cascadian telegrams

rain, rain, go away...

well it *did* go away for a few days (it's been lovely here the past few days) but it was storming last week.  We got inches of rain dumped on us which slowed down the plumber (he's preparing the radiant heat piping in the basement slab) and the carpenter (also preparing for the slab pour) so now the basement slab -- which was to be poured last week -- won't be poured until early next week.   Sigh.

Here you can sort-of see that the concrete for the first course has been poured and the rebar for the next course (first floor walls) is sticking out of the top.  Just below the top lip of the wall is where the first floor plate will sit, so that is just a bit above where grade will be.  You can see here where the beam to support the first floor will sit

We just keep loosing time, and the rainy season is already upon us.  The adage is, if the house isn't "dried in" (i.e. roof and sheathed walls) by October it is a problem, and at our current clip, the house won't be dried in until December.  To make matters worse, we probably won't be able to move in February as we'd planned and that's when our temporary housing runs out... it is very expensive to keep the temp apartment beyond the alotted time.  So we'll squat in the basement if we have to.

The builder is now getting a bit despondent with the delays.  He can't get paid until we finish this stage which includes the first floor plate and the slab and it is taking forever to pull everyone together, and he's having trouble collecting from other clients.  It sucks being a small operator sometimes... I remember watching my dad trying to collect from clients who wouldn't pay, there's a few he's still chasing from retirement and it's nearly 10 years on now.  What a drag.  He says he just wants to "get out of the f*ckin' ground" at this point so the work is then more about his guys rather than the subcontractors and then things are more under his control.  You and me both, m8.

On the bright side -- if there is one at this low point of the project -- they are making some progress this week. They're finishing waterproofing the foundation with three coats of material in preparation for backfill.  No wait, I forgot:  we've got massive water collecting in the "dry well" where the drainage around the foundation goes... it isn't percolating into the soil as we'd expected.  Greg (the builder) thinks this is because the 'glacial till' soil down below 6 feet is like concrete.  So we'll need to pump it or something because the storm & sewer drain from the existing house -- which we're re-using -- is above our lowest points. 

So there really is no bright point right now.. we just keep slogging away I guess.

music: radiohead 'in rainbows'

I've downloaded Radiohead's In Rainbows (you set your own price... I paid ten quid for the 160Kbps MP3 version... what did you pay? You can pay 'zero') and I must say this is a very interesting album.

It is an 'album' in the classic, Pink Floyd or Beatles sense of the term -- a cohesive whole, meant to be be listened to in the prescribed order I'd guess.  (Radiohead have had a high-profile battle with Apple over their refusal to sell individual tracks).

Jigsaw Falling Into Place is a beautiful pop single; Nude is the same beautiful-yet-sad groove they've been mining for years. And Faust Arp is gorgeous, elegiac... lovely guitar work and string section.

Of course Radiohead's distinctive sound is largely thanks to Thom Yorke's soaring voice and sometimes falsetto.  It is a strange instrument, his voice.  It is very expressive and rings clear like a bell, yet it always sounds as if it is about to break.  Sort of plaintive, but pleasant.  I think I'm going to grow tired of it but I never do... he always finds new ways to draw me in to his stories.

They aren't just treading over old ground here: All I Need is channeling Boards of Canada (in a good way) and the high point of the disc is Reckoner where they channel gospel and Moby but with Yorke's unmistakeable imprimatur.  A beautiful groove, and probably the most radio-friendly track on the album.

It's been stuck in my head since the first listen so it will take a little time to fully digest... but this is an album to be savored.

friends and family

We've been back in Seattle for just over two months now, and I'm so happy to say I feel like we've made the right choice.  Being close to friends and family was our strong motivation for coming back, and it is... really nice.

We've had dinners, and coffee, and outings to places like the science center (above), soccer with friends' kids, and long afternoons with walks around Green Lake, enjoying the late summer and now autumn.   It just feels very nice, and normal.. or at least what should be normal if life were more balanced.

We still don't see everyone we want to see, nor often enough, but we just didn't have the same kind (or number) of relationships in Denmark.  Off to a good start, I'd say.

progress - ready for concrete

we lost nearly a week last week when the subcontractor doing the ICF and the slab didn't / couldn't pour (a death in the family, apparently) but it looks all prepped and concrete pour is scheduled for tomorrow/Monday

here you can see the ICF is complete up to about where the first floor plate is going to be.  Fingers crossed they will pour tomorrow... we can't afford any more delays.

music review: LoveLikeFire "An Ocean Of Air"

 

Autumn has always been music time for me, and as we're just back in the States I'm taking the opportunity to discover lots of good, regional music. 

San Francisco's LoveLikeFire is a great start for me: Ann Yu's beautiful, ringing voice fills the tracks with naive and beautiful melody and she's ably-backed by a tight, no-nonsense band that knows how to rock a room (I can just see the crowd pogo-ing in place to the chorus of "Unlighted Shadow").   

To be crystal clear, I don't think they're cutting new ground here -- it's just slightly dark, lovely power pop -- but it's quite good for what it is.  A worthy release.

I've also picked up new discs by Portland's Charmparticles and Jonah  as well as The Album Leaf -- but haven't made my mind up on those yet.   Note:  if you listen to the tracks at these links, you'll quickly see where my head is at right now... autumn is a dramatic time for me, always!

It also gives me an opportunity to support Portland-based CD Baby when buying music... damn them, they're so addictive and cheeky:  I got the following email from them when I bought these discs:

 

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, October 2nd.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year."  We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

Indeed :).

finally!

we started construction on the new house on September 10, 2007... sorry for the horrible lag in posting but I've been mad busy this month.

here you can see the sequence of events -- the original house before demolition

then the demolition

and excavation

then the footings/foundation

and lastly the first course of Integrated Concrete Forms (or ICF)

ICF is interesting stuff... like giant, styrofoam lego blocks.  I was expecting it to be more dense & solid but it is basically just styrofoam with spacers, steel wire reinforcement and vertical rebar inside.  They fill the cavity between the outer and inner walls with concrete, 4-5 feet at a time, and place more rebar in the wall and then build another course.  Apparently the styrofoam-like compound bonds well with the concreate and creates an (up to) R-51 wall. 

To seal the below-grade portion from dirt and moisture they apply a tar-like coat on the outside, with a rough, bubble-like material (to wick water away from the blow) and then finally some loose stone/gravel to keep water away from that.

On the inside, there are nailing strips under the styrofoam every vertial 8" or so that can be used for nailing... apprently they nail drywall directly to the interior wall and can easily create channels for electrical and plumbing etc.

According to the vendor literature, two guys can raise a wall very quickly using eco-block (the brand we're using) so I'm hoping they're right as we're waaay behind schedule... about 3 months in all.  I'm praying for no or little rain in the near future so they can make fast progress but in Seattle that is never very realistic.

We got off to an auspicious start when the demolition guys delivered the dozer at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning, resulting in one of the neighbors leaving angry (nay:  mad, crazy, over-the-top) voicemails on my and Greg the builder's phones.  It was really distrubing stuff, including threats to sabotage our project and worse. Of course the demo guys shouldn't have brought in a dozer at 6:30 am on a Sunday, but the reaction was absurd.

And in fact the next morning we discovered that molasses had been poured all over the seat and controls of the dozer during the night which pretty much confirmed the 'sabotage' threat.  So then it was serious.  I thought about calling the cops, but decided to talk to the neighbors instead.  I assume they're harmless but just spouting and pissed off...

Since then things have settled down again and everything is fine, but the guys working onsite now tease each other that "the pancake lady" is going to come over if they don't toe the line... that's what they call the neighbor, who shall remain nameless :).  Hopefully that is the last of it.

*Anyway* -- we're off and running, finally, so now with some speed and luck I can report real progress over the next few months!

Snaps are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcm/sets/72157602243759654/