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| On my return, my son David (here) and Nina had an open house at this new apartment (above, also their friend Crystal with their kitty Frosty). Before I left on my wonderful trip, we had been careful to insure that I my duties were well covered at etransmedia, but just as I was leaving Avin mentioned that I should call him on Sunday when I got back to see what project I would be working on. That was a little ambiguous, but it was clarified a few days later when they locked my email account and let me know I was no longer an employee. Oh well, I was happy to work for them while they had work for me and I am happy to go back on unemployment until (or should that be if) I find other work. |
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| etransmedia had been an odd company to work for with over 100% turn over amongst their development group within less than a year while I was with them which was absolutely phenomenal. It had resulted in some really junky code for a product which I had been put in charge of (but with no resources to correct the problems). I raised the issues with management (which was not popular) so I really wasn't surprised when they had no work for me. It did cause me to consider why stability is so important for software development teams and how it impact quality. |
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| I also considered how the culture of India might impact a company's ability to retain and effectively manager developers for quality solutions (or not). I wrote these thoughts up in separate rambling tales about quality and Indian culture. With the more liesurely schedule of being unemployed, I joined an after work hike at Pine Bush, an Albany park, with meetup.com and Hiking Mates shown here and above. |
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| I also was able to start helping out with the Habitat for Humanity build, now on a row of houses on Alexander Street, a few blocks away from the previous build on Stephen Street. They have a new director who has set some higher objectives and they are now working on a block of several row houses (perhaps 10) called Morgan's Walk. On my first day we put out the joists and plywood for the first floor for the last house on the row. The next coule of days we worked on finishing up two houses which had been dry walled by contractors. . |
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| On my first day back, there were two crews working. One was the regular Wednesday crew, but there were also a crew of young students at a local trade school with three of their instrutors (below). At the build there were also three AmericaCorp helpers, Marie (below) being one. |
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| Here and below are pictures of Anthony finishing the front of one the houses which is nearing completion. Also below is Xochitl (pronounced more like Sew-chi, it is an Aztec name) painting the bathroom upstairs. Anthony and Xochitl are the other two AmeriCorp helpers. |
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| Here is a picture of the kitchen cabinets that Dick and I installed. We also did the trim along the floor. Someone else put down the floor. |
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| They had contracted the sidewalks out to a company who is installing the new granite stone curbs (above). Also, the front and back walls of this series of townhouses is SIPs or Structural Insulation Panels which have styrofoam glued to plywood in the place of the traditional frames with insulation, etc.. SIPs have to be manufactured to order and there was a delay getting them. We got them just in time (after the last two townhouses were completely done and we had made the frames for the walls between the townhouses. They delivered the SIPs to the parking lot behind the lots as the lot itself was too muddy / soft / hilly for a forklift. A group of us (many volunteers from a university outside Albany) carried the SIPs onto the lot and, while moving them, stacked them in the order they would be needed (above). They are large and heavy, it was quite a job. Here we are putting up the firewall and frame between the townhouses. The problem is that the firewall can't get wet which makes this part of the framing as it can't be done in the rain. |
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| At Alexander's Street they have put in the sidewalks (after the curbs) and we are working on framing the last five houses in the row. We have been joined for the summer by three french students shown here: Anthony, Thibault (t-bow), Charles, and Charles. They were nicely settled in and we were joined by two more French students who had been headed to Habitat for Humanity in Toronto, but joined us. They are below with Alice, Angelo, and Bryant. |
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| Here is a recent picture of my brother, Michael, and my mom, Bertha at the Easter dinner at Good Sam's. |
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This page was last updated on July 10, 2012.
