The GREAT Wall of Bolish

Some of you out there have heard of the "Great Wall of Bolish" being built in Colorado Springs. Well, during my 4 weeks home, I was able to complete it. I decided to put together some pictures that show the progress over the past 8 months.

Pre-August 2005
This is what the yard looked like originally. Mostly dirt and weeds! The first picture is the right side of the house where the wall will be. The second image is of the plan that I put together for the yard. You can see where the house is and the property line along the sidewalk.


August 2005
I pretty much started working on the yard in August. I ordered tons and tons (like 60 tons) of materials from C&C Stone and had it all delivered over two or three weekends. I rented a small bobcat a few times and used that to dig the foundation of the soon to be Great Wall. The first image is of the foundation being dug. The second is some of the material in the back yard.

Sepetmber 2005
By September, the foundation of the wall was basically complete. I had the first "tier" of the wall laid out and just had to work to backfill behind the wall. I also had managed to tie in the downspouts from the house into an underground drainage system (as seen in the second picture.)

October 2005
Work came to a complete stop as the weather started to get worse and I started traveling for work. I think in the 6 months I was traveling I only put 3-4 blocks in the wall.... just to say that some progress was made.

April 2006
Upon my return, work started up again. These pictures are from the morning of the last day of construction. You can see the bobcat in the background and the foundation of the second tier of the wall. I also have the capstones on a good portion of the first tier that you can see in the foreground.



After two days of hard work moving blocks, dirt, and rock, the wall is finally done!! I would like to get a sprinkler system in before I put down the topsoil and try to grow some grass. So far, the only thing that has grown in the yard are weeds.

Great Wall Panorama

Slight format change...

I have again made some tweaks to the blog template. You may notice that the blog now stretches to fill the screen better and doesn't act as goofy if you resize the window... it annoyed me, so I fixed it :)

Annoyance of the day

Athena and I were in Chicago for a couple of days... more on that later. I flew back Monday night and she stayed for another day for a class. Anyway, I checked into United where I have achieved "Premier Executive" status. You may ask, what does this status get you? Well, I found out... They gave me my gold colored boarding pass that allowed me to go through the shorter security line. I then thought I would use the United lounge. When I went in they scanned my ticket and found that I wasn't a member... and therefore not allowed in, regardless of my supposed "Gold" level of status. When I flew with British Airways (a very high class airline) I got to the silver status after a few round trips. That status allowed me to use any of their lounges ANY TIME I flew, regardless whether I was flying BA or not. It just shows how differently the US carriers treat their customers these days.

Away for too long... but I have not forgotten!

Okay... so it's been almost 2 months since I actually posted ANYTHING to the blog... I've been busy (or lazy) or a bit of both.  I should point out that I have finally gotten motivated to post again due to my long time friend, coworker, former boss, etc.  John.  He posts to his blog almost every day.  He recently posted a photo of the starbucks application that I gave him when he was feeling down... on it it says, "If all else fails, there's always Starbucks."  I filled it in with his info and framed it for him.  Whenever he is feeling down, he can look to that and it will cheer him up.  Well, thanks to John's blog, I am feeling like I can tackle posting 8 weeks worth of blogs... maybe not all in one day, but surely in the next week I can catch up!!  I will also add a link to John's blog since he posts some great pictures and funny stories on a daily basis.

I'm sitting here on the balcony of my hotel in Hania, Greece on the lovely island of Crete.  It's been a long two weeks of vacation and work.  Over the next few days I hope to put together some entries that cover the goings on over the past 8 weeks.  In that time I've been in Crete, home for almost an entire 4 weeks, then back on a plane to Greece, but this time with Athena.  She and I spent 4 nights in Rhodes.  It's an island in the eastern part of the Aegean Sea (think eastern Mediterranean almost to Turkey).  We then flew back up to Athens for 3 nights.  Athena then flew home and I came back down to Crete. 

 

I've been extremely busy and productive this week in Crete.  I was originally supposed to be busy in meetings all week, but due to a snafu with my paperwork and one of my coworkers, we have been stuck in the hotel.  As it turns out, we have been able to accomplish more in this week due to the lack of interruptions.  This has turned out to be good... even though it didn't go as planned.

As I post "historical" messages, I have a hard time deciding whether I should put them back in date order... since this has been my methodology in the past, I will continue it now... so, read on friends, family, coworkers, and complete strangers... and hopefully the past will start to be filled in!