A Recommendation for Getting an Engineering Degree

Among the many strange things left by the previous tenants of our house is a partially working security camera system. There is a camera in back and in front. When we moved in, we didn't know if they worked because the place they go to had all the cables slashed (as if someone were removing a DVR in a hurry). This was one of the many things that the police insisted on verifying when they searched the house our first week there. Strangely I had a hard time convincing them there was no recording equipment or DVDs in the house when we got it ("Oh yeah, all that incriminating evidence. Yes, I kept it right here officer. We watch it sometimes when we get bored, very instructive.")
After a few months, my brilliant husband put that engineering degree to good use and fixed everything to go to a monitor so we could see that the cameras did actually work (kinda). The only one that worked well was the one in the back yard and over the course of the next year he got an entire system set up and re-routed into the house so we didn't need a monitor in the attic to see the cameras feeds. Its kinda neat, but sort of creepy at the same time.
However, its usefulness finally outweighed its creepiness! Last week we were on vacation, which was unfortunate, since the first concrete was suppose to be poured for the pergola pillars sometime that week. We were really bummed that we'd be missing this. Then, that genius husband of mine figured out a way to securely stream the camera feed so we could take a look each afternoon after they finished to see what happened the day before. The result ended up being a really cool time lapse:

Husband +2 points

A Lesson in Perseverance

Most of last week was spent digging holes for the pergola posts and as this week drew to a close, I have re-evaluated my conclusion. They are clearly starting their own mining company. Each of the six holes is now a solid 3ft cube. If you've never had the benefit of digging through granite, let me give you some insight into the process...
It took one man 4 days to jack hammer this hole.

And as you can see, it is not a 3ft cube. No, after the jack hammering comes the pick axe, hammer,  and  shoveling...

Until it looks something more like this...

And then do this again, five more times...

After almost two solid weeks of digging, the inspector gets to come and look at the holes, the plans, and then asks for the building permit. Oh the building permit. Wasn't the sub-contractor for the pergola supposed to get that?...
Well apparently its not enough to have applied for the permit, it must also be approved, and mailed out. I'm not entirely sure if the sub-contractor totally dropped the ball on this one or if there were other contributing factors, but the cement trucks that were planned for today did not come.

Day 30 Status: Even MORE holy* backyard

*This type of holy is not approved by the catholic church or our county

Watch Out For That First Step

With the season and then the time change it has become almost impossible to get a picture of the backyard each day. By the time I'm home from work its been dark almost two hours and its dark when I leave for work. While this is obnoxious from a photographic perspective, it's positively deadly from an exploratory perspective. There are no lights in the backyard, so the phrase "I'm going to check out the backyard" has become tantamount to leaving for an amazon underwater caving expedition. It involves flashlights, dangerous ledges, venomous spiders, and a near certainty of ending up muddy....of course, only I would attempt to do this barefooted.
Each night this week, I've crept out with my mega flashlight (useful for alerting medical aircraft in where to land and blinding/angering small animals) to view the progress on the backyard. It at first was attempted while still in my work heels, but then I discovered that to be safety hazard (to the heels), and switched to bare feet (always safe in a construction zone, as it provides better traction and quick alerting to lost sharp tools or materials). It's actually quite difficult to tell what if any progress was being made. Now with most of the trenches filled up with dirt, they seemed to be focusing on the side yard garden boxes - measuring and staking in posts for the frames. While searching for signs of progress I discovered several black widows and, accidentally, several unexpectedly muddy areas (found by way of squishy foot contact). However, one night I ventured out to discover some mighty progress had been made. I quite literally stumbled into it.

Oh my. There's a hole. A giant hole just outside our door. That's interesting. Oh look, there's another!

and another...and another...and another...and another...

Eventually I realized they were digging the holes for the pillars of our pergola (like by the third hole at least). Wonderful what exciting progress. Also should probably upgrade to shoes...

Day 25 status: Holy Backyard

See? Its got a halo and everything...