Well the big tank is IN. I was beginning to have my doubts....
Scott left home at 7:30, met with Karen at 8, to prep for the movers who came at 10:00 to move the 1200 and the 1000. I fully expected the 1200 to be the most problematic, just because of its sheer size. Little did I know... the 1200 was no problem. Our tank, the 1000, was another story...
Eric and I showed up on the scene at about 10:30. The movers had already loaded the 1200 into the truck, it left its prior home through a window which was removed for this purpose. Major kudos to the nice folks at Bulldog Movers of Atlanta
http://bulldogmovers.net ... if you are EVER moving, these are the people to call... they were totally AWEOME! They sent a wonderful crew of strapping young men -- all so polite and clean-cut and STRONG!!! They had us in stitches as they made jokes and made the work look soooooo easy! Their teamwork was very awe-inspiring as they made the job of moving these huge tanks look very easy indeed. Absolute professionals all the way. Thanks, gentlemen!
The 1000 was another story... it was just smidge too wide for the doorway to exit, they had to pull out the door and the jamb, but they got that done and got the tank loaded. Eric and I, satisfied that the matter was in capable hands, left to go about our usual Monday maintenances. We figured the worst was over and all would be fine when we returned... sharight
Meanwhile, back at the shop, Scott discovered that our tank is NOT 34" tall, but rather, it's 35 3/4" tall. Our doorway is 35". This posed a SERIOUS problem. Doorway was no longer an option but removing the plate glass windows on the storefront was. A few calls later, to have a professional glass company come out to open up the glass would have cost $350
Hmmm let's see about "Plan B".....
On our way back from doing maintenances, Eric and I stopped at Harbor Freight Tools (love that store ::: insert Tim Allen Grunt Here::
, we bought some of those big suction-cup handles for glass, and we did a DIY plate-glass window removal. A customer drove buy and stopped just long enough for us to draft him (Thanks to Tony Rosa of Rosa's Pizza) and Eric called some of our other neighbours, Burke and Rob, and they all rose to the occasion ('cept Waylon, who showed up 5 minutes after we were done!
), and they all came to our aid and helped move the tank through the window, and up onto the stand.
There is still a ton of work to be done, but I can't tell you how blessed I feel to have friends and neighbours that I have, who, at a moment's notice, and a frantic phone call or Nextel message, dropped everything they were doing to help us. I am truly humbled - you folks are THE BEST!!!
I took pictures, if I can resize them so as not to suck up a huge amount of bandwidth, I will post them tonight. If not, I'll post them tomorrow.
Wow--- what a day!
Jenn
230g Softie Reef with 3 x 250W MH + actinics
