10/12/10

This morning I await the start of construction on the new driveway. I'm not sure when they crew will be here, but I continued with my normal morning routine anyway. Got up a little late, took the dogs out, fed them, checked the meter and sat down with some coffee to write the blog. Today the dogs and I went for a 1.5 mile loop, I was sure to bring gloves as the morning temp was 42F. We actually took a slightly different route than normal because I want to by-pass the construction on Lincoln St. We got back to the house at 7:30am, I ate some cereal for breakfast and as I was getting ready for work, the crew arrived to work on the driveway. I stayed a bit, mostly because the excavator blocked my in the driveway.

I walked through the layout and my expectations with the foreman, then I was on my way. I planned on taking the afternoon off after I heard they were going to get everything done today. When I got to work I continued to work on my projects, checking off tasks one-by-one. Nothing too exciting going on, Aaron and I did give Dennis a hard time about not being able to go out for drinks wednesday night, but all in good fun.

At lunch I headed back to the house expecting a near complete site in preparation for asphalt this afternoon... not really the case. I was surprised with how little was done. So I went in the backyard and played with the dogs for 20 minutes while eating a ham and cheese sandwich, then came in and washed the dishes. I got back to work at 1pm thinking there is no way they were going to get done today. At work I continued to make progress on a few projects. I was at a pretty good stopping point at 4:30, so I let my boss know I was leaving a bit early to check out progress at home.

When I arrived home, there was a flurry of activity. There were more trucks and people working than the morning, plus the paver was already on-site. They had Paul's entire driveway base placed and were compacting it. They had my driveway bas rough graded. But the small excavator they had was still working on removing some of the concrete curbing. Originally Paul wanted to take that out himself, but I warned him that the curb was close to 3' deep with a mushroomed footing. It took all day for the excavator to take it out, I can't imagine how long it would have taken with a 8lb sledge hammer. I spent a few minutes talking with the crew and then with Paul. Apparently they left the site about an hour after I went to work because they had no trucks, that is why so little got done before lunch. So, finish grading and compacting tomorrow morning, then paving around 10am!

At 5pm I fed the dogs then we played in the yard a bit more. At 5:45pm, I went out for a 3mile run. When I got back I played with the dogs again in the backyard while making phone calls. I took a shower, then talked with Cheryl on google video chat for 20 minutes or so. Cheryl is going from lab to lab, office to office as they fill up. Not sure how much longer we will be able to video chat. After talking to Cheryl, I took the pups out for another 1.5 mile walk, this time I went past the construction on Lincoln St. just to see how it is progressing. When we got back, I made some pasta with cut up chicken sausage in sauce. It was pretty good, but that grated cheese I have is crap. The processed cheese tastes very chemically.

I sat down on the couch with the dogs to watch NCIS, had a bowl of chocolate pudding, then watched NCIS - LA. Went to bed at 10pm.