The Concrete Project

Over the last 6 months I have been involved in a contruction project at my house that has turned into quite a nightmare. Back in August, I contracted with someone to replace my cracked concrete driveway and patio with a new one. It was all very expensive - apparently the construction boom in China is sucking up all the raw materials and the price of concrete has gone through the roof.

Well the job didn't start off very well (delays and sporadic work habits) and it just went downhill from there. After the concrete was poured it became apparent that the quality of the finished product was really, really bad.

There's is one thing about concrete, once it is poured and set then it is pretty difficult to do anything with it. The contractor blamed the raw materials delivered by the concrete company, the concrete company said they didn't see anything wrong with their material and I was stuck with a pretty shoddy driveway.

After trying unsuccessfully to get some resolution myself, I decided to see what the California Contractor's State License Board could do form me (they have a complaints process). I filed a complaint with them and after a lot of paperwork and discussions my case got accepted and finally today we had the arbitration meeting in the backyard of my house. I met with two people from the Board along with a "Concrete Expert" and told them what I wanted and then they then met with the contractor to see what he was prepared to do. Their discussions took a very long time and I was not hopeful of the results, but, when they came back to me, the contractor had agreed to tear out and replace the entire job. How about that - there is justice in this world after all.

Of course now all I have to make sure is that they make a better job of it the second time around. The bad news is they will not start the job until they are sure of good weather - apparently that is not until June (I know this is California, but at this point I am not going to argue).

If anyone is interested in seeing photographs of bad quality concrete here's the link but really you should get a life, as should anyone who documents concrete work on their photo site (actually it WAS all part of the documentation for the State Contractor's Board).

Angel Island Run - again

I went down to San Francisco and ran the trails over on Angel Island (again) the other weekend. It was a beautiful weekend - cold - even icy in places - but clear and sunny and great running weather.

The photograph below shows how wonderful Angel Island is. Just a stone's throw away from San Francisco, but it's like being in the countryside. Thanks to John's friend for taking this photograph. I have some other photos posted on my smugmug site.

Here we are all smiles in the first mile, by mile 15 we were not quite so cheery.

A cautionary tale for visitors to the USA

It was somewhat interesting to see what happened to a visitor from England in Atlanta the other day. It was made even more interesting by the fact that the poor soul was a visiting professor from my alma mater, Queen Mary College. I don't hear much about Queen Mary College these days so its good to see them getting at least some recognition even if it is only for one of their professor's being arrested.

The poor guy was wrestled to the ground and carted off to jail for jaywalking. Something that is completely legal in the UK and in many other 'civilized' countries. But quite illegal here in America and in some other places like Australia.

So those Australians have another thing in common with the Americans - the other being a failure to ratify the Kyoto Agreement. Don't get me started on that one but did you see that Daimler Chrysler's chief economist said that Global Warming was way in the future and still uncertain. So much for Chrysler's recent moves into the green world - perhaps its not so heartfelt.