Stupid People Tricks # 8574B8-2.553A@!$%^&##!!?!
They're starting to remodel the building where I live. The current project involves converting the pretty, praked-roof portico over the walk to the front door into something that looks like a long, flat-topped table set sidways against the front of the building. The copies of the architect's drawing of the latter look like a security lock in front of a maximum-security prison. Worse, since its roof will be flat, snow will pile up on it in winter, rain will puddle on it the rest of the year, and of course it will turn out to be standard substandard construction, meaning eventually that flat roof, burdened by snow and water, will fall in and they'll have to fix or replace the whole thing -- and maybe pay out a big fat indemnity to the family of whoever gets squashed by it if somebody's walking under it at the time.
This also means that they're having to make a secondary entrance at the front of the building we can use while the old portico is ripped out and the new one is put in. They started on that task today -- at craptastic o'clock in the morning, which means I got hardly any sleep. Which means tomorrow I buy a big bunch of ear plugs for the duration. The temporary access door, complete with double-doored heat-lock, is being put in at the far south end of the building, which means they had to wall off a corridor along the eastern side of the big dining room downstairs leading from the new door into the main lounge on the north side of the dining room. Lovely.
Not only will the new entrance to the building, the one with the flat roof, be far less intelligently built than the old one, but, as shown in that drawing, it's ugly. Groovy. In other words, they shouldn't have bothered -- they should just keep the old entrance, and toss the plans for the new one. Why they haven't is a total mystery, and nobody who knows anything about it is talking (somebody's related to the contractor?).
It's also going to be expensive. And it'll take 4-6 months to complete. Now, why, dammit?
The icing on the cake is that they also plan to remodel a whole lot of apartments in this building, all the apartments that weren't remodeled after the 2006 fire (I moved in in May 2007). That's going to cost far more. And they're not sure they'll have the money for it.
So why are they replacing that lovely portico with that ugly, ugly flat-roofed thing?
I guess the Obama administration mandated it, because I can't see anything else that would account for it.
This also means that they're having to make a secondary entrance at the front of the building we can use while the old portico is ripped out and the new one is put in. They started on that task today -- at craptastic o'clock in the morning, which means I got hardly any sleep. Which means tomorrow I buy a big bunch of ear plugs for the duration. The temporary access door, complete with double-doored heat-lock, is being put in at the far south end of the building, which means they had to wall off a corridor along the eastern side of the big dining room downstairs leading from the new door into the main lounge on the north side of the dining room. Lovely.
Not only will the new entrance to the building, the one with the flat roof, be far less intelligently built than the old one, but, as shown in that drawing, it's ugly. Groovy. In other words, they shouldn't have bothered -- they should just keep the old entrance, and toss the plans for the new one. Why they haven't is a total mystery, and nobody who knows anything about it is talking (somebody's related to the contractor?).
It's also going to be expensive. And it'll take 4-6 months to complete. Now, why, dammit?
The icing on the cake is that they also plan to remodel a whole lot of apartments in this building, all the apartments that weren't remodeled after the 2006 fire (I moved in in May 2007). That's going to cost far more. And they're not sure they'll have the money for it.
So why are they replacing that lovely portico with that ugly, ugly flat-roofed thing?
I guess the Obama administration mandated it, because I can't see anything else that would account for it.