Trying To Finish Up

Monday: (01/12) I walked over to La Victoria for my breakfast burrito. On my way I checked out the progress on the construction projects on the San Jose University campus. I noticed they closed the final opening in the wall of the new Health Building. That project has gone quite quickly. Most of the Interior finishing is complete as well. I was at work before 0900. I installed the sump discharge pipes and restored some of the sprinkler pipes that were added or in the way of the trench. I also did the final dig out for the walkway and placed all the baserock I had. I also took a couple of loads of dirt up to Palo Alto and stayed there for the night. I had a hotdog sandwich for lunch. Lou made some shrimp chow mein for dinner.


Sump basin, Dug out for new sidewalk and finishing the piping.

Tuesday: (01/13) Lou made a Denver omelet for breakfast. I was off to the dentist, Lou and Dawn to an appointment. The dentist finished replacing an old filling and I was off to get more baserock then to San Jose. I had picked up lunch on the way and ate lunch before starting work. I installed some forms for the sidewalk and sump area. I also backfilled some of the open trench. Yesterday I estimated I needed 6 more buckets of base for the walkway area so when I picked up the baserock I got 14 buckets. i didn't want to be short and have to make another trip. But, I ended up only using two buckets so I have a lot of extra base. Not to worry, I'll use it when I replaced the street sidewalk that I'll be doing later or in Palo Alto when I get to work there installing more walkways replacements. It does present a potential problem in that it ties up 12 buckets of my 20 buckets so I have fewer to haul debris and dirt. Fortunately, I may not have much more of that to haul. I just have to do the last 15 feet of trench for the discharge pipes from the sump pumps out to the park strip. Not too deep but does require I get past the sidewalk.


Starting the sidewalk forms and the sprinkler pipes at the future sprinkler location.
Not a lot accomplished today and tomorrow is another day away from the project so just Thursday to get some thing done. I returned to Palo Alto for dinner. Lou made tacos.


Tonight Dawn and I went to Stanford to the Stanford Storytellers meeting to listen to Cheryl Strayed speak. I thought it might be popular but not as popular as we found. The theater seats 587 and they were to seat students and alumni first. We hoped for one of the remaining seats since there were no tickets for the event but first come first seated. When we got there about 15 minutes early we were way back in a line of probably over 3000 people. Since no one made any announcements we all waited until 20 minutes after it was to start before someone finally came out and said there was no room. Not really well managed but it was nice to be there with a whole lot of optimists.

Wednesday: (01/14) Leftover stuffed peppers for breakfast. Most of the morning was spent looking for a scooter for Dawn on the Internet. About 1130 we all went to lunch at LUU Noodles. We dropped Dawn off at a class and Lou and I went to an appointment. About 1500 I was off toward San Jose. I stopped at Home Depot for concrete, and looked at downspout materials at HD and Lowe's neither has what I really want (need). Together, maybe? I also stopped at Harbor Freight and bought a multitool and blades so I can trim the ump tube. Then I took a short walk around the SJSU campus and notice a neighbor who just opened his taco cart next to the campus. So I tried a couple. Pretty good. To make it an almost all day of doing nothing, I spent the evening browsing Youtube for music I liked. For dinner I picked up a couple of tacos from a taco stand by the university.


Thursday: (01/15) Another breakfast burrito from La Victoria then a look around San Jose State University's construction projects. Then it was time to get to work. I dug the trench across the front lawn, installED the pipes and back filled the trench.


Then I spent some time on the form for the sump top to accept a lid. Next week I hope to really finish up by getting the pipes across the sidewalk and park strip and pour a bunch of concrete walkway.


All cleaned up and secured for the weekend. Lunch was another hot dog sandwich. corned beef and cabbage leftovers for dinner.