Monday: (11/17) I drove down to San Jose after traffic died down a little. A breakfast burrito at La Victoria in downtown San Jose was a first stop. I was back in the trenches digging today. There should be two non rain days this week so I should get something done. Lunch was a sausage and cheese sandwich. The trench is rounding the corner of the front of the house. Tomorrow I should get the pipe in and trench back filled. I finished the day by loading the jeep with my dirt buckets and returned to Palo Alto for dinner and to dump the dirt. After dinner I returned to San Jose so I can get an earlier start tomorrow. The two no rain days this week were today and tomorrow.
Tuesday: (11/18) I started with a breakfast burrito from La Victoria. Then, I started my bucket list. I loaded, moved, and dumped 78 five gallon buckets of dirt or base rock while finishing the installation of the drain line to the front of the house. In the process, I made three trips to the rockery, and a trip up to Palo Alto to dump excess dirt. I finished digging the trench to the proper depth, installed the drain line and then backfilled the trench.
Now I would normally quickly pour the concrete but can't do it this week because of the threat of rain. I hope it's more than a threat. I now have just a three foot deep one foot diameter trench opening where I stopped. Another sausage and cheese sandwich for lunch. Egg rolls and shrimp for dinner. I didn't finish up until about 2155 when I loaded the Jeep with another load of dirt destined for Palo Alto. I thought it would be easier to load dry dirt than mud if the forecast midnight rains come. If it's raining tomorrow morning, I'm off to Palo Alto. Lou seems to have caught a cold. Maybe I should stay here?
Wednesday: (11/19) Up at 0700. No rain yet? Darn, I may have to work. Off to breakfast first. I decided to try the Flames Restaurant on the other side of the University by the library. It's been there for years and I've never tried it before. Not many good restaurants in downtown San Jose. It was well above average. I had a nice Tex-Mex omelet. Still no rain but in reviewing my emails I was reminded of an appointment at noon so I didn't bother getting dirty in the morning. I tinkered at the computer in the morning. My appointment was at the Valley Transit Agency. They were celebrating World GIS Day by explaining what they are doing with GIS. Nice to learn some more about the data they have. After that I headed up to Palo Alto to dump my dirt that i loaded late last night. We had leftover bell peppers for dinner then I returned to San Jose. I did a little weeding and pruning where I need to start my front drain line trench tomorrow. If it's still dry i may get some work done. Lou's done her best to see that it rains. She washed the car today.
Thursday: (11/20) The usual breakfast burrito and a visit to Home Depot for a few more drain pipe fittings started the day. About 1030 I finally got to work by pruning the apricot tree in the front yard so i could more easily dig my trench under it. I finished the four feet of 24 inch deep trench under the tree by about 1300 when it started to rain heavily. I secured my trench and put things away and called it a day. I thought I had a Webinar at 1600. I headed home with a stop for some dim sum on the way fora late lunch. I settled in at home and when i tried to connect to the webinar I found it had ended. i had a brain fart. The webinar is scheduled for Eastern time. I've "attended" many and haven't had a problem adjusting the time until now. The webinar was at 1000 Pacific time. for some reason I added three hours instead of subtracting. I actually had scheduled five more webinars all with the wrong times on my calendar. I fixed all those entries and hopefully am now straight. Lou made enchiladas for dinner.
