What happens when life intervenes

 What happens is that you're shanghai'ed into a panic-level dam reconstruction project...

(True fact; you can actually build a 40-foot high mine tailing impoundment dam and nobody will notice. Until comes the day when the MSHA inspector retires and the new kid comes in and happens to glance over, as he's walking past the processing plant, at the ginormous fucking un-permitted, un-engineered earth dam which - as it just so happens - is piping and shedding materials off the insanely-oversteepened sideslopes.

Needless to say, one he'd stopped hyperventilating and screaming the MSHA dude called the subagency of FEMA that inspects and certifies dams, and, something that will unsurprise all of you, that organization shut down the operation most quick smart.

Now the owners are buttressing the thing in hopes of reopening their mine pit.)

...and you end up slammed and working 14- to 16-hour days.

Brutal.

I'll try and post something here before the end of the week; this thing wraps Wednesday, and not a moment too soon.

 

Prairie Dog Town

About twenty-one years ago this autumn I drove over the West Hills to the David J. Newton & Associates office in the 1201 Building along 12th Avenue (...across from the old Jefferson Street Theatre, the one that showed old-school porn, and the Doricourt apartment building where the kids in the basement flat once set fire to the place playing with lighter fluid. Important safety tip; when your kids are playing with lighter fluid its time to buy them some fucking toys).

Deb, the nice office manager, showed me my new workplace - a 12 by 12 beige cubicle on the north interior of the third floor office. I had a desk and a bookcase, a computer that had WordPerfect and Lotus 123 already loaded, and a swivel chair. Plus a regular chair to park my hard hat, viz-vest and to put my steel-toed boots under.

I was in the geotechnical engineering business.

Since then I've worked from converted houses and office parks, in other cubicles and out of trucks. The last two places, though, I've finally moved up to a real office with a door and windows and everything. Still, I'm a "staff" level guy; I do the field work, log the borings, test the backfills...and for most places that means I'm a cube rat, a natural resident of what at Dave's place we referred to as "prairie dog town"; you know how when something loud happens down at the other end of the office and all those heads pop up over the cubicle tops?

Yep. That.

So a short while back my corporate masters announced that there will be cubicles! in the Portland office. Mind you, we don't really NEED them; there's more than enough physical offices for the current staff, including the humble toilers in the vinyards of geotech and environmental engineering.

But, y'know...staff level. They really need to work in cubicles. Not like...well, people.

So it didn't shock me at all when I came in from the field yesterday and found this where the central conference table used to be:

I'm reminded occasionally that because I have deliberately chosen to remain where I am - I like what I do; I like getting my hands in the soil, working out physical problems, building things and I don't like schmoozing and bargaining with clients and drumming up business - that even after 21 years in this business my corporate masters still consider me just another prairie dog.

Twenty-one years of experience, knowledge, and practice is a bagatelle next to my place on the pay scale.

Fortunately many of those of us in prairie dog town still have a sense of humor about it:

Still. Remember this and remind me next time why it is I laugh when some bewattled twat at some conservative think-tank gets up to harrumph about the "dignity of the workingman" and the nobility of the "everyday American".

Because for your lords and masters there's always a place for you common folk.

It's just always going to be somewhere in prairie dog town.

When my job sucks...

...is when I have to tell people about stuff like this.No big shock. It's crummy construction from the 1950's, no drainage behind it, chinzy little footing, just falling apart like you'd expect. But the poor homeowner has a retaining wall that's retaining two things right now, jack and shit, and jack just caught the bus outta town.Sometimes I feel like the Angel of Wallet Death, giving people the bad news about stuff like this.

Pile pour at SeaTac

As mentioned below. Amazing work - imagine trying to pat your head, rub your belly AND dance a mazurka. And remember, you're doing this work with materials the size of a 4-foot-diameter, 63-foot-long steel pipe pile weighting something like 40,000 pounds.

Construction can be jaw-droppingly impressive at times. Makes up for the nasty little slumdivisions and crappy stop-n-robs I've helped litter the Willamette Valley with over the past 15 years.

Not that I don't love my job!

Back soon with: firefights and a camel...

Dead Man's Chest-cold, or, Dangerous When Wet

So this was Coos Bay last Thursday as our first big storm of the winter swept through. Leaden skies, driving rain and a nasty chop on the bay as we tried to drill our first in-water boring. Let's say that the crew were mutinous and the captain not a little overbearing in his efforts to get the work done...

Arrgh!

Yarely with that Standard Penetration Test, ye swabs! I'll flog the first scurvy dog what pukes into me sample bag!

So there's barge drilling and then there's barge drilling when the wind works up to gale force and the shallow waters of Coos Bay develop a short, steep little chop. The odd thing is that the barge, for all that it looks like it was pretty lively, actually didn't pitch and roll very much. Instead it had an odd gyrating motion that wasn't particularly nasty (though you weren't going to forget it, either).

Didn't help the poor gang in our support boat who were taking these pictures. They pitched about like a bar of Ivory Soap in a water sports scene from a Marilyn Chambers film. Lots of uneasy sailors there, until they finally had enough of getting the guts wrung out of them and called it a day around 1pm. By that time it looked like this:

Nasty weather, eh? But the storm blew over that night and by the weekend the weather was lovely, if cold.

Here's the salty Chief himself basking in December sunshine three days later, full of self-conceit and a pancake breakfast from the Kozy Kitchen.

Coos Bay isn't exactly hopping, but I had some good books, and spent one pleasant evening enjoying the lights at Shore Acres State Park. Very pretty, if you like that sort of thing. I do, and only wished that Peep had been there - he LOVES Christmas lights, and tends to race around chuckling like a little nut when he sees what he refers to as "Tha muthalode!" of lights - we have several "motherlodes" around our neighborhood...

I should put in a good word for the Coach House Bar and Grill in Eastside. If you're ever in scenic Coos Bay and looking for a good dinner, don't overlook this hidden treasure. Their steaks are perfectly grilled and bursting with rich steakiness, their twice-baked spuds are a cholesterol-laden treat and their mixed veggies are tender, buttery and spiked with a peppery fire. Yum!

But that's all in the past. Daddy's home, much to Mojo and the Peeper's delight. My bride got a foot rub, lots of sympathy for her cold and a full night's sleep (yay!) And the Pea and I cuddled and read stories this morning, and when I dropped him off at his "school" (i.e. daycare) he hugged and hugged me as if he didn't want Daddy to ever go away again. Those little arms reached right down through my shoulders and gave my heart such a squeeze it made my eyes spark with tears.

It's good to be home.

Next: really, truly, more Tiger Island stories, no shit, really.

The Dirt Nanny

...or, how to make money by pestering people and looking at dirt.

You work for a geotechnical firm doing construction observation and testing.

This, BTW, is the idea of heaven for a three-year-old. The Peeper utterly grooves on the idea that his Daddy gets to go "work with the big diggers". I feed his addiction with pictures of said diggers and even a visit to the job site every now and then.

This is my current job, a future large commercial venture in the central Willamette valley. These stores are commonly known as "big box" retail, since the actual stores are just immense slabs with concrete tilt-up walls. The superintendant of this job was interviewed by the local fishwrap when they broke ground.

He was quoted as saying something to the effect of "This is the biggest big box in _________ - and that's the largest excavator I've ever seen!"

That was ten weeks ago, and every one in a while one of the guys in the crew will come up to him and remind him that no matter how big the big box it's not the size of the excavator, it's what you do with it.

It's 108 on the dashboard thermometer...

Jesus wept.























I was working on a big-box construction yesterday - the pipelaying crew had one of those laser thermometers that read 120 on the rock fill pad.

We're tryng to figure out if we have enough food so we don't have to leave the air-conditioned house for the next two days.