Porch Building--Week Three

Week three of construction on the porch 

that is being built on the back of our house.  

I thought that I was going to have to show you the same pictures as last week because most of the time this past week, we were waiting for the concrete to cure. Which, by the way, is much like watching paint dry. However, the mason's crew are back at work and making visible progress. 

We have also been doing some behind the scenes work on trying to pick out things for other parts of the project. We have decided on a patio door design and it has been ordered. And after much debate, we have decided that two ceiling fans will suit the space best. We still have to order them after we finalize our design choice.

Here are a few pictures from this week.

The holes are getting 16" bases made from cemented cinder blocks. More concrete is being poured down the openings and dirt is being tamped around the piers.

On top of the base in the ground are 8' squares that will be faced with brick. They are not finished yet.

We are hoping we can get a brick that matches a little better than this one. We'll see.

We also had the trusses delivered for the roof. The truck driver who delivered them was very skilled. He backed easily into the drop off location with only about an inch to spare on either side of the gate opening that leads to the back driveway. There he slid the trusses onto the ground from the truck bed.

Until next time...

Thankful Sunday, November 17, 2019

I am thankful for Alan Turing.

biography.com

Alan Turing was a British mathematician, who is considered to be the father of computer science. He was leader of the team that cracked the supposedly unbreakable German Enigma code during World War II.  His concepts and prototype computing machine that broke the code was the beginning of our computer-filled world today.

So for Turing's brilliance that conceived the first computing machine, I am thankful.

Note:
There are many books on Alan Turing and the Bletchly Park code breaking effort during World War II. A quick Google or check of Amazon will give a list of many of them. Also, there is a movie based on Turing's life called the Imitation Game. It gives a fair picture of his life with cinematic license taken, of course.

Also, I realize that any invention always has several people involved or other people in another part of the world who may have been working on the same idea.

Porch Building--Week Two

Week two of construction on the porch 

that is being built on the back of our house.  

For those of you who are not interested in construction details, which can be tedious at times, you can keep up if you know that after demolition was completed last week, the project moved onto starting the foundation.

Now a few more details.

They started digging the holes for the footers. I was very impressed with the deep holes the mason's crew dug in the rocky soil with only hand tools - a digging bar, shovel and post hole digger. As you may remember, it took me forever to dig 6" deep holes to plant some tulip bulbs.

The porch will be supported by 6 piers. Here are the locations of half of them. The holes are approximately 32" x 32". Those next to the house are 6' deep reaching down to the original footers of the house foundation while the others go down to the frost depth 36". We weren't there to see the workers complete the holes, but it must have taken some special skill to excavate that 6' deep one. 

There were various wires and pipes they encountered while digging. Some of these things they had an idea of where they might be, but others were not known. How they were able to dig and not do any damage is another amazing thing to me. But all of our drains, water, and electricity still work, so all is good. 

A few days later, the inspector came and passed the foundation holes. We have a sticker on the back of our building permit that says we passed the first inspection and work can proceed.

The mason's crew came back the next day to put the concrete into the holes.

Now we wait for the concrete to cure, so the next part can begin.

Until next time...

Thankful Sunday, November 10, 2019

I am thankful for a walk in the woods.

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day. Frost in the morning with warming to the 40's in the afternoon. The perfect day for a walk in the woods. While visiting family, the opportunity presented itself for this walk and I gladly accepted. 

So for the quiet and calm walk I took yesterday in the woods, I am thankful.

And a little later...

Note:
There's a great book by Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods that chronicles his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. The book is typical of Bryson who tells the story with humor and an occasional diversion into a lot of facts about a related subject. I have read it twice.

A couple of years ago, Robert Redford starred in a movie made based on the book which I didn't like as well as the book. The movie made a love story a main focus that was only a very small part of the book. I thought the interesting, fun part is his hiking partner and his foibles not to mention what it's like hiking for months on end.

Fotor.com update.

Fotor.com update.

Recently, I posted about the photo editor, fotor.com. Well, when I went back to use it this week, some of the features that were free before, were not available without a fotor watermark on the photo or were black when I tried to save them to another spot. All of this means that is not such a good deal (free) after all. I went ahead and signed up for a year's subscription at $3.33/ month. I guess that's not too bad of a cost, especially since it was late at night and I was trying to get a project done. 

Sorry that I steered you wrong. As I use it more, I'll update you on what I think.

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I am thank for fotor.com.

When I first started blogging, I used the free photo editor Picasa. It worked great.  Besides basic edits, it made collages and blurred things out. Then Google bought Picasa and retired it. After that, I have been on a long search for a replacement. I had PicMonkey for a while, even bought the advanced version, but it was awkward to use and, in my opinion, wasn't worth the cost. Then the other day I found a free version of fotor.com. It's the standard set up. The program offers you basics and you can pay for more advanced features if you want. I was thrilled because with the free version, I found a way to blur out personal things in a photo so I can post it.

So for the free photo editing app, fotor.com, I am thankful.

I am also thankful for my cousins, some of which I saw at my recent family reunion. However because of fotor, you won't be able to see them very well. Just as I had planned. And for that, I am thankful.