Kingfisher Cove

No Pictures of Dirt Today

I do know this: they are now forming up the pole pads! What are pole pads, you ask? Well, there are many of them, and they will support the poles—as in round telephone-like poles (but not that tall)—that will support the middle part of the house. It’s a major part of the overall foundation, which you probably know by now is a very unusual foundation, since it will span the gully, kind of like a bridge. A bridge with support poles.

I am hoping it won’t look like a trestle. Or a pier. I don’t think it will. It won’t require pile-driving or anything. But…there will be quite a number of those poles. And while the house won’t quite look like this now (with the rounding roof line, etc.), this gives you an idea of what I mean about the poles:

[At least I hope they won’t look like telephone poles!]

Anyway, each of the pads are concrete that have to be placed in perfect precision—which has been what John and Contractor-John have been spending a ton of hours doing with laser survey equipment and string to make certain that is the case, and that everything aligns with the garage. Perfectly. The plan is a major cement pour this Friday with the box walls and (hopefully) those pole pads.

Been teary-eyed with the violent upheaval of our lot, which I know is silly. In fact, I’ve been surprised at how I’ve felt about it! You’d think I’d be so gung-ho about the progress (and I really am, ultimately), but still.

Maybe it’s the time of year—I’m not at my emotional best during these dark and gloomy months.

Plus, work has become a challenge that has me feeling really down. Company politics, questionable ethics, poor management judgment. It’s really a crappy place right now.

A Walk on the Wild Side

I realized that the still photos of the Great Hole (where the garage/shop will be) just don’t cut it as far as showing the 3D effect of how DEEP that hole is! So I took about a 2-minute video tour that I think shows it better.

But then, you have to listen to my voice, so there’s that.

 

See where the meteor landed?

A Little Whine

And yes, I’m having me some wine, too!

I must be getting old because I’ll tell ya—a five-day work-week is just waaaaayyyyy too long. It’s Thursday night and I’m feeling like that should be plenty, thank you very much. Sigh. I’m so weary of work getting the best part of me. The remainder of my evenings, I’m just toast. Brain dead.

It must have been very doable for the men of the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s (and probably all those decades before) to come home from work to housewives who put dinner on the table and took care of the “home front.” I can’t even imagine how nice that would be.

I also have a hard time contemplating what it was like when I did this with a young child—and a number of years as a single mom. I was younger. There was definitely more energy then. (But still, as always, a lot of stress).

Since the new year, work has been a little different. I haven’t been as inundated with the constant pressure of marketing proposals as I was for months on end (at least so far), and I’ve even had a few projects that have been rather fun. For instance, our HR folks are hosting booths at various upcoming job fairs (to recruit new and younger blood) and I’ve been creating artwork panels for our tradeshow booth. I’ve really enjoyed it! I’m no graphic artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have some“know-how” in a basic sense and I’ve sure enjoyed being able to immerse myself in Adobe InDesign and take a break from that hateful, rot-gut, godawful Microsoft Word. These are 23” x 48” panels for our tradeshow booth:

I picked up the final prints (printed on a cool vinyl media with Velcro backing) tonight on my way home from work and I’m really pleased (and relieved!) with how well they turned out. This was definitely an enjoyable undertaking.

Part of my “whine” issue is that I have a new boss. My interim boss (after they let my MARKETING boss go last September) retired at the end of the year and I miss him terribly! He wasn’t a “boss” in the true sense of the word—basically he just approved my time sheet every week. But he was a vital and long-term part of the company (a very senior guy) whom I truly adored and felt very comfortable sitting down and venting with him or just shooting the breeze. Yeah, he had some old-school points of view, but we connected so well and had such mutual respect for each other. I really miss the sweet ol’ guy. I have worked with my “new” boss on many proposals in the past (he’s out of our Portland, Oregon office so he’s not someone I can pow-wow with here in Seattle regularly) and he’s a good guy, but very much the consummate “ENGINEER.”  Which…isn’t necessarily a good thing when it comes to communicating, listening (on his part!), or looking at the big picture (me) as opposed to obsessing over ridiculous details (him). He is typical with these engineers I’ve dealt with since 1980 — they DON’T listen, they DON’T read, they jump to idiotic conclusions that wouldn’t be necessary if they DID listen or read. I see a whole lot of head>>desk scenarios in my future. Already happening.

I do have an assistant these days, although she only works Thursdays and Fridays. She is super—I feel so fortunate that we found such a perfect match, and my previous (now-retired-and-beloved) old boss totally saw how perfect she was and made her a priority hire. MY goal is to groom her to take my place when I retire. (In 2-1/2 years!!!!) I’m also trying to educate my “new” boss that, uhm no, she is NOT an administrative assistant. She is a marketer and a technical editor and don’t expect her to make your travel arrangements. It’s not a position that “any damned monkey can do.”

Sigh.

~~~~~

The latest at Harstine! The (poor) excavator guy has had to haul MULTIPLE truckloads of dirt out of the dig site (to our neighbors’ undeveloped site that John cleared a sizable area for this purpose, with permission!). To be clear about this: My John is actually the “general contractor.” The guy I refer to as Contractor-John is the project manager, and he’s regularly at the site overseeing the subcontractors since MY John can’t be there to do all that overseeing (since he has a full-time job). So anyhow, Contractor-John sent a few more pictures today.

Doesn’t this one (below) look like our camping trailer is a precarious oasis?

I’m looking forward to feeling excited about the progress. So far I feel like our pristine plot of paradise has been raped.

Forward Ho! (Dig!)

John took yesterday off to head to Harstine for the day (did I mention that he has a gazillion vacation hours and if he doesn’t take them, he’ll lose them?) The plan yesterday was to be there for the first bank inspection (the bank was a no-show—incompetent wackadoodles that they are), to string off the precise locations of the pole pads (which was an exercise in frustration), and to observe the excavator subcontractor starting work on the major dig for the shop/garage. 

John sent me some pictures throughout the day that I received at work, and every time I opened one up on my big ass monitor, I would gasp! (And sometimes tear up…)

 

I think this one got to me the most. It was taken from the vicinity of the “box” structure looking across the gully toward the camping trailer:

And there’s a whole helluva lot more digging left to do! The excavator guy has run out of places to stack dirt so today he was going to bring a dump truck to load it into.

John finally had to remove the large birdfeeder to make room for this HUMUNGOUS HOLE:

Holy shit.

I LOVE This!

What a historical and inspiring day—President Obama’s Inauguration plus Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Just wow.

And speaking of “just wow….”

My oh my!!!!

(Lol, look at all those cell phones! The people of Downton Abbey’s era would be filling their petty coats and knickers at the sight of this, nearly 100 years in the future!)

First There is Chaos

In fact, there will be chaos for a long, long while.

Nothing drives it home like a before picture.

The “look” of progress is similar to the “look” of a dropped bomb:

What you’re seeing are the forms for the “box” walls (they have another couple of rows to go). The cement pour is scheduled for next week. (As usual, click to enlarge to see the full glory!)

Here is the “bomb site” a little closer. Sigh.

And here is the “box” a little closer (notice there’s a TON of rebar!):

The stakes in the dirt surrounding the box mark the foundation pads that John has excavated to prepare for forming and cement for the foundation poles. There really is a method to this madness! It’ll make sense, eventually.

Soon, the excavating subcontractor will finally begin the digging for the shop and garage, which are on this side of the gully, and it’s going to greatly expand the bombed appearance of this poor pitiful plot of paradise. It’s also going to obliterate the path/access down to the next level, so John has created a bypass route.

Standing at the base of the original path and looking up, this is how it looks (above). The shop is somewhat underground with the garage on top of it, so it’s gonna require a whole lotta diggin’. With a BIG machine. (Plus some big stumps to pull out of there).

Here’s a quick little ditty of John taking the excavator down the the newly minted path:

Taking the new bypass

~~~~~

Finally finished Season 2 of Downton Abbey! Seems like there was a conspiracy to prevent that at first—the 3rd DVD of the set (with the final two episodes) is apparently corrupted and would NOT play on my computer. I was beyond frustrated! I was desperate to know what happens in those last episodes! Well, Amazon saved the day. Since I have a Prime account, I was able to watch the episodes on their On Demand streaming feature FOR FREE!!! And now I’m dying to start watching Season 3, which I certainly hope has been properly recording on the DVR at home…

I also finished my book, and boy do I recommend it! It was very good. (I’m reading another time travel book that is also very good, called “Replay.” About 3/4 through it and it’s riveting! I wouldn’t say that I seek out that theme per se, but I do find it fascinating.)

~~~~~

I’ll leave you with a photo I took last weekend. Do you see the sliver moon? (I’ll bet you can if you embiggen!) 

At Least I Get a Break from Cooking

John is spending the latter part of this week at Harstine all by his lonesome, tending to some urgent excavating. Moving logs, unearthing stumps (huge pain in the patooty), and digging more pole pads. Also? Dealing with perma-frost! Well, maybe not “perma.” But it’s been damned cold and I know he’s glad he has fleeced-lined work pants and a stocking cap.

Meanwhile, I go to work and come home to very confused (and bereft!) weenie dogs who keep galloping (skidding) on clicking nails across the hardwood floor to park at the top of the steps, awaiting DAD’s IMMINENT RETURN.

Last night I caught up on the latest episode of “Parenthood" on Hulu, watched Episode 6/Season 2 of “Downton Abbey” (Season 3 is set to record on the DVR), and continued to read the book I’m currently absorbed in—it’s about all I can think about and it sucks to have WORK interrupt my reading pleasure! (heh heh) It’s Stephen King’s “11/22/63,” and it is soooooooo goooooooood.

I’m hoping John takes some pictures of his progress on his cell phone and emails them to me so I can post them on here.

Progress

John and Contractor-John’s weekend excavating work continues. Pretty much a non-sexy slog of digging the 20+ spots for the concrete pads that will support the poles (that will support the bulk of the house). This is a cost-saving effort, since John’s ability to rent the excavator from our neighbor’s equipment rental business (at a greatly reduced rate) means that we don’t have to pay premium cost for an excavator subcontractor to do the work (as well as a surveyor to ensure that the “pads” are in the proper place—John’s doing that, too, with his nifty laser surveying equipment). Drilling down to the precision survey today made them realize that there were still two trees that needed to come down (one pretty good sized, the other much smaller).

And so this happened:

Tim….berrrrr!

I don’t know about you, but falling trees always make my heart skip a beat. There is something quite dramatic about it all!

Full-on effort to continue with this foundation build, which is a highly “different” structure than most, since it will span the gully, like a bridge. Once that structure is in place, the rest of the house should be pretty much typical as any other house. Aside from the garage, which will be at a higher elevation, the house itself is basically a standard, longish, one-story house!

I’ll personally be awfully relieved once we’re past this foundation stage. There’s a lot to it. And already “unknowns” have cropped up, having to be dealt with.

And now, more logs:

In other news, it was fun to see such a VARIETY of birds enjoy the seed I put out this weekend! Even hummingbirds in this cold weather. Also, Chipper the Squirrel. Thankfully Mojo has kept his distance.

I Has a Sad

Oh, damn, oh, ouch! My heart HURTS!

Down by 20-0 at the half (Seahawks playing like total crap with turnovers galore), and then to go ahead 28-27 in the 4th quarter with only 2 minutes left in the game? And THAT happened when I muttered to myself, “We need some mojo.” At that very instant, Mojo-the-cat wandered past the open trailer door and turned to peer at me with his golden eyes. We then scored that touchdown that gave us the lead!!!

And within those 2 minutes that followed, the Falcons scored a field goal.

We lost 30-28.

Heartsick.

What a game.

If Russell Wilson, our rookie quarterback, doesn’t win Rookie of the Year, then life is totally unfair. He is amazing. (BUT, he can’t do it all).

Obviously.

(Nor can Mojo).

Brrrrrr, Harstine!

We arrived late last night (Friday) in pitch dark and sub-freezing temperatures, and this morning (daylight, but continuing sub-freezing temperatures), John and Contractor-John started excavating (perma-frost?) for the pole pads. From here in the camping trailer, I don’t think it’s going particularly hunky-dory. It’s just now noon and so far the excavator busted a hydraulic line and threw a track (for the gazillionth time).

It’s clouded up some now, but earlier it sure was gorgeous out there!

But…..brrrrrr!!!

Later

Wow. Just wow.