These are the steel frames that I welded that will go inside the rammed earth wall of our house. They come complete with a flying Matt.
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another view of the new painted walls.
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So, Terri has been staying really busy while I've been down in Bluff. Which, by the way, I now have my own computer down here now, so I'll be able to check my email more often. I haven't figured out how to send emails yet, but I can recieve them at least. Anyway, so Terri has been busy painting the dining room in the house. As you can see, it looks great. You can also see that we're painting the moulding and trim as well. The bases are done, but the door frames are only primed, waiting for their final coats.
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A Day in the Life of 2 Ts

Also, new links on the left to the DesignBuildBluff websites.

All the Balloon pics

As promised, here is a link to the rest of my pictures from my balloon ride. www.tc.umn.edu/~shep0090

Here's another from high above the desert with our shadow on the Finger.
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Up, Up, and away. Valley of the Gods in Southern Utah from 5000 feet in the air or so.
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Well, I'm back in SLC for the week. It's good to be home with Terri. I have a few things to build for the project in Bluff, but I hope to get it all done today. As for this photo...this is the balloon that I got to take a ride in last Saturday during the balloon festival down in Bluff. Some of us just happened to be in the right place at the right time and this group needed some extra crew to get the balloon launched. I just happed to have my gloves on so I was offered a ride. I'm still not sure if it was because it was going to be cold up there or if it was because I was going to be close to the flame. At any rate, it was super wicked awesome, a.k.a. swicket. I'll put up a website of all the photos that I took while in the air and will let you know when that is up with a link. If you look at the "More Balloons" post, the ballon I was up in is the big green Alien, it's just above the red truck in the photo.
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After

 

Before

 

More Balloons

More balloons taking off from the school yard. It was cool having the moon out with them this morning. 

Out my window

Here is my super sweet Airstream trailer that I live in down here in Bluff. It really is an ingenious design marvel. So this weekend is an international hot air balloon festival here in Bluff. This is what I got to wake up to this morning. Tomorrow they are launching from Valley of the Gods, so we are going to head over there to watch them in the morning. Should be pretty spectacular, I'll try to get some good photos. 

rammed earth

These are the samples of different mixtures of rammed earth that Matt and I were working on the other day. We still have a lot of testing to do, but these look promising. 

Bluff Sunrise

While this picture doesn't do it justice, the sunrise this morning was pretty spectacular. It was enough to get me out of bed and grab my camera and jacket and stand in the cold for a few minutes. It might have turned out more red and saturated if I would have gotten up a few minutes earlier. 

Bluff sunset

This is my third try at posting this, so I'm a little sick of writing the same thing. This is a sunset, but not the best that you get down here. I don't have pics of the site, because I've been at the house working on testing and experimenting with rammed earth walls. We went to Page, AZ today to get a sample to play with of a material called "Flex-crete". Ethan, you should check it out...www.flex-crete.com I think. 

The End of Day 2

This is the end of day 2 on site. Four of us went out to the site around 12.30 or so, while the rest of the group went to Blanding to get some supplies. So we graded and leveled the floor in about a quarter of the day, because the Blanding group didn't get to the site until 3 or something. That's a whole lot of sand we moved by shovel and wheelbarrow. 

A little fun at the end of the day

We had a little celebration at the end of the day yesterday. 

End of Site work Day 1

This is the trench we dug for our rammed earth wall. This is also the end of the first day we were out on site. 

Site Work Day 1

Staking out the general form of the house. 

Bluff

So, I'm now down in Bluff, UT for school. We've begun working on designing and building a house for a family on the Navajo Reservation. Which is why there have been so few posts. So I hope this will make up for it. These pictures so our progress in just the last two days. We dug a trench for the foundation for one of our walls on the first day, and then yesterday we started grading and leveling the ground for the floor and to slope the land away from the building. The photos will be above this post.
Also, I'd like to give a shout out to the love of my life, Terri.

New post

I've also made a new post to T1photos

So as not to be left out of the Christmas picture loop, here's a couple for everyone to enjoy. Take special note of my bro playing with his favorite Christmas present.
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