Friday 3 August 2007

Digging In The Dirt

“Digging In The Dirt” has got to be one of the all time greatest songs to hear when you are gutting it out up a nasty climb, although I have to think that “When The Levee Breaks” is still the best.

For the next few weeks my life is going to be a lot about digging in the dirt. We’ll be excavating a building foundation that’s about 180’ by 160’ by 25’ deep, which translates to about 25000 cubic yards of dirt, or about 2400 truckloads, or about 80 dumptruck loads a day for a month. That’s a lot of dirt, and a bit of a hill of my own to climb.

In addition to doing the foundation for the hotel building, the other thing we’ll be doing is finishing out the demo of this historic building. The second floor will be removed entirely, leaving only the iron bracing. The iron bracing in the photo is the stuff we were putting in the week before the Coppi race, until about 6:30 on Friday night. I like to blame my poor performance in that race on a week spent moving ¼ ton beams around an attic in 90 plus degree heat, and the sciatic nerve I sacrificed to that process. Anyhow, this building will house our site office until the building’s garage is poured and has the sprinkler system installed, and it will house our mock up unit, where we will build a model hotel room to establish quality levels and test finishes. After that, it will become a wine bar and pizzeria. So after the first Quicksilver Training Race in 2009, stop in. The first round will be on me.

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