Sheathing and Sheila-ing

I've decided that part of the overwhelming-ness of school is worrying about this blog not being up to date and that's why I'm up at 3:30 AM trying to make sheathing sound interesting. Maybe if I combine sheathing with my friend Sheila's visit....

Sheathing with plywood and not OSB (a local favorite that, when wet, dissolves like sheetrock that's been left in the rain) won us the respect of the county building inspector forever. Anyway, so that's done and now I can tell you about Sheila.

She flew all the way from Portland, Oregon to visit. One of the few-few people that didn't flinch when I told her (yes, ahead of time) that she would have to sleep outside with us and we didn't have plumbing, electricity or running water. Waking up to Max's frozen solid water bowl, she decided her brand new 30 degree accordion-baffled down bag would be her summer bag. Long hikes are perfect for catching so that's mostly what we did. We invited ourselves to Ed and Linda's, vintage friends who fed us from their garden. They wouldn't have minded sleeping outside covered with frost either. Sheila, Ed and I lived in a tent camp and worked together as Forest Service surveyors 29 years ago....before all but one of our film school classmates was born. Traveling teammates living on $10 a day, I left Sheila in New Zealand (the stop after Hawaii, Fiji and Australia) to work for the NZ Forest Service and now all of a sudden she's been a soil scientist for over 20 years.

I got my Nelson Library card today. Check-out limit? 20.

Tonight's homework (my turn to pick) was watching Michael Moore's 'Roger And Me'. Maybe school's not so bad.

Pretty sure that's snow I saw up in the mountains north of town this morning. Could be just rocks or something except I'm sure they weren't there yesterday. Don't remind me that we'll be spending the weekend in a tent.

Waiting for Kathy

"OK. So we're just waiting for Kathy." the instructor said.

I know he wasn't trying to be mean or anything and I doubt anyone even heard him or cared but I felt like I'd just been the last kid picked. When did everyone finish anyway? And how was I supposed to finish now that everyone was maybe staring or pointing? I handed in the test and then he said "Do you want to take a couple minutes and stretch your legs?" How long had everyone been done? I'm in my 50's shouldn't I be smarter and faster than everyone else except Vince?

Vince and I started school a couple weeks ago. We're renting a great little house Nelson, British Columbia Sunday nights through Thursday afternoons.

Joanne is 34. Shannon and Nils are 28 and the other seven are somewhere between that and 18. They're good kids. They offer to help me with new software and I offer them any information they may need on the 70's.

I don't think I'm as smart as I thought I was. These classes are hard. I'm not sure I like it. Actually I'm pretty sure I don't.

I'm not sure what to do. I'm thinking that once we get through editing the Sea World footage and capturing 29.97 fps in DV 720 x 480i (1.33:1) becomes second nature, I'll like it well enough to be inside all day.....when it's 70 degrees and sunny???

Film Studies
Screen-writng
Photoshop
Sound
Final Cut (editing)
Cinematography
Workflow
Directing....they looked interesting and fun on paper to me too....

Meanwhile. I just WALKED to the food co-op for tofu and avocados and tomorrow morning we'll WALK to Oso Negro (coffee) before Cinematography. I think I'm spoiled.

I'll figure it out.

Pictures:
• first day of school
• our Nelson house
• Oso Negro

time-FRAME-ing

Lucky you. : ) Our little house was framed so quickly that it left me at a loss for words.

By August 9, after a day and a half of hammers, saws, bad words, sun and a pesky hawk, our perfect frame rested happily under a roof of an exactly blue sky and the occasional vaporous wisp*.

We continued to work long days as though it were possible to move in by the first day of school, September 8, as planned. Who were we kidding?

Even so, we felt lucky. A sympathetic sun kept rain and cold weather haunting New England and our laundry drying in 15 minutes. The cleanest air ever, if you stay away from the American Legion on Friday nights, made every breath a celebration. A 5-star restaurant could never compete with our nightly cooked-under-the-stars-with-a-Coleman-stove organic rice and beans. With a salvaged 50 gallon drum table holding candle stubs and a re-purposed peanut butter jar of roadside sweet peas and daisies each meal punctuated the end of a chapter....that I'll never get around to writing because I'm messing with that damn Coleman stove.

*we have great clouds here

The Beam Team

On August 7 we framed and raised our first wall but unless you knew that one of it's components was a 900 pound beam it may not seem as heroic as it actually was.

Brett and Vince engineered the nearly one ton metal sandwich on site. Vince, only half kidding, said that he and Brett could lift it into place by themselves and Brett, completely serious, said he'd rather not.

Anyway, it's a good thing that Vince isn't intimidated by things he's never done because the big machine we rented as our third person was scary. It's long excavation arm and Volkswagon sized bucket looked like it could do a lot of damage if someone accidently tapped a control the wrong way.

In my role as cheerleader and camera person I shot some of the most boring hd movie footage you'll ever see but in the end we had a header* that would support up to 12,000 pounds with only an eighth inch middle deflection. Miller time.

Then there was the I-beam hoist but since that only weighed 500 pounds it's hardly worth mentioning.

*a structural member above an opening that supports anything above the opening

The Beam Team (cont')

That's done.

Teasers

Stay tuned.

The House #1

"I'm still not sure what you're really building."
Before I heard that a fourth time, I decided to devote the next couple of posts to THE HOUSE. So, for all of the geeks that would rather read about the house than me, or Max or eagles....this one is for you. : )

Last you knew we had a foundation. Now we have a concrete slab. Covered with cement are layers of pipes, wires, insulation, stones and tubing that looked like a spaceship. Vince got so tired of me asking what layer came next that he quit answering and I had to ask Brett. The slab is concrete color, shiny, and smooth. It's the finished floor and a good home to a Turkish rug.

The pour. If you've ever done a big pour you know that it is sort of a big deal. Up early, we were giddy knowing that by the end of the day we'd have a finished floor so it was sort of embarrassing when the concrete guy didn't show up or call. What do you do? We did the same thing the surgeon did that time I forgot to come in for surgery (true story). Reschedule. We're we mad at him? When he finally did show up a few day later he was a hero. I know, it's not fair.

And there's so much more done....

Rough plumbing.
Radiant tubing.
Radon ventilation.
Electric and water to the house. (during the electrical inspector banter I had to bite my tongue every time he referred to his partner as 'the wife')
Exterior walls framed. (framing is fun)
2 huge beams placed. (that was fun too)
Layers and layers of roof. (I didn't even bother asking Vince about those layers)
Felt on exterior walls becauseTyvek doesn't breathe and Typar isn't available out here.
Windows and doors are in except the wall to wall, window/door combination that showed up here 180 degrees from the way we ordered it. All the doors and windows are very up-scale looking (which is what you want in Metaline Falls) milled-aluminum The color of the inside of an aluminum can.

There is still more but I'll surprise you with all that later because I know you're still not sure what we're building.

Tomorrow...pictures of those big beams I was telling you about.

Gotta run...it's Tuesday. One woman Farmers Market* in the parking lot of the health food store in Ione that also sells bullets.

ps. we've had hot (i.e. 100 degree) dry weather. Good for building if you're not in a shadeless field on a roof covered with (one of the layers) tar paper. btw. tar-paper = black