Another One Bites the Dust

One more school in our community replaced and the "old" school almost completely torn down.  The latest was a middle school that was built with the last 30 years or so; it hadn't been built when I went to junior high.  For many years there were two junior high schools, which then became two middle schools, for the community.  Now there will be one location for the middle school classes.

I'm a bit sad over this.  Not because of any sentimental attachment to the school (only set foot in it for basketball games for my niece and friend's kids over the years), but because of the waste.  The school that was demolished was one of the newer buildings.  The older junior high/middle school remains, although being used in a different capacity.  When the new high school is complete and the move completed, the newest building of all of the school buildings will be among those demolished.  Sigh.  I don't get it.

I did stop by the demolition site today and took some pics . . . I won't bore you with all of them, but I will share some (you know I love construction and demolition!).

Foreground:  debris from demolition of old school.  Background:  new school.

I liked this shot for two reasons:  1) the big ol' honking piece of steel girder all mangled and curled; and 2) the way the debris pretty much framed the name of the school.

Yup, that would be some massive amounts of demolition debris!

I'm always amazed that any of the bricks stay together after watching how they do the demolition.

Quite a variety of items here:  cinder blocks, window frames, conduit of some kind, a desk, what looks like a huge bulletin board . . . what else do you see?

This was lying on the ground near the "Caution" tape.  I doubt many of us could find a use for a rubber lined fire hose that wouldn't get us into a whole lot of trouble!  But then again, it could be a whole lot of fun, anyway.

And what still remains, unscathed by the wrecking ball.  Still a lot of work to be done.

This sign was in front of the old school; don't know if it will stay, get moved, or be replaced, but I liked having it with the demolition equipment, the debris in the background, and then the new school in the far background.

This piece of equipment is HUGE (and I do believe those letters on the side spell out "Sledgehammer").  Wish I had some time to watch them do some of the clean up, but that won't be happening any time soon.

Several times over the next week, I'll have some new and interesting photographic opportunities.  If things turn out as nicely as I hope, I'll be sharing some of them with you.  Several have me very excited already, but I don't want to give away all of my secrets quite yet!

Spring Freeze

Knew it had been too good to last.  All of this unseasonably warm weather would have to suddenly turn on us.  Yup!  Tonight we have a freeze advisory until tomorrow morning at 9 (right now it's in the low 60s).  So glad I haven't started planting anything yet.

But, talk of potential freezing temps tonight reminds me of the previous two February snow/ice storms we were "blessed" with.  I didn't mind them too much because I didn't have to go anywhere either time, but those who did sure had some fun cleaning off their cars and negotiating the slippery roads.  I did get to go out to take pictures (I know, that's not a surprise) . . . it was, of course, freezing, but another opportunity to try something new - snow/ice pics.

These are from the snow storm in February 2010.  It was a great day to be living on the 3rd floor (which is how I was able to get pics of the upper branches coated w/ snow) and cuddling w/ the beastie boys.  It's funny that they are such a good indicator of how cold it is by how close they want to be to each other and to me . . .

These ice pictures were from February 2011, and I was in the midst of packing and moving.  It was a great excuse to take time to do anything else.  I think I took about 30 pictures in 10 or 15 minutes 'cause it was definitely COLD.  I also defrosted the car windows, which took about 20-30 minutes.  I couldn't even begin to touch the ice before defrosting; I considered myself lucky to be able to get into the car w/out much effort.

Yes, I'm aware that we are highly unlikely to have similar weather conditions tonight.  But, the "threat" of freezing weather reminded me of these pictures.  There are so many times we're all faced with sudden changes (weather, health, employment, etc.) and feel as if we can't cope.  But, how many of us, when faced w/ a sudden snow or ice storm, but MUST get to work, find a way to deal with it and get to work?  We may not have a plan, but we work at shoveling the snow or scraping the ice until we can move the car or see out the windows.  Did we use the best or easiest method?  Maybe; maybe not.  Does that really matter?  We did what we had to do under the conditions faced at the time.  There will be time later to reflect on whether we either could or should have done things differently.  Let's celebrate the success for what it is - success!!  We succeed at many things every day; let's not spend those days beating ourselves up for what we didn't accomplish or succeed at.