10.18.2013 - Time Warner Cable in!

Jim had to be at the lot early again today - all week he's had to be there before 8:00, which if you know Jim is really early to be up and out of the house!

Today the sand was supposed to be delivered early and Jim had to make sure the chain was unlocked.  Once the sand got there, Jim was back spreading sand on top of the electric wire. 

And then...lo and behold...look what showed up!  A truck with cable!  Apparently, this guy is a contractor who works for Time Warner putting cable in.  He said that our Time Warner friend had just called him about 10:30 and he wasn't busy so he came out.  Hmm...not to sound ungrateful, but our Time Warner friend was supposed to do that yesterday and told us the cable would be there yesterday or this morning - when he hadn't even called!  But - no complaints!

 

The guys said that this was the nicest trench that they had seen - no surprise there!  Jim takes no shortcuts!  But I think these guys were wishing there was a shortcut.  Once the wire is fed through the conduit under the driveway, they have to pull it up the hill - and it's no small hill. 

 

Once they were up on top, they had to get things wired up and hooked into a cable box.

 

Obviously, Jim will have to set the cable box in when things are all graded and set in the transformer area but it sure is nice to see it in the hole!

Since these guys were contractors, there was no mention of price and Jim didn't have to sign for anything.  Jim said this is really big cable - they had told us that what they use for normal residential installations is only good for 300'.  So I'm sure this cable was expensive!  But since no one ever gave us an estimate or discussed price with us, they better not come back with a bill.  Jim said he'll tell them to come pick up their cable - ha!

After they left, it was back to trench duty for Jim.  As a recap, after digging the trench, Jim had to put a bed of sand in the bottom.  Then the electric line went in and had to be covered with more inches of sand.  Then the cable wires went down, and yet more sand goes on top of that.  At this point, Jim is about halfway through that last layer of sand all the way through the trench.  It's a really physical job - he scoops the sand up with the Bobcat, brings it to the area he's working in and can dump some, but he has to do it mostly by hand - digging and placing.  Jim is going to figure out an approximation of how many tons of dirt, sand and rock he's had to deal with doing this trench, so stay posted for that!

But what a celebration day - I told Jim that we really haven't been here long - just a little over a month.  First and foremost was all the moving we did in the beginning, plus he made a few trips back and forth to Ohio in that time too.  So to have gotten the trench dug and to have dealt with these major bureaucracies to get both lines in at this point is amazing!!!