Work on the Big Dig has continued. The past several weeks have been spent on covering the new sewer line as well as planning and repairing the irritation system that was damaged by The Beast. The first step was locating the sprinkler heads under all the dirt. Then I needed to find the ends of the broken pipes as well as figuring out what connected where. Twenty years ago I removed the old rusty galvanized pipe and replaced everything with PVC. I noticed that the new pipe is stamped with the web address for the manufacturer.

The dot-com revolution was just starting in 1998. Now the internet is a part of every day life with website information on everything. Someday someone, besides me, will dig up these pipes and marvel at them being marked with an archaic form of finding information about the manufacturer. This started me thinking about all of the revolutionary ideas that have changed the world and how we communicate and do business.

• The Pony Express for mail
• Transcontinental railway
• Sears Roebuck & Co.
• Carbon filament lightbulbs
• The telephone that used two wires
• Automobiles
• Phonograph for music
• Radio as our form of entertainment
• The Yellow Pages to find a business
• The advent of Black & White TV
• Color Television with a remote
• Cable TV with no commercials
• Satellites for communication & TV
• Beta Max verses VHS
• Personal computers & email
• The Compact Disc instead of vinyl
• Digital Video Disc for movies
• The cell phones & smart phones
• Amazon
• Streaming movies and TV

A lot has changed since my home was built in 1908. Many of the homes on my street had hitching posts at the curb, but I digress even further.

With the pipes back in place, the dirt can finally be put back in the rest of the trench and tamped down with the hope of very little settling (the detailed oriented reader will see two bricks under the clean out box, this is a code requirement). Tomorrow after work will be yet another trip to locate more plumbing parts. At this point I have lost count of how many trips I have made to the various hardware stores, but I’m closer to the end than the beginning.