I just got four new images of the house. Remember I have not seen what the house looks like since I left Melilla Spain back in May. It’s a huge difference to see what has taken place since the last time I’ve seen it. Now I just need to get back with Manuel so I can get MORE images, and past images that I have missed.

The Explanation:
My ISP(ATTBI) was just bought by Comcast; Another ISP that’s replacing my service with ATTBI.. Thus my existing ISP, and Comcast has been working on the network, email stuff among a ton of other responsibilities for the transfer of internet service. It turns out when I downloaded my email all of it was not received or even received from the initial sender to my email. So when I went to download my email all I got was junk email. This happened because of the transition from ATTBI to Comcast. This transition has caused me trouble getting email from people whom I’ve expected to get email from until now. Hopefully I’ll be getting all of my email.

Hopefully I can get the images from the past which I have not been able to get, and hopefully I’ll keep getting images.

I just got home.... U.S Customs took my cubans and now I'm pissed off!!! Those bastards!

I'm updating the site, and making any changes that need to be made.... I'm tired, and just worn out from a long day of flying.

Questions? Email me... I can now respond within a few hours :0)

As Ron and I climbed into the two turbo prop airplane I began to think of all the people I meet and the new experiences I had as we embark on our way home. The flight from Melilla to Madrid was a flight that had left tears in my eyes. It was sad to leave home; a place that I’ve lived for 6 weeks making new friends, and meeting new people. The tears on that flight were not only of sadness, but of happiness to be on my way home.

We arrived in Madrid around 7:30pm we started looking for the bus which would take us to our hotel (Diana Galeon). After standing in one spot for about 20min waiting for our bus, we finally asked a local airport cop as to where we should be waiting. He told us to go to information both as his English was poor. After the information desk told us that we needed to go to terminal 5, we started walking…. So after walking a bit, we got to a location which was full of more taxis, and bus’s to other hotel’s. We waited and waited and waited…. We saw a bus that said “Trype Diana Aeroporter” or something to that effect, but we did not realize that it was OUR bus to the hotel. So after having it pass us 3 or 4 times, and making a phone call to the hotel we finally stopped the bus, and hopped on.

The hotel was nice, the beds were hard, and the shower was extremely powerful. It about knocked me over when I turned the water on and stood under it this morning. Ron and I went to the pub, had a beer and then went to bed. Four hours later the phone rings and we head off to the airport to catch our flight to Frankfurt, and then off to PDX. And now I’m sitting here waiting for the flight. . . .

*ding* *ding* *ding* My flight is now boarding….

Today was our last day at the jobsite. Myself and Ron will be taking Wednesday and most of Thursday off till we leave Thursday on the last flight out of Melilla. There is a few things Ron and I wanted to do before we leave so Wednesday is when we will be doing all of our errands around town.

Per requested by Ron’s wife here is a group shot of all of u

This is also my last update till I get home. I’ll be getting pictures via email from Manuel (owner of house) when I get home, so still check out the site for jobsite pictures and other updates.

We ran out of roofing material today. We would have had the whole other side done if we had enough bundles. It looks like we are around 6-7 bundles short. You’ll notice the difference from the images posted on 06/07 to the ones posted today. You’ll see that we roofed as much as we could, but there is a strip by the ridge which needs to be roofed.

However the running out of lumber was not that big of problem. We just made more studs by ripping down other bigger boards that we had extra lying around.

Today we started roofing the house under the mindset that it would rain on us most of the day. Although as the day continued it turned out to be more humid than anything else. Under the cloud cover and the humid weather we finished putting up the barge rafters with some minor but much needed finishing touches to the barge rafters. After the finishing touches we started the roofing process till it was time to go home.

Today, tomorrow, and the next day we will be roofing the house, and should be done in a day or two. We are framers for several weeks, now roofers for a few days.

We are not the only guys working in the house as it may seem. There are also the electricians who don’t really know what to do. The security guys who have a firm grasp on what to do since they worked on a previous house built by my father and Kevin. And then there is the air conditioner guy who has really yet to start. He has stopped by once or twice to check out things, but still he has not started. The house is a busy place to be, but since we are on the roof from now on no one is in our way. Yay!

After just coming back from drinking many Heineken’s from a long day of work, I’m once again sleepy, and a bit sore from the long day.

I'm also working on an animation that will show the changes of the house before we got there, to it's current state. So far the animation is about 1/2 done as there is many more details that I have to work out. It's going well It's just that it's getter bigger than I expected. It should make an good finishing touch to this jobsite.

Here's a picture of me on the ridge of the house early in the day.

Sorry about the lack of updates in the past few days. I’ve been a bit laid back since the loss of my camera. :0(

It’s Sunday and we’ve decided to take a day off to relax, plus check out some stone work (art) of a women that we meet at close to the jobsite.

Maricela Barradas is here name and she does wonderful work. Her pieces are really good, and it amazes me what she has done with the different types of marble around the world. We meet Maricela at the jobsite as she is working on a stone/marble fireplace down the street from us. We had to see some of her work since she only does a display every two years to show off her work, and well this time she is displaying it here in Melilla. She has some REALLY cool art work even I fell in love with. Maybe I can find an image of this piece I fell in love with….

Today we all have been taking it easy, sleeping lots so that we can get everything done that’s needed to get done before my father, and two more guys show up around June 15th. It all ready looks like we won’t have enough plywood for the roof and the gable end. We will have to use every scrape of plywood that we’ve been saving plus get some more from somewhere else.

As you’ve probably noticed that some of the jobsite images are not showing up, or just not there. The reason for this is that I re-structured the jobsite images directory so it was easier to update and more organized on my end. Well to find out when I need a fast connection the most the internet connection here is REALLY slow, thus the reason it takes me around 20 minutes to upload 7+ images to the server. If I was doing this from home it would only take me around 2 minutes. I only have so much time in the internet place before he kicks me out, and being there for 3 hours while others would like to use the computer makes things a bit more complicated.

Hopefully within the next few days I’ll get all the images uploaded so that everything is working perfectly once again.

Ohh and I also wanted to mention that Ron is a really good cook!!!! He’s been cooking dinner just about every night since we’ve been here… This man CAN cook!!!

Questions, Comments, Concerns? Email me.

Today we got some of the rafters into the air, plus some other random stuff we had to do. In the recent pictures of today you’ll see that there is a big change from the last update 2 days ago. OHH, and I’ve been taking pictures using Ron’s camera.

After we put away all the tools, the crane operator let me lift up a huge bucket of stuff, swing the crane around to the other side of the apartment complex and set it the bucket down on the other side of the large apartment complex. Before I started to operate the crane the crane operator guy told the crew that I was the new operator. So I would listen to the workers and see if the large metal bucket needed to be lower, or higher in order for them to put more rubbish in it. It was really cool to be able to operate the crane and actually do something useful with it. This is a picture of me with the remote control operating the crane with the crane operator.

The biggest concerns we’ve over the past few days is the lack of lumber. We ran out of studs (the lumber in the walls) so we had to cut some of the longer 2x4’s into a stud height plus we are getting low on ½” plywood. We are not sure if we will have enough sheets of plywood to sheet the roof, but hopefully we will. We are taking every piece of wood that can be used and putting it in a pile so hopefully it might be used if we need it, while the other wood that is just to small to use it being put in a pile.

Today the electricians started working… And well they’ve started at a very slow pace. Here is a picture of what they did today.

That’s it for now… Till next time…

If I find the person that stole it I WILL break their legs off and beat them with there own legs!!!

*Side Note*
Rest of the images on the jobsite page will be uploaded later. Slow connection here, and I've already been doing it for 2 hours....

Kevin, Phil and I just got back from working another long day in the sun. Ron got the day off as he needed a day to heal, and rest from the previous inhospitable day’s we’ve had.

Today we got the 2nd floor all done, plumbed and straight. Yesterday we got two of the main outside walls up. Today we got the rest of the outside walls up, plus all of the interior walls up. Tomorrow we start the 3rd floor, and get ready to start on the roof. Yay!

The weather here has been really good. It’s been between 17-19°C (62°F-67°F) in the morning, to 25-35°C (77-95°F) in the afternoons just about every day.

Once again I’m tired, and worn out but I keep going. My back is RED because I had my shirt off all day yesterday leaving my back burnt.

If you’ve emailed me and not heard back then you must realize that I’m busy and I can’t check my email everyday. I should get back to everyone within a day, maybe two etc.

Well it’s another night (10:00PM) after working all day in the hot sun. It’s been really hot the past few days. The other day it was 35°C (95°F), and today it was right around 100°F or so.

It’s tough to work in that type of heat/humidity but you just keep going while drinking lots of water and looking for shade when you have a chance.

I’ve started on one of my goals the other day; to get a good tan. My neck, arms, legs and face are all getting lots of sun, while I need to take off my shirt for a few days to get some more “color.” Overall I should have a good tan when I get home.

I’m tired, sore and want to go to sleep. We just got back from eating dinner at a restaurant on the beach. I’m ready to pass out now.

I tried to get to the internet place after dinner, but it was closed a little early. So DAMN, I did not get to get my email, update the site, and chat with a few of my friends back home. Hopefully I'll get to jump online for an hour or two after work tomorrow.

*NOTE*
As you can see, I've added a "Jobsite Images" page. Check it out, you should see changes...

Ok, night!

Upon unloading the container my pinkie finger meet the end of a 2x8 board and well the board won while my finger is all bruised and hurts a tad. I’m icing it now.

As you can see I’ve added a link to a jobsite pictures page, and added jobsite pictures from day 01 of working till today.

Questions? Ask!

Today was day two and I’m exhausted yet again. The next few days will be a pain because it’s all the ground level work that needs to be perfect so the rest of the house will be straight and level with everything else. As a note the foundation was like and ocean; There was humps, and sinks all over the place. So today we had to get everything all level. What a BIG pain that was.

We ate lunch at Los Angeles today around 1:30PM. Lunch was very good once again. After lunch we went back to work for another solid 7 hours. So today we did about a 12-13 hour day of hard labor. So much more work to do within the next few weeks. Yay!

One of the things I’m hoping to get out of working here is a good tan, and a toner body. Heck I should accomplish both of those. I’m in the sun all day, plus I’m lifting all kinds of lumber which is using muscles that I’m not use to using sitting in my computer chair. :0)

DOH! I have a runny noise.... I have no idea why. I woke up two days ago all cloged up. Not sure if I'm allergice to something here or what. gah!

It’s Phil’s Birthday today – Happy Birthday!!!! Yay!!!

*NOTE*
I'm going to have a section dedicated JUST for job pictures. I'll post the url as soon as I get it done and pictures added.

At any time if you have questions, comments, or need to contact me please don’t hesitate to. It just may take me a day or two to reply back depending on how late we work, and how much I feel walking to the internet place.

You’ll see pictures which I have not talked about because there is just too much to say. If you have questions about any of them just shoot me an email.

Tonight we have a big Moroccan style dinner at “Los Angeles” (restaurant that we love, and the owner once lived in Los Angeles). This should be a REALLY good dinner. It’s now time for me to get ready to go eat.

Take care to all…

*Side Note*
Dinner was REALLY good.... gah... I'm so full.... and the desert!! WOA, excellent!

It’s 12:45am and I’m off to bed. Goodnight to all……

Overall the time spent with Moha's and the neighbors was a great end to a day which had little excitement.

To all that read…. Take care….we miss you!

So far Melilla is a really cool place with interesting people, cars, and buildings. I’m really enjoying myself in this city (town) with around 60,000 people. About 55% are Spanish, while the rest is Arabs.

Time to sleep for me, I’m really tired, and had a long day of flying.

I’m ready as I’ll ever be so I should really get some sleep.

I’m just thinking that the next place I’ll lay my head after tonight is on a pillow in Spain, an unknown location to me. This will be interesting . . . yet fun!

Alex, signing off till next time I get a chance to update. . .