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Four Days, Different Sorts of Work
Sep. 15th, 2020 09:05 pmSaturday: The Rain Shield. Many months ago, my dad and I built a wall next to their* duplex in Hanapepe. (* Technically, their and my sister's duplex, but that's a lot harder to write.) The problem was that water pooled up next to the duplex, then dropped down through the wall into the carport/basement. The theory was that water was flowing down from the hill above the duplex, and this would keep most of it away.
No dice.
The new assumption was that enough rain was still blowing in to pool up next to the wall, then drop down ... yadayadayada. So on Saturday we returned to the duplex for a new construction: a rain shield. This was like a deck, but arranged at a 10 degree angle. We put a strip of wood along the duplex wall, then ran ribs from that down to our mortared wall from last time, then covered it with plywood.
The work took six hours or so, but despite that it was relatively easy work. Just lots of assembling of pieces. My dad and I did some of the work together, but also some apart, such as when we placed the ribs coming in from opposite sides. It's been great working on projects like this with my dad, both enjoying his experience, and getting some agency (and learning of my own).
And mind you, I say it was relatively easy, but that's because my dad had done all the design beforehand. He'd also cut all the ribs (including the 10-degree angle) and even placed the hinge-things on them that we used to screw them to the wall. So, it shows that planning and prep make a job go relatively smoothly.
He still has to put a few planks of wood down to cover the joins of the plywood, recaulk everything, prime it, and paint it duplex-green, but the current plan is that he'll do that on his own: he asks me for help on things that might be tough, primarily because they involving lots of kneeling, and when two people might actually be of use.
Throughout all of this, I had not a twinge of pain from my knee. I'm still pretty sure that I could have hurt it by kneeling and twisting, but just getting up and down didn't hurt. So, progress.
I was barely able to keep my eyes open by 9pm or so, and I slept great.
Sunday: The Evil Hill. This is a once a month or so chore at this point, but on Sunday I used my string trimmer to beat down all the (mostly)_ buffalo grass on our evil hillside behind our house. (Evil because it's steep enough that it's really tiring to work on, especially in the middle.) I also continued my recent Saturday ritual of hand-pulling buffalo grass. I've now learned that it'll invade my ornamental flowers and bushes and eat them alive, and string trimming doesn't help, so I've slowly been clearing the flower beds and fence lines by hand. On Sunday I cleared up 80% of the buffalo grass from outside of Kimberly office. 100 more plants.
The work felt harder than usual, probably because of Saturday's work. But whenever I needed a break from the string trimming, I just went and sat down and pulled grass by hand.
And then just to make sure that I got my physical exercise in, my dad, Mary, and I swam in the afternoon.
I was barely able to keep my eyes open by 9pm or so, and I slept great.
Monday: The Mahaulepu Hike. Since I spent my usual nature day working (albeit, sort of out in nature), I decided to sacrifice part of my work day on Monday to hike.
Actually, I had a brief video call in the morning, but that's an advantage of living it Hawaii: I finished it by 9am.
Then I got myself together and went out to Poipu, where I hiked to Mahaulepu. Beautiful waves, beautiful views, a torrential downpour for ten minutes, so a pretty typical walk.
Because I'd gotten going pretty early, I was able to put half-a-day's work in out at Mahaulepu, which was my goal. It was just work on the TSR Codex, which is the sort of thing I can do with no net connection (and I never have cell coverage out there).
My greatest fear was that KIUC (our electrical utility) would call me some time on Monday, either when I was heading to Mahaulepu or out there. I mean it's been more than three weeks since our solar panels got programmed for usage, and we've been waiting for the KIUC inspection the whole time, so there was no reason to suspect this day was more likely than the 20+ that had preceded it, but I thought about it enough that I told Kimberly and my dad about the concern.
So coming back up from Mahaulepu, my phone beeped as it came back into coverage, and it was a message from my dad saying that our KIUC inspection was successful. Apparently they'd called an hour or two previous (while I was sitting, writing, without cell coverage), and they'd gotten Kimberly, and she'd called my dad, and they'd watched the total superfluous inspection, the highlight of which seemed to be the inspector ASKING Kimberly how many panels there were, and then counting them as best he could when she didn't know for sure. And I say superfluous, because the whole goal was to be sure that we did what we told KIUC we were going to do, and just asking for a panel count doesn't sound like it does that.
So our solar panels are ready to go, and the only thing still required is someone from our solar energy company to come out and flip the switch and show me how things work.
The rest of the hike back from Mahaulepu was as always the harder part because the sun's always higher by that point, but as usual when it's particularly hot, I took the route back in the woods.
And when I got home, we headed straight out to Costco. It was another busy day!
I was barely able to keep my eyes open by 9pm or so, and I slept great.
Tuesday: The BCC Work. So today it was back to Blockchain Commons work. I thought I was going to get back to my Swift programming, but there were a flurry of other priorities, still I got Swift running on my Mac and a demo program that I hadn't been able to make work under Ubuntu Swift working fine there.
And things were so busy that I never contacted my solar-power company to ask when they were coming to turn on the power. (But having it done after my days of busy BCC work is just fine by me.)
My dad came over after work, and we put up the second new ceiling fan, in the dining room. It has a two-foot drop rod, which the old one didn't, and it really seems to cool the dining room (and even the living room) in a way the old one didn't. Which is great, because I'd felt that installation was sort of superfluous. (We'd previously replaced the death fan in the living room, and this was just to make them match, since the living and dining room are all one large, beautiful space.)
My dad also mucked with the replacement-death-fan in the living room, since it vibrates some at high speed. It seemed OK for a while, but as I edit this, it's again making funny sounds. But not full-on death sounds. (Meanwhile the new fan seems to have no such problem.)
I thought about walking before dinner, but decided maybe I could relax a bit tonight.
And perhaps not be ready to fall down at 9pm. (Hey, it's after 9! Success!)
No dice.
The new assumption was that enough rain was still blowing in to pool up next to the wall, then drop down ... yadayadayada. So on Saturday we returned to the duplex for a new construction: a rain shield. This was like a deck, but arranged at a 10 degree angle. We put a strip of wood along the duplex wall, then ran ribs from that down to our mortared wall from last time, then covered it with plywood.
The work took six hours or so, but despite that it was relatively easy work. Just lots of assembling of pieces. My dad and I did some of the work together, but also some apart, such as when we placed the ribs coming in from opposite sides. It's been great working on projects like this with my dad, both enjoying his experience, and getting some agency (and learning of my own).
And mind you, I say it was relatively easy, but that's because my dad had done all the design beforehand. He'd also cut all the ribs (including the 10-degree angle) and even placed the hinge-things on them that we used to screw them to the wall. So, it shows that planning and prep make a job go relatively smoothly.
He still has to put a few planks of wood down to cover the joins of the plywood, recaulk everything, prime it, and paint it duplex-green, but the current plan is that he'll do that on his own: he asks me for help on things that might be tough, primarily because they involving lots of kneeling, and when two people might actually be of use.
Throughout all of this, I had not a twinge of pain from my knee. I'm still pretty sure that I could have hurt it by kneeling and twisting, but just getting up and down didn't hurt. So, progress.
I was barely able to keep my eyes open by 9pm or so, and I slept great.
Sunday: The Evil Hill. This is a once a month or so chore at this point, but on Sunday I used my string trimmer to beat down all the (mostly)_ buffalo grass on our evil hillside behind our house. (Evil because it's steep enough that it's really tiring to work on, especially in the middle.) I also continued my recent Saturday ritual of hand-pulling buffalo grass. I've now learned that it'll invade my ornamental flowers and bushes and eat them alive, and string trimming doesn't help, so I've slowly been clearing the flower beds and fence lines by hand. On Sunday I cleared up 80% of the buffalo grass from outside of Kimberly office. 100 more plants.
The work felt harder than usual, probably because of Saturday's work. But whenever I needed a break from the string trimming, I just went and sat down and pulled grass by hand.
And then just to make sure that I got my physical exercise in, my dad, Mary, and I swam in the afternoon.
I was barely able to keep my eyes open by 9pm or so, and I slept great.
Monday: The Mahaulepu Hike. Since I spent my usual nature day working (albeit, sort of out in nature), I decided to sacrifice part of my work day on Monday to hike.
Actually, I had a brief video call in the morning, but that's an advantage of living it Hawaii: I finished it by 9am.
Then I got myself together and went out to Poipu, where I hiked to Mahaulepu. Beautiful waves, beautiful views, a torrential downpour for ten minutes, so a pretty typical walk.
Because I'd gotten going pretty early, I was able to put half-a-day's work in out at Mahaulepu, which was my goal. It was just work on the TSR Codex, which is the sort of thing I can do with no net connection (and I never have cell coverage out there).
My greatest fear was that KIUC (our electrical utility) would call me some time on Monday, either when I was heading to Mahaulepu or out there. I mean it's been more than three weeks since our solar panels got programmed for usage, and we've been waiting for the KIUC inspection the whole time, so there was no reason to suspect this day was more likely than the 20+ that had preceded it, but I thought about it enough that I told Kimberly and my dad about the concern.
So coming back up from Mahaulepu, my phone beeped as it came back into coverage, and it was a message from my dad saying that our KIUC inspection was successful. Apparently they'd called an hour or two previous (while I was sitting, writing, without cell coverage), and they'd gotten Kimberly, and she'd called my dad, and they'd watched the total superfluous inspection, the highlight of which seemed to be the inspector ASKING Kimberly how many panels there were, and then counting them as best he could when she didn't know for sure. And I say superfluous, because the whole goal was to be sure that we did what we told KIUC we were going to do, and just asking for a panel count doesn't sound like it does that.
So our solar panels are ready to go, and the only thing still required is someone from our solar energy company to come out and flip the switch and show me how things work.
The rest of the hike back from Mahaulepu was as always the harder part because the sun's always higher by that point, but as usual when it's particularly hot, I took the route back in the woods.
And when I got home, we headed straight out to Costco. It was another busy day!
I was barely able to keep my eyes open by 9pm or so, and I slept great.
Tuesday: The BCC Work. So today it was back to Blockchain Commons work. I thought I was going to get back to my Swift programming, but there were a flurry of other priorities, still I got Swift running on my Mac and a demo program that I hadn't been able to make work under Ubuntu Swift working fine there.
And things were so busy that I never contacted my solar-power company to ask when they were coming to turn on the power. (But having it done after my days of busy BCC work is just fine by me.)
My dad came over after work, and we put up the second new ceiling fan, in the dining room. It has a two-foot drop rod, which the old one didn't, and it really seems to cool the dining room (and even the living room) in a way the old one didn't. Which is great, because I'd felt that installation was sort of superfluous. (We'd previously replaced the death fan in the living room, and this was just to make them match, since the living and dining room are all one large, beautiful space.)
My dad also mucked with the replacement-death-fan in the living room, since it vibrates some at high speed. It seemed OK for a while, but as I edit this, it's again making funny sounds. But not full-on death sounds. (Meanwhile the new fan seems to have no such problem.)
I thought about walking before dinner, but decided maybe I could relax a bit tonight.
And perhaps not be ready to fall down at 9pm. (Hey, it's after 9! Success!)