Week 7 - Thurs, Oct 14

Today was the beginning of the UEA weekend. I had been reluctant to make any firm plans for vacation, because there were too many things unresolved with the power and gas companies. I didn't want anyone to come, ready to install something, and leave because of some little thing.

SO . . . Mike got up that morning, went out, shoveled off the sand from 20-30 feet of the conduit, cut the conduit, hammered it in so it was flush, rejoined it with the other pipes, and shoveled all the sand back on. (They didn't like our earlier effort of fitting a smaller piece in to fill the gap. (That was failed inspection #2.) The lady from the power company, let's call her Nancy - 'cause that's her name - came out and finally gave her stamp of approval, and permission to fill in the big, ugly trench. PHEW.

(Oh, and just cut that big metal ring off that is used to lower that 2 ton vault with. It's easy. - What? Good thing our builders had a fancy little powered metal cutting saw. David hopped down inside the vault and sawed it off for us. It would have taken two days with a hack saw. It turned out to be cables enclosed in rubber.)

AND . . . After me having bothered numerous people at the gas company and at their contractor's company with voice mail and other messages - we got both our guy from the gas company and a guy from the installing contractor's company to visit us. They, likewise gave their stamps of approval. Yes! Double phew.

Also Mike and I ran the mule tape through both conduits. What's mule tape you ask? It's a flat nylon rope capable of withstanding up to 2500 lbs of tension. We only needed 500 lbs tensile strength, but that was all we could find. Maybe they would have been okay with baling twine - but if it broke somewhere in the middle of those 800 feet of pipe? Aaah! So, 1/3 of a fistful.

Then we hopped in the van and went to Ranch.