Friday, September 25, 2009

Street Resurface

The street was blocked off early, but they were letting folks out to go to work.  At exactly 8 AM they oiled the existing pavement, and blocked it totally.
At 10 AM this monster showed up.

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Then the dump trucks came.  They had chip gravel in the hopper, water in the far tank, and hot tar in this side tank.  A conveyor began to dump the gravel at once.  A set of grabbers latched onto the truck by the back wheels and they moved as one unit, until the truck was empty.

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This is a mixture of gravel, tar, water, and a hardener, that was in the bags up on top of the machine.  The guy up top breaks a bag every now and then when that hopper becomes empty.

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Waiting for a new dump truck, the guys on the ground running the squeegees worked like dogs, leveling the mix into areas that the machine couldn’t reach in the round cul-de-sac.


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The guy in the front of the machine hooks up the hoses to the water and tar. Then he shovels the last of the gravel out.

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The supervisor seemed not to be nearly as dirty as the other folks, I wonder if he actually does anything but bark out orders.

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The batch was never rolled with a roller machine, as it was wet like wet cement, and dried in about 3 hours.  It is quite hard tonight, as it did begin to rain on the new road about 5 PM.  There was not a drop of black run off.  We were allowed back into the drive at about the same time.

Not much else to report, other than I reached a milestone today.  I called and signed up for Social Security.  I would guess that makes me an official old Far!.

It was relatively painless, and the person in New York was very thorough asking why my income came and went during the years that I worked.  Of course, that is simple, because we worked for ourselves as accountants in a group of CPA’s, some years made a lot more money than others. 
I rode the motor scooter down the sidewalk, and out past the barricades to freedom in the afternoon, to the motor home storage place.  I needed the electronic serial number from the Sirius radio in the rig. 

After firing up the dash electronics, copying the number from the display, and locking the rig all back up, I rode the 8 miles or so back home.  That was just in time to have the street opened again.  I was skeptical that it was dry, so I rode on the sidewalk back to the house.  Let somebody else track tar into their place!!!

I’d be killed for sure, if I did it here!!!!

Retired Rod


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