The Build 5, Days 13 – 26 Sep

See what I did there? It’s the fifth post about The Build, and the post covers 13th-26th September, 2024. Any other way of counting will drive me crazy and probably you too.

In case you’re not convinced? Day 13 is four days after the events on Days 11 and 12. It’s tricky to decide how to count the days for this project. 1) Count only the days stuff is visibly happening? That made it Day 13 on Tuesday 17 September 2024. Or 2) Count calendar days, the easier option. I had to start numbering the posts to be able to keep track of the images as they’re being used.

The day after the first excavator went to another job, I walked to the main gate in Surbiton Court to see what I could see, and discovered the architectural company’s name and details posted at the entry. Note that the that little wall backing the sign was still there that day.

And that afternoon, Tuesday 17 September, a representative of that business (logo on their vehicle) parked in the middle of the great big empty place.

But, let me tell you, just because we in Vista couldn’t see anything happening in the big empty place in front of us, that doesn’t mean nothing was happening.

Another day and another walk, I discovered there was plenty of action down at the front gate.

The new boundary corner peg … between the subdivision and Aveo, I assume …

NBN’s Comm cables have been gathered up into their own ‘banks’ and showing above ground to prevent them being massacred accidentally …

New sewage pipes and other fixtures …

I don’t know what these shade-cloth fences are actually called. I’ve heard them referred to as ‘sediment containment barriers’, a fancy way of saying they’re to stop mud going where it shouldn’t.

Within the green and teal fence, there’s this red and yellow safety fence outlining a deep trench. The trench presumably to house the new sewage plumbing.

One thing that amazed me about the site from this angle, is the amount of vegetation still going strong. There is a flowering azalea in the back corner, and various other shrubs, and even the Grevillea at the front entrance was still there … being outlined by pegs which made me wonder if it was being invited to stay …

Trees, Eucalypts

This strange looking Eucalyptus sp is growing behind one of the local carparking buildings.

Strange because it’s so dimpled. Never seen a tree trunk like it. Don’t know whether it is natural or an attack by something like a virus.

It’s losing its bark rather early. In Sydney and environs that used to happen nearer to November.

The canopy, what there is of it, is rather statuesque.

Lol, Cat Litter

We definitely have not yet hit our goldilocks moment with cat litter!

Who knew there would be so many brands and types available. I started with my usual arrogant save-the-world attitude and bought a large 10kg bag of recycled newspaper pellets. This being possible because someone else was carrying it to the car and from the car to my apartment. Newspaper pellets go sludgy.

Second was hemp pellets, left overs from the process of producing hemp for rope, hemp-crete and other products, this was another product that was going to save the environment. Hemp pellets disintegrate into a fine dust difficult to clean up and very bad for my allergies.

Third was a gravelly product made of tofu and pea flour. It is meant to ‘clump’ and so be easier to keep the litter box clean. It does clump but is also easily transported into the rest of the house by sticking between the poor cat’s toes, and is nearly as bad as the proverbial Lego block to stand on when walking around on bare feet. And why wouldn’t I?

Fourth is a tiny vermicelli-like extruded pellet made of coconut fiber and charcoal. This was probably the worst purchase yet. Very sharp, and I soon picked up a piece in the sole of my foot. Have been wearing a big band aid for a week. Apart from that, the stuff ‘clumps’ only reluctantly. The one thing going for it, it does work wonders on odors.

Above, a mix of fresh litter containing all four of the recalcitrant litter types. As by then I’d been buying a new sort every time I went shopping, and since I can carry home only the stuff I can fit on my walker, the average bag of litter weighs 5 kg.

At the present we’re trying out the mix of sawdust and wood-splinters. And when I go shopping in a few minutes I will probably–out of sheer pernickety recalcitrance–buy yet another of the still untried possibilities.

Having to send untold bags of used cat litter to land-fill is also not ideal. Before, when I lived in freestanding houses, the used cat litter went into the compost bin, or was buried in the garden and helped to build up my low-lying yard. I’ll be asking Brisbane City Council why apartement blocks don’t get green bins. It’s not as if we don’t produce any organic waste!

There has got to be a better way!

Tagging My Fish aka Content

in this, part two of yesterday’s topic, I’ve been Tagged … I’ll be discussing the Questions to do with blog content.

On a totally different topic for a minute, Moggy and I have had a rough beginning to our morning, along with every other resident on Levels Two and Three of our building. No power from 7 a/m to 9.15 a/m. Though we were told beforehand and had prepared–with a thermos of hot water for example–nobody knew that the alarm units in every apartment would be telling us that … “mains supply is interrupted” … every ninety seconds for the duration. This to happen again on Friday. Not much of an imposition, I know. Especially when we were forewarned.

Moggy was so weirded out by this strange un-embodied voice spouting its refrain that she retired to the far corner under the bed and re-appeared only when the lights went back on and the voice was silenced.

What surprised me about this event was how ‘in the moment’ I had to be just because I couldn’t engage some of my early morning routines. At one point I realized that the ‘net’ metaphor I used in the previous post can definitely be applied to routines. Making in this case the routines the net, and the-new-and-interesting-things-to-do the fish. Something like that.

I’m chortling at this point. After last night’s success at ‘prompting’ (explaining to the resident AI to what pic I needed) I wanted to see what the AI (I’ll need to find out its name) made of this … “Smoky furred cat with white underside and white paws, black nose and black lower jaw.” Nothing is the answer. The message was the image could not be found due to network problems. Ri-i-ight. The AI is stumped?

Q2 If your blog was a person, fictional or real, who would it be? I’d have to say my blog would be a fictional person because she’s a digital entity, existing only in bits and bytes and only online. She’s a ghost in the works. One of millions. It’s as crowded in her world as it is in the consensual ‘real’ world.

It does actually surprise me sometimes that we–me and my digital identity–can connect pretty reliably. Part of the reason is probably that WordPress keeps her safe. She doesn’t have to wheel and deal out in the hot hard world of the world wide web.

Although, not too many entities are out there on their own anymore. I’ve certainly noticed a change in my online experiences from when I first got online in approx 1998, in that nearly everybody I want to talk to, is now in some kind of gated community. It’s difficult now to ‘surf the web’ in the free-wheeling and easy way we used to. All the gated communities still provide that for their members but anybody else first has to sign up and often pay down real money.

Q3 What helps you create new content when you need inspiration? This question follows naturally from the previous one. ‘Creating new content’ is writing or photographing, painting, sketching etc about new ideas I happen to trip over. New ideas provide the ‘inspirations’.

Having to pay everywhere makes it harder to find and produce new content. It’s not only $$$ that stop me finding good stuff. Substack, for example, has this full page thing that they flash at me every time I go to read some of my favorite commentators, where I’m supposed to mark three things that I like to read about, and they’ll be able to steer more of the same my way. I’ve been skipping out every time I see it. It’s such a creativity killer to be shunted into the same byways every time I get online.

WordPress, in contrast, has introduced a ‘discovery’ application that I’m happy with, as I’m able to range further into the domain, and have already got a few topics of interest in my stash. Eg, last week I stumbled across an article on ‘hypovolemia’ which is now sitting there brewing. When I find more info about it, I’ll copy and paste that in there too. With four or five points I’ll have plenty to write about.

My Drafts is where I keep my stash of topics I might post about some day. Usually I’ll copy a link and open a new post, and save it in there. I usually have five or six drafts on the go–waiting for more info, energy, and or time. Any that get too old and stale, I’ll delete. Recently, an Apple mobile phone update provided me with a ‘Journal’ app where I’ve also been noting interesting topics.

In my actual life I keep a bunch of journals. Health diary. Art Journal. Dream School. Bosley and Co’s stories. They also all provide me with grist for the inspiration mill. The picture following is from my art journal, it’s a sketch for a larger painting. A sketch is where I try out techniques, perspectives, colors, even the framing is an experiment. Washi tape. I’m showing it unedited.

Cat Diary 11

Me training the old woman is an ongoing project. My main drive is to get more food more often. The day after she went out for dinner was excellent. We had a new to me meat at lunchtime … when she fed me a couple of chunks … and at dinner time when I got some of the gravy as well as a few more scraps. Yum!

This is me the day before, cleaning the bag that the barbecued chook came in. Forgot to mention that delicacy. Seems to me she tries me on new things at lunchtimes.

So it’s very disappointing when there is nothing much in the middle of the day. Makes the day long and boring.

To my surprise the day she went shopping she brought home a thing she probably thought I’d love. Nothing is further from that feeling about the alien thing she expects me to interact with.

The Build, Days 8-10

This first part of the week was entirely taken up with further demolishing of the structures on the site and trucking them away …

Here the final duplex has been taken down .

In the foreground a pile of metals, another to the right. Seeing the fine-grained sorting of metal from rubble by the excavator arm with a two part scoop on the end serving as a hand, was totally impressive.

A computer gamer said the excavator operator was using it as a ‘skin’ and I suppose operating an actual excavator is probably not very different from operating a digital excavator, except that the ‘real’ operator has the rest of his crew to keep alive, make sure he stays on task, doesn’t break through the sewage pipes if any, etc etc. Meaning that there are real-world consequences.

This operator’s skill, though, makes me think that this job at least will be safe from being automated for a good while … the adult human brain is still very capable of out-thinking the AIs we’re all so worried about.

A reddit dot com/r/singularity discussion nine months ago considered that AIs didn’t yet have the capabilities of most mammals in that though AIs can be very smart on isolated tasks, they have no sustained intelligence the way most animals have.

All work stopped early on Wednesday afternoon as rain was forecast and we indeed had a good downpour.

Cat Diary 10

We have embarked on another training program, which is me learning not to ‘scrapple’ the carpet, is what the old woman calls it. Good luck with that, I say. It feels entirely too satisfying to give that up in a snap. I spread my front paw toes out wide and extend my front claws. Grab hold of a good swag of the stuff, and P-U-LL!

“NO!” the old woman said in a big voice.

The first time I got such a fright I had to go spend time under the couch to recover. But I had to make sure it was the clawing she was talking about, you know?

So I waltzed out in front of her working on the kitchen bench. Did it all again.

“NO!” she said.

So, yeah. OK. She doesn’t want me to shred the carpet. I’m pretty sure I’d have no problem, I already made short work of two rows of carpet weave that were sticking out into my domain from under the shed door.

Well no, maybe not short work. It might’ve taken me all one night, niggling at it. But would you believe, when the old woman went out for a walk, she came back with a huge slab of flood-worn five-ply she picked up from a place on the creek bank.

I said it’s big! But totally not something I’ve ever seen. Why wouldn’t I cringe away from it?

So first there was training me to trust it. Using kibbles of course.

Does she think I’ll trust anything just because it has kibbles on it?

OK, I didn’t last very long not trusting it. Soon gobbled them up and the thing didn’t leap up and bite me.

So next is teaching me to use it for my scratching instead of the carpet. Huh! I so can’t see that a piece of wood will be as satisfying as carpet!