Geoduck Geotech

I think that Geoduck Geotech would be a good name for a soil engineering firm in the Puget Sound region.

Jiangsu, part 8: Train to Suzhou

Splat-crash went the jar of greens, then the man slowly walked to the restroom. Those nearby in the train station glanced up briefly.

A minute later, the cleaning woman didn't notice the broken glass and walked right by, dustpan in hand.

We were waiting for the 12:04 train to Suzhou. People raced through the massive waiting area to catch the 11:39 train to ... somewhere. They were like a huge swarm of locusts as soon as the sign changed from red to green, but there was plenty of time between that push and the last-minute race just before the train left. The sign turned from green to yellow...

The cleaning crew evenutally swept up the broken glass and spilled vegetables.

I got a KFC spicy chicken sandwich. Dark meat instead of white, but the same mayo and lettuce, though. Chunlin brought me a cup of coffee. Very nice of her.

Chunlin is the epitome of first and second languages.

The time for our swarm approached and people started queuing before the sign changed to green. We waited till the crowd had dwindled before we stood and got on the train.



The ride was comfortable. The train reminded me of the one between Philadelphia and New York, but cleaner.



The Suzhou train station was under construction, presumably for the new high-speed rail line going in between Shanghai and Beijing.





Once outside the station, we were swarmed by hawkers for hats, maps, and tour groups. Chunlin talked to one or two tour-group people while I grew agitated. Time was short and I didn't want to wait around on someone else's schedule. Then again, we didn't really know how to get where we were going.



Eventually, Chunlin got one of the tour groups to sell us train tickets to return to Shanghai, for a little fee, and I got to not go on a guided tour.

Roads are Great!

Now that the Jingcheng Expressway is complete, getting to Simatai will be much easier!

Flange Tip Thickness

What in the world is the difference between "full flange tip thickness" and "half flange tip thickness"? I'm guessing 50%, but 50% of what? What's a flange tip thickness??

How Am I Supposed to Think?

The landscapers for the construction across the street are finishing up their work. Their industrial-sized bark blower has been running all day. It's very noisy. It's very irritating.

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!

Sixteen Tons of Wet Mud

Why do the "WET MUD" signs on the wall remind me of the song "Sixteen Tons"?

Is there some other similar song that I'm forgetting?

. . . By the way, the "mud" signs refer to patches of plaster.

A few days ago. . .

You very well may have seen these Sunday-drive photos over at flickr, but I'll post a few of them here anyway.

These are all Chunlin's.



Can you tell the old bridge from the new bridge?



How much did this new bridge cost us?



It cost us $4 on the toll (eastbound only), but I mean how many billions of dollars did the construction cost?



Was it just one billion dollars? Is that all? . . . Pretty, though.



After a few days of one-mile visibility and misting showers, Sunday sure looks like it was a nice day for a drive!

Subdivision, part 14

I've had a slight change in course since last month. Namely, the cost to reroute the electrical service to the existing house will be reasonable, so we're having it moved.

The electrican installed conduit around the house to the street side yesterday. It may be a month or two before Seattle City Light gets their act together and installs the transformer and other wires from the power lines to the house.

Even though the power lines for the existing house are still crossing the new southern parcel, the city doesn't care that there isn't an easment for them and has approved the subdivision. All that remains is for me to submit the final drawings and pay over a thousand dollars in extra fees.

When I spoke with the surveyor a week or two ago, he said that he'd call me when the drawings were ready for me to pick up. (They can't fold the final drawings, so it would be pricy to mail a rolled-up set.) The surveyor, though, apparently thought I was going to come by to pick them up without further word from him. The drawings have been sitting at their front desk for a while now. I'll collect them tomorrow.

Several weeks ago, DPD sent me a letter stating that if I didn't pay the fees by November, the subdivision would be canceled. I haven't been too hurried to pay, though, since I assume our property taxes will go up once the subdivision takes place, and the taxes are due in October. Also, we won't begin construction till next summer, so what's the hurry?

Left-Handedness

A left-handed screwdriver seems impossible, but I could see a left-handed hammer. It's all in the grip, you see?

In other news, the dentist told me I sprained a ligament in my tooth. Take ibuprofen and wait a few weeks.

Where Our Time Has Gone

As one of you requested, here are some pictures of the refurbished basement, complete with a concrete floor, new plywood on the walls, and a couple extra lights.


Compare with the old:


I had to saw six or seven inches off the bottom of the stairs so they'd fit on top of the concrete. The landing, too.


Do you like the stripy plywood? It's a bit more expensive, but we think it adds a nice touch.


And finally, here's the room under the porch. I never got a good look at it before, since it didn't have a light. Even the insulating and plywood installation was done in the dark.


But today, we can't go barging back in there to fix stuff up. The rental begins now!

Last Bits of Remodeling

Dealing with contractors can be a headache, but it beats banging my head against the wall trying to do home construction ourselves.

We spent almost the entire weekend at the Pinehurst house, trying to finish it off before the renters move in May 1. The only tasks left were to install insulation and plywood in the storage room under the porch and install lights, switches, and an outlet down there, too. We went to Home Depot and Lowe's about five times over the course of the weekend, plus another trip to the King County Transfer Station to get rid of the old plywood that we decided not to use.

Reminder: 48 + 18 ≠ 86. 48 + 18 = 66.

We hired a friend of a friend to help us with the electrical work. I thought we would hire an electrician, who would know what things to buy and all that, but we ended up doing the shopping and the physical installations of everything, and all the electrically minded guy did was connect the wires.

Apparently there's a tool to find out if a wire is hot, even when the copper is not exposed. He didn't have one, though. His cutters (or rather, our cutters) discovered the wire was hot with a zap. He wasn't hurt, but the breaker tripped. The wire we thought went to a closet light and a couple outlets actually went to an electric heater.

We left at 10 p.m. yesterday, but we still need to go back and clean up all the tools and such. The storage room looks nice, now that it has clean plywood and light. I hope our renters appreciate it. I want my weekend back.

Protection

Always wear gloves when using a power screwdriver.

Or at least get your hand out of the way if it slips off the screw.

No, strike that. Always wear gloves when using a power screwdriver.

My thumb is healing.

Look Out Below!

New Camera!

From my office window:

Can you see who's smoking? No? Well, let me crop the photo for you:


And here's one of our cat:

And a crop of the cat's gray hair:

Pothole Avoidance School Training Track

The Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Road isn't in too good of condition these days. We really need some logging companies to come back and invest in the infrastructure. The trees will just grow back, right?

In any case, the road has so many potholes that I truly had a difficult time avoiding them.

Chunlin will tell you, I'm amazingly good at driving dirt roads and avoiding potholes. But this road was a battle zone. Craters everywhere.

Before long, I was concentrating on avoiding potholes with the right-side tires only, if I was forced to make a choice. Smoother ride for Chunlin, that way.

Some of the worst bits were getting on and off bridges, of course. Even with this knowledge, I still didn't slow down soon enough for some of the hefty bumps.

On the one-lane road, Chunlin didn't feel comfortable above twenty miles per hour. On the two-lane road, she didn't feel comfortable above twenty-five or so.

Parts of the road had been "improved" with new layers of gravel. They must have used round pea gravel instead of proper crushed rock, because that stuff was as slick as snow. I almost preferred the potholes.

Grab Your Sledgehammer!

It's too bad I'll be on my honeymoon when this happens, because I'd have a lot of fun:

NH Hoteles says it will allow 30 people chosen by a team of psychologists to help demolish the interior of the 11-year-old NH Alcala hotel in central Madrid as part of its refurbishment.

The hotel chain says the chosen 30, armed with a mallet and hard hat, can destroy any part of the 146-room building, from bringing down walls to smashing windows.

The demolition will take place on July 3.

Oh, the destruction I'd wreak, the enjoyment I'd gain. . .

Northgate Mall Parking Garage

It's been over a week since I've walked to the mall for lunch. But today I did, and lo and behold, what did I discover? The parking garage is open for use!

It's only been under construction for, what, fourteen months?

It has a bridge to the food court on the third level, if you're averse to climbing stairs.

A few drivers had found the garage, but it was mostly empty, unlike the rest of the parking lots, which are full within a hundred yards of the entrances.

Northgate construction

They're finally digging up the south parking lot. It's a year after the groundbreaking ceremony.

It doesn't sound like they scaled back the project any. Maybe they found more funding.

It still has senior housing, a park along the creek, a movie theater, and shops.

I had thought for sure that the project failed last year because nobody was going to the movies anymore (or at least not enough to justify building a new theater in Seattle). I mentally blamed it on NetFlix.

Personally, I don't know if I'll ever go to a movie at the new theater. We have NetFlix and I like it. Convenient. Except for the whole not-able-to-choose-and-watch-a-movie-on-the-same-day problem. That's kinda annoying.

There's also a commercial/residential block going in at the corner of 5th and Northgate Way. Half the site was sitting empty for years. The other half of the site had the liquor store, Subway, and some other stores. That building is just a pile of rubble today. It was a nice building, too.

If Today Is Monday, Why Was Sunday So Long Ago?

Today feels like Monday, back to the old weekday routines. But yesterday certainly was not Sunday. No, Sunday was eons ago.

The past two days were definitely "other." Not workday, not weekend, not vacation. A whole other world, over in Spokane.

With that construction project almost completely wrapped up, not much was happening over there, so every time I stepped outside, I got distracted by the big blue sky, the warm sun, the crisp, fresh air, the silence. It was relaxing.

When I finally left that building yesterday (which I've been to and been working on for five years now, one project or another) and realized that I wouldn't be coming back, I started getting a little bit wistful. A bit melancholic. That place, even though I'd been there fewer than ten times, was familiar to me. And yesterday I had to say goodbye.

But all that still doesn't mean I want to go back anytime soon!

Lintel vs. Lentil

Something every contractor should know:

Lintel:

Lentil: