I'd Rather Be Hammerdrilling

Oh dear. Today was not good. I got yelled at by four people at the bank--assembled in a conference room just for this call--for being a troublemaker, when at the heart of it all I was just trying to tell them the great news that I saved $9000 on the water tap work. I wanted to pay the guy right away for getting the job done quickly and cheaply, and the bank does not like to pay people right away (or ever, if possible). I pushed too far, and they now apparently suspect me of taking the loan money and using it to finance my prescription drug habit or my concubine in the Bahamas or something. Do I look like an Enron executive? It didn't help that I was fiercely defensive about our contractors, whom the bank people suggested might be incompetent, dishonest, or probably both. Now the bank thinks we're all in cahoots.

All of this is laughable because we're making great progress on the building. The bank sends out an inspector every two weeks to verify that the work is being done, and even he was impressed with how much things have progressed. The majority of his report consists of pictures he takes. For example, to prove that we have paid laborers to do various jobs, he took a picture of a guy digging a hole. To show that we have a Port-a-Potty, he took a picture of that (Chris volunteered to model its usage, if that would help the bank see why we needed to spend money on it). He also photographed piles of lumber and steel that were lying around, and to top it off he took a picture of an invoice for a piece of equipment. He does not appear amused by any of this. We pay this construction monitoring company several hundred dollars per report for their expertise.

We did some more hammerdrilling--I spent several hours out there with the guys today, which was fun. Jill prefers an over-the-head hammerdrilling method, which is not sanctioned by the National Hammerdrilling Association, whereas I have perfected a "make fault lines and let gravity help" approach. Follow those hints to figure out which of us is which in the pictures below--it's a bit hard to tell when we're tricked out in our safety gear (another hint would be Jill's personalized shirt).



Today our band of workers included Bob, the carpenter, who was fixing the holes in the roof (actually, his assistant was fixing them, and Bob was standing on the ground critiquing...I'm sure this reflects some essential apprenticeship process). I forgot my camera, so I don't have a picture of Bob yet, but believe me, it will be worth the wait when you see him. Bob went down the street to get us pizza for lunch, and he got me the biggest soda I've ever drunk, which was good, because I was really thirsty after inhaling all the plaster dust. It was the first real Coke I've had in a while, and it tasted...kind of gross. Not that diet Coke tastes any better.

I would have finished removing all the plaster if it weren't for the three hours I spent on the phone with the bank. Now one of the laborers is going to have to finish the job tomorrow (we better take a picture of him), which makes me sad, because it was my own personal project. But it has to get done before they pour the concrete floor tomorrow afternoon! That's going to make a huge difference in how the place looks, and starting next week, we will be in sprint to the finish line. It's still more than a month away, but the place is going to start looking better each day, and it's time for Jill and me to enter desperation mode. Too bad I am so worn out from my battles with the bank that the only thing I could manage after I got home this evening was to test out a chocolate chip cookie recipe and eat about ten cookies' worth of dough.