Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Late Wednesday Cat Blogging
by Tom Bozzo
Apart from being hustled brusquely past to the basement or out the back door whenever he gets curious about the basement, Milo and the other neighborhood kitties have been suffering through two months in which our street has been totally destroyed, and as of this writing only partially reconstructed by men operating very noisy machines that scare the wits out of kitties, engender love-hate relationships with otherwise truck-obsessed toddlers, and send everyone else scurrying indoors to escape the exhausted diesel particulates.
To date, the action has been standard dig, dump, pound, roll stuff. This left us with a bare roadbed and no evidence of preparations for the needed concrete work. Earlier today, though, a fascinating machine showed up to advance the reconstruction dramatically and ensure that the neighbors won't be marching on city hall after the big Kerry rally. (Our driveway is on a side street just outside the destruction zone, so we've been more relaxed about the progress of the work.)
This contraption extrudes concrete curbs, and does it fast -- just under four block-faces' worth outside the house today. The guy who operates it appeared to have a pretty cushy job. He is backed up by a crew that handles the handwork: curb cuts, inserting storm sewer drains, splicing new and old curbs. That work appeared to be extremely hard manual labor, making me (and, presumably, our across-the-street neighbor, whom I saw also watching the machine creep along between the houses) incredibly grateful to be a gainfully employed advanced degree-holder and not outside shoveling concrete on a misty late-October day.
Here in the backwaters of the Internets, we can do edgy stuff like blog the cat on Wednesdays.
Apart from being hustled brusquely past to the basement or out the back door whenever he gets curious about the basement, Milo and the other neighborhood kitties have been suffering through two months in which our street has been totally destroyed, and as of this writing only partially reconstructed by men operating very noisy machines that scare the wits out of kitties, engender love-hate relationships with otherwise truck-obsessed toddlers, and send everyone else scurrying indoors to escape the exhausted diesel particulates.
To date, the action has been standard dig, dump, pound, roll stuff. This left us with a bare roadbed and no evidence of preparations for the needed concrete work. Earlier today, though, a fascinating machine showed up to advance the reconstruction dramatically and ensure that the neighbors won't be marching on city hall after the big Kerry rally. (Our driveway is on a side street just outside the destruction zone, so we've been more relaxed about the progress of the work.)
This contraption extrudes concrete curbs, and does it fast -- just under four block-faces' worth outside the house today. The guy who operates it appeared to have a pretty cushy job. He is backed up by a crew that handles the handwork: curb cuts, inserting storm sewer drains, splicing new and old curbs. That work appeared to be extremely hard manual labor, making me (and, presumably, our across-the-street neighbor, whom I saw also watching the machine creep along between the houses) incredibly grateful to be a gainfully employed advanced degree-holder and not outside shoveling concrete on a misty late-October day.
