by Nathan Stout
I laughed when I saw Chris use the word ‘tidbits’. I can’t help but think of cats eating when I read or hear that.
Anyway, I have one more thing to talk about in regards to Renegade Anime. No, it’s not a defense of Chris’ defense about what he did as far as the shop was concerned. I wanted to talk a little bit about Paul and my reconnection with the former strip mall owner (from whom we rented the shop space).
Last year, while I was on the wonderful world of social networking sites, I found Paul. Now, I know that when we left the shop we still owed Paul rent money. Chris will correct me and say it is he who owes the money but I have always considered myself a part of the whole debt thing. When I left in 2003 Chris stayed in the shop for several more months and during the last few months couldn’t pay the rent. Paul didn’t immediately kick him out but let him stay a while. At some point Chris called it quits and moved out (still owing the money).
Chris is real big about paying back all his debts (eventually) and this is no exception. Well, when I reconnected with Paul ,I let him know that we still intended to pay him what was due. I have considerable computer skills and told him I could do some work for him to square things. He really didn’t seem to care about the money we owed him since it has been several years, but I assured him that we want to make things right and he agreed.
As you read in Part 4 of my Renegade Anime blog one of the tenants of the strip was Ye Old Lamplighter. Well, the old guy retired (I guess) and Paul bought his business. Paul told me he wanted to add a camera or two to the shop, and add a point of sale system to track customers and transactions. This would give him peace of mind since he wasn’t going to be running the business himself. I knew I could do both of these and basically wipe out the debt in one swoop.
I have always wanted to stay on Paul’s good side. It’s always good to have ‘friends in high places’. In the event I decided I needed office or retail space in the future it would be good to have a friend in my corner. This job would put us in good graces with him, and wasn’t too difficult to get done.
I think I might have mentioned Paul’s ‘flightiness’ before… Well I get really far into this project when I get very little from Paul. He seems to have gone off the idea at the moment. He tells me he is basically cash strapped so it will have to wait a bit. Now, all the equipment (which is a lot) was provided by me as a part of the repayment. The ONLY amount of money he would have had to shell out was $80.00 for a label printer. Other than that everything else was basically free. I am not sure why he lost interest in the whole thing.
I am still friends with him on my ‘face-space’ page so if he comes around and gets ambitious again I can get thing rolling and pay him back and get into his good-graces.
Read Chris’ introduction to shop week
Read Part 1 of my story of Renegade Anime
Read Part 2 of my story of Renegade Anime
Read Part 3 of my story of Renegade Anime
Read Part 4 of my story of Renegade Anime