Day Two-Twelve - Concrete is NOISY!

The parking lot in my condos has cracks in the concrete and a few low spots.  It needs to be repaired.  I have known for a while that they were supposed to do it.  I wouldn't have thought that they would work on it beginning at 7 a.m. the last two days.  One of the spots that needed work, is directly in front of my unit.

Their process consists of cutting the concrete with some sort of huge, powerful and loud saw.  Then they bring this machine in that has a loud engine.  It takes it a long time to get in place and the entire time that it is moving the loud engine is being revved up.  Once it is finally in place, then it begins to pound on the concrete that the saw cut around.  It pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds... you get the point.  It finally stops pounding when all of the concrete is in the size of small peas or I go insane and run out screaming like a banshee whichever happens first.

The next step is the removal of the now pea sized chunks of concrete.  Apparently this step in the process is all done by very loud Hispanic men and part of the requirement is that they yell at one another the entire time they do it.  In there defense, there is very good chance that they don't even know that they are yelling at one another.  They probably lost their hearing some years ago from being around that pounding machine all day long.   Because as you maybe aware, it pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds, and pounds, and pounds and pounds, and pounds...

Now here's the interesting part, they throw the broken concrete into the back of a truck, but between the time they throw it and the time it lands in the steel dump truck, it seems to multiply in size from the size of a pea to the size of one of those boulders that Wyle E. Coyote was always pulling off the edge of a cliff onto himself when the Roadrunner would pass by.  There is no box of TNT under their boulders, but they are almost as noisy as they would be if a box of TNT were in the mix.

I am sure that after this step in the process they will find a remarkably loud way of pouring fresh concrete.  Because really what's the point in doing it if you can't make everyone in the area miserable while you do it.  But apparently, they are done for the day and won't start the loudest possible process known to man of pouring concrete until 7 a.m. tomorrow.  Maybe people in this line of work are only allowed to work from 7 a.m. until 9 a.m.  Maybe there is some concrete breakers and loaders union that sets these guidelines.  The United Loud and Obnoxious Concrete Workers of America or the ULOCWA as I'm sure it is known amongst the men since it would take a lot longer to sign the full name and we've already established that they all must be deaf from the loud pounding thing that they are subjected to between 7 and 9 every morning probably only allows them to work for 2 hours a day so that their ears aren't subjected to the pounding thing for longer than necessary.  Naturally, the ULOCWA would chose that the two hours begin at 7 a.m. so that these guys can leave here at 9 and start their 2nd job as guys who blow leaves into the street with those really loud gas powered blowers that just run constantly all day long.

Here's the thing with leaf blowers, you could cut the time that you blow leaves with it in half, if you picked the leaves up and put them in a bag and hauled them away rather than just blowing them out into the street so that by the time you get to the end of the sidewalk the wind and passing cars have blown them all back onto the area that you have already blown off resulting in you turning around and doing the same area all over again.  But I am sure that the United Loud and Obnoxious Leaf Blowers of America doesn't allow it's workers to bend over and pick those leaves up putting them in bags.  That would be too hard on their backs and those poor men are already deaf, you can't allow their backs to go out too!!!  So really the ULOLBA is doing them a favor by not allowing them to bend over and pick the leaves up.

Well, I have stuff to do today.... one of those things is to find out if there is enough Advil in the world to get rid of my headache.  The jury is still out on that.  Have a good Friday.  For those of you who had your Friday yesterday have a good whatever you call this day since there can't be two Saturday's.