On the road to recovery...

...is where I am after my recent car accident. The other party, drunk driving, hit me on the drivers side at over 80 km/h after jumping 2 red traffic lights in order to do so. Unlike myself, the car is a right off, and although still in quite some pain, I have 'only' some concussions, bruises, whiplash etc. but no broken bones and hopefully no lasting damage. Thx to everyone who's called or mailed to wish me well - appreciate it guys.

At long last...

... we managed to open Captain Jack's, after the normal delays, on the 20th of February 2009. The opening party was a great success and we were privileged with the presence of Captain Jack Sparrow who came by for a drop of wine and a 'chat' with the wenches.

Hopefully shortly I will have some more time to expand the story a little bit, but for the moment I hope you enjoy the photos.

Slowly but surely...

... things are coming together at Jack's place. After having the beer tabs installed at the beginning of the week, today the coffee machine arrived. What a luxury for a caffeine junky like me :-). The first barrel of beer lasted for a whole day and a half - hopefully the coffee will last a little bit longer, but at the moment we are still our best clients :-(. Maybe it might be a good idea to hold back the wine & spirits delivery untill the last moment. It would be a real bummer to not have any drinks to serve the opening night

Let there be beer...

and there was beer. Our new beer station has now been installed and is working! Much to the pleasure of the workers who have decided to take full advantage of the new amenities. With a bit, or maybe a lot, of luck there will still be some left when we finally open on the 21st of Feb. Cheers guys...

By the way, the cool artist dude you see on the right is Mr. Jose Piñero, the person responsible for making possible a great part of the decor in the bar - and most of it even the way we had originally envisioned it!!! Thank's Jose for a great job.

2 outta 3...

... ain't bad I suppose, especially considering this is Spain. Last Tuesday, as arranged, the back bar arrived. Although all one piece it has 3 sections & 3 colors. None of the colors coincided exactly with what we wanted but 2 of them look pretty good so we decided to accept them, the third one induced a "no way" reaction so we stopped the work and had them take it back. After much back and forth a new color was agreed on and Friday was set for installation. It arrived on the agreed date and surprise surprise it was almost the color we had agreed on. Instead of the yellowy tone, it's more orangy but what the hell. Mounting was resumed and by the end of the day they had almost finished. Next Wednesday they will return to complete and start installing zones 1 & 2. All in all we are still quite hopeful that we will finally be able to open the bar on the 13th of Feb.

Time flies...

... when you are enjoying yourself. At least that is what everyone says, so I assume that I'm having a ball. More to the truth is that I've got so much work to do that I don't even have time to think about time. We are entering into a really hectic / critical phase in the bar, leaving very little margin for other activities. At least things are starting to look good and the place once finished will be amazing. Last couple of weeeks we've been running some ads looking for staff and you would think that with over 3 million unemployed in Spain we'ed get some decent replies, but out of over 100 aplications there are only about 4 possibles. But we still have some time so hopefully we'll get lucky yet. The "back bar" should arrive on Tuesday so with a bit of luck I'll post some up to date photos next Wednesday.

Crisis what crisis...

...well whatever it may be it seems to be big! In a holiday resort like Torrevieja, where I'm based, it means that over 50% of the 400 official estate agencies in a 20 Km. stretch of coastline have closed in the last 6 months. And a lot of these were selling more than 1 property per day! Building co's with 3000 homes built - bankrupt, and of cause all the related businesses are suffering the consequences. Christmas time - normally considered high season - has left the town looking like a Sunday afternoon - every day! Emptyness - nobody has shown up for the hols. The worst thing is that this is only the tip of the iceberg as it looks like it's going to continue like this for at least another year. Last week a friend of mine went to sign up for unemployment, he joined the queue (think it's spelled like this - I mean the line of people waiting) at 4am and he finally left there at 12.45 midday! Then again there are those of us unlucky enough not to have had anything before either, finding ourselfs now in the position of still not having anything, but at least we have lost nothing! Sad to think that the ones doing best are the ones loosing the least. Anyway Merry X-Mas and a Happy New Year - hope to see ya all in Captain Jack's next year - if only to drown your sorrows!
PS: We are still looking for some female staff - so if you are a stunner, intelligent, hard working ... give me a call!

Christmas lunch...

was served last Friday, although not in Captain Jack's, but in a fine Restaurant in Torrevieja. Invited of cause all our fine workers - 4 of them could not make and not because they were working on our bar! Tough luck, the suckling pig was still devoured by the remaining eaters with great pleasure, starters and liquids also went down well & in large quantities.