Robert and I had homemade sausage biscuits — Hawaii mini-rolls with apple sausage slices — for breakfast, which were delicious.
We left for Rosalynn Place at 11:30, arriving at about 11:50. We walked around the “Habitat subdivision” looking for the IBM house, and after asking at least three people, finally found it. Diane was there, and introduced us. We had a “sub and chip” lunch, and then Brad welcomed us.
Diane agreed to help one guy finish some metal molding on the other side of the house. Robert, me, and Jason (I believe was his name), who Robert and I called “Missy,” were assigned to work on the back deck, and the five or six other people were all taken over to another house to work on. The IBM House is actually ahead of scheduled, because they’ve been so good about having a full crew out there every Saturday.
Our job was to put some cross-beam supports on the legs of the deck. It was difficult working back there, because the back dropped off in a very steep way, and we were constantly having to keep from sliding down the hill while working back there. I used the electric saw to cut the 2x4s to the size we needed. “Missy” was a little “know-it-all,” which was why we started calling him Missy. After sizing the support boards, we then drilled through them and the deck posts, and bolted them together. The future owner of the house was one of the people helping us, so that was cool.
I was the go-fer a couple of times. We needed to borrow a drill, so I went across the street to the house that “NC State folks” were working on and borrowed one. It was a batter-operated one, and ran out of juice after the drilling of the third hole. We looked for a spare battery, and ended up finding one, but it wasn’t charged enough to do the job. I then went around to other houses being build in the subdivision looking for an electric one, which I found at the second house I stopped at. That did the trick.
We finished our deck assignment at 3:00, and me, Robert, and Missy went down to the other house to see if there was something we could do down there for the last hour. Robert and I got assigned “fascia board work,” and Missy got assigned elsewhere. Good. This turned out to be quite a tough job. We each had to climb up a ladder, and hold about a twelve-foot long 4×6 board, make it flush on the left side, and use some kind of t-square or level-square to align the board in such a way that the plywood that would be laid on the roof would rest flush on this fascia board, and then nail it in. It was hard to measure it flush, and height-wise while holding it, and then hammer over your head while holding it on place on the ladder that was a little too close to the house.
We weren’t sure if we were doing it right at first, so called Brad over to level set with us before continuing. He assured us we were on track, and we just forged on, with it working out pretty well when it was all said and done. I was glad that we only had time to do the one, though. It was very tiring.
We came home, showered and took a nap. At about 8 we got up and went to the grocery store to get everything for the cookout tomorrow. Once home, I made the cake.
Early in the evening Bobby came over to say hi, and told me that he had put his house up for sale, to buy one with his partner, closer in to Raleigh — probably in Garner. He’s out in Johnston County now. We met Joe at 11:30 at CCs. Steve and Randy came after a bit, and we all drank too much. Steve and I danced for a little while. Steve started kissing on my at one point, which grossed Robert out.