Spot the Cell Phone Tower

It amuses, perplexes annoys me that we have such bad cell phone reception when this curious construction is less than a mile away at the bottom of Los Alamos Road. We spend quite a lot of time at this intersection since we have to go through it to go just about anywhere. 

We still have a landline because the cell reception is so unreliable, but we get so many robo calls on it that we never answer it unless we recognize the name of the person calling. Sometime technology can be self cancelling. Now that I think about it I don't use either phone much for phone calls. I seem to have come to rely on mostly on text messaging. Remember when couples used to sit in restaurants, one staring into space while the other talked on the phone? Now they both have their heads down, texting away. And then there are the older couples who sit through an entire meal without uttering a word to each other....

We had lunch with Jerry and Mary today and got the latest report on the progress of their house. It's creeping slowly toward completion, but not without constant frustration and delay. We talked about all the promises made and broken by the builders, the constant shortages of everything from roof trusses and fire sprinklers (required in every new home) to labor and equipment. Mary says she rarely blows up anymore because it just isn't worth it. She has absolutely no control whether she blows up or remains calm. Jerry still gets grumpy because he used to manage real estate for Chevron Land when he and OilMan worked together. He knows the building business from the inside out, so he can also spot incompetence and mismanagement. But the whole situation is unprecedented. I'm sure the builders have never had to deal with situation like this. And the city and county keep adding code upgrades even as building progresses.

I can't imagine the frustration of going by day after day and seeing absolutely no progress....especially when houses around them are being completed and people are starting to move in. But there is a story that goes with every one of those houses too. People who have moved in are living in really chaotic construction zones.

They have just broken ground on a house nearby. It will be interesting to see how they avoid the FOUR PG&E power poles which were put in right along the frontage.

We weren't so busy talking that we didn't have time to enjoy the food, the decor and the service at the new version of Sweet T's, a restaurant featuring home style Southern food (fried chicken, shrimp gumbo, grits and hush puppies to name a few). It burned down in Fointaingrove not far from Jerry and Mary's house. They couldn't resist commenting that they managed to get a whole restaurant built and opened before their house was finished....