Muchacho Polaco

We woke early this morning to get things done around the house. As it turned out, we didn’t need to go to Hermosillo this weekend, but will resume our weekly trips next weekend. We planned to have repairs done on the vehicles today. Fortunately we have great mechanic who comes to our house whenever we need.

Today I had him:

1. change the fuel tank sending unit on the SUV (he had to remove the tank to get to it)
2. oil change
3. change the upper and lower seals on all of the fuel injectors (6)
4. change the wheel bearing on the front passenger side of the Passat.
5. change the spark plugs on the Passat

To add to the benefit of him coming to the house to do this work, he also doesn’t charge much. He spent the entire day here and charged less than what most mechanics charge for two hours.

We just found out we have to go pick up the Mazda in Mexico today as Yun’s parents are going out of town. So much for avoiding the border crossing this weekend.

We have been really busy over the course of the last month. It was about a month ago that we finalized a deal to purchase a pharmacy in Mexico. Yun’s brothers run multiple pharmacies in Sonora which do really well, so we thought it would be great to try this endeavor ourselves. The location we purchased is pretty small and is in a bus depot. Despite the size, we benefit from constant flow of traffic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We have been traveling down to Hermosillo (the capital of Sonora) every weekend and intend to continue doing this for the rest of this month. In October, we’ll each take a week off to be there for the opening week – we hope to open by October 1st.

The weekends have been productive. Last weekend in particular. After securing the location and negotiating an agreement for the existing inventory, the next big step for us was to obtain the State and Federal permits and various other requirements. As it turns out, starting a business is more difficult in Mexico than it is in the US.

Last weekend we obtained our federal tax identification, which in itself allows us to conduct business. The process seemed fairly intimidating. It included plenty of forms, interviews, finger printing, and retinal scans.

After the madness of getting the permit to have a business, we then had to meet with the health department to secure our permit to sell medication. Things were a bit anticlimactic at this point because we ran into some problems. However, over the course of the next week those have all been worked out. We are beginning to appreciate the importance of having connections in Mexico. What we could not accomplish ourselves, someone was able to accomplish for us in a matter of minutes.

These are exciting, but extremely busy times for us. When not working on the pharmacy, we still have some final steps to complete on the house. The vehicle we bought a couple weeks ago has now been finished and looks and runs great. This will help immensely with what we spend on gas. Both of our other vehicles are 6 cylinders and average about 19mpg between the two of them. The new vehicle allegedly gets 30+.

Another great accomplishment in the last week was to secure our manager. She is someone we’ve known for years and is willing to relocate to Hermosillo. She is trustworthy and has a degree in business with experience with this sort of thing, so we’re really happy we were able to get her. With her help, we’ll be able to hire the rest of the staff and get all of the final details resolved. There is a lot left to do. But if all goes well with this one, we have two more locations we might be able to secure within the next 12 months.

Yun and I are in Hermosillo at Gab’s house. After a morning of inspirational conversation, we are going to look at some homes.