This Morning's Moon 5-7-26
Current Wx: Temp: 33.55°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 2.1mphWords: 726
Had to hunt around to find my mZuiko MC20 2x teleconverter. I've had the 100-400mm zoom mounted on the OM-1 for a while now, taking pictures of birds out back. Tried to take a hi-res shot of the moon yesterday, but I couldn't get it to work with at just 400mm focal length. There weren't enough pixels in the frame to properly align all the images.
But with the 2x teleconverter there are plenty of pixels and I got three decent hi-res shots. It was later in the morning than I'd have preferred, but I did have to hunt for the teleconverter. It was dark in the drawer, dark in the room, and their black. Should have done it by feel.
Yesterday was a bit of a loss. We had a tub-shower enclosure in the bathroom here, and it's mounted a step up so the plumbing could run underneath. I don't know why. So we had to step up onto a step, and then over the tub to take a shower. I had a couple suction-cup grab bars mounted, just to give us something to steady ourselves. Probably wouldn't stop us if we started to slip and fall, but reduced the chances of starting to do so.
Anyway, Mitzi wanted a walk-in shower and so that began yesterday. Two guys and sawzalls, lots of dust, traffic and noise. I basically just put my AirPods in and watched YouTube all day.
Of course they'll be back in about an hour to hopefully finish the job.
Can't focus on anything while they're here, so today will be another loss for anything productive. I'd go to the gym, but I can't be assured of a shower when I get home. It's looking pretty sunny, maybe I should just go for a walk somewhere.
We received what should be the penultimate set of drawings before they go to engineering yesterday. Discovered two discrepancies we should have been aware of from the beginning. The designer was using scissor trusses in the vault, which changes the pitch of the ceiling from that of the roof. We thought we'd told her, more than once, that we intended to use parallel chord trusses. She kind of pushed back on it that it'll make the windows bigger in the peak, which, okay, good!
The other problem is that she designed the basement for eight inches of concrete, and we intended for the whole house to be six inches. The designer maintains that eight inches is a code requirement for backfilled basements in New York. Brad disagrees, but he's going to call a licensed NY structural engineer and get a second opinion. It's not the end of the world if it turns out she's right, but it does add some complexity and expense.
The designer is on Mountain time, so we have a couple of hours this morning to get this sorted out before we have to give her an answer. The issue is that if she re-draws the plans for six inches and their engineer says it has to be eight, then there will be a charge for reverting back. ("Their" engineer is one of the engineering firms they have a relationship with, which is licensed in New York, though they may not be located in New York.)
In our last meeting she mentioned that it takes their engineers about four weeks to go through the plans and mark them up. She said we could find our own if we wanted to, so that's what prompted Brad to reach out to an engineer some of his peers have worked with before. He indicated he'd be interested in the job, but we hadn't sent him any drawings yet, waiting for this set. We should get that all sorted out this morning.
We hope to sign the contract for the construction driveway tomorrow. Our neighbor, Brad's brother-in-law, is probably going to do the job. He's in that business and offers a number of advantages that should save us money, not the least of which is hauling away excess fill. We may need to use his driveway get the large cement pump trucks up onto our property, so keeping them onboard may facilitate that.
Depending on weather, they'll start on the driveway in the next couple of weeks.
✍️ Reply by email