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engineering relief
Friday, September 23 2005
The structural engineer came out this morning to have a look at my new solar deck. He was a youngish guy and sort of conservative-looking, in that way that engineering guys often are, the result of self-cloistering away from the long-haired creative haunts of university campi. This guy was nice and unassuming, the way someone just starting his career might be expected to be. I got the feeling he was happy to be working with a relatively young homeowner, someone who wouldn't be skeptical of his credentials or try to lord seniority over him. He looked at my work and was generally upbeat and positive about it, very different from the building inspector. He saw a few little things that could stand correction, but otherwise he gave me the impression that he thought I'd done quality work. It's actually kind of good that I'll have to make some fixes, because that will make the building inspector happy for having made a fuss about this to begin with. But it doesn't look like I'll have to do all that much. Best of all, none of the corrections recommended by the engineer will require me to revisit the steep forty five degree surface of the roof, the riskiest place I've had to go during this project.
After the engineer was gone I felt as if a huge burden had been removed from my shoulders. I was goofy and giddy, even as Gretchen was expressing dismay that our favorite neighbors had refused to sign a petition against a proposed Saugerties casino.
This evening Mary Purdy and her boyfriend Brad arrived from New York City, where Mary had been staying for a few days since flying in from her new home in Seattle. She was up here to attend Katie's wedding. Katie, Gretchen, and Mary have all been very close friends since meeting back during their student days at Oberlin Colllege.
Tonight the four of us went out to eat at the Puerto Rican restaurant El Coqui down in the Rondout. It's one of our favorite restaurants in the area; a catfish that ends up on one of their plates does not die in vain. Dinner conversation was mostly divided among the sexes, with me talking mostly with Brad about do-it-yourself music composition, computer-mediated and otherwise.
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