Goings on....

So, lot's going on lately. First off, I decided to do a little work on the yard to make it not collect water so much. I don't have picture to post, but this one little area outside the front door would not drain water, so I have had a little lake there for most of the winter. So I decided to bite the bullet, and pay someone to come clean it up. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, he spent about 8 hours with his little excavator digging a proper drainage ditch from the back of the house down to the ditch at the road. Now, the fun part of this is we paid someone to do this when we had the house set there. But we found out they never did. And since we were so frustrated with the construction outfit by the time we figured it out, we never went after them to fix it. So, $680 later, I have a proper ditch.

In the process of doing the ditch, he kind of cleaned up the area. But also tore up a little bit of the hill. So the retaining wall I was desperately trying to not build, was now going to have to be built. So last Saturday, I spent the entire day building a wall. I laid 67 blocks that each weigh 65 pounds. Then had to fill in behind the wall with dirt from the dirt pile on the other side of the yard. Ten wheelbarrow loads later, I was physically done. I still have some more dirt to fill in, and should do another bit of block to make it look right. But at least it's presentable now. And four days later, I am still feeling it. Here's how it looks:

I've got some grass seed down, we'll see if it takes. But this is headed in the direction I always envisioned the area looking. If I was going to be here any longer, I'd make the effort to get it looking awesome. But, that's not going to happen.

Which leads to the big news. My company got a project at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Rumors were swirling on who would be going. My superintendent found out immediately that he was headed there. He essentially told the bosses that I was going with him, as well as our safety guy. We've got a great team here, and we've all expressed our desire to stay together. In the construction management world, that doesn't happen often. But apparently we've done such a good job with schedule, budget, and overall running of the project, that the bosses want to keep us together. So last Wednesday I got the call asking if I'd go to North Carolina. I said "when do I leave!" The project won't start till September or October, they still have to design it. But my current one won't be done till August. I'm hoping it stays on schedule so I can have a little time to get over there. Plus, anything can change. My project here could end up running long, and they have to send someone else to NC. So I'm not letting myself get 100% excited about the move. Only 99%. :-)

Which leads to the house going on the market.

In this market, that is going to be an adventure. I'm going to be lucky to break even on the house. I would have never thought I'd even let this thought into my head, but if I don't sell it in the 6 months I have the contract with the realtor, I may have to think about walking on it. It's sad to me we live in a time when that is even an option, so I'd rather not think about it and hope it sells for my asking price. Anyone want to move to Belfair, WA?

So, that's the majority of what's been going on here. As for work, here's some photos of what we've got up. This is TEMF B from what will be the parking lot for the Army vehicles:

You can't really tell from this picture, but it's ugly. The colors they chose are not good together. It's their building though, so whatever. The other TEMF will look exactly like this.

This is the inside of TEMF B. This is the Vehicle Maintenance Corridor. The fun thing on this area is nothing can be below 14'-0". As you can see down the way, the second floor sits down not far from the 1st floor. 15'-2" up to be exact. And leave it to our wonderful mechanical engineer to miss this little no lower than 14'-0" requirement (there's a little sarcasm in there.....). He originally had all his duct run through this area, which would have had it all at about 10' off the floor. So, what was supposed to be design-build turned out to be build-design. And I was the designer. Who needs a proper education on how to run duct? :-)

Lastly, here's a picture inside TEMF A, which is a little behind TEMF B. This is the high bay area, with the 2nd floor framing in the distance.

Things have gone very well so far, and we're on schedule. Which is saying a lot considering how much rain we've had this winter.

Anyway, I've killed a sufficient amount of time writing this. And it's lunch time. So, till next time...