My, This Is A Deep Hole

Greetings everyone!

Another week gone, and I continue to work on extricating myself from the hole that has built up thanks to various commitments over the last couple of months: mom’s visit, Blueridge Good Neighbour Day, work, and probably other stuff that I am forgetting. The calendar is thick with things happening this past week, and a couple next week as well. I need to get back to working on the house ASAP, but stuff keeps getting in the way.

This week began with two days of work. They were fine, and we got some more stuff done, and the place is approaching being ready for students in the fall. But that doesn’t mean we’re fully ready yet. We’re still waiting for some software to get purchased, and the time to tune the laser cutting and engraving parameters, among other things. I actually have a list of tasks saved away, and if I wind up going back — an open question — I will get to work on them soon.

Why don’t I know if I am going back or not? Well, the guy I am covering for might come back on Monday. Or not. Apparently no one knows. So the mystery continues and I wait for others to decide my fate. But there are no scheduled work days at the moment.

And now, a brief digression since I am thinking about the school and its surroundings.

Coming home on Tuesday, I took a couple of photos at a construction site near the school. They are building a multi story building (three or four floors, I think) with retail below and condos/strata above. They only just started, and at the moment I see this:

Those are styrofoam cylinders, each about two feet tall and two feet in diameter, sitting on bare dirt. There are boards holding them together in groups of four or five. The groups are wrapped in plastic, and at some point concrete is poured around them. Once dry, the foam is removed:

The question is: what are these for? What needs concrete shaped like that? Note that the concrete has a small amount of rebar in it. Not a lot, though… just a couple of pieces near the bottom.

This is not a building foundation, and it doesn’t make much sense to be doing landscaping stuff before you’ve even dug out the foundation, so what is it?

If anyone has a clue, I would love to hear it. I am confused.

Back to keeping busy.

Last Sunday was Blueridge Good Neighbour Day, a big community celebration event. It consumed just about all of the day. I worked a booth for the Blueridge Community Association, and mostly tried to get people to sign up for our monthly email when I wasn’t helping kids sign up for the “guess the candies in the jar” game. (The prize was the jar of candies, so they really wanted to participate.)

I got a few more subscribers, and wandered the event a bit. It looked like people were having a good time.

Last week I also went to my annual eye exam, and an art opening that included one of my fellow students from Langara. He’s relatively recently returned from finishing his BS at NSCAD, and I think his study emphasized ceramics. It was really good to see him again. His work was fascinating, and I hope to see more from him in the future.

Oh, and our contractor is locking in a time for the painters to get going on our place. That looks to be in late July at this point, with the roofing fixes happening before that. I’ve been keeping that moving along as well.

And finally, tonight a couple of neighbours from our old place down in California are visiting briefly before going off on a rail adventure through parts of BC and Alberta. It will be great to see them again.

Next week I need to get back to working on painting our main bathroom, but I also need to take Tink to the vet for her rabies vaccine, get new tires on one of the cars, and we’re going to see friends here who just bought a new condo. I’ve already been asked questions about things like “Does grout need to be sealed?” and “Can you move a thermostat?” There may be more questions, but mostly that visit will be a chance to see the new place and celebrate the big event.

So just how much time will I get to work on that bathroom? Probably very little, but we’ll have to see.

Anyway, I need to keep moving. There are floors to vacuum (thanks, Tinkerbelle!) and laundry to do. In short, life goes on, but today I need to wind up those things before our friends arrive!

Cheers!