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Jul. 29th, 2004 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reldnahkramOy. It's been a long week. I'll try and handle this with cut tags, but no guarantees.
Oficially moved on Monday. It was a day of very long and very hard work for some people, but I was actually at work and missed most of the fun. My room works fine given the limited space, and everything else is starting to come together. Had dinner at Minella's the diner on Lancaster. Seems legit, open 24/7, but it's not the same without the Jersey diner waitress attitude.
It just seemed simple. We couldn't get hot water on Sunday when we were over here moving boxes, so Dad called the heating guy Monday. He came out and found water in the oil tank and a hole in the fill pipe. The water was removed. Thus I had a hot shower Tuesday morning before work. After work went to Jersey (1.5 hours driving for a 5 minute dentist's appointment). Got CDs at Borders, then met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
neverseenbleu and Finley and Finney and Dave for dinner. Came home and, well, it had hit the fan. Comcast failed to come through with the cable, the guys responsible for that determined that our existing cable wiring was the suck and they didn't do split levels, so they left. Additionally, someone tried to do a load of laundry. This was a mistake. The rinse water flowed back up into the family room toilet. It also poured Tuesday night. You can guess what happened, but there's an entreacte first.
Picked up two Old 97s CDs (Drag it Up, Fight Songs), Mindy Smith (One Moment More), and Adrienne Young (Plow to the End of the Row) at Borders Tuesday night and am generally pleased. Mmm...Old 97s (drool...). Anyway, both albums are very good. Fight Songs was considered the pop album (at least until Satellite Rides) while I'm not really sure where Drag it Up is headed (having only listened to it once...so far...). Mindy Smith was a bit disappointing in that it's quite a bit of bland soft country ballads, but it's not bad. Adrienne Young has it's ups and downs, but is pretty good. It also came with seeds! Ultimately, the jury is still out until I listen some more.
Wednesday morning's shower was lukewarm. Yep, water in the oil tank again. Oil guy came and patched the hole. Comcast's supervisor came out and determined that the house was beyond him, so they have some third party guys who he said would come Thursday to run cable. I should point out that the use the existing wire for cable and get Verizon DSL was discussed as an option, but considering my mother's reasonably awful experience with Verizon customer service (basically she called inquiring about DSL service, said she wanted nothing, but they sent us a modem anyway, and then it took her just short of forever on hold (and all sorts of hassles with finding the right department) to have them send out a pre-paid mailing label to take it back). Plumbers came out, took the family room toilet off, snaked the pipes, and cleared out some roots. Laundry is good.
Warm shower = good. I should mention at this point that it's now only a ten minute drive to work and so I'll have a few more minutes in the morning to read e-mail/not be late/sleep, probably in that order. Dad went to work for the first time this week, Mom went for a few hours, but came back to deal with Comcast contractors. They were just finishing up as I got home from work, and by the time I puttered around a bit and got the modem and router set up, everything decided to work. And here we are.
Last week, the good story was the trip we took to Bucks County to look at the potential damage a 500,000 lb truck did to a township road and one of our bridges over I-95. Yes, that's a 250 ton truck we're dealing with. It evidently completely destroyed the local road, which was just 6-8 inches of asphalt. The bridge held up okay.
This week's fun with idiot truck drivers involved a dump truck driver who got on the Media Bypass (US-1) heading south from the Blue Route (I-476). The dump part of the truck was up. He mangled the lights for a sign, so we had to head out there to make sure the resulting work of modern art was high enough to be out of the way of traffic (it was, at 16'10 1/4" it's well above the legal limit (excepting permits) of 14' 6").
Today was quite good. We went up into central Bucks county to check out four posted (weight restricted) bridges. One was the covered bridge that burned a month ago ($5000 bounty is out). The steel I-beams beneath the deck are fine (just need paint) and the deck itself was very recently resurfaced. In all, the areas around all four bridges was quite peaceful. Rubber waders are also quite nifty - I was standing in 6+" of water and couldn't tell. I also saw the worst I-beam I've ever seen in my life on Headquarters Road in Tinicum Twp. The flange had drifted off away from the rest of the beam for three or four feet, and there were sizeable holes all over the place. Hitting the beam with nearly anything lightly sent showers of rust down into the creek. Luckily, this was a fascia (outtermost) beam and wouldn't actually carry any traffic load. The other beams were in slightly better shape (they at least were walls, not windows), but still sent rust into the creek on impact. NDT is a myth, folks :) If you're not sure whether something is in good shape or not, give it a whack. If it holds, you're good. If it breaks, better now than later when you need it, right?
Oficially moved on Monday. It was a day of very long and very hard work for some people, but I was actually at work and missed most of the fun. My room works fine given the limited space, and everything else is starting to come together. Had dinner at Minella's the diner on Lancaster. Seems legit, open 24/7, but it's not the same without the Jersey diner waitress attitude.
It just seemed simple. We couldn't get hot water on Sunday when we were over here moving boxes, so Dad called the heating guy Monday. He came out and found water in the oil tank and a hole in the fill pipe. The water was removed. Thus I had a hot shower Tuesday morning before work. After work went to Jersey (1.5 hours driving for a 5 minute dentist's appointment). Got CDs at Borders, then met
neverseenbleu and Finley and Finney and Dave for dinner. Came home and, well, it had hit the fan. Comcast failed to come through with the cable, the guys responsible for that determined that our existing cable wiring was the suck and they didn't do split levels, so they left. Additionally, someone tried to do a load of laundry. This was a mistake. The rinse water flowed back up into the family room toilet. It also poured Tuesday night. You can guess what happened, but there's an entreacte first.Picked up two Old 97s CDs (Drag it Up, Fight Songs), Mindy Smith (One Moment More), and Adrienne Young (Plow to the End of the Row) at Borders Tuesday night and am generally pleased. Mmm...Old 97s (drool...). Anyway, both albums are very good. Fight Songs was considered the pop album (at least until Satellite Rides) while I'm not really sure where Drag it Up is headed (having only listened to it once...so far...). Mindy Smith was a bit disappointing in that it's quite a bit of bland soft country ballads, but it's not bad. Adrienne Young has it's ups and downs, but is pretty good. It also came with seeds! Ultimately, the jury is still out until I listen some more.
Wednesday morning's shower was lukewarm. Yep, water in the oil tank again. Oil guy came and patched the hole. Comcast's supervisor came out and determined that the house was beyond him, so they have some third party guys who he said would come Thursday to run cable. I should point out that the use the existing wire for cable and get Verizon DSL was discussed as an option, but considering my mother's reasonably awful experience with Verizon customer service (basically she called inquiring about DSL service, said she wanted nothing, but they sent us a modem anyway, and then it took her just short of forever on hold (and all sorts of hassles with finding the right department) to have them send out a pre-paid mailing label to take it back). Plumbers came out, took the family room toilet off, snaked the pipes, and cleared out some roots. Laundry is good.
Warm shower = good. I should mention at this point that it's now only a ten minute drive to work and so I'll have a few more minutes in the morning to read e-mail/not be late/sleep, probably in that order. Dad went to work for the first time this week, Mom went for a few hours, but came back to deal with Comcast contractors. They were just finishing up as I got home from work, and by the time I puttered around a bit and got the modem and router set up, everything decided to work. And here we are.
Last week, the good story was the trip we took to Bucks County to look at the potential damage a 500,000 lb truck did to a township road and one of our bridges over I-95. Yes, that's a 250 ton truck we're dealing with. It evidently completely destroyed the local road, which was just 6-8 inches of asphalt. The bridge held up okay.
This week's fun with idiot truck drivers involved a dump truck driver who got on the Media Bypass (US-1) heading south from the Blue Route (I-476). The dump part of the truck was up. He mangled the lights for a sign, so we had to head out there to make sure the resulting work of modern art was high enough to be out of the way of traffic (it was, at 16'10 1/4" it's well above the legal limit (excepting permits) of 14' 6").
Today was quite good. We went up into central Bucks county to check out four posted (weight restricted) bridges. One was the covered bridge that burned a month ago ($5000 bounty is out). The steel I-beams beneath the deck are fine (just need paint) and the deck itself was very recently resurfaced. In all, the areas around all four bridges was quite peaceful. Rubber waders are also quite nifty - I was standing in 6+" of water and couldn't tell. I also saw the worst I-beam I've ever seen in my life on Headquarters Road in Tinicum Twp. The flange had drifted off away from the rest of the beam for three or four feet, and there were sizeable holes all over the place. Hitting the beam with nearly anything lightly sent showers of rust down into the creek. Luckily, this was a fascia (outtermost) beam and wouldn't actually carry any traffic load. The other beams were in slightly better shape (they at least were walls, not windows), but still sent rust into the creek on impact. NDT is a myth, folks :) If you're not sure whether something is in good shape or not, give it a whack. If it holds, you're good. If it breaks, better now than later when you need it, right?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:29 am (UTC)And what does NDT mean?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:31 am (UTC)Non Destructive Testing
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 04:48 am (UTC)