Street Repairs Completed

My last report on street repairs took place on June 22 (link). Now, some 39 days later, the scraping of our old surface—and many and varied other adjustments to it, not least the replacement of defective curbing—ended today with final repaving. Herewith some shots of the process.

Much as scraping the street required a large initially empty truck going ahead of a scraper, so this process was the repeat of the first. A large and initially full truck, carrying asphalt, moved ahead of the paver. But a month-and-a-week ago, when the truck was full of debris, it departed. This time, when the truck was empty of asphalt it went on its way. In both cases the active machinery had to wait for the next truck.

The first picture shows the arrangement for paving, the caravan approaching us on the other side of the street. The second photo shows the result—and presents a nice before-and-after. In the third shot the paver is just passing our drive-way, putting down the hot asphalt (300° F). In the last picture, the roller is smoothening the surface left rough by some careful raking undertaken by the men after the paver had passed.

A nice birthday gift, you might say. But how did they know to do it today?

Electronic Detritus

Or things we hate (fear?) to throw away. My last post on this subject was on June 12, 2009 (link) where I reported hauling an SUV’s worth of obsolete computers to Goodwill—thus just a shade over three years ago. Now, way past schedule, I am beginning to think about clearing up the huge disorder caused in this house by the installation of central air. A little “walk about” this morning—first without and then with a camera—resulted in a new inventory of our electronic obsolescence. Herewith some annotations, going clockwise:

• Under the red box, a Smith Corona electric typewriter. It has only sentimental value. If the power fails, it won’t work either.
• A computer complete. Not ours. But the person who owns it (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) does not have the heart to junk it.
• A monitor I used when I was still working. It did not get recycled in 2009 because it would not fit into the SUV already stuffed to the ceiling with other big beige objects.
• An inkjet printer replaced with a laser printer, but, you know... You never know.
• A Cannon copier (under the table). It’s heart is pure and its lungs still work, but you can’t get it to pick up a single sheet of paper—whether using the front or the back feeder.
• Last, one of about six retired telephones and a keyboard that, someday, “may come in handy.”

Now concerning the third item, that massive monitor, it did come in handy just a couple of weeks ago. Brigitte’s slender monitor failed. Wrestling with it in agonies that recalled Laocoon, I got the old monitor and installed it. It worked! It took over the whole table, but it worked. I replaced the defective monitor—and learned to my delight that Staples was willing to take it. They even rang it up and gave me a slip with the credit I’d earned. The figure on that slip? $0.00. Well, you win some and you loose some. For me, getting rid of these things would be victory enough—until I would discover, three years from now, another cohort of electronic corpses hiding in our nooks and crannies.

As for that order making, I’ve made a start. Now I’ll just need about a week to recover from the shock of my walk about.