Tastytronic diary for alaric

8 Jun 2008

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:59:05 -0700

Still in Montana. It's been snowing here off and on for three days. This is getting ridiculous. We're on the roof now, I've been cutting rafters for a week. New pictures at Building the Best

11 Mar 2008

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:29:37 -0700

Still in Montana. Progress is slow, but at least it's steady. It stopped snowing every day, and it's getting up into the 40's on the mountain most days. There are new pictures up at the website. With all of the steel up it almost looks like a building. The tallest pieces of steel in the pictures will support the main ridge beam of the roof. Hope everyone is doing well.

10 Feb 2008

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:29:25 -0700

Hi all. I'm in Montana and we finally had a few days of productive work, instead of the usual shoveling snow for the greater portion of the day. In a building with so many windows and so little room for shear walls, we have to put up steel moment frames to make everything rigid. I spent a couple of days laying out bolt patterns on the foundation, drilling holes, epoxying all-thread rods in place, and determining set elevations. Now the majority of the steel is up in the lower unit, and walls are almost all built. I posted some pictures of our progress here.

22 Jan 2008

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:03:10 -0700

I'm still stuck in Minnesota. At least it's starting to warm up a little. It got up to 12 degrees today, yay! After craning a roof this morning a coworker and I took this afternoon off to get things ready for our trip to Montana tomorrow. Then this afternoon we got a phone call from my foreman saying our trip is delayed because our steel shipment is running late and a couple pieces of equiptment have broken down, so it sounds like next week is more likely. For anyone interested, here is my new jobsite.

29 Dec 2007

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:24:40 -0700

Merry Christmas everybody! I'm back in MN for a couple of weeks until we start the 2nd job in MT. It's nice to be back and see the family, but now I miss the mountains. It's been snowing a lot lately, the news says this could be one of the top ten snowiest Decembers in the twin cities. Luckily it's been mosty powder and shoveling hasn't been too much of a chore.

19 Nov 2007

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:46:35 -0700

Smax, drive up to Montana, it's snowing in Big Sky.

Hi everybody. I've been absent for a while, but I should be around more often now that I have a computer again. I finally got tired of being a Luddite after two and half years. I'm usually living in the Twin Cities, but I'm on a traveling crew right now and am living in Big Sky MT for the winter. Currently, I'm building a commercial structure in the Town Center of Meadow Village. The frame is up and we're starting on exterior trim this week. In December we'll be building a 16,000 sq. ft. duplex in the Yellowstone Club up on the mountain. I'm excited.

Congratulations Jeremy! I think you'll be a great father.

29 Jul 2004

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 12:55:11 -0700

No problem. Thanks for the beer and pizza!

25 May 2004

Tue, 25 May 2004 02:27:02 -0700

lukas -- The FDR memorial left a big impression on me after seeing it the first time I visited Washington. I think I took more pictures there than the rest of the city combined. I look forward to seeing the WWII monument on my next trip out there, I think it looks good in the pictures, but with memorials the experience is necessary. For instance, the Marine Corps War Memorial is gigantic in a way that simply does not come across in pictures or descriptions. I feel kind of silly giving site seeing tips to someone who lives there, but in the case of Arlington I feel compelled. Here's the short version: go when it's raining.

Long version: Arlington is without a doubt my favorite place in D.C. My first visit was on a hot, sunny day in either the week before or after the 4th of July. Consequently, there were tons of people there, and while it was still great to see, it was less than ideal and not how I had pictured it in my head. However, my second visit was on a cool, rainy day in November. It was absolutely perfect. The rain must have kept any tourists indoors at the Smithsonian, because there were never more than a few people around the bigger sites (no more than twenty people were there to watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns, versus about two hundred during my first visit), and those who were there were very respectful as it was clearly where they wanted to be. As a result, with a little timing and patience I was able to be alone with my thoughts for a while at most places, including JFK's grave. The rain also gave a fitting sense of hallowed silence which only magnified the expansiveness of the grounds. Standing in front of the portico at Arlington House watching the rain fall on the cemetery and Washington beyond was one of the most humbling and awe-inspiring moments of my life. Words don't do it justice and my pictures didn't turn out, so I'm left with the only the memory. But that's probably okay, becasue I doubt the pictures could have done it justice either.

14 Dec 2003

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 20:17:31 -0700

lieutenant: I second that.

24 Jul 2003

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:18:47 -0700

Today at work I acheived my Zookeeper personal best score of 16010. When I get to level where they add the human character, I fall apart.