headache

national grid has been working on our street since early May (maybe it was late April?). By "working" I mean digging up the street, dumping pounds of gravel in front of our houses, spray painting our sidewalks and lawns, drilling holes, letting their noisy trucks run all day long, asking to get into our basements, and just generally being loud and disruptive. I'm not exactly sure what they are doing, but they describe it as "upgrading the natural gas infrastructure in your neighborhood." From what I can tell, this involves changing the gas lines in a way that gives national grid access to our gas lines outside of our houses (as opposed to inside). While there is no mention of this being "experimental," so far we are the only street (as far as I can tell) to have this work being done. Now, mind you, our street has somewhere around twenty-five houses total. Please note that they have been here since April. How, I wonder, do they intend to do this "infrastructure upgrade" to the entire city? By what year do they expect to finish? But that, of course, is not my headache -- that one is theirs. My headache has to do with the fact that I listen to this racket day in and day out as I am trying, TRYING to work. Yes, some days I leave and work elsewhere, but I don't like being forced to leave my house simply because I can't hear myself think. Not to mention that for about a month and half I had to be guided out of my driveway by the work crew, as on one side of the driveway was a giant hole (that a national grid truck had fallen into, creating an even bigger hole) and on the other was always an eclectic array of gravel, tractors, trucks, orange cones, and the like. Right now all of this drives me particularly crazy because I have only one hour before I have to get ready for an appointment. An hour isn't enough time to really travel somewhere to work, but it is certainly enough time to work from home. If only...if only that jackhammer would stfu (I have no idea if that is really an acronym that anyone actually uses, but I just did).

Naturally this is the first summer ever that I've taken off time from teaching to write and research. Of course.

Well, it feels kinda good to write about it. I haven't been blogging much with the exception of posting bits and pieces of research project, as I attempt to design it. Ranting through writing = good outlet.