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Week of 15 January 2001 Latest
Update: Monday, 28 April 2003 07:02 |
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Monday, 15 January 2001 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| I found the link to this quiz
on Dan's page and took
it myself. If you did not know how old I am you will if you take the test.
I will now tell you I only missed 2.
I think Bob is so tired of this drain thing he would not even put up the pictures and do a story. I told him I would. Here we are start to finish. The little green blob in the first picture is the top of the pipe stack where all the problems are and what we are having the city move. Jerry is standing in the hole where we had them install the clean out pipe and vent in case we need to unclog again before the new pipe is installed. The is Jerry's son Jay looking into the hole. Jerry is about Bob's height and you can just see his head above the driveway.
Everything is finished for now. The city will have to dig up most that area again to hook up the new connection to the pipe where Jerry is working. They city will seed and straw the area when they are finished but I will add some higher grade grass seed and use some 10-10-10 fertilizer to help to get is started growing again before spring and hot weather. That's me dressed in the blue ski cap and jacket supervising the movement of the dirt. Today I had a very nice long visit with my parents yesterday. By the time I got back home it was too late to get the house cleaning under way. I am off to the gym and pet supply store this morning and then home to get the house work done. It is a rather dreary, gray day but not cold. The floors need mopped but with the wet weather and the muddied area of the yard there is just no use right now.
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Tuesday, 16 January 2001 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| A freak accident last night while Tom
Syroid was playing with his little boy Landon has resulted in Landon
having a broken femur in his leg. Landon is only two years old and will be
in the hospital for ten days and then in a full body cast. They just can't
seem to win for loosing after just getting the ship righted again with Tom
getting a new job. Tom and Leah
we are all thinking about you and your family. I wish we lived closer so
that we could pitch in and help.
Yesterday After the gym and pet supply store run, I came home and cleaned house. After lunch I worked on the book and caught up on reading web sites. We had pork loin and macaroni and cheese for dinner and then watched this wonderful two hour movie we had taped on Mystery. It ran in two one hour episodes for two weeks. Murder Rooms stars Ian Richardson, another of my favorite British actors, as Dr Bell, the supposed real life inspiration behind Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes character. If you get a chance to see this one don't miss it. According to the IMDB this is a series so I hope we will get to see more. After that we watched the first episode of Sunday's nights Masterpiece Theater Bramwell, Series VI We have watched this series from the beginning and hate to see it end. These five episodes are supposedly the last of the series but we thought Series V was announced as being the last, so who knows. This is a wonderful show depicting medical science and practices in Victorian England and I really like Jemma Redgrave and David Calder who play the father and daughter doctors respectively. It has been running for about six years now. I am sure it is available on VHS. Today I am going to the gym again this morning to just do a brief cardio workout and then run out to Wal-Mart to pick up some things. I guess work on the book this afternoon and the usual household things that need doing. [Top] |
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Wednesday, 17 January 2001 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| I have a review of The Forest: A Novel by Edward
Rutherfurd on my favorites page. The
more I get into this book the more I continue to enjoy it. He did a much better
job on this one than he did on London. It reads more like Russka in
being able to follow the plot and characters.
Yesterday After the morning errands and gym stop I did not get home until close to lunch time. After lunch I reorganized the silverware and utensil drawers with some of the new Rubbermaid organizers I bought at Wal-Mart. Computer work, etc in the afternoon. In corresponding with Marcia yesterday trying to organize things for the Syroids, we realized after knowing each other for over a year we have never spoken on the phone so she called me last night and we had a brief phone conversation. That was a lot of fun. Today Well, I was just getting ready to do my page and post that I was off to the gym and store when the city showed up to put in the new sewer connection. I guess I will hang around here instead. I don't know how long it will take for them to do the work but I may be able to go out later this morning. More pictures tomorrow and hopefully the last of this drain mess. Another day of running in and out of the house and the dogs barking and whining madly. Quote for the day: My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn. Louis Adamic. [Top] |
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Thursday, 18 January 2001 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Yesterday : This is what I did most of
yesterday. Watch them install our new sewer connection and take pictures.
You need to understand that ever since I was a youngster I have always
been fascinated by watching things being built, put together, etc.
The city showed up at 8:30 yesterday morning to get started. These pictures show the guys using the big diamond blade saw to cut the street up so they could dig back from our yard to the main sewer line. The have to keep water on the blade to keep it from over heating.
Once the pavement is cut the backhoe guy digs up the street. He then started digging from the connection we put in last Friday, the white pipe back to the main line. He is parked in the neighbor's yard across the street. Once he had all the dirt out of the hole he had the entire street blocked. We were the only ones completely blocked in because of the machinery. Everyone else could come and go from their driveways out one direction or the other. I asked the city guy if all the main drains were this deep and he said, this one just happened to be pretty far down.
To protect the guys working in the hole, they lower this big steel cage for them to work in. This prevents anyone from being injured or buried should the walls decide to collapse. Once in place one of the guys then tapped the main drain and made the connection. (last picture on right). He then poured a small back of quick cement around the connection and some dirt and water to set the pipe firm.
Up to this point it was around 2:30 in the afternoon. In the first picture the elbow pipe is the one that will connect our main drain to their new connection. The little stub is where they cut our connection to the old pipe to the street. Our pipe comes out of the house at an angle. In order for the pipe to make the turn and connect straight into the new connection they had to make this elbow pipe. They ran into a few problems and it took them about an hour to get this piece fitted. The black pipe running out from the white one is the last connection back to where they started when they tapped into the main drain. Now it is all connected. The last picture shows the same type connection up to the yard as our white pipe but they use black cast iron. The city worker is holding the pipe in place while the backhoe fills in the dirt to hold it up. It took until well after 4:00 just to get the pipes laid, the connections made, and the final stand pipe in. They would normally get off work at 4:00 but now had another two hours of work to fill in the hole, tamp down the dirt and make the temporary repairs to the street and yard before they could leave for the day.
They finished around 6:30. Several of the guys had second jobs to go to and borrowed our cordless phone to call supervisors and wives to let them know they were still on the job. Yes, they get overtime pay for the hours. but that was a long, hard job. They will come back and reseed and straw the yard. Then the city comes along and paves in the patch they dug up. We should now be trouble free to run laundry, take showers, and do dishes. Today I am off to the gym and the grocery store. Before I leave I am going to put in a load of clothes to try out the new drains. It is a real wet and dreary day out. It is supposed to rain or drizzle all day which is hard on the dogs. No outside play time today. [Top] |
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Friday, 19 January 2001 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| I found this the other night when looking for some
information on Judi
Dench. I was sadden to see that her husband and actor Michael Williams
died
last Friday. She is another of my favorite British comedy actresses and
has played some major serious roles in several movies. She and her husband
Michael played as a married couple in the British comedy It's A Fine
Romance back in the early '80's. It is now being rerun on our local
PBS station on Saturday nights and Lenore is enjoying watching it.
Yesterday It rained all day, which we needed very much. However, with part of the yard and street covered in mud it turns my house into a pig sty. With less grass and more dirt because of winter, Duncan comes in looking like a farm dog. Their fur under their bellies gets all wet from the grass and their pretty white paws are red. We try to dry them off as best we can when we come in but you just can't get it all. And, they just don't understand why I don't mind them being up on the couch most of the time and then yell at them to get off at others. So, I have dirty floors and sofa cushions which both can be washed when this round of mud season has passed. We went to the library and dinner last night and then home to sit and read until bed time. I am really enjoying my Forest novel. Today I am off to Lowe's hardware to pick up some gardening supplies and gutter nails. We have another section of the gutter that is loose from the house. Bob will have to climb up and nail it back to the house before it brings down the rest of the guttering. As far as this afternoon goes, I am not sure what I will get into. I am changing the linens today and wash a load of new towels that I bought. The drains appear to be working fine. The washing machine is leaking from the bottom, which is has been doing for almost a year now. When the backflow problems started right before Christmas we could not tell if we were having leaking washer problems or drains. Turns out we had both but with the drains fixed Bob raised the washer yesterday high enough for me to have a look under and it is leaking. I am not sure if we will attempt to locate and repair the problem or just get a new one to match the new dryer. This is sort of a cool quote: I see this, in part, by my association with the Netwidows in modern day times via high speed Internet access. True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. - Joseph Addison, 1712. [Top] |
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Saturday, 20 January 2001 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| This was posted yesterday on Bob
Walder's page. Angus and Benson used to suffer equally at the paws
(and teeth) of Sally the Border Collie (a treacherous breed) from next
door. I BEG YOUR PARDON!! And while we are on the subject of male
and female dogs Bob. I don't think there is a whole lot of difference between
a male dog and a male human when he is around a bitch in heat.
Yesterday It rained all day but never did get cold enough for it to be snow. I returned from Lowe's and took advantage of the ground being wet to do some reseeding in the bad looking places in the lawn and use the sod that we dug up last week on a place in the back. The city will not come out and redo the other part until it is dries up a bit. Right now it is one huge mud pit. The dogs are getting tired of being cooped up in the house. I tried to play indoors with them some yesterday but it just not the same as getting to run wide open outside. Bob's brother came over late in the afternoon. With the nasty weather I made homemade pizzas instead of going for takeout. Today Up early this morning despite it being pitch dark because it is still raining. I am off to the gym for my 8:30 spin class. I have a Friends of the Library meeting at 2:00 this afternoon. It is supposed to turn real cold and windy this afternoon and tonight.
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Sunday, 21 January 2001 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Yesterday Lots of rain. No snow. We had a nice Friends of the Library Meeting. This was their annual meeting so in addition to installing the new board members, they had a guest speaker Cameron Kent. I got home a little after 3:30. We had leftovers for dinner and spent the evening reading until bedtime. Today This is house cleaning morning. I am going to get as much done as I can by mid-morning and then I have to stop. I am going over to pick up my parents at 11:30 to ride over to Greensboro for the Holiday Tours open house. This is the bus company that we go on our trips with. Afterward we are having dinner out somewhere leaving Bob and Lenore to fend for themselves with frozen dinners. Sorry for the short post but I have a lot to do this morning. [Top] |
