A lot has happened since then.

Johnson Equipment sent the crew to install the dock leveler. We’re pretty excited about that because it’s the final touch that will allow us to stop unloading trucks like a bunch of slaves dragging blocks up the side of a pyramid.

Kendra's boy Clark works for the boys from Johnson Equipment

The Fast Boys from Morrell Construction finished the siding, roof, and interior walls. Doc & crew poured another ocean of concrete on the west side of the building… and we missed taking photos of all of it. We just started backing up trucks and moving things in.

By this evening, Stephen the Electrician was finishing up the ‘lectric.

Lights! Camera! Action!

Now we’re ready to make a hell of a mess in the store.

Memo’s Painting started today by scraping up petrified carpet glue in the former stock room/future new part of the store.

Frank & Memo swab the deck

Tomorrow, the wall comes down and the new shelves start moving in.

W00t.

The crew from Judy’s insulation hung the soffit outside.

The height of fashion for well dressed eaves

Inside, the Fast Boys from Morrell Construction started hanging the million dollar OSB ceiling….

Big Game: Waylon & Michael. Treed.

… while the boys from P&P Plumbing ran gas lines, just in case we ever decide we want heat in the warehouse.

Rich & John do their amazing bobcat impersonation. Crowd goes wild.

It’s not that we don’t enjoy getting Clark the Focklift stuck in the mud every focking time we need to drag in a pallet. We love that. Kendra, Forkerfocker in Chief, has taught us some interesting new words and there’s nothing we like better than widening our vocabulary.

But, sometimes, you just have to give up a little fun in the name of efficiency. Today, Doc and the Dons started work on a part of the project that will help us do just that.

Don the Don hauls gravel while Donny the Don and Leroy rake.

The Fast Boys from Morrell Construction hung siding until the siding ran out. Nobody was surprised to learn that the Fast Boys actually out-ran the production of the siding manufacturer. Now we wait for the factory to catch back up.

Close quarters with Michael & Waylon

The boys from Common Sense Cellular spent all day dragging ladders around and doing the military press with bundles of cable.

Hey, Ceiling Cat? Can you get a paw on this?

We are getting a signal--clear evidence that there is intelligent life Out There.

Tomorrow, the Grand Poobah of Johnson Equipment in Little Rock will be coming to inspect the site, rub his chin whiskers and give his blessing for Friday’s installation of the dock leveler.

W00t.

We’ve discovered that it’s hard to catch the Morrells for a photo-op. Tracking their work must be a lot like being a physicist over in Geneva, Switzerland–trying to take pictures of quarks at the Large Hadron Collider.

Like quarks, the Morrells move too fast to be photographed in action. The best we can do, mostly, is to photograph their trails.

We did catch a few moments along the way:

Cladding the Roof

Putting up the siding on the fake ground created by Donny, the Don so that the Morrells wouldn't need 75' scaffolds.

Yep. That’s about it. All we could catch in action.

The roof is done. The siding is mostly done. Now, we suppose, the Morrells will spend the couple of days it will take the electricians and plumbers and Dan, Dan the HVAC man to rough in… doing what? What can the Morrells do in two days? At the rate they’re moving, they could probably remodel the Great Pyramid and still have time left over to paint new pictures on the walls.

Stephen the Zenmeister Electrician is clipping along too.

Jessie & Stephen conduct a summit meeting regarding the dock leveler diagrams

What Stephen likes to call “The ‘Lectric” will be roughed in early next week. The dock leveler will be installed next week. Dan, Dan the HVAC man came by with a proposal to heat and cool the warehouse because, he figures, it will be store space before long. He is right. He knows how we get.

Doc and Crew finished their part on the west side… which was a project that involved oozing the game of Focker Chess onto Bobby’s property next door.

It was a wall. The last wall on the west side of the building. But, problem was, the lane to the loading dock wasn’t yet seasoned enough to take the weight of a concrete truck.

Well… we all know who the mother of invention is, right? Necessity.

Wheelbarrow v 2.2... with our eternal gratitude to you, Bobby Dale, for being such a patient neighbor

Don, the Don, fills the dock wall with a bucket and a teaspoon while Leroy prepares to finish and Stephen pauses in his 'lectric ruminations long enough to look on

It’s getting to the point now where we can almost taste the fried chicken at the barn-raising party.

Jan is already working over Waylon the Fast Boy’s grandmother to bake the pies.

Stay tuned…

Pam the Manager demonstrated her proficiency in Focker Management Principles by showing up for work dressed as a firecracker. (We think that’s what she was dressed up like. We’re not sure but it didn’t seem polite to ask.)

Right to Left: Clear Example of Evolution

Pam made monkey noises in the parking lot for a while… while the BFM and the BFBM remained stubbornly silent.

Perhaps it was a response to the stress of trying, and failing, to converse with her fellow primates. Perhaps Pam was simply a bit overwrought
by having to trip over all the 4th of July sale TV’s that Jan and Q dropped at the front door last night.

All we know is, one minute, Pam was saying “Ooh ooh… eeeee…eeee… eeee!” to the monkeys. The next minute, she was waving a gun in the parking lot.

Armed & Dangerous: Ma Barkerfocker, Her Monarch 1131, and the '71 Made-in-the-USA Getaway Car

Fortunately, this sort of thing doesn’t alarm the average Fockershopper.

In the Spirit: A Patriotic Bon Vivant

Mysterious Focker Monument: Evidence of an advanced civilization.

Doc was finishing up the almost done/nearly last part of the concrete on loading dock lane.

Doc... at the point where we all realize that the concrete guys have poured 50 million yards of concrete and we have yet to sign our names in any of it

Out back, the Fast Boys from Morrell Construction had nearly half of the roof trusses done.

Mountain goats set the trusses; pit crew moves the scaffolds.

Setting the roof trusses was a swift, efficient, fear-producing, nail-biting operation.

The crane operator set up outside the building. With all the construction materials, dumpsters, recycling containers and gawking Fockers on the ground, plus all the power lines overhead, the crane operator only had about six inches of working room.

Zero margin for error

Inside the building, some Morrells guided the trusses with various contraptions involving 2×4’s and rope while (amazingly) managing to avoid knocking the other Morrells off the two-story roof into the 20 foot ravine below.

Whew!

And the Fast Boys at Morrell Construction set the last roof truss at high noon.

Don't blink or you'll miss the Fast Boys. Whoosh!

Barbarously, ruthlessly, relentlessly… “Dude, I think your camel just passed out…” hot.

Not that the small matter of being sentenced to hard labor in the blazing inferno has slowed the regularly scheduled game of Focker Chess.

While all the Fockers have been unloading trucks, loading trucks, and moving merchandise around and around, the Morrells have been sizzling away, putting up the sixteen-foot walls out back.

Sean demonstrates a building site so hot you could fry a Morrell on it

Doc and crew have been poaching like a bunch of six-minute eggs out on loading dock lane.

Need a little ham to go with those 6-minute eggs?

By the end of the week, the Fast Boys at Morrell Construction had all the warehouse walls framed up and the building is ready for the next step: The part where the gigantic crane comes on Monday to set the roof trusses.

Still life with roof trusses. Ready for all Hell to break loose.