Independence

Reading a fascinating article about driverless cars and Google on New Yorker, I was prompted to review Google Street View near our new home; it gets quite close, to the turning in to Bridgewater Crossings Blvd, outside Bridgewater Middle School – but it looks different!

It’s hard to know exactly when this was recorded, the Google Map has a 2013 copyright, but in tiny writing states “Image Date April 2011”.

To get to our new home you go straight ahead on this image (over the (now non-existent) gate), along the side of Lake Joval, and turn right when you reach the far edge of the lake. Meanwhile if you go “ahead” on Google Street View, you reach the next housing complex; and if you turn around 180 degrees, you’re facing just trees. There’s been a lot of change there, since these images were recorded!

What’s interesting, is that Google Street View knows that those two points are connected, it just can’t fill in the details! You see this on the normal Google Maps too, where it knows the route of Bridgewater Crossings Blvd. Apple Maps has no such knowledge, nor does Bing Maps, and nor does Mapquest (but does anyone use Mapquest these days?)

Progress seems swift this week at Independence, with electrical wiring finished now, and preparations for exterior stucco progressing rapidly. While I assume it’s easy enough to apply stucco to the lower floors block walls, it’s not going to stick to the wrap on the upstairs framing, so today the upstairs was being covered with a wire mesh and curious plastic pieces which seem to be related to junctions and angles (I don’t know, I’m not a stucco expert!).

In this picture you can see (dark color) that much of the home is covered with the wire mesh panels; some photos of the work going on – and when everyone (including me) left at sunset, the front of the home was completed:

 

We have electricians at Independence now! Inside, there’s wires everywhere, running in the ceiling spaces, walls and bundled in to outlet boxes; in the exterior walls, they’ve punched holes in to the block wall (shame about the loss of insulation – maybe it’ll get patched up again):

UPDATE: Two days later, the electrical wiring is complete – and they’ve patched the block walls with foam insulation! In the garage, all those wires are now tidily routed into a fuse panel: