Concrete time...almost

I blame the weather. I was planning on pouring some concrete this weekend and having my slab done...but it decided to rain off and on last week and that messed up my plans...

Who am I kidding? I am freaking terrified to order this concrete! I need 60 80lb bags (that's 4,800 pounds! What the hell am I getting myself into???). Last week I figured "well instead of having to pay $70 to ship over two tons of concrete to my house, why don't I just go to Lowes every day after work and just buy ten bags at a time?" Seemed like a simple enough idea...except when I tried to pick up an 80lb bag of concrete mix it felt a lot more like 800!

Fortunately, Home Depot carries 60lb bags of concrete mix (so I'll need 80 bags...good thing I'm a CPA otherwise I may have had trouble figuring that out), which will be a little easier to carry. Although I decided I'm just going to splurge and have them deliver it - but getting 60lb bags will make it easier to dump the concrete mix into the mixer. Oh yeah, Home Depot also has a mixer I can rent for like $50 for the day...phew! I suppose if I order 40lb bags it would REALLY be easier to carry...but 120 bags of concrete...yeah I don't think so

Ok, so enough about me ALMOST buying 4,800 pounds of concrete. I was productive this weekend. Since I didn't have a hangover Saturday morning, I was able to wake up early (before noon...tee hee) and finally level the frame where this gigantic mound of brick oven awesomeness is gonna sit. Check it out:

Isn't it awesome?? I even left the level in the picture just so it looks more legit (you know, so it looks like a contractor did it rather than a forensic accountant). That thing is about 6.5 ft long and 5.5 ft wide, has a 1 ft by 1 ft footing around the edge, and the middle is 5 inches deep...and apparently will take a shitload of concrete to fill.

Next step: man up and order the damn concrete! =-O

Hi. My name is Rubik...and I'm a pizza-holic.

Actually, I think I'm just a "don't-wanna-work-for-so
meone-else-my-entire-life-aholic", so several years ago I decided that one day I would want to open my own business. I somehow decided on opening a wood-burning brick oven pizzeria, which I think was based largely on the following: 1) my adoration for pizza since my corpulent childhood, which included almost weekly visits to Cici's, and 2) my first experience eating brick oven pizza at Grimaldi's in New York (which was quite an upgrade over Cici's)

Sometime in the summer of 2005 I decided that I should build a wood-burning brick oven so that I can practice making brick oven pizzas prior to opening the pizza shop. The "plan" was to work in corporate America for 10-12 years, build some capital, advertise for 10-12 years by telling everyone that I encounter to keep an eye out for "Rubik's Pizza", and perfect my business plan/recipes/etc so that when the day comes I'll be ready to hit the ground running.

...So back to the oven - I googled "how to build a wood-burning brick oven" and it just so happens that there is this guy living in Australia who mails out CDs of detailed plans for how to build your very own brick oven!


This is the guy who sent me the plans that have been sitting on my desk for over 5 years. This blog is a means for me to hold myself accountable and build this damn oven once and for all in 2011. In the next week I plan on splitting up all the steps in building this oven and assigning myself weekly tasks.

So far I've got a hole dug in my backyard, and a frame built, and now it's time to pour the concrete...except I've never poured concrete before. Last year one Saturday I decided "ok! I'm ready to figure out how to pour concrete!" So I went to Lowe's and told the guy at the project counter how big of a slab I was trying to pour. He ran some numbers and told me I would need an entire palette of concrete mix...at which point I figured I was in way over my head.

So here we are today, and I still need to pour concrete. I looked for instructional videos on YouTube and found this unenthusiastic goober:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq_1ZEgVbH0&feature=related

I've considered just hiring someone to pour it for me...but that's kinda like cheating. If I did that, why not just hire someone to build the whole thing? I think I'm just going to order two cubic yards of concrete mix (that's how much the Australian dude in the picture said I'd need), buy the rebar, then just go to town this weekend. What's the worst that could happen??

Here's what the finished product is supposed to look like: