all week long from my living room window i could see the heavy construction equipment going in and out of the condo lot. i haven't bothered checking it out because the construction guys were wary of onlookers, given the controversy surrounding the property development. but since they're not there on the weekend, i took a peek this morning. through the newly-erected chain-linked fence i saw that the 3 story house that used to be there was now completely gone. so this is really happening! i wonder what will happen by next weekend. maybe foundation excavation?

my father and i examined possible layouts for the raised beds. he wants about 2 feet of mulch around the perimeter of the house, placed on top of a permeable fabric barrier. i'm of the opinion that it wouldn't do any good and given a heavy spring soaking the basement could very well flood again. irregardless, we played hypothetical, outlining the borders of the beds with the surplus of tree branches. we settled on a possibility of 5 boxes, 4'x8'x20". furnished with a list of measured dimensions, later i used my newfound sketchup skills to good use and drew a mockup of the layout. i was trying to impress my father with how easy the program was and hoping he'd want to try it out himself. one of the more useful features is the shadow function: after locating our position on google map, the application could then simulate the shadow conditions on any given date and time. we played with the arrangement to make sure none of the raised beds would be in the shadows throughout the day.

victor was in his bedroom talking with some girl online (sister? girlfriend?) when i got back home. since he seemed busy, i quietly slipped into my room, changed clothes, then went to the bathroom to take a shower. later he came out and we watched an exhibition soccer game between the US and argentina. we talked "football" the rest of the night. i was still trying to wrap my head around the european football league system, then investigated how football is set up here in the americas.