Gas Line

Here's the link to the original post about the need to replace the gas line.


This was a lot faster than digging the trench by hand:

A friend with a tractor and the small back-hoe attachment came over and dug the trench and backfilled it in about a half a day (Thanks, Junior!).




Here's the view from the street above:

Here's a picture of the required plastic gas line:

Remember the Curb Box that was such a problem to locate?
Look right below the yellow line painted on the stone:

Here's a close-up:

It's not really a box at all, but a plain-looking shut-off valve. The reason it was so hard to find is because it was so far below the surface. And this is after they raised it!

The painted yellow line was so we didn't lose it again.

There are a few more updates that need done before we can have it pressure tested. However, that should be done by the end of the week and then we'll be able to get a meter hooked up and start checking out the furnaces....

It gets worse...

...before it gets better.

PC with PPE

Here's PC with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) strapped to his face:

This particular PPE makes a normal breath sound exactly like Darth Vader sweating his way through a lightsaber duel.

All the insulation and general dust from tearing down, ripping out, and hauling away has the air pretty thick with stuff you'd really be better off keeping out of your lungs.

Fortunately, this phase of deconstruction will be over soon.

Fyr-Fyter Fire Extinguisher

PC found this 'Fyr-Fyter' in one of the little storage closets in the back of the 1st floor:

And, even though 'Fyr-Fyter' is an oddball name, this water-filled fire extinguisher was still fully charged. Because we didn't really believe it, PC pulled the pin and squeezed the handle and sprayed it all over the floor (sorry, no pictures of that) and then, to empty it, he took it outside and sprayed down the parking lot, too (sorry, no pictures of that, either).

What's really impressive is this:

Can you read it? It's March 6, 1969! And it still works!

And look where it came from:

It's from the Grafton Fire Department.

It's good to know that the Grafton Fire Department is reliable.

Another Sink Drain

I thought the other drain was probably the tool wash station for the dentist's office.
Maybe it was, but that didn't stop this drain from collecting it's share of tools, too.

Notice that this trap is plastic. The other one was stainless steel, which dates it as an older part.
If I had to guess, I would say that the original drain for this sink was stainless steel, too (all the sinks were installed at the same time). All those tools getting lost down the sink finally clogged it up and the newer plastic parts were used to rebuild it.

That's a lot of tools.

Here's a link to the original sink drain post: Lose Something?

Novel Excerpt

For those of you who asked, I posted an excerpt of my novel, Vultures, over on my other blog: MK Stover.

The above link is to the blog itself, but this link will take you directly to the novel excerpt: Vultures, Chapter 2.

I'll also be posting updates on the Amazon Novel writing contest progress over there.

Problems with pictures?

I'm having trouble viewing the pictures on the sidebar. I uploaded two new ones. The first is simply the front face of 123, similar to the old picture. The second is a picture of the '1890' Cornerstone. I can't see either one.
It may be my internet connection, but I'm not sure.
Can you see them?

Morning Glories

I love volunteers. Especially volunteer flowers:

This beautiful pile of morning glories volunteered on the hillside where the jungle used to grow.

First the sunflower and now these; I wonder what other interesting seeds are waiting for an opportunity on our hillside?

Here's a close up of one of the blue blooms. It's snuggled in among a bit of English Ivy (the darker leaves):

And one more:

I was standing in the parking lot for this one. The bright blooms sit on top of the rock wall.

Pictures

I think there's something wrong with the profile picture in the sidebar; I haven't been able to figure out what to do about it.

Since I can't fix it, I will update it with a new picture that I will take today.

AND - yesterday I noticed a new flower. I'll get pictures of those, too.

Writing

I have neglected this blog for the past week in favor of other, older, writing projects.

Since I allowed it to prevent me from updating this blog, I figured it was appropriate to post that information here, because, even though it doesn't have anything to do with construction (or deconstruction), I actually do my writing -physically- at The 123.

My office is on the second floor and I spend as much time there as possible during the week when the kids are in school. It's been amazing how much writing I can actually get done without the distraction of laundry and dirty breakfast dishes; I always suspected I could, but now I have proof.
I love my office :)

Go here: MKStover.com for my website. I don't have much content up at this time, but I do keep it updated. I post information about current writing projects and I will continue to add to it.

This past week, I have been working on this: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

I was on the internet looking for the NaNoWriMo website (more about this in a minute) and this Amazon Novel contest appeared. So, knowing that this was something I should do, I signed-up, got a registration number, and was given 7 days to submit a manuscript.
That's a tall order, isn't it?

Good thing I already had the novel written.

I wrote Vultures in bits and pieces (with occasional phases of mania) over the course of a couple of years. It's been collecting dust now for at least the last 18 months, maybe even closer to 2 years. I had worked on it for a very long time and I was just not sure of the overall effect. I queried an agent once about it, but she was not interested (at least she responded) and I just pushed it out of my way and went on to other things. Not very persevering, huh?

So last week I opened the Vulture zip folder on my hard drive, pulled the printed copy out of the file drawer and sat down to read it for the first time in a very long time.

I'm glad I waited that long. The time away from it gave me a new perspective; I was able to approach it as a reader and not the writer. That helped tremendously (and the time gap helped sever the emotional attachment -but maybe that's too much information).

Anyway- for the last 7 days I have been (maniacally) proofreading (again) and cutting (again) and editing (again) this old manuscript. I was surprised to find that there really wasn't all that much wrong with it: basic grammar issues and a couple of small chronology problems.

*Thanks to my family for helping with the week's volatile overtime work schedule*

I will post more information about this as it progresses.

As for the NaNoWriMo: that's short for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to crank out 50,000 words in November. I've known about this Novel writer's craze for several years, but I think this year I will participate to get a jump on my next novel. I'll post links to this, too, as Novemeber approaches.

More Weird Stuff in the Parking Lot

It's not the first...

(Click HERE and scroll down to the second sunflower picture for a link to the first post about weird stuff in the parking lot.)

...and I'm sure it won't be the last weird stuff in the parking lot.

Actually, it's a good thing because it means progress. The first floor is about 85% gutted.

Does anyone need cabinets for their garage?

Rainbows over Grafton

If you look closely...

...you can see a second rainbow just above the first.

This is the view from the roof looking east along Main Street. The big building at the furthest point is the Willard Hotel.

While there's not much on the web about this building, here's a link to Grafton's Memorial Day Celebration, The Spirit of Grafton, that gives a bit of information about places of interest.

For a great collection of Grafton pictures on the web, this is probably the best site up: Grafton

The best collection of Grafton & Taylor County pictures -anywhere- is housed in the International Mother's Day Shrine on Main Street in Grafton. You could almost see it from the picture above, but it's on the same side of the street as The 123. They are currently open for visitors Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm. It would be a great place to bring your mom. And next year is the 100 year anniversary of the 1st Mother's Day (as they put together their schedule of events, I'll keep the links on the sidebar here updated).

Lose Something?

PC's been dismantling the sinks in the old dentist office and this is what he found in one of the drain traps:

They're jammed in there good and tight, too.


Now that we're on the subject of weird things in sink drains....

The kitchen sink trap upstairs had a mouse in it. The only reason we know this is because the p-trap was rusted through. When we turned on the water to that sink for the first time, there were no leaks in the water lines, but when I looked underneath the sink, the trap was leaking, but I couldn't tell from where until I started poking things with my finger. When I poked the bottom of the sink trap, my finger went right through. Fortunately, I did not realized that the furry scum was a dead mouse; PC told me later when he took it apart to fix it.

Sunflower & Curb Box

I asked if I could borrow it, but they didn't think that was a good idea:

This is the gas company digging for the 'curb box.' A Curb Box is not a box at all, but a small round access to a shut-off valve. It's an added security to prevent gas leaks. Of course, the gas is turned off to the building because there is no meter; there's a cap on the line. The curb box allows the gas company to shut off the gas going from the main line to where the meter should be. Because we have to replace the line from the meter hook-up to the curb box, the gas company had to actually find the curb box. Theoretically, the metal detector should have found the round cover of the curb box, but after unearthing a spark plug and other miscellaneous items buried just a few inches down, it was time to try something else. So, after several attempts with different tools (that I didn't really understand, but they were designed to trace the pipes running underground) -over the course of several days- it couldn't be located. That's why the backhoe is here today. They actually had to dig up a pretty wide area (as you can see from the picture) to find it. I think they had to extend the pipe by a foot or two also -to get it up to ground level- but I missed that part; I just got here as they were finishing up today.


Even if I could use the backhoe to dig the trench for the new line, it would have only been useful for about half of it. The rest of the line, as the hillside drops down toward the building, gets pretty steep and at the rear of the building it wouldn't have fit at all; there's a rock wall -apparently it used to be a part of an oven (I'll get into this more later as I start filling in the history of the 123)- that creates a tier in half of the backyard.


Here's the northeast corner where the gas meter used to sit (actually two gas meters: one for the first floor dentist office and one for the second floor insurance agency, but we only need one):

You can see the jungle greenery already starting again. The lighter color brick at the upper right corner of the picture is -or was- a window. It was bricked in probably about the same time as the first floor was redone for the dentist office - about 1969.


As for digging in the new gas line: if we use machinery at all, it'll have to be a very small trench digger. Or perhaps just shovels and elbow grease. And sweat. Fortunately, if what the backhoe was digging up is any indication, the ground is not too hard and the dirt is very pretty from all the years of jungle-growth.


And, speaking of the pretty soil... (Click here to read about the jungle, including mulberry trees.)
Here is a picture of a new leaf that is growing out of the mulberry-tree stump:

All the leaves are not shaped like this, but it's the most interesting shape of them all. I googled images for mulberry trees and I am pretty sure that's what this is, though I didn't spend enough time to figure out which species.


While I was outside taking pictures of the gas company dig, I saw this:

This is a volunteer sunflower at the northwest corner. It's up on the hillside on top of the first rock wall. The pipe to the left of it is the gutter drain. You can see the old screen door that I left open when I came out the back, although I am actually down in the parking lot to snap this picture.


I was tempted to leave out this next picture, a wider angle, just because this one shows some duct work in the parking lot:

But, I suppose duct work as a temporary parking lot accessory is not such a bad thing; we're not finished gutting the first floor yet, either, so there will probably be even weirder things in the parking lot before we're through.


And one more:

The fellows from the gas company are on the upper street just finishing up. I'm still standing in the parking lot. You can barely see the little yellow head of the sunflower between the drain pipe and the duct pipes, but this picture starts to give you an idea of the hillside/rock wall tiers of the back lot.


Enough for now....

Gas Line Replacement

The gas line has to be replaced. From the back of the building where the meter would be -if there was a meter- all the way up to the street has to be ripped up and updated.

I thought we were doing pretty well by getting the gas meter put back in so we could test everything and get the heat going in plenty of time so there aren't any freezing water pipes, but it's not that simple. Unfortunately.

Once the gas has been turned off to a building for more than a year, the gas company comes and reclaims the meter. That explains why it's missing. And why the pipes froze.

Because the meter was reclaimed, the entire system has to be updated and certifiably inspected before they'll give us a meter. While this gas company protocol seems a bit extreme, I have to keep in mind that it is designed to prevent explosions. So that's probably a good thing.

The lines, right now, are steel. I always thought steel pipes were fine. Apparently I am very out of date and now plastic is required.

It looks as if we have some digging to do.