
stay up any later tonight.
I may not even get much more studying or work done this
week, but fun with my friends and family is going to come first for the next
couple of days; and I can always work a bit harder next week if needed. Right now, I’m just going to work on some
quality unconscious time, so...
...Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!
