Dome Work

Here is a little update about the Dome progress. 

The Dome is scheduled to be finished on September 30th. We are scheduled to fly home to Idaho on October 24th. We will get home a few days before Josie's brother Dallin gets home from his mission in Philadelphia. We are pretty excited to see our families. Josie's sister, Jessica, is expecting a baby girl any week now and hopefully we will get back in time for the blessing. 

Back to the job....

Things are starting to wind down on site. Our scope of the work is all but done; subcontractors are finishing the interior painting of the Dome, installation of the conveyors and head-house, and dirt work on the outside.

We are starting to send home American employees, and will continue to until only Josie and I are left. We will be the last two to come home as I close up the bank accounts, pay any due invoices, close apartments, sell back vehicles, etc. I don't really see my work subsiding until I am on the plane.

As of two weeks ago, we had 8 apartments, 5 vehicles, 4 bank accounts (2 EURO, 2 Hungarian Forint), 3 office containers, 7 equipment rentals, and 35 employees.

Next week we will have only 4 apartments, 3 vehicles, 1 office container, 1 rented crane, and 15 employees.

So it is definitely winding down. Time has flown and I've learned a lot. Every day I learn some new nuance of some weird Hungarian labor law or contract laws. I have learned which questions I wished I would have asked 6 months ago, and will be able to use it to my advantage in the future. 

My favorite part of the job is keeping track of the money. We have made over 1,500 transactions (cash, debit card, credit card, and bank transfers).

I built an excel spreadsheet to track the petty cash expenditures and love reconciling the cash box every few days. 

For all other transactions, the company uses a software called ViewPoint to keep track of every purchase. My job is to make sure that each receipt is paid, scanned, and entered. I specify which account is debited and which phase of the project the expense should be coded to. 

This not only allows me to balance our books, but also provides the company with useful data for future bidding and job tracking.

Okay that's probably enough, you can wake up now. 

Here are some pictures of the Dome progress as well as a youtube video link of the job site from February - May 14.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31tRxIurwf4

If watching a construction site doesn't inspire you, maybe the music will....

This is my "corner office." It technically is in the corner, but I share the "office" with 6 other people. Usually my desk looks like this.

Sometimes when our site engineer took a day off, he asked me to take pictures of the site for our daily logs. I took full advantage of this opportunity to get out of the office and found some fun places to get some cool shots. The picture above is ten stories up (193 steps to be exact).

This is a picture from the top of the tower above. You can see the blue crane that we have rented in the middle of the dome floor.

May 14 - Dome Inflation day. I brought Josie to work with me this day to see the "airform" be inflated. Below, If you zoom in on the top of the tower to the left of the dome, you will see Josie and I watching the action. (The red arrow shows where we are.)

Here we are from the other side. The dome is almost inflated (it took 59 to fully inflate). From the time it is inflated, it takes about two months to foam, tie rebar, and shot-crete the inside until it is solid.

Inside of the dome after inflation. 

The best looking construction worker in Hungary.

A few hours after inflation.

Our subcontractors had a party after the inflation. It was held in the Sugar Factory's cafeteria and this is me dishing up what I later found out was liver. 

The foam being sprayed onto the airform.

During the shot-creting process: Two holes in the top of the Dome make the cool beams throughout the day. The only way to get into the dome is through a single doorway with an airlock to maintain pressure. After the foam and shot-crete, the inside of the dome is very dark and dirty.

 A worker spraying shot-crete.

This is ME spraying shot-crete. It is what I would imagine holding a fire hose would be like. My little office arms had to work harder than they are used to, and I only sprayed for 30 seconds. Overall, I can't remember the exact number, but over 50 tons of shot-crete was sprayed on the inside of the dome.

The finish of the shot-crete and hole cut into the top, and a random Hungarian worker.

I took this picture in July, the first day that the inflators were turned off and a big hole was cut into the top of the dome.

 I took this picture just last week. The head-house is being installed and soon a conveyor bridge will connect the head-house with the existing silo to the right.