The Wall Forms Seem to Be Complete

HI!

The deer think that the wall forms are complete and ready to pour! Photo is courtesy of our next door neighbors, Kenneth and Susan (Thanks!). There's some worry that the deer will fall into the excavation and not be able to get out ...... but, that hasn't happened yet.

As of late Friday afternoon, the forms for the walls are complete, I think. There's still a question in my mind about the "rounded corners" that Deb wants, but I'll email Steve the Builder later on today to understand how that's going to be done.

The home looks like a pick-up stix game from when I was a kid! There are 2 x 4 supports for the walls sticking up everywhere. The second set of forms completes the space where the walls will be formed.

My assumption is that they'll pour the concrete on Monday next. It'll probably take 3 days or so for the walls to harden to the point where the forms can be stripped. I'm sure that the subs will strip the forms as soon as possible, since they need the forms for other jobs they are doing right now.

Next steps are to install the foundation drains and backfill, install the Radon removal system and then prepare for pouring the floor slabs.

Cheers!!

The Wall Forms Go Up

HI!

Back in business again. The erector set that's our house right now is in Stage I ....... putting up 1/2 of the forms for the walls. The subs for the forms have installed the plywood that makes up the outer walls of the forms. A form is the box that concrete gets poured into to make the wall and consists of an outer part and an inner part. These forms are placed over the footings that I told you about in an earlier post.

Not only do the subs put up walls, they put up a system of supports (2 x 4s) that hold the outer walls up while the inner walls are connected. It looks complicated, but the subs are real pros at reading the engineering drawings that the architects put together as we designed the house ........ thankfully!

The first thing that happened is that the subs couldn't reconcile a difference between the section drawing showing the main floor suspended inside the walls of the entry floor and the structural drawing that showed the main floor sitting on top of the wall. Kinda hard to explain ..... simply, the architect made a mistake. The subs pouring the walls need to know how high to make the walls. If they make the walls 9'-10" high and the floor is suspended inside the wall, then the ceiling height will be something like 8'-0" in the rooms on the entry level. If they make the walls 9'-10" high and the floor is placed on top of the wall, then the ceiling height will be 9'-10". I think it's settled .... we'll put the main floor on top of the wall and maintain the ceiling height for the entry floor.

The home looks bigger now than when it was just the dug-out for the footings. Just to give a little perspective, the tops of the boards are the bottom of the main floor / ceiling of the entry level floor. The floor slabs for the garage and the entry floor haven't been poured yet ..... after the walls get poured, the foundation drains are in, the Radon removal system is installed, and the walls are backfilled, they can be poured. The lower left of this picture is the garage, the upper right is the bedroom on the entry floor that we're going to use for the exercise room.

It looks like the wall forms will be completed Friday, and the subs will pour concrete on Monday. Hopefully the weather agrees with that plan!

How it's going at the Biggest Loser Resort

This is the beginning of my 5th week of 6 at the resort. The picture you see at the left was actually taken after the 1st week.  If the trainer that I'm standing with looks familiar, it's because he was one of the contestants on the Biggest Loser -- season 12.  His name is Ramon Medeiros.  I had just finished a ARC trainer workout;  it is like an elliptical but is so great for weary joints!  Phil scoped out some at the local 24 Hour Fitness, so I am happy, happy, happy!  Ramon is frequently asked questions by people who want to know what happens on the Biggest Loser show…and how the contestants lose so much weight each week.  He says, while we (folks at the resort) work out 6 hours a day -- they would work out 12 hours a day.  They cook their own meals, have only two sessions a week with a trainer, and potential contestants go through a battery of psych tests designed to make sure that they could endure the "game". One thing that they did have an abundance of was an entourage of health professionals making sure they were ok.  They really had some personal accountability to get the results that they got.  I had respect for the contestants before, but now I'm even more impressed with their hard work.  

This resort stuff is hard enough, but we have wonderful meals prepared that we don't even have to worry about. It makes eating right so easy. All I have to do is wash my 3-4 sets of workout clothes each day and get myself to the classes and the meals on time!

Here's a picture of me and Renee -- another person celebrating turning 60 by wanting to get healthier.  This was taken just last week.   She and I progressed from Van 2 (one step up from the bottom) to Van 6 (one step away from the top) for the hikes.  We both felt pretty good about that.   She went home to Hawaii -- tough life she has!

At the 4 week mark, I lost 15.5 lbs of fat, gained 4.5 lbs of lean muscle for a net loss of 11 lbs; about 3 lbs per week. It is not as much as I had hoped to lose, but then again I had unrealistic expectations based on what I saw on the show. My body has changed dramatically though. I feel like I've stepped back in time ten years. I feel so much stronger and I have the confidence that I can continue to build my strength and trim my body based on what I've learned here. I won't be exercising as much as I do here, so one take away is that I won't see the scale move very quickly. I will likely only weigh myself once / month and if I have only lost a few pounds -- I will be a happy camper.  

I Know I'm Being Overly Dramatic, But .........

HI!

Here's my mind picture of our home ......

This is a photo of an abandoned foundation for a building project in New York, not our home. Gloomy, eh?

We've had what I consider a setback in the building process. The foundations for our home were finished last Thursday, and the sub-contractor said they'd let them sit over the weekend and come back on Monday (the 17th) to start the forms for the walls.

On Monday, I found out that the sub-contractors were "busy with other jobs" and wouldn't be able to do our forms this week. They promised (yeah, right!) to come back to start the wall forms on Tuesday, March 25th.

That's an unnecessary delay of 6 workdays. So far, the total is 1 day lost to weather and 6 days lost to sub-contractor delays.

I'm so disappointed. It's a mental thing ...... how can I now trust the word of those particular sub-contractors?

OK, thanks for listening. I'll probably get joyous again after construction resumes; but between now and then, I'm as gloomy and forlorn as the picture of the abandoned foundation for the house in New York.

Phil

Checking Out Outdoor Activities

HI!

Got the bike out the other day, and Deb's not here right now, so I decided to check out some of the biking around the Denver area.

The bike's in good shape. This trip was time to test the other equipment ...... helmet, shoes, bike rack, backpack, camera, etc.

That's me all decked out and ready to go! Finally got smart and learned about "layering" - light weight hydrophilic materials that attract water and wick it away from the body. Works really well, and in today's temperature - about 62 degrees - it keeps me warm.

The waters of the South Platte River flow through the "South Platte Collection System" - a series of reservoirs (Dillon, Antero, Eleven Mile Canyon, Gross, Cheesman, Strontia, Marston Forebay, Platte Canyon). Waterton Canyon is located below Strontia Dam and ends where the South Platte River enters the Kessler Underground Storage at Marston Forebay. 

The ride up Waterton Canyon isn't very exciting even though the scenery is great, running alongside the South Platte the whole way. It's a road, and it's slightly uphill for 6.2 miles where it ends at Strontia Reservoir Dam.

For about two miles below Strontia Dam, the waters of the South Platte River are very, very good trout fishing waters - flyfishing only with a catch limit of 2 fish over 16". I'm not used to anything like that quality from waters in California!

Even though the flow of the South Platte is low, the stream bed is narrow enough and there are enough boulders so that deep pools and shallow riffles are formed - prime water for trout, both Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout. I'm looking forward to getting my Colorado license so I can fish this area.

Funny thing ...... there's an absolute TON of snow in the mountains this year, and pretty soon the "runoff" begins. Probably around May 1 the Water Managers for Colorado will begin moving water stored right now throughout the South Platte Collection System through the South Platte River channel in Waterton Canyon to the reservoirs closer to Denver. This draw down of reservoirs is in anticipation of the snow melt. When the runoff from snow melt begins, the upper reservoirs fill up and spill over. There's so much spill over that the South Platte between the reservoirs becomes unfishable - usually until early July. So I fish now ..... or wait until July!

Waterton Canyon is famous around here for the herds of Bighorn Sheep. Each time that I've been in the Canyon, the sheep have made an appearance. This time I brought my camera with the longer lens and captured a couple shots of them. 







Cheers!!

Phil

Update on the Home Construction

HI!

Thought I'd just catch everyone up on the chronology of the construction of our home in Roxborough Park ..........

August 29, 2013

We finally own the land and the first thing to do is to test the soil to ensure there's nothing unexpected underneath the ground, like an aquifer, old stream bed, rocks, etc. that would impede construction.

From here, we have to survive three reviews by the Roxborough Park Foundation Design Review Committee and a two-week, multi-department review by Douglas County before we get a building permit.

 March 5, 2014

March 5th, 2014 is Day 1. Steve the Builder says it'll take no more than 250 days to complete construction, so we'll be in the home by November 10, 2014.

Six months later ........... We officially break ground with my first shovelful of dirt and the first bucketful from the excavator.

We've gone through the three phases of review by the Roxborough Park Foundation Design Review Committee, and in the last meeting with the DRC they asked us to move the house 10 feet West and 5 feet North (on the drawings) to make some space between us and the neighbor to the East. That meant a couple of re-draws, a new drainage plan, and a new landscape plan to be approved by the DRC and a Building Envelope Change to be approved by Douglas County. Those approval processes cost us about a month of time.

Digging for the foundation footings starts in earnest on March 5th.

March 5 through 12, 2014

The digging proceeds. They take out and stockpile as much dirt as possible around the edges of the property for later use as backfill. But still, some of the dirt has to be hauled away and out of Roxborough Park by truck - an expensive proposition! Hopefully none of the dirt has to be trucked back in!!

After the diggers think they are done, there's an "open hole inspection" to ensure the soil is as it should be to support the footings and foundation, and a surveyor check to ensure it's been dug out correctly and is correctly placed on the lot. We DO NOT want to move the house at this point!

March 13, 2014

The open hole inspection and the surveyor have blessed the excavation and we are ready to proceed with framing in the footings for the walls.

The weather turns cold and snowy, so the excavation had to be tarped overnight to keep the ground from freezing. Snow is not really an issue, but freezing is. The ground has to be thawed in order to build the forms, and poured concrete shouldn't be exposed to hard freezes because of the danger of cracking - who wants a cracked foundation footing?

March 14, 2014

It only took one day to erect the forms and pour the concrete for the footings. Today is a Friday, so the concrete will cure over the weekend and they'll begin to put in the forms for the walls on Monday March 17 (St. Patrick's Day).

The re-bar sticking up out of the footings are used to connect the walls to the footings.



At this point, it gets really, really expensive to make changes to the design of our home. We did make one final change to the exterior walls - the garage doors have been moved two feet south to facilitate getting the cars in and out of the garage, and to create as much space between the cars and the North wall of the garage as possible so we'll have more work and storage space. Steve the Builder had to check with the Architect to ensure that the headers above the garage were placed correctly and were large enough to handle this offset loading. We're OK, but we had to increase the thickness of the engineered glu-lam beam from 2-ply to 3-ply.

That's it for now.

Be well!

Castlewood Canyon State Park

2989 State Highway 83

Franktown, CO  80116

More than a hundred years ago, in 1890, local farmers arranged to have a dam built across the creek for irrigation purposes. On 3 August 1933, the dam broke, sending a 15 ft high wall of water into downtown Denver. Thanks to Elsie Henderson’s quick action many lives were saved, as people responded to her telephone call and pulled their families out of the torrent’s path. Today Castlewood Canyon State Park contains the ruins of that old dam.  

The map above shows a 6 mile long hike from the Lake Gulch trailhead, dropping down to the shore of what was formerly the lake created by the dam, crossing Cherry Creek just south of the dam, following the Rimrock Trail up the east side of the canyon, dropping down to the creek bed and returning south along Creek Bottom Trail, returning to the trailhead via Inner Canyon Trail along the north side of the creek.

The trail is great for kids with lots of opportunities to climb around on the rocks in the upper part of the creek (Inner Canyon Trail).

I Love This Place ...... 2

HI!

It's 60+ degrees today, and I've been itching to get the bikes out for a ride. So, today's the day!

We have a very nice trail only a couple of blocks from the house - The Cherry Creek Trail. It's 40 miles long in total, and goes South along Cherry Creek and the Platte River South to Castlewood Canyon State Park. It's interesting that this trail is almost to the mile, the same length as the American River bike path in Sacramento - one of our favorite places!

It's all downhill to Confluence Park where the South Platte River and Cherry Creek come together, but it's all uphill back. It's a great ride and will become a favorite walk or ride in the warm Summer evenings!

 That's REI Denver in the distance behind the tree. I wonder how REI, which started in Seattle, WA feels about Denverites calling this their "flagship" store?

Cherry Creek starts in the Parker area, 30 miles South of Denver and flows from there into Cherry Creek Reservoir. Flowing out of the reservoir, Cherry Creek meets the South Platte River here - Confluence Park.

View Looking North from Back Courtyard

HI!

The diggers are on site today, and almost finished, so I took some time to climb their dirt pile to take some video of the view to the North.

You might remember that the back of the house faces North, and has a courtyard that is oriented that direction. There's a roof top deck on the topside North of the house, approximately 14 feet above the courtyard. From that deck, there should be an excellent view of the meadow leading down to Chatfield Lake, the rock formations on both sides of the meadow, and in the far distance, the night lights of Denver.

So, here's the video I shot this morning.

Enjoy

I REALLY Love This Place!

HI!

It was 77 degrees yesterday and 72 today, I was driving along to Roxborough Park with the windows down and the country music blaring - Alabama is my newest favorite, and Spring was in the air! Too good.

They're still digging for the foundation, so I hopped up on one of the dirt piles to get a sense of what the view might look like from our rooftop deck .......


Please don't read anymore - Coloradans say this next part is a secret! (LOL!)

Some people think the Winter was a rough one. I didn't. The snow during cold weather is light and fluffy and doesn't stick - just blows around. The temperatures average around 45 for highs during the day, but I felt the cold when temperatures fell to -12 degrees one day and Deb and I went for a walk. The green of the leaves and grass goes away, and everything turns brown; I experienced that in California, especially in the Sacramento area in Summer and Fall, so I don't notice it much.

The views in the Denver area are spectacular. Looking North and West it's easy to see the snow capped 14teeners (mountains +14,000 feet high); we haven't visited the mountains yet this year. Can you believe we live so close and haven't skied? We've found way too much in and around town to keep us busy, so no need.

We've found several places to exercise - including CorePower YOGA for Deb and friends, and a newly remodeled 24 Hour Fitness for me close by.

I've got to get the bikes out and tuned up tomorrow. They've been chained to a bike rack in the basement since October. The weather forecast says that everyday for the next week except for tomorrow will be bike riding weather. There must be 300 miles of easily accessed bike trails in this area. I've been invited to go mountain bike riding up at Strontia Springs Reservoir - the mountain bike riders tell me those trails are "gnarly" as they show me their scars!

Friend Steve and I want to buy a squirrel suit - for flying! Like Rocky! Well, we'll see about that after all the other sports are exhausted.

and on and on ......

Be well!

Phil

Biggest Loser Ranch Malibu Adventure: Week 2

HI!

2^nd week at the Biggest Loser Resort

Meet my new friends: ice packs, knee braces, hiking poles, the hot tub and the chiropractor. 

On Monday of the second week, I hit the trail hard.  This is the day that they do an assessment hike so that they can put you with other people who hike at your level.  It was a great hike and I felt much stronger than the previous week.   I even followed up the 7 mile hike with 45 min of intervals on the treadmill and found myself jogging at 6 mph for 45 seconds, followed by a spin class, core class and a pool class.  Not surprisingly, my body revolted.  At 7pm, I was lying in bed with a bag of ice under each knee and one on my left foot. At 9:30 pm, I was still applying the ice.

On Tuesday, I bought a knee brace for my left knee (already had one for my right knee), but I had to pass on the hike.  I had rekindled the torn meniscus injury by doing something so simple as slamming a medicine ball.  My knee was not stable, so  I went back to my room, set up my ice bags, took ibuprophen and promptly went to sleep.  I was still able to do all the afternoon exercise classes.

Wednesday, I did a hike that I had done the previous week and I kept wondering when “the hard part” was going to come; when I got to the top and realized that we had already done the hard part, I had a great feeling of accomplishment. 

I hiked the rest of the week and while tired, was not nearly as tired as I was the first week.

Am I getting fit or am I breaking my body?

I find myself asking this question often.  But 3 things tell me I am getting more fit.

Just when it seems I can do no more, I start into an exercise and I end up feeling great.  The other thing that is giving me some feedback and telling me that I’m getting fit, is an instrument that they use to weigh us; it is called the InBody 520. This machine tells you the lean body mass and amount of fat in each leg, each arm, and trunk.

Drummm roll…..results…..

I have lost 8.5 lbs of fat in two weeks.  I have gained 2.2 lbs of lean muscle in the same amount of time.  While the net weight loss is only a little over 6 lbs, I have lost 3% of my body fat.   When I expressed disappointment in the total lbs lost, I was told that most people take 4 weeks to lose 3% body fat, so I ended up feeling pretty darn good about that.

My guess is that I am generally good at building muscle when I work out and I think that over the years, I would check the scale and some weeks get a pretty low weight loss number – even though I was working out hard and eating right, and I would get discouraged and feel like my efforts were useless.   What I’m learning now, is that I need to be more patient (Mom was right, I am not a patient person).   I am realizing that being my normal size may actually obtainable!  I am very excited about this! Living a healthy lifestyle is really not that hard for me,  I like the food and exercise, but when it seemed like I wasn’t getting anywhere with it, it was easier to toss it aside.

Another reading that the InBody 520 gives is a reading of your intracellular and extracellular water.  The normal ratio is 0.360 – 0.390.  My ratio is now 0.386 but when I first was measured, it was slightly over normal at .0393. My understanding is this higher than normal reading was likely due to some edema.

I guess in Southern California, the InBody 520 machines are sometimes available in pharmacies like CVS.  In searching for InBody 520 by certain cities, I did find some places that have the machines, but it doesn’t sound as available as I had hoped.  Here is some additional information

http://www.biospaceamerica.com/product/ib520.html.

Other revelations

Working out in the fat burning zone does not add to fitness and a calorie is not a calorie!

I’ll write more about this in upcoming blogs. Wish me luck in being able to keep my knees in good shape this week!

Bye for now,

Deb