The floor of the barn was prepared Sunday, 12-Jan-25 18:44:12 CET

Sunday, 19-Jan-25 21:17:30 CET

Concrete floor

The concrete floor of the barn was made this week.

Monday 13 January

Today, both DW and I worked from home. The sun shined, and all was fine. I was not that concentrated, which was annoying. I want to be motivated and highly productive 110 percent of the time, even though that is probably impossible. It also had to do with the fact that I started on a new task. It usually takes some effort to get into a project.

It was later in the day when the concentration kicked in, so I did not want to end my work too early. Also, DW continued to work a little longer today. At that time, Merida was starting to get hungry, and she was not just sitting on her platform on top of the laptop to look pretty, although she was pretty. Merida wanted to draw attention to her hunger. It was necessary to set up a little barrier between her and the keyboard so that she would not take a bite of my hand.

Eventually, I logged out and gave her an evening meal. DW logged out and started making our evening meal.

Tuesday 14 January

Today, I went to the office, and DW worked from home. I brought with me a neighbor again. I was much more productive today. The puzzle pieces of my current project started to fall into place. It is a more satisfying phase of the project.

In the afternoon, it was misty. I drove home together with the neighbor.

For supper, we had soup and toasted bread. When I ate the bread, I bit my chin. Not a little, but so much that things were hanging loose inside my mouth, I could taste blood. That was not good. I wonder why life cannot be good on an evening like this. Why do I need to bring an accident upon me? It is not normal.

Wednesday 15 January

Today, DW went to the office. It should be her day off, but she went to the office anyway. She had an important meeting in the morning. She had to be there, so we woke up early, and I made breakfast for us.

When she left, I had anticipated having a lonely morning, and I would work from home. That was not how the morning became. A van drove up in front of the house. Behind the van, there was an equally long trailer. It was the person who would set up the gutter and downpipes of the barn.

It was pitch dark when the man arrived, and he could not do the work properly in the dark, so he was hesitant to start working. I offered him a cup of coffee. He told me the sheet metal that was supposed to be mounted at the bottom of the roof plates was missing. I would not know. The man left.

After a short while, a new van came to our house. This was the person who should set up the missing sheet metal at the bottom of the roof plates. He had the right stuff with him. After one and a half hours, he finished his task. He also got a cup of coffee.

Not long after, the first person arrived again. He started working on preparing for the gutters. He had a system in the van producing gutters in one piece. It was such a fun sight, with a gutter rolling out of the van three or four times its length. It was like a magic trick.

The barn looked much more finished with gutters. The gutter specialist installed the downpipes on three corners of the barn. The last corner lacks a plank, so I loaded that pipe into the sea container.

In the evening, I still had pain from the bite in the chin. I was feeling like making a song about it. It became a two-line lyrics song—a dubstep soup. It was the toast I ate when biting the chin, but let us not nit-pick details here.

Thursday 16 January

Today, it was time to pour the concrete floor. I am used to it now, that it starts early. DW went to the office.

The builders arrived before 7 AM. They set up lamps and laser equipment. I gave them a cup of coffee. Then, the first truckload of concrete arrived. The truck driver poured the concrete into the pump trailer and regulated the flow so that the pump received a constant concrete flow. Not too much and not too little.

The builder operating the hose controlled the pump with an RC unit. He could start and stop the pump remotely. He put the hose between his legs and poured the concrete onto the floor. The concrete pump pushes concrete in portions through the hose. I think it is a hydraulic arm pushing concrete portions in the pump trailer. The result is that the concrete is not flowing evenly. The concrete is flowing, then stopping, and then flowing again. The person operating the tip of the hose needs to hold the hose firmly to compensate for the rocking of the hose.

Another person controlled the concrete level while the man operating the hose held on to the tip. The concrete level person was later polishing the concrete. He communicated the measurements to the hose holder and occasionally shuffled concrete to the right spot. He evened out the concrete as well with a large flat device.

When the first truck was applied, the second truck arrived. The first truckload was more moist than the second truckload. It was 17.5 cubic meters of concrete delivered. When the floor was done, they emptied the pump into the cube molds I had prepared. The pump and hose alone filled three and a half cubes. I had hoped I would get more cubes. When the rest of the pump trailer was emptied, they filled the cubes from the truck with the help of a wheelbarrow. I had not thought of that. I am unsure, but I think the truck went to the following site.

The pump operator left around 10 AM. Then nothing happened for three hours. The polishing specialist sat in his van. After three hours, it was possible to stand on the concrete, but it was not firm yet. He placed a polishing machine on the floor. One for the workshop and one for the canopy. Then, a tedious wait for the concrete to get firmer started, followed by a round of polishing. Then wait again. Then polish again. This went on and on.

The polishing specialist left at 10 PM! He had a 15-hour shift. I could not concentrate well while this work progressed. Somehow, having a person polishing concrete every hour between 1 PM and 10 PM deteriorated my ability to do anything creative or work or anything. Well, I had a day off, so it did not hurt anyone but me, but I had no benefit from this day. Well, the floors were done; that was great. I brought coffee to the polishing specialist and then fetched supper for him. He did not want to wait in our house. I have no idea why. I suppose he had a nice warm car.

 

Funny detail. The polishing specialist was extremely careful with the floor, but the very last thing he did was to make a long scratch on the floor when he lifted out his polishing machine. We are okay with that. We can live with it.

In the evening, I uploaded the new version of the Cinnamon Rolls song. This time, I called it the Metric Version.

My research shows that there are more songs of cinnamon rolls. I don't think there are so many that take the recipe literally. Oh well, here is my version.

Friday 17 January

Today, I had a day off, and DW worked from home. It was a couple of degrees above freezing and misty. It has been misty for a couple of days now.

It was a special day because it was the start of Dora: Digital Operational Resiliency Act in Europe. It was created to make the European bank system more robust, especially regarding ICT. DW worked on this project for a long time. I always found it funny that it sounded like the name of a lady or girl. I made a song about Dora.

[Verse 1]
In the shadows, she moves with grace,
A phantom touch in the cloud space.
Eyes like fire, a whisper in the air,
Dreams of her turn to nightmares, beware.

[Chorus]
Dora, a name that echoes deep,
Guardian of secrets we strive to keep.
She's the line we dare not cross,
Demanding order, preventing loss.

[Verse 2]
No one knows if she's flesh or bode,
A force unseen, the motherlode.
She seals the cracks where chaos seeps,
A silent watch as the system sleeps.

[Chorus]
Dora, a name that echoes deep,
Guardian of secrets we strive to keep.
She's the line we dare not cross,
Demanding order, preventing loss.

[Bridge]
She's the pulse in the network's veins,
The breaker of storms, the calmer of strains.
Good yet firm, her judgment is clear,
Her voice commands both respect and fear.

[Chorus]
Dora, a name that echoes deep,
Guardian of secrets we strive to keep.
She's the line we dare not cross,
Demanding order, preventing loss.

[Outro]
This is no sweet lady.
Digital act, nothing shady.
Operational Resilience
This act is not bilious.
Dora, the shield in the cyber domain,
A force of order we cannot constrain.

DW and I tried various styles of music for this song. She did not like that it got too "pompous," but I think this has the bite it deserves; this is what Dora is. This is it; it will not get better than this. I have to master the song and publish it. That is for later.

Creative things can always get better, but there is just so much time you can spend. We often give up when we feel that something should be much better, or worse yet, we delete it because it is not good enough. For me, the creative process is exactly that, a process. The results of that process have a certain quality, but the process and gradual improvements matter. So this is what it is.

Today, Superman, Mr. Radi, came to help me with electricity for the barn. We pulled a 3-phase electric wire and a UTP cable from the house to the barn through the case tubes. Then, we pulled a one-phase cable from the house to the stable. We could not connect these cables because getting breakers for them was still necessary. The breakers will go into the switchboard in the utility room. The cable to the stable will serve as a lamp and a heating cable for a water pipe. The cable to the barn will serve all sorts of things, so we made it extra thick. The streaming heater will take most of the juice from that cable. Installing a battery in the barn to store surplus energy from the solar panels is possible. But that is for later.

Mr Radi also finished the water and sewer for the restroom in the barn. This is so that we can put isolation and panels on that wall in preparation for the building company to come back and install the walls for the restroom.

With this part ready, I could go and get boards and insulation. When I got home, DW was ready for the day with her work, and she could help me unload the material into the barn workshop.

We put the protective paper on the floor. We still have two rolls of that, so it is handy for the barn. The moisture still needed to be ventilated, so we rolled up the paper again after finishing the work and opened the windows.

The song Men of a Few Words arrived on the Music Match dashboard this evening. The previous version of the Cinnamon Rolls song was still available. As predicted, it will take a long time to see it deleted. On Spotify, it remains in lists like previously listened-to songs. It is gone in the overview of songs I made. On YouTube, it vanished the day after. Overall, YouTube is where you need to be to get songs early, and there are more songs on YouTube than on Spotify. I also noticed that the synced lyrics feature can sometimes lag on Spotify. Strange. The lyrics arrived on YouTube almost a week earlier. I have a YouTube premium subscription, and then all these features are included, while if I had the same on Spotify, I would perhaps see things earlier and better there, too. I don't know. As it feels now, I would say Spotify is lousy.

Saturday 18 January

This morning, Merida decided she had to have her breakfast served at the same time as on weekdays. I am her servant, so I obliged and gave it to her. It is my life story that I will wake up at the same time every day. It was misty this morning and one degree below the freezing point of water. I realized that we had almost a constant mist situation since Tuesday afternoon. How is that possible?

The plan for today was to pick up a package of shoe covers. We need them to make walking around in the shed easier before the impregnation is applied. The idea is that the clay is not suitable for the floor. We also bought groceries.

When we started on today's main project, we insulated the wall behind the future restroom and applied boards on that wall. We will cover only the part of the restroom because then the building company can come and install the walls for the restroom. The restroom walls are in a pile in the barn's attic.

We have done this work before, but most of the tricks were lost. We had many aha moments and told ourselves we used to know this trick. Before starting work, we rolled out the protective paper. The idea is that we will roll up the paper every time we are done working. You can clearly see the concrete gives away moisture. It gets trapped under the paper.

We had a drill that could make large holes, that was great. These holes are for the washbasin's warm and cold water and sewer. The barn will indeed have both cold and hot water. It will be lovely to be able to wash your hands in warm water if that is needed. The idea of hot water came from DW's wool projects. She is washing the wool from the sheep and needs hot water. Since we have it, we can also install it in the restroom.

The trade lifts came to good use. We did not have trade lifts when we mounted boards in the house. I bought them last summer when working on the boards around the house's foundation. They are fantastic. Tomorrow, we will continue with this project.

In the evening, I synced Men of few words. The new version of Cinnamon Rolls appears to have been published on Spotify and Apple Music.

DW finished the whole row of the main pattern on her new sweater. I think it looks gorgeous. She made the pattern herself based on inspiration from traditional Shetland knitting patterns. She got a Fair Isle pattern book that inspired her. She made the pattern in Microsoft Excel. When I see her knitting, I am always amazed by the complex hand movements required to make a garment out of yarn. The yarn comes partly from our sheep. The grey is from another sheep, but DW made all the yarn from scratch. Washing, combing, dying, spinning, twinning and knitting. It takes a long time before it looks like a sweater.

Sunday 19 January

This morning, it was misty again. I remastered the new song Dora, who are you? In the process, I discovered I had misunderstood the effects stack order in FL Studio. The effects are processed from top to bottom. For as long as I can remember, I thought they were processed from bottom to top. Ultimately, I gave up and amplified the Suno Waw file to -0.1 decibels. That is as loud as it gets. The software glitched a little too much this morning. FLStudio, Suno, DistroKid. It did not feel fun. Next time, it will feel better.

In the morning, we talked about the weight of things. A bale of hay is 26 kilograms. A pole is 10 kilograms.

The first task today was to liberate the cubes from the molds. All in all, there should be around 571 kilos of cubes. I cannot have them on the road plates when the machine rental shop picks up the road plates. I think the shop owner will come and pick up the plates next week. Keeping half a car in weight of cubes on the plates would not be prudent. He would not appreciate that. Either that or he would push the cubes to the side, and then I have the cube molds lying in the mud. I would not like that option either.

Each cube is 64 kilos. That is also heavy. I managed to get the cubes onto a little carriage to move them. After a while, I had all nine cubes lined up in the driveway. Both DW and I liked the shape. They were nice. They can be painted white and given a reflection, and then we can put them along the road. The idea is that it will make people less likely to drive beside the road. If you drive into one of these, your car will not like you.

The disassembled molds can be assembled again, and then, the next time we pour concrete, we can produce another nine cubes. I do think I will need to use new screws because these are worn out.

The next task for today was to continue on the board project in the barn. We extended the OSB board of yesterday to continue past the future restroom. Then, we put up a green plasterboard on top of the OSB. The green color indicates that the gypsum is prepared for a wet environment. It was the kind of board we had as leftover from the house.

We had a lunch break, and I had the soup from Tuesday for lunch. Do you remember I bite my chin, and that hurts. The wound is healed now. Before eating the soup, I took a photo of it. I can use that as the artwork for the song Dubstep Soup. Tonight, I will master the song and upload it. I like it. It feels like the appropriate song for when you have bitten your chin.

I had the idea that we got better and better at setting up boards. We picked up old lessons learned, and it started to get fun.

The new trade-lifts make this so that you want to sing. Oh no, Jens, are you making a song about this? No, not today.

When we were done, we removed all the gear and rolled up the paper again to let the concrete dry better. The windows are open just so slightly to ventilate, and it works. There was much less condensation on the windows today. Yesterday, when rolling up the paper, there were wet spots, but not today. Today, there was darker concrete.

In the evening, I mastered the Dubstep Soup song. I separated the bass and the highs again. This time, I placed a subtle reverb effect on the high frequencies. There is no stereo shaping on the high frequencies. I don't think an average listener will notice. Then, I uploaded the song to DistroKid for distribution. The song is firmly compressed. It is up in your face loud, as it should. That is why I made the song.

This was an intense week. We had gutters and downpipes installed. The floor of the barn was poured. We got the electricity cable for the barn and the stable laid. The water and sewer of the future restroom were prepared. The inner wall of the restroom was insulated, and the boards for that wall were mounted. The cubes were taken out from their molds. I made two songs this week.

I wrote 3441 words this week. That is impressive. Thanks for reading all those words. See you again next week.