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Holes. Drilled.



Today's mission: remember the practice holes from the weekend? Time to make it real. Twenty holes, from 12" to a ridiculous 5/8"x24".

We ran around town gathering rental gear and spare epoxy. The inspector can't come today, but can come tomorrow morning at 7am. Good thing, as you'll see...

But first we made a stop at Ellensburg to pick up our long awaited permit.



Around 1:30 we were drilling our first hole.


Calvin rolled in 45 minutes later. This'll go fast!




... until we hit metal where we didn't expect it. Remember those tie-down straps we gleefully cut off last weekend? The other end, still embedded in the concrete, interfered with three of our planned holes. And ate the teeth off our drill bit.

I scrambled to the lumberyard and bought the entire inventory of 1-1/8" and 5/8" rebar rated bits. I placed a desperate email to the engineer. We were able to move a couple of the hold down hole locations, and were back in business.

The last hole went in after sunset. Then the guys cleaned all the holes with compressed air and a brush.


Good night, good night, construction site!



2300 hours: holes are drilled and cleaned, tools have been put to bed. Sleep, then rise at 6am to meet inspector. But first: MILKSHAKES.

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