Tuesday, August 29, 2006

I stuck the equivalent of two dead bodies in the ground today

That would be the six bags of concrete that weighed sixty pounds each. I'm building an emergency shed out in back of the house. This has been a bit of a saga, going on for the better part of eight months. Maybe I'll tell that whole tale some other time. For now, I can share the more 'concrete' part of the story.

If you haven't worked with concrete then you may be underestimating, to a great degree, my latest foe. Six bags of portland cement, sand and small rocks. Each bag is 0.45 cubic feet of concrete. A half a cubic foot sounds pretty small. It is pretty small when you're trying to do a footing around the perimeter of a 8'x10' shed foundation. I did six bags on Sunday and six bags today while waiting for an air conditioning repairman to show up. It only took me an hour to mix and distribute the six bags, but that was the longest stinking hour of my life. Add on top of that the effort to get the 360 pounds (hence, the two dead bodies reference) of dry concrete down from the garage to the shed site, and I didn't have to go running this morning to get a workout. I considered whether to cut down the amount of water I was mixing in, to balance out the amount of sweat dripping off me that was falling into the mixing trough.

I actually have about 4 more bags to go, then I can actually start assembling the shed on the flat, level foundation that I've built. I'll try to snap some pictures so you all can mock my efforts.

1 comment:

RByter said...

Aloha sweetheart! Hugs and kisses if you are who I think you are. Did you used to go by RFAG at the same place I was listed as RLBI? Long time 'eh?

Hey, I'll be in the SF Bay Area (out here we assume you mean Hanauma Bay :o) Wed Oct 4 - Thurs Oct 12. Would love to meet your wife & kids. I assume you must have cats.

Please write to me. I'll be expecting to hear from you or see some strange comment in your next blog posting.

If you are not who I think you are, you might just want to meet me anyway. We have a lot in common. I can tell just by the way you blog.