As expected, I woke up before 5 am this morning.  After having my cup of coffee and sorting through some emails, I got to work on figuring out step details.  On my last deck project in NY, the steps took way longer than they should have.  Using Google's free Sketch-Up CAD software, I was able to draw up the details I needed in about a half hour.  It's a pretty amazing tool.

We had a scheduled visit from the plumbing company to fix a problem with the master bath tub.  When the master toilet was flushed, it would suck the water out of the tub's drain line and allow septic gases into the house.  It turns out that it was plumbed wrong and didn't vent the tub properly.  Unfortunately, they had to cut several holes in our kitchen ceiling to fix the problem.  The builder's handyman will be coming next week to do the drywall.  This is going to be a tough drywall job as it is in the kitchen ceiling and will be easily seen if not done well.
The plumber left around noon.  After lunch my son and I started with installing the two posts around the steps and then installed some additional wood blocking to support the steps.

We then started attaching the planks.  I came up with a way to pull the boards together by using an 18" piece of 1/2" pipe, a Bessey Pipe clamp from Lowes, and two metal trusses screwed to a 2x4.  This setup worked so well that we went out and got a second pipe clamp from Lowes.  Precut and threaded 1/2" pipe - $3, 2 Trusses - $4, Clamp - $12.  About $40 for the two clamps.  The CONCEALoc fasteners are working well now that we have a method to seat the planks onto them.We got several courses of planks attached before we broke for dinner with wife's sister and family.  I continued on after dinner.

Tomorrow we will be laying planks all day long.