CNSTRCTN, VOL. VII, # 4, WALLS UP, WALLS DOWN

Memories, like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold in heart's hands.

What a week!  Starting with what the workmen could do with
the students still in the building for three days, we find a few in
the library at the receiving end of the posts which were delivered
from the chapel roof.  First, of course, those posts (lay-speak)
had to be delivered to the chapel roof as you see on the right.  On the inside, once the passing-in process began, it looked like this:

While that was going on at east end of the building, and after
the students were gone, things began happening on the first floor.  First, lockers were removed yet                                                      
again, out of another section for a new window or door for the new Collaborative Learning Center.


Now for the really dramatic and, needless to say, loud drilling and hammering (think busting) began in the area of the old lavatory.
  
The first photo was taken just outside the outside door on the side of the building.  (That doorway is now under the roof of the soon to be extended CLC.)  The second photo is from the next day or so from the area of the old president's office (i.e. the old office, not the president--she's doing quite youthfully in her new office down the hall).
The final photo for the issue shows the chapel area as the walls were beginning to rise at the beginning of the week.  More was accomplished in the course of the week there. As that was commencing, the men from Michel's were continuing the trenching around the building, laying the wiring for the new LED lights that will surround us (farewell, starry nights).  That work continues as this is being typed, but out in the theatre parking lot area.  When blogger crossed the parking lot a few hours ago, (this is the day after Christmas) there were at least four big shovels (tractor type--lay speak), several trucks, and over a dozen men waiting for the ditching to commence in that area so the installation could begin.  With temperatures in the lower 20s--no fun.

And so the story goes on.  Soon, maybe today--this one never knows for sure--work will begin on the removal of the flooring in the cafeteria.  The floor will then receive a permanent painting.  Much more will happen in that area eventually.  Stay tuned.
May your ending of 2017 be a blessed one with enduring thoughts of a God-made-Man ever among us!

CNSTRCTN, VOL. VII #3 Mysterious Developments

Memories, like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold in heart's hand.


The week was cold which probably accounts for much
less action outdoors on the construction site.  There
seems to have been some action indoors, but so far,
blogger hasn't had access to it.  A workman was actually seen by blogger in the foyer.  Maybe she should have taken a photo of that since it is so rare with all of the outdoor activity going on.
So what are you looking at here?  Obviously, you're looking at the north wall in the library without carpet and shelves.  The photo was left large (in blog terms) so blogger hopes you can see the trough against the wall.  Blogger still can't imagine what is going on exactly, but she was told that there will be a repetition of the pillars in the chapel next to the outside wall, and that the pillars in the library will line up with them.  It still seems a strange way to this lay observer to go about putting in a supporting beam where she thinks it ought to go.  It remind her of the old Lucille Ball film when she becomes the secretary to a construction team that is bent on skimming off the funds (or something--memory fails of a film viewed over 60 years ago).  At any rate, Lucy visits the construction site after hours and sees that the spaces marked off with sticks are much too small for this residential construction, so she changes all of them to accommodate a family.  As blogger recalls, she ends up converting the boss (a young good-looking actor) to seeing it her way and to integrity.  Of course, they fall in love in the process.  Blogger has no intention of changing anything here since she doesn't know what's going on here.

Stay tuned to the further adventures of Clueless.  Have a blessed conclusion to this Advent season.

CNSTRCTN, VOL. VII , #2 How to Build Support

Memories, like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold with heart's hands.

Yes, support is needed for the load bearing of the outside wall of the library.  Blogger was forced to do some thinking about this before the fog cleared.  To wit...
recall the step poured in chapel that was so puzzling.  This past week the workmen began bolting a number of poles onto that step.  As of today, there are about a dozen such poles all the way across the span.  Somehow, the supporting beam will be placed atop these poles and fixed in place (with much welding, no doubt).  At the point that all that is accomplished, the poles will be removed and also the step.  Amazing!  Must more be done inside that space (chapel) before they move to the next big step?  We shall see.









Looking outside of the chapel windows, one can see the concrete blocks getting ready for the first installment of a wall--what one may think will be the next big step.  We'll see which wall will go up first since three walls must be erected as compared with the two walls in the CLC.  While each area of construction presents its own challenges, blogger thinks the chapel extension will win the contest.

The week has been full, probably much fuller than these photos show.  Today, Friday, with the students gone, the men were sledge hammering down a wall in the old lavatory.  Blogger was afraid to go in since the men (or man) wasn't expecting an observer (and it may not have been all that safe for this "lay" person).  Maybe the coming week will yield a few photos of that activity.

Have a good week, and rest up for the next installment of CNSTRCTN.























Meanwhile, up in the library, things have moved quickly as the schedule for work up there has been moved up.  Mrs. Benkert mobilized her team of willing helpers and a huge amount of work has been accomplished by the time of this posting.  Mrs. B. can be seen on the left in the first shot.

  

The west wall of the room and the south wall are now lined with the boxes that mercifully became available as the the fruit sale fruit was picked up.  Praise the Lord and pass the empty box!

CNSTRCTN, VOL. VII, # 1, Collaborative Learning Center (aka Library) Advances

Memories, like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold in heart's hands.

Where to start?  How about going from top down at the CLC?  Okay; here are the men working on the final insulation layer (white) and the subsequent tarpping (lay speak) (black).  As you can see, the skylights are already in place with the fitting of the tarp coming next since they must fit it around the skylights.A better photo of the process would show how they measure to cut.  As they do for carpet laying???
But carpets are thicker than this tarp, so perhaps you know how that goes.  Anyway, by the end of the week the job was accomplished.  Is that IT for the roof?  Blogger doesn't know, so we all shall see.  The skylights look smart, don't they.
Now lets go down on the soccer field side of the CLC to see what's been accomplished there.  The men have been quite busy, as you will see in this series of pics, starting from the left, moving across the side and ending on the right.  First is the man at the pile of bricks (many bricks!),                     

then the brick-layers at work

All of this is, of course, very encouraging.  



The top of the chapel extension is moving along also, sort of at the stage you've seen in other postings--corrugated roof with skylight already installed.  The next step will be the white insulation slabs, but currently they are still down at the CLC area.  Perhaps tomorrow, Monday, will see them fork-lifted off the roof adjacent to the CLC and moved down to the chapel end.  At any rate, you are witness to the next dramatic move in the saga of NDA RNVTNS/CNSTRCTN, VOL. VII, #2.  Join us again, at the end of this first week of December, 2017.  (Where did the year go?)

     



     

CNSTRCTN VOL. VI, #5 Front and Back (or One Side and the Other)

Memories, like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold in heart's hands.

By way of review, here's what the elevator well (?)
looks like now post-drill.  Of course, the cylindrical item in the middle is the hole with a cover over it--that hole that required the magic drill.  The ladder gives some perspective as to depth of the well.

Now let's go to the other side of the building to see what was happening there on Wednesday.



What, another crane?  Yes, this time delivering a new generator to  accommodate the expansions of the last several years (we have another older generator).  Here it's being lifted off the flatbed truck that delivered it.  You should have seen all the maneuvers these large vehicles had to go through in order to position themselves correctly, especially the crane driver.  It was like watching a masterful dodge-ems or a dance of the titans of the road.

                                                                     

Here the generator is on a skid waiting for the final check and adjustments before it could be placed on the concrete platform that has been waiting for it for months.  Blogger missed the final move because her iPad ran too low.  As it was, the whole maneuver up to this point took at least a half an hour, and blogger must have an ungloved hand to take the photos.  It was quite cold that morning, so both the iPad and the handler were ready to come in.

Back to the other side:
Yes, bricks at last, stacked so neatly.  But you must look closely to see them behind the scaffolding in the second photo. Look at the bottom of the photo and you'll see the bricked portion of the new wall of the library.  Behind the fence-like barrier you can see all the bricks sitting on their sides (waiting to be grabbed?) and the concrete wall the bricks are covering, above the waiting bricks.
One more shot to help clarify.   Just below the ladder, close to the middle of the photo, you can see the extent of the bricklaying.  Enlarge the photo and you may be able to make it out (it is there!).
Well, it's obvious that the men made the best of the time the Thanksgiving holidays gave them.  The bricklayers were here on Friday.  If you're lost, it's okay.  Things will become clearer as we move ahead.

This is life on a small construction site, but stay with us.  Greater and more exciting things are on the horizon.

VOL. VI, # 4 Preparations, Preparations

Memories like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold in heart's hands.


Just reviewing.





Actually, as you may guess, the corrugated part of the roof of the chapel extension is in place and the men are standing on it.



More on the east (chapel) end: the men came with the BIG truck to do the drilling in the elevator shaft this week.  The following photos will give you a look at the truck (has all but the kitchen sink, but maybe that too, hidden in there somewhere) and what it looks like doing its thing.

               

What you see in the last of the drill photos is what it looks like on the ground as the drill does its thing.  Enlarge the photo so you can see a cloud of dust (faint in this photo).  That is, of course, what the drill is pulling up.  Periodically there was a more dense and high cloud than what you see here.  At times the man stopped the drill and he and another man jumped down into the shaft and dug out the dirt that had collected.  You can see the mounds of dirt they threw out of the shaft.  Since blogger does not have the vocabulary here as in other places (you've no doubt noticed) she needs to make clear that what she is calling the shaft is like a little room with a hole about two feet wide in the middle of the floor.  The "room" about 5 1/2  feet deep. The hole is what they were drilling into to the depth of about 30 ft., if blogger remembers correctly, and will hold cables, etc. (?) needed to raise/lower the elevator.  That's all she knows (or thinks she knows).

Down at the other end of the construction area, things have been happening above ground.  Preparations are in process for placing the skylight frames.  In the opening you can see the top of a platform lifted to the opening for some work needed to be done there.  The man has probably gotten out onto the roof so the lift is empty.

CNSTRCTN, VOL.VI, #3 The Chapel also Rises

Memories like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold in heart's hands.

The week began rather slowly, or so it seemed to blogger, until Tuesday.
That's when she realized that "they" were pouring concrete again.  This
time at the library (CLC) end where more blocks were laid to build up to
the roof.  The concrete was poured into the holes at the top of the
blocks.  These photos were taken after the sun cleared the building, creating the blue shadows.

Moving to the east, to the chapel area, things there were also moving quickly, very quickly. You can see how early the crane had arrived to begin the placement of the upright beams.              

 
So we see the men moving from fixing short beams into place between the vertical beams and preparing for the placement of the latticed ceiling beams (lay-speak).  All along the way the men are measuring distances, checking levels and generally being very particular about their work.  As you can see, this is all hard-hat work.  Welders move in at each step to fix the latest beam placed. (Be sure to enlarge this last photo in particular to see blogger's point.)  The last shot is a bonus, to be sure.  It isn't often in the history of libraries or of construction that a shot like this can come to us.  It's from our librarian, Mrs. Bankert, who had to mount a table to get it.  I leave it large for your enjoyment, but you can enlarge it further to get the facial expression of the man on the left.  He may have spotted our valiant librarian while his companion was shielding his eyes from the early morning sun.  Next time we'll see how they were able to be looking in one of our library windows.  Stay tuned.

RNVTNS VOL. VI, #2 East End Activity

Memories like birds, fleeting--they must be grasped and held in heart's hand.

East end?  Isn't that chapel?  Yes, but mostly de-struction instead of con-struction.  Eu, that doesn't sound so good.  But think of it this way: some things must be removed in order to make way for
the new and/or to be moved to the new.

   So here you have it.  Can you tell where in the chapel it is?  Blogger thinks most will know.  We all wondered what the task would look like in the doing, so the two photos should give us all a good idea.

The other big move at the chapel end is the pouring of cement for the new entrance and an additional space that still holds some mystery (until blogger can steal a look at the plans for Phase 2.)

  Looking out a counselor's office window gave blogger a perfect position to take a few photos that show how careful the finishers of the cementing must be.  Note that the man on the right of the second photo is balancing himself on the narrow strip of cement between the elevator shaft and the newly laid cement immediately to his right, in order to do the finishing of the other end of the newly laid cement (Thursday morning).  Pretty tricky.


Any activity at the west end?  A little bit that blogger could observe, but which she is rather sure is only that--a little bit of what really transpired there.  The fork lifter told blogger that the workmen are getting ready to do more to the roof (at least that's what she got out of what he said--he speaks professional!)



Blogger finally got down to the Art Department to photograph some of the new equipment down there.  Oh, to be an art student again and work in the department now!  The sinks are not new to you perhaps, having appeared in an earlier posting, but here you see them in all their glory, i.e. being used.  New drawing boards--pretty nifty; and good storage space--a dream come true.

                                                                 .
So dreams come true all over the place here.  Check in next week for the further adventures of...
                                                           RNVTNS.    

P.S.  A friend called blogger attention to the fact that VOL. V,  #2 was missing.  It was sitting in "draft" alas, but wasn't cold yet.  So the viewer can backtrack and see what blogger forgot to publish.  Oops!