Fall Can't Get Here Soon Enough!!!

How about this....it has been less than a week since my last update!!!  

It was a pretty good week here...which translates out to mean....nothing has happened of much importance!!!  Just quiet nights and sleepy days!

So this will be short and painless!!!  The only thing to really talk about is the weather...it has rained several times, and each time the air becomes like a sauna and it gets almost just unbearable here. But it has been cooling off some the past several days, and the forecast for the future is for it to keep getting cooler, hopefully.

 

But when it gets cloudy here it makes for some really nice shots of the sky! You can see for so far off that it is down right impressive! Especially when you can stand on the top level of a 5 story parking deck!

 

But that is my excitement for this week. So I will make this very short and painless....and say that I hope that my next post will be just as painless!!

 

Fairly Interesting Week

The past week went by pretty quick! That's what happens to me when I'm on 3rd shift and the football season has begun!  Heheh....well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking by it!!

I believe I told you about my renting a little car for the weekend....well, I have gone ahead and rented it by the month. They had an offer that was just hard to pass up and so the Elantra is my "daily driver" for the next couple of months. It does real well as far as mpg's go, and it is very comfortable. In fact, the way the dash and the interior is laid out it is almost relaxing, if you can say sitting in a vehicle is relaxing! Took it by Firestone and had the tires rotated and an oil change done....and just signed and drove away....that is one of the things I like about it! But it also gives me wheels to be able to get off site whenever I need to without having to unplug, and fight my way out with Bertha. And Bertha still needs work before I will want to drive her around town much. It is just too hard on the little motorhome to do all the city driving that I need to do. I also stopped by O'Reilly's and picked up a "beacon" light for the top...and it works very well....even during the day it gets folks attention and it also makes it obvious that I belong here on the site. AND...it has a full XM Satellite subscription on it! So I can get my stations I listen to in the house on it....and I can keep up with my football even when I'm working!  Love it!! :-D

We have had a slight cool down here...but the humidity has gone thru the roof! Highs for the past several days have been in upper 80's and low 90's. But the lows at night have only been down to about 75, and the dew point has been at 75 or higher at times! So when you walk out the door it is like walking into a sauna! Even the nights are muggy....think Alabama in mid August on a bad night! It has just be awful!  But at the same time it has brought rain from that hurricane that hit Mexico in and that has been good for the area. The water aquifer here has risen over a foot in the past few days and they are expecting it to get even higher all the way thru the weekend. After so many years of drought this is very good for the area.

Monday morning at 4am they started pouring the driveway on the southeast end of the site. They spent several days getting the ground ready (leveling, putting in water shutoff pipes, vent pipes, drains, etc), then they did the form setting in two days, and they did all the rebar layout in just one day. The pour took 17 mixer loads of concrete and the last one was emptied out at 10:50am Monday. The main reason it took so long was the trucks had to back in to the site, one truck at a time, and had to washout on site before pulling out, so it was a long process. I sat on the shoulder of the road just over the crest of the hill with beacon and flashers on to help warn cars of the parked mixers on road. In fact, I sat there until 8:40am...so it was a 14.5 hour night. And watching these drivers come barreling by and then almost running into the rear of the mixers or forcing their way into the other lane was almost hilarious if not for the fact that it is sad! 

  I took the pics of the pour site from the top of the parking garage. It doesn't look all that large of a pour field, but the main road is about 25' wide and from top to bottom was about 110 yds, and the end flared out and went to the old pour, and also made the entrance area for the parking deck on the SE end of the garage.

 
  




The shot on the right here is from where I was parked on the "shoulder" of the street. Eventually it will be turned back into a sidewalk. But to give you an idea of just how close the apartments are/will be to the street, the front wall of the building is just barely the width of the dirt area in the pic behind that fence to the right! TOO close for my liking! Of course, I have a warped idea of what the proper spacing should be between neighbors....the least of which should be about 400 yards!!  Heheh!

These two pics show my "new" parking spot on site. I am out of the way, and have power, which I was supposed to have the day I got here, but it also shows just how close I am to the work that is going on every day...and I am still amazed that I sleep thru most of it. One guy here said that it was the "dad syndrome"....if the noise is normal, you sleep thru it!! And that is so true!  LOL

They are making a lot of headway quite quickly as of now. Most of the crews are onsite no later than 7:00am and don't get off site until after 6:30pm each day. Some of them are working until the sun is gone and others are actually using lights and working late...sometimes until 10 & 11pm! But it is paying off...I might actually get off this site by January if they keep up this pace!!  LOL  But it is looking like I will be here until probably February.

 
Think I'll make a little lunch and then settle in for another nap!  It does take some time to get used to working all night and sleeping during the day...but I'm getting there. And now with it being a little cooler during the day, it is easier to sleep some in the afternoons. I have to figure out what I'm going to do about the air conditioner...probably just hang in with the little portable one for the rest of this season. I'm hoping that when I replace the roof unit it will not pull too much so I will still be able to work off a 20amp electric service. Have to do a little research on the load that the new ones pull....that could decide for me which make I have installed. :-)

The First Football Weekend of the Season!!!

Well....it has started!!! The football season is officially here! My weekends are booked up for the next 4 months! And it is nice to once again to be able to watch football, or listen to football, ALL weekend!

And my "new" housing lot is quite tight, a little dirty, just a bit noisy....but it's home and it has power 24/7!  So I'm pretty well set. Yesterday, they worked here about half of the day on the roadway that runs out on the east side of the site thru the main gate. 

And as you can tell from the pic with Abbie in it, they have dug down quite a bit. At the highest point, they are about 30 inches down. When I walked it yesterday afternoon, I first thought that I could get out, but it is quite rough on the top side...and I have had enough rocking and rolling to get in and out. So I just might be here until next weekend.

But,if they get the curb dug out on the NW corner at the other gate....I will be able to turn around and get out. I'm hoping that is what will happen. I'm stocked up for at least a week, but I would like to get out for a day once a week.  Heheh

We did get some rain here the past 3-4 days. Not a whole lot, but enough to kill the dust for a couple of days, and make mud puddles that I had to keep Abbie out of when we went on our walks.

I guess that about brings things up to date on the happenings here in San Antonio. It is supposed to be hot here all week. it has not been triple digits for a few days, but the humidity has been gross!  Whatever the actual temperature, they have been adding 3-5 degrees to it for the "feels like" temps.

Hope everyone had a good weekend, and that your week goes well also. More to come in a couple of days!!  :-)

Bertha's Not Leaking Any More!!!

I basically spent the day yesterday at the transmission shop getting Bertha all "stopped up"! The other day when we thought that the pan and gasket was the issue, well, that turned out to not be the case!  She was leaking very badly 2 days later, and so Thursday morning we had a transmission doctor appointment again. This time they found the neutral safety switch broken and leaking, had to put a new shifter selector seal in, and a connector for the top cooling line had to be replaced. I got to the shop at 0630....and left the shop at 3PM. Needless to say, not a very restful day!  But we are all fixed up!

Dropped by HEB to get a couple of things, a little extra water to keep me full...because there is a possibility that I will get stuck in here for a few days. They are trying to get another part of the road formed up and rebarred and if they succeed....well....I basically won't have any way out of here for several days!  LOL  So I have enough food, water, clean clothes and dvd's to last me at least 7-10 days!  Heheheh

Had a little bit more rain today. Actually, had a pretty good amount earlier, and a little sprinkle this afternoon. So it should be good and muggy tomorrow!

As I said before, YEA for getting my XM up and running. Listening to NCAA football and Nationwide Series Racing at Richmond. Starting to listen more and more to my XM again.

About time to make another round and let Abbie run off some more of her energy. Have a good night and more to come in a day or so.

                                  :-)

HMMMM.......

Well, this could turn into an interesting day! They are starting to scrape down the hill/curve that runs up to the main gate. That is the way that I come and go. This means that they are getting ready to probably start doing the forming and rebarring for pouring the concrete for the rest of the road in that direction. I'm keeping an eye on the progress for today.

I plan on moving up to the front gate after hours tonight so that I don't drip any more on the concrete down here, and because I plan on leaving the site at 6am when I get off duty and going over to the transmission shop. Hopefully they will be able to find and fix the leak in the morning. If they get it fixed and I get back over here tomorrow evening, and if they do start the forming....well, I could be stuck back here for 7 days or longer. The curb is still up at the NW exit and I don't want to go in and out there because I would be taking a chance of ripping off my sewer pipes on the rear end of the house.

An interesting situation that I am in! Could become very cozy!!  LOL

My Monday Morning! & I'm late!

It's Monday morning & that means I'm late doing clothes!  LOL. But it's a holiday so it shouldn't be busy....wrong!  LOL. Seems a lot of folks decided the same thing....so it's not a quiet as I'm used to here.

But it's amazing how hard folks work to not look at another person in the same area. It's almost like they are afraid of the possibility of having to say "hi" or "good morning" to you. I have to admit that I find it quite amusing.

And even though I'm sitting here doing this on my Note 3 phone...what did we do when we didn't have them!?!?  I can remember buying a USA Today or other paper....or taking a book....or, god forbid!...striking up a conversation with the washer load next to me!

And on top of that, when some poor soul has to ask someone "Do you know how these washers work?" (& they're asking a person that is taking their wet clothes out of a washer), they almost have a look of fear on their faces!

As I sit here and think about, we have become such a connected world thru all our technology that we have become a disconnected world when it comes to personal interactions with other people. It's kinda like...."sure, I'll be your BFF, but make sure you stay inside my phone/tablet...that way you can't read my body language!" 

We have come such a long way and yet we have fallen in to such a deep hole when it comes to being human!  Granted, I'm not one to talk...I like the "loner" lifestyle....but...I also like to interact with "humams" around me when I'm in those kinds of situations. There are 10 folks in here doing clothes....and the only conversation is by the couple, and they're not really conversing.

I know I age myself when I say "I can remember when...", but!...I can remember when it was easy to strike up a conversation with folks around you. Times have sure changed, and I'm not sure for the better!

Well, the day has passed and I got my clothes all clean and dry. Went to the store and got the few things that I needed for the rest of the week, basically. So I guess I am set for a few days.

I am parked at the back of the work site next to the generator that is for the office trailer. One of the superintendents said park there and see if "they say anything to me or try to run me off"...that is a good feeling! I'm not sure who is actually in charge at this site. But I guess I will find out in the morning. So, if nobody says anything to me in the morning, I'm parked!! And in that case, it looks like I will be here thru December. We shall see!!

Boy, this update just keeps getting longer!  LOL  I'm settled in where I guess I will be parked for a while, just getting the power situation straight. But today I found out that I still have a leak from my transmission...and is a pretty good one. Have an appointment at 8am back at the tranny shop to have it looked at again. Let's hope that it is nothing major, just a line or connection cracked from from my little 20+ inch drop off the other day!

Going to add some pics to this and get it posted. More to come later! Have a good week!  :-)