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Hey hey hey! Congrats. To commemorate all this good news and run with this fortune life has provided to you, I am going to buy a Mega Millions ticket, win the jackpot, then help you move those machines to Ohio.
That would be kind. How about the house to put them in? lol
I'll be leaving everything here in storage and will be living in an apartment until I decide to buy a new house. I figure it may take a year or so.
Sure buddy. We can put them in my house for safe keeping. So there you go.
 
Great story! Congrats and best of luck with everything for you Mitsurugi-w!
 
So I have some news and an announcement to make. This will affect my role here for a short period of time and most likely will affect the ability of me to perform arcade service for you guys. I'll explain below.


So as many of you know all work I do for the arcade hobby is done 100% after all of my real world responsibilities are complete. Many of you know that I currently own two restaurants in the Hwy 55 Burgers, Shakes, and Fries chain. This chain was started in 1991 right here in Eastern North Carolina where I reside. I began in high school in 1997 the summer before my senior year. I started dropping french fries and slicing onions for hours on end and eventually worked my way up to the bun station, grill station, and then be the end of the first six months I was running the store when the manager had nights off. I did go to college in Greenville, NC at East Carolina University for two years but I loved this company and the people at the top so much that I decided to drop out of college (never wanted to go anyways even though I was top 5% in my HS class) in order to pursue the opportunities that this company provides.

You see the very first day I went for an interview the manager, and good friend to this day (despite him being a horrible roommate for two months after his wife changed their locks on him, lol), told me "You could own this store one day." That was unexpected and somewhat unbelievable but very shortly after I began I saw multiple managers become owners of their stores. And what's awesome is they paid only $1 for the franchise name since they all began at minimum wage dropping fries and worked their way up. That's the beauty of this company. The founder and CEO had an epiphany one day. He was struggling financially with his first 5 stores. A voice in his head told him to stop making everything about him and make it about others. He then began to tell his people that if they can prove they can make money then he would sell them the store they are managing. The rest is history since that was the turning point of our company and the reason why we own Eastern NC and even have international stores now in Denmark and the UAE. Really the thing that makes this company different is the people at the top and the people in the stores right down to the newest fry guy.

I was a horrible manager at first. Shit, I knew everything, as every teenager does. Yeah I could cook faster and better than almost everyone in the company (and in my opinion the country) but my skills managing people, in a way, sucked. So I had many years of humbling learning experiences but I never quit and worked through every issue I had with positivity. On January 1, 2008 I purchased my first store. I basically only had to pay for the equipment in the store and yes, $1 for the franchise name. Later that year the opportunity came for me to purchase the other store in town so that the owner could move to Greensboro, NC and open u a new territory. So on Nov. 15, 2008 I purchased a second store. You may notice some significance in those dates. 2008. The year the economy basically crashed. Back then you could get a loan from a bank so easy. My interview for my loans lasted maybe 5 minutes COMBINED. I bought both stores with zero money down and no money in the bank. Just my promise to pay them back and a signature. It took about a year for the economic crisis to really hit Eastern NC but it hit us HARD. There were so many times I stayed up all night wondering how I would pay my people. Times like those really weed out the weak. Businesses left and right closed down but we scraped, and clawed and survived. I've been lucky to have staffs that care about me and the store and don't just see this as "just a job". It has taken literally YEARS to get caught up. If you fall behind on paying taxes it is nearly impossible to get caught up. But I have done it and I'm proud. I paid off both store loans in the past year and sales at both of my stores are the best they have every been and both of these stores were opened in the first 20 stores so that is saying something.

Sorry for my entire work history but I thought you might understand why I made the decision I did.

About a month ago the CEO texted me and said he would like to talk to me. He's done this before and usually it was him offering me another store. I had turned him down several times since I simply was not ready to own another store. I didn't need more headaches at the time. I needed to accomplish some goals first. I fully expected this conversation to be the same, after all there are stores in the area he owns that I could easily improve. Instead I was shocked by what was proposed. He asked me if I would be willing to take a position we have never had in the company before. He asked if I would be willing to take control of developing another state that was struggling to get off the ground a bit. I was pretty speechless as it blindsided me. Am I qualified? Hell yes I am. But I wasn't expecting the offer. After sleeping on it and having a few meetings at the home office I decided to take the job. Kenney, the CEO and I like to think friend, has never steered me wrong and has always delivered on giving me the OPPORTUNITY for me to succeed and achieve my goals since I was a teenager. My job at first will be to teach the culture of the company since it is so unique, train new management personnel from with our own ranks (the masters of the state like to hire managers from other restaurants which is usually a horrible idea), and eventually get the state back on track. It's about two to three years behind based on the number of stores to open in the contract.

So all of that leads to this announcement:

In August I will be moving to a new state. That state is Ohio.

I will be based in the Cincinnati area to begin with. We currently have two stores there and I need to get another 48 open within 6 or 7 years. My gig could be pretty sweet. I will have many more responsibilities but ironically I'll probably work much fewer hours than I do now. Just managing one of my stores full time sees me getting around 60 hours a week. I will basically only answer to the home office even though I will be getting paid by the masters, and I will make the final decisions on many things. Some of you may ask "why would you sell stores that are making you money"? Well my base pay will begin at twice what I made last year and if you include the payments from selling my stores, I'll be ok financially.

I will continue to be a daily presence on the site here. I will continue to do all the arcade stuff I do now since I love the hobby. I AM NOT LEAVING. But there will be a period of time that I need for moving and adjustment to living alone in a state I've never visited as well as get a feel for the current stores and staff. So there will be a period of time, could be up to a month, where I can't sell any products, do any repairs, or provide any services. The last two weeks of July will be pretty crazy for me. I need to move 25 arcade machines into storage. And pack everything up. Luckily I have very few possessions other than those machines. LOL. I don't care if I'm busy as hell for the next few weeks with arcade stuff but once I determine the date I will accept zero orders and some may get delayed a few weeks if sent in too late. I know some of you are used to sending me things and then contacting me about what you want done. Well, I recommend contacting me first until I move. :)

Well thanks for reading through all of my bullshit and please wish me good luck. I really don't know what I'm getting myself into yet.
We wish you all the best. Do your thing and get back on track ASAP. We are waiting for you as always :thumbsup:
 
Thanks, guys. I wish everyone would complete their profile so I would know who else is in Ohio and where at in Ohio.
It's a little over 100 miles away in Hilliard (just west of Columbus), but please go check out the "Warp Zone" retro gaming + arcade sometime. Darrin has 3 cabs in the shop and over 65 PCBs to play for free - Along with an amazing retro gaming / Japanese game selection that I ship to him weekly. :D
 
Congratulations and good luck! I live one hour down the road from Cincinnati in Kentucky. Be sure to check out Legacy Arcade while you're there. There's lots of good deals on equipment in and around Cincy to be had!
 
Thought I'd give you guys an update.

I finally moved to Ohio on Sunday/Monday. I left New Bern, NC around 2PM on Sunday. I still had a few loose ends to tie up and I loaded my car right before I left. It was hot as hell so I sweated through my clothes while loading the car so I literally went to my parent's house, changed my shirt and hit the road for the 630 mile drive. I only made two stops. Once for dinner around 7:30 in Princeton, WV and then again about an hour and a half later to use the rest room. (First and last time I eat Shoney's most likely...) After using the restroom I got back in my car and suddenly the A/C was no longer working in my car. Now, my car was packed completely full of boxes so there was zero air flow and opening the windows did nothing since the air couldn't move around the vehicle so I spent the last several hours sweltering in my leather seats. I wanted to stop about 100 miles out from Cincinnati since it was already around 11pm but the few hotels I saw along the dark-assed highway I was riding in on reminded me of Deliverance so I passed. Also, I was running low on gas and couldn't find an open station on that highway for around 80 miles. I pulled into the first one I saw pen just as the low fuel light came on, about 25 miles from where I'm staying. So I ended up just driving all the way to Batavia, to the Eastgate area where one of the stores I am overseeing is, and was lucky enough to get a hotel room at 1:30AM when I arrived in town.

So I didn't need to report for work until Tuesday morning so I went to the office of the apartment I planned on renting. I have never rented before, always owned a house, but on the phone they made it sound like there was an apartment waiting for me so I stopped looking. Well, I got there and they are like, "Oh yeah, you are 26 on the waiting list. We can probably get you in in October. Is that OK?" As you may imagine this was very disappointing news. Now I am in a state I've never been to with a car FULL of boxes with no car A/C. Did a bunch of apartment research, talked to a few places but didn't decide. I then went to get my A/C repaired so I could at least drive around without sweating my ass off. They evacuated and recharged the freon and the A/C was working great! yay! I did notice some steam or something coming from under the hood but when I looked I noticed some water in the engine which I guess was from the monsoon rain storm that hit suddenly and was just evaporating off. I needed another hotel room for the night so I ran by a few hotels and the ONLY room available in the immediate area was at a Holiday Inn for $159.00. Fuck. Oh well I need to stay somewhere.

I woke up Tuesday and had a meeting early with the manager of the store nearby. Spent a few hours there but left to try to shore up a place to stay. I get into my car and the A/C is not working again. Ugh!. Anyways, I decided to sign a 6-month lease for a two-room apartment. More space than I need and about 200 more a month than I really wanted to spend but it's ok I guess. Only I can't move in until the next day. So I took my car back to the shop I did yesterday and they told me they added dye when the charged my A/C system so they should be able to find the leak if present. Well it was a leak. I guess some things popped up off the road and punctured the condenser. So I had a $500 bill to replace that in my car. I didn't have to pay for the recharge again so that was $160 saved I guess. I was able to actually book a much cheaper hotel room while I waited so afterwards I went and ate for the only time all day and then went and checked into the hotel which is where I am now. I took a big nap earlier and I'm about get sleep since I have another meeting at the other location by the University of Cincinnati int he morning.

As for resuming my services here are some bullet points

-I move in tomorrow but I'm not sure if power is already connected or if I will be waiting for that.
-It will take a few days to get internet for sure though I can respond here on my phone
-I was not able to bring all arcade parts or tools so I won't be able to resume all services immediately
-I also could not bring all test equipment so it will be difficult for me to help Darksoft with testing until I bring the rest of my stuff here next month
-I will list the services I am able to do as soon as I unpack and have power. For example I did bring my soldering supplies but I'm not sure if I brought the flash chips for DImm conversions.

I will eventually be at 100% again. Somne people tend to send things to me without telling me first. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. If you send something to my old restaurant it will most likely never reach me.
 
Damn, that sounds like a bumpy start. I hope things start to get easier for you.

Is anyone in Ohio that could help Mitsu out with his car?
 
;(

relocations are always hard (been there, done that). Patience and Posivity and everything will turn out well :thumbup:
 
What an adventure! Oh well just enjoy it for what it is. Sounds like you let things roll off your back easily. Good luck!
 
Good luck in your new area and good luck with this new step in your life. Thank you for all the great service you have given me in the past.
 
Glad you were able to find another spot so quickly. Whoever told you there was an appt waiting for you at the first place seriously sucks.
 
rough start in Ohio. Too bad the guy didn't sell me the cab I was looking for. Could have been out there to help.
 
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