On the Road

I pulled on to I-95 at 5:30am driving north.  The oranges, purples, pinks and blues started to brighten in the pre-dawn sky as the sun rose.  Near Benton, in a field on the right, four deer were feeding in a cut hayfield.  Their breath visible in the cold morning air. 

After nearly 4 hours I arrived at the job site and the task of removing gasoline contaminated soil began.  At 4 pm the sky was dark again, the work day done and 930 yards of soil had been removed.

Based on the number of service vehicles and trucks in the parking lot, my hotel choice was a popular one among others working in the same area.  At 5:15pm I was unpacked and it was time for a shit, shower and shave before heading out into the cold dark to track down some dinner in this small eastern Maine border town.

After a burger and some beers I returned to my room to check email and send notes back to the office. The free wi-fi signal offered by the hotel was weak so I found my self sitting near the door with the laptop propped up on the sink.  The bleak florescent lighting and asylum white walls, all reflecting in the sink mirror, cast a depressing aurora. 

I quickly finished my work and moved into bed;  5:30am would come fast, lucky for me the bedside alarm clock was already set for the right wake up time and tomorrow was Friday.

LumberJackin'

Saturday and Sunday proved to be a productive day in the yard. Brother came up early to help me bring down some hardwood in the backyard. In about 2 hours on Saturday morning we managed to bring down 4 trees about 6-8 inches in diameter, 6 trees about 4 inches, and one maple about 13 inches in size.

The maple was tricky because it was leaning the opposite direction I wanted to bring it down in. So to bring it over safely I put I line on it, up about 12 feet from where I would place the cut and ran the line over to a come-along. We cranked up the tension and I placed my wedge cut. I had my bother crank the eveah-lovin’-crap out of the come-along to really get the tree bending. Then as I placed the backside felling cut the line would slack just enough for him to get one or two more cranks in. The maple went down perfectly and the top landed about 2 inches from my brother.

Sunday morning we went back out and limbed up the trees. Segregated the wood into three piles. Pile 1-Brushy crap. This I will stack off in the woods and let dry out. In the fall Ill come back into it and break it up to use as kindling. Pile 2-small diameter limbs. Pile 3-larger diameters trunks. The limbs and trunks Ill cut to size and split it all. It will dry out way faster and be ready for December.

The pic is a before and after of the area. It doesn’t’ show the maple and isn’t as dramatic if the trees had leaves. Regardless it will be some good firewood and I just reduced my leaf raking about 3 hours.

Art Thursday

I just got a new crop of drawings from Steve at SteveDeanArt.com. Here is one I figure lots of people can relate too:

SURGERY

As always everything is for sale, or if you need some custom work just let me or Steve know and we'll get back to you.

NOW! NOW! Yesterday!

It's not quite 5pm yet. But I am DONE.

Today was one of the craziest days at work ever.
Twice today the next phone call came within the same second of hanging up the last call. Field person #1 called in to tell me they uncovered a 'mystery tank'. (An underground storage tank that for some reason nobody seemed to realize was there). So that set of a flurry of phone calls.

A sub- called in to tell me that the code enf. officer of the town need 'something in writing' by the end of the day or the client would not get to open their store. Sweet, thanks for the heads up and the specificity.
5 phone calls, with two messages to that guy. He called me back at 4pm. Ya know, cause i have no where else to be.
The client called me like 8 times today because he was getting worried the store wouldn't open. The sub called me back and I, well I spoke forcefully to him. I'm done with his shit. Worst communicator ever.

• Field person #2 calls. "Joe. there are bees in the well."

• Wife calls" Joe what do you think about the color of the britax car seat. tan or brown."
  

AAAAAAAAHHHHH!

"Boss. I got to get that report out. NOW!" I got this guy waiting. That guy wont give the permit. The client has not reviewed it. You need to sign it. "I got like TWO 'A'-on-fire priorities right now." It was a cry for help. All he did was short out and call the client to get approval to send the report without reading it. I got the report out.

Simultaneously at 3pm the lawyer guy called me, "Hi. those copies you sent are too light. can you get me other versions?" "What's the time line?" I ask. "Yeah, thats the thing, we need them by the end of the business day today" AYFKM!

So yup. I am a miracle worker. I managed to get copies of the year old invoices faxed to me. The woman had apparently put them in the trash yesterday and fished them out to fax them. *PHEW!* I then met lawyer man on the street and handed him the paper work covert spy style under a shady tree.

All of this pushed aside my task list today of: a late report, a 20,000$ invoice and 4 reimbursement requests worth about 12,000$.

Well, I am outta here...

For tonight it's time to keep laying hardwood flooring with dad in a hot, humid sunny, room. *WOOT **WOOT*

Trials, Tribulations and Other Good Things

***ssssmmmmphhhhhhhhaaaa*****

My dad is staying with us for a couple of weeks. He is working at the garage pumping gas (opening and closing) while Wife's parents visit their family in Budapest.

On Monday after I got home from work Dad and I started laying down the hardwood floor (pic right) in the Baby to Be room. Luckily at work I got to have a business meeting on the Boss's sailboat (pic left). WooHoo!

Tuesday I drove the usual 1 hour to the office followed by 2+ hours to job site to work for 6 hours in 90 deg. hazy, hot and humid heat and run around in a dry dusty containment area. However, I did get to see a really cool steel cutter attached to an excavator. The contractor was in the last stage of tearing down the old 500,000-gallon above ground storage tank (pic. right).

I then drove back to the office stopping off at another job site to stick my head down a storm catch basin and squeeze petroleum out of a saturated sorbent pad to collect a sample (nasty pic. left). I made it back to the office at 6. By the time I got home it was a 330 mile day.

Driving back from the first job site I did get a good picture of some nice gneiss. It was in a road cut and I didn't have time to get great pic. or any scale in there but the rock face is about 10-meters. Nice Gneiss (pic. right).

Finally, on my way home I tried to pick up lobsters for dinner but all the places were closed. Fuckin' figures.
I arrived home at about 7pm and I then learned that my sink is HELLA clogged. For the next 2 hours we (me and dad) tried to clear the lines. We both got fuckin' hosed with nasty ass, rank sewer water. I thought we got the lines cleared but no....pretty much made it worse. Ill try again tonight.

Back to the grind.

Day 5

Last day of diggin'

Shortly after this the 20 year old CASE excavator blew a valve so the guys had to go get the other one. It slowed things down a little bit, but we managed to finish the excavation and even put a good dent in the backfilling before the end of the day Friday.

The only thing to do after this was drive the 3 hours home.

Day three -and we dig

Third day. Clearing ouerburden. Making hole bigger.

Day 1 part deux

Workin' day 1 part 2. Soil removal.

**now that Im back home I can write something about this. The job was to remove the upper 12 feet of 'clean' soil cover to get to the petroleum impacte soil. Which it self was about 12 feet thick.

The excavation depth was about 15 feet deep at this location measured from the ground surface at the monitoring well in the foreground.

A Good Load

Last Sunday we went up back of the house to clear brush and get some cord wood. Wintahs Commin' dont ya know? We were up there for a couple of house loading this truck (see pic) with all the brush and junk wood for transport down to the pit for burnin'. The hardwood has been real nice from this spot...mostly beech. Beech burns real good. Long and hot. Anyway, as we were loading the truck the pile started to get too high to reach so my brother went up top and I handed him limbs from below and we were able to really stack that shit high. We even inserted long 'pole-like limbs to build the effective side walls higher. We even got a 'thats a good load' from the ol' timer next door. Now THAT is best comment possible.

So here we are enjoying the fruits (or should I say beers) of our labor.

Tuesday crazy-ness

There are some days that just go by. There are some days that just suck. Then there are days like I had yesterday. Where you just feel GREAT...start to finish.

At work, I was the fucking man. Keeping two people coordinated on-site at underground storage tank removals. " Yes, do this. No, now do that. What are your results? This is what we need for samples. Ok good. Did you talk to the State guy? Is he happy?"

Then I had a project meeting to lay out the next few months. Which was continuously interrupted by then aforementioned on-site jobs.

At noon Wife showed up for lunch. We had sushi. It was goodBack at work, I continued to kick ass. A client had come in to discuss some new tanks they are installting. The existing tanks fucking broke! Leaked some gas and caused a big headache.
So, in that meeting with ClientGuy and BossMan I was able to steer the meeting because I had kept in recent contact with all the other parties involved *(State DEP, ClientLady in Canada and Monkey Subcontractors).

I got the feeling that BossMan was impressed and happy with what I had done.

Then just as Im going home...SmartWorkLady asks me to drop off lab samples on my way home. No Problem.

Then I get home and I rode the Kona into town to return the movie and because I was all pumped up I made it, the 5 miles into town in 16.4 mintues and return in 21 minutes. For an avg. spped of like 17.6 or something. Which is friggin' flying for this bike.

Cheap Bike Rack

I frequently bring my bike with me during the week to ride either: to work, during work or after work.

(work, work, work.)

But, since I commute in a 94' toyota tercel (a.k.a. Turtle) and I dont like to spend money when I don't have too, I decided that removing the seat was much easier (four bolts) and wouldn't cost a single penny.

The set up has effectively converted my little car into a mini-truck. I love it.

Useless Commuting Statistics

Yarmouth to Portland, in to work.

48 mins - 58 seconds.
14.26 miles
17.4 avg speed.
27.5 max.