skreidle: (Default)
skreidle ([personal profile] skreidle) wrote2001-11-03 12:48 am

Well, maybe not -last-..

They've been blasting at the Duffield Hall site for the past week, and continuing for another week or two.. something like a couple thousand cubic feet of rock to remove, so they've gone to explosives instead of machines. They usually have one blast in the morning and one in the afternoon.

So you hear three whistles, and you know a blast is coming. If you look outside, you see the workers collecting, leaving the site, and/or blocking traffic on the adjacent streets and paths. It also gives you a few minutes to get to a window overlooking the site. This afternoon, I was working on a lab report in the ACCEL lab with Laurel and Veronica (my homework partners for everything, with a part-time Margo) and heard the three-whistle--we dropped our work and went upstairs, looking for a window. We went to the Co-op&whatever office--and without even asking, they told us, "the best window is down the hall in Cindy's office"--so we went to Cindy's office, who was amused but used to it, heard the double whistle (one-minute warning), and...

BOOM!


It flipped the huge rubber blasting mat (weights over a ton, if I recall correctly--have to check that) they use to shield it. Damn.

Then the single all-clear whistle blast, and we went on our way, getting some candy from Cindy's bowl on the way out. This included some Nerds (yay blobs of sugar!), which is what reminded me of this whole story--because it's her AIM icon.