They are falling behind at the new Federal Courthouse site because of all the snow. Today, some dude was up shoveling some off the second floor. He didn’t get much done:
Also nearby, the weight of the snow knocked down one of our nice trees:
Now that I have my new camera, I can take pictures again. Well, I only needed a new lens, but the difference in price wasn’t that much. Anyway, today they aren’t doing much work on the new courthouse (probably due to the cold). Here’s a photo of what’s been going on lately (click for larger 6Mb jpg):
Yesterday they put together a giant boom crane, it was neat to see it get set up. This morning on my way to the office I could see it sticking out over all the trees in the area, it’s pretty tall. Most of the forms are down from the concrete walls that they poured early this week. I was surprised to see them all disassembled, though. I thought they’d reuse them but it seems like they have other things in mind…
I haven’t posted much about it, but yesterday the construction crews started pouring concrete for what looks like the basement walls for the new Courthouse. They only had forms up for what looked like half the walls, but I imagine they know what they’re doing. It seemed like they took about two months off while almost nothing was being done, but today they’re out working away. They have been pulling the forms off the new walls today, and it’s exciting to see some real progress.
Out the window this morning, we could see the big bulldozer and the steamroller moving and compacting dirt. Now that the dozer has dug a huge pit, it has now proceeded to fill it in. Nobody here has any idea what exactly they are doing out there…
There is a lot of dirt moving out there this past week. As of today, much of the lot has been scraped down around two feet. I suspect the construction has something to do with the massive ant invasion we seem to be experiencing here in the office. If anything edible is left on the floor a horde of ants will find it within an hour or two and begin to swarm over it. It’s quite disgusting. We seriously need to have this place sprayed or something.
Which brings me to my topic: I should sell antfarms on eBay or something. Or make a food trail to the building supervisor’s office and see what it looks like in the morning…
Well, I thought it was gone, but it’s snowing again. And it’s not only snowing—it’s sticking! I feel bad for the construction guys outside building the new Coeur d’Alene Federal Courthouse. They’re still out there pushing dirt around. They were working last Saturday and dug up a whole mess of dirt, I think they’re putting in the foundation for the road or a big sewer pipe or something, there’s a lot of dirt piled up out there right now.
Sorry, no picture today. Since I was off on vacation, it doesn’t look like a lot has been done, but those big machines are out there every day doing stuff. Most recently they’re burying pipes in the ground and pushing a lot of dirt around. The whole construction area looks like a giant dirt and mud field right now. There isn’t much else to look at since they pushed most of the trees over and scraped off all the grass.
It wasn’t scaffolding, it was a fence! Now that they’ve knocked most of the trees down, they’re fencing everything in so they can trap and kill any squirrels or chipmunks that lived through the trees falling.
There’s a whole truckload of what looked to me like scaffolding parked on Mineral Drive this morning. They’re still knocking down more trees, and the entire ground is covered with the stripped-off branches like a giant green carpet, but smelly.
Well, they’re out knocking more trees down. Here are some updated pictures:
Today they’ve been knocking a lot of trees down. There’s a guy out with a chainsaw cutting limbs off the fallen trees, but the guy in the cat is doing most of the work. I saw some guys with shovels by the roadside, but I think they were the requisite “guys with shovels” you see at all construction sites, but never see them doing anything.
Remember the Federal Courthouse Groundbreaking I mentioned before? Well, today they’ve really started breaking ground. The Spokesman-Review only made fun of the fact that “no ground was broken” at the ceremony (they used potting soil). I saw at least one tree pushed over and dragged off from a window here. The squirrels were running for cover, let me tell you.
Which makes you think: does the ASPCA have an issue with squirrels falling out of trees? I’ve never heard them make any noise about it. Maybe they only care about animals that are over a certain weight or size…
Well, today I got to be a part of the Groundbreaking ceremony for the new Federal Courthouse building in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It wasn’t as highly-attended as I thought it might have been, but the mayor was here, along with numerous judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement from both the city and county, as well as some Federal Marshals. The joke was made that we had the judge, jury, and executioners all in one place, which doesn’t happen all that often…
I was on hand to assist with the technical details of the projector, sound system, and other general facilities issues. It was nice to be able to help JDL Enterprises (the kind landlords of our building, who are also heading the project to build the new Federal Courthouse), and I got to mead John and Donna Luger, the owners.
I noticed I sat right behind a newspaper reporter, and thought I’d better blog this before she can get anything out, so I can scoop her, hehe.
So here, without further ado, are my “exclusive” pictures. I screenshotted them out of the animation they played, so I guess they’re exclusive.
PS The bland white building behind the Federal Courthouse is the one in which I work.