05-OCT-A-5
FORWARD PROGRESS IN DERWOOD RESTORATION WITH CLEANING, FOGGING, DEMOLITION AND DISPOSAL OF SOME APPLIANCES AND INSTALLATION OF NEW ONES,
DERWOOD IS GETTING TO LOOK AS GOOD AS NEW—ONCE AGAIN, IN TIME FOR MY TAKE OFF AFTER THE ELDP WEEKEND
October 3--4, 2005
Nothing is simple. So, the Derwood cleanup should hardly be an exception to this general rule. So, the large number of sequential steps is undertaken in about the same number of arrangements as it seemed necessary to call upon for the evacuation and reconstruction of New Orleans. But, after two full Derwood days, the process is showing some progress—and “just in time” too, since I will be gone for the next weeks, and no further progress could be anticipated in my absence since it requires continual goading with calls and arrangements to open the house and meet a wide variety of workmen.
At six thirty on Monday morning, Mike, the tiling subcontractor with D G Liu came by with his trucks and helpers and sawed out the Mexican tiles damaged by the fall of the Viking refrigerator. We also took the doors and drawers out of the Viking, but would have to call a separate crew to move it out later. The tiles were replaced with adhesive and grout and will need to be glazed in place on Wednesday. Dave form D G Liu came later and chiseled out the dry wall and filled it in. The whole wall will need to be sanded and painted later.
Three trucks from C & C Complete Cleaning Services came in later morning and got into their space suits with the air filters and breathing apparatus. They cleaned all the rafters in the basement and wiped it all down with some kind of mold fungicide. They applied plastic doors and taped shut all ducts, then covered the work bench and set up a “fogger” to fumigate the basement over night. They will return, but only after the industrial hygienist comes back to say they are finished with that aspect. A second team, including a fellow named Al from Sierre Leone who was fascinated by the Africana in the Game Room (like the two delivery fellows from Loews’ who were from Ghana who brought in the two new appliances down stairs last week), got into the same space suits to scrub up the kitchen floor being careful of the newly laid tile replacements. But, first, the Viking refrigerator, minus its heavy doors and interior accessories had to be moved out which involved disconnecting the water line to the ice maker. To do so, involved turning off the water lines and draining it. That means no showers. It also means that to hook up the new Frigidaire ice maker in the new appliance downstairs, a plumber must be called to run a new water line to the built-in ice maker of the refrigerator/freezer—a project for later arrangements.
The two Lowe’s delivery fellows from Ghana who were here to install the downstairs refrigeration units did not leave without a legacy besides the refrigerators downstairs. The big truck took out a power line on the way out which had been found lying across the driveway. PEPCO responded to the call and arrived at night to tie it up so it would not snag vehicles, but told me it was a telephone line and that Verizon owned it and would need to fix it. So, an email explanation to Verizon and several calls have not had Verizon here yet, but I will need to be here when that repair is made also. Since there is no phone inside the house other than the two cell phones—one I use for phone calls and the second is the one screwed to the wall downstairs for the ADT alarm system only—they had not been in a rush to respond. I added that I might be interested in an expanded capacity cable for the “information highway” use eventually, similar to the “heavy up” installed by PEPCO as the last piece of the remodeling project to be completed this spring. If that happens, I might finally get to use the internet and email form home, since all attempts at getting the Cingular service married to the laptop have failed after the fourth non-fitting cable connection has been returned.
When the next C & C team arrived and we measured each door and outlet for the potential of carrying the Viking out of the house through the Breakfast Room or over the Deck railing, it was finally resolved to haul it out through the front door by rearranging the living room and dining room to carry it that way and three other men and I managed to carry the empty Viking shell outside. It is no wonder that I could not hold the falling Viking when it was fully loaded with its heavy storage doors and stocked with all the foods inside. It is now parked in all its pieces outside near the white oak tree from which acorns are falling. Dale Kramer came by to set up the deer digital camera to do some scouting near where he had put his bowhunt treestand, also where the acorns are falling to attract the deer if the mineral salt block from Milly does not do the same job. I have a call in for “Dinners for Homeless Women Shelter” who might need the large Professional Unit for their feeding operation if Bill Webster does not get here first to carry it back. It is “almost new” and has four years more warranty on it now.
As C & C Cleaning left to return tomorrow if they can get the industrial hygienist to come over from Environmental Solutions Inc from Deale MD to say that it is OK for them to pullout their air scrubbers and dehumidifiers, certifying the cleanup job they have done, I got a call form the Great Indoors. Once again, I will have to skip going in to work in favor of waiting around Derwood to let in another delivery—this one being the new Viking which they found in their warehouse with my name on it. So, it is to be delivered and hooked up in the kitchen between two and four PM today, for which I will have to help and get them through the front door and the once again rearranged living room. But, if that means that the ice maker hookup can be plugged in and allows the water to be turned back on, then I can do a post-run shower once again. That is, until the plumber that D G Liu is going to call to run a second water line to the new refrigerator/freezer downstairs for the second new ice maker. From all the ice needed in New Orleans when the power had been knocked out there and knowing the frequency with which the power seems to be out here, I will need the extra ice making capacity!
ANY OTHER CONSEQUENCES OF THESE REPAIR SERVICES?
I had brought the trash down to the street for Tuesday pickup after the C&C trucks allowed the Audi out of the garage, and went on over to Needwood for a short run—one reason to shorten it being the long fast 11.5 miles of the “Army Ten Miler” the day before, and a second being the lack of a shower at home. I have been very careful about consolidating even short trips and the hassles of buying $3.12/gal gasoline. When I returned, there was a screaming sound coming form the house, and I ran inside, pushing the squelch button on the ADT alarm system. The screech continued. Then I realized that it was the alarm coming from the smoke detectors throughout the house as the “basement foggers” were in process. The C & C folk might have known this would happen! I opened the plastic flaps sealing the basement off and tried to pull the battery out of the smoke alarm down there, but then realized that while I may be doing this, heavy fire trucks might be coming up the gravel drive, so I went up to call ADT. One of two things happened when I called ADT—first the alarms stopped screeching, on their own, possibly since I had let some of the fog escape in the basement I was not supposed to enter for eight to twenty four hours. The second which might be worse is that ADT received no signal at all form these screaming smoke detectors, so it was not relayed to the fire department. So, for that reason, we had to conduct a test. I armed the ADT alarm and then moved about in the house which set off the motion detector and the ADT alarm sirened. After about two minutes the “back-up” call form the cell phone made it to ADT. With both the fire/smoke alarms and the ADT alarms having alerted nobody back in the woods, and the latter alerting ADT only two minutes later after the ADT system cell phone was triggered, it does not seem that there is all that much “security” in these systems. So, that may mean a later use of a “landline” if Verizon gets here to string a new telephone line from pole to pole.
TWO WEEKEND DAYS AT WORK;
TWO WEEK DAYS AT HOME
I really did not plan to be sitting at Derwood for the first two days this week, since I have a long list of things to be done at the office, with a number of them entailing details of the Thursday program on Eritrea, preceding the Fri/Sat sessions in the ELDP before the pre-dawn takeoff to San Antonio and Colorado on Sunday. But, I have also had many readings and writing projects for the ELDP sessions coming up, and while waiting for delayed workmen to appear, I have been trying to type up papers due and stay awake reading scholarly papers interrupted by far earthier chores, like carrying out parts of a Viking refrigerator covered over in smashed eggs four weeks old. Today’s downtime may be useful in getting some of the items packed for the forthcoming trip—ironically pulling out down and Gore-Tex and my insulated boots for high country snow in the eighty degree clear dry Indian summer season here. I had conference calls with my ELDP group for distilling a few future projects that involve the team, and have managed to get a number of the typing projects done by the “just in time” method
When I left for Azerbaijan/Africa this summer, I had Derwood in the peak of perfection—well mowed, with the cleaning/painting/unpacking my sisters had done with me the month before, and with an all-new master bedroom suit installed and decorator coordinated. It would have been a beautiful retreat for a glorious summer season! But I went elsewhere, for a high Caucasus hunt (and after multiple phone calls to the Eastern Shore Taxidermist, I learn that she did not receive the trophy, and from the videographer who returned through JFK on August five I learned that the agent who was supposed to expedite the trophy forward did not show, so that my Tur trophy is stuck in a salted bag in JFK New York rather than what would at present have been an almost ready full mount!) and an Eritrean surgical mission (which will be featured in a program on Thursday noon with my students and me, as well as the real attraction for any medical students--pizza.) During my absence #1, Derwood Disaster # 1 occurred. Upon return and the discarding of the basement ruined appliances, I worked on getting things back to the way they were, but after the call to absence #2 in New Orleans, brought down Derwood Disaster #2. After a full month of trying to rectify these calamities, I may have them all restored to the nearly perfect state Derwood was in upon my summer departure—but perhaps even better---all new appliances (even if one of those discarded was only a few months old and top-of-the-line) and a brand new arrangement in a master bedroom suit still unslept in, as the yard work has changed form mowing the grass to raking and blowing the leaves. Now I depart for Absence #3, and I wonder what calamity awaits this absentee landowner now?