Have you ever heard the expression “you can't get there from here.” Try flying into Borneo, it's true, you can't get there from here or any where for that matter. Being from Cincinnati, it is an on going joke, to get to heaven you have to go through Atlanta. Well getting to the country of Brunei Darussalam (I hope I spelled that right so you can find it on the map) on the island of Borneo is worse than going through Atlanta to get to your final destination.
Believe it or not, because I didn't, Borneo is the third largest island in the world. It is lies in two continents, Malaysia and Indonesia. And it is divided into three countries. While I was there it was part of the United Kingdom and ruled by a sultan which changed in the mid to late 1980's, they are now under their own government.
After completing a test facility for Creole International in Houston and Lafayette, Louisiana, Rick Carruth asked if I would be available to build the same facility in Brunei Darussalam on the South China Sea. The company agreed and I was off. Not really, we had to convert our drawings from British measure to Metric. This was before CAD and personnel computers every thing had to be done by hand and double checked. Waiting for the drawings took an extra month.
Karen Green, my personal assistant, actually her title was secretary to several project managers but she took really good care of us so personal assistant is a good fit for her, made the arrangements. I would fly from Houston to Dallas, Dallas to San Francisco, San Francisco to Sidney, Sidney to Melbourne, Melbourne to Singapore, Singapore to Kuching, Kuching to Bandar Seri Begawan. In all, about thirty eight hours with layovers in every city except Dallas.
Karen apologized several times for the flight arrangements. Leaving at 10:00am on Monday arriving in Bandar Seri Begawan at 6:00pm on Tuesday, Houston time. In reality it was 2:00pm on Wednesday Borneo time. Needless to say this was one of those jobs I would be missing a lot of those Monday morning meetings that required project managers to be in.
Meeting me at the airport was John Calvin Williams, Luther Borgeston was my superintendent on this project but John Calvin would get it started so Luther could take a well deserved vacation. He looked like a good Texan in most peoples mind, six foot two, slim, wore cowboy boots that made him taller and a cowboy hat when he was not in his hard hat and always in need of a shave even an hour after he shaved. When those hard hats came out shaped like cowboy hats in the ninety's, I always imagined him in one.
John Calvin was borrowed from a project in Kuwait, he and his wife had arrived in country two days before me. While driving up the coast to Maura Town I noticed how dense the forest was in mangroves and nipah palms. It was beautiful. As usual in the rain forest, no mammals are visible except for an occasional squirrel scurrying along a low branch and quick flashes of birds.
The sounds of unseen creatures surrounded us as we drove. I found out over my off and on three month stay, the Bornean rain forest is rarely silent. The forest sounds seem random at first, however, the background drone is an incessant almost irritating whine of cicadas set against the endless "ttok-took-tarook-took-took" up high in the canopy. Punctuating the bird songs are mysterious grunts, roars and barks: monkeys, orangutan, barking deer?
I'll describe the job and the girls of Borneo in future blogs.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The Whitaker boys
A.J. Whitaker died this past Saturday. His visitation is this evening. His brother Carl died two months ago, I made it to his visitation too. Carl and A.J. Whitaker, one was a character one was a man of character. I met both after returning to Cincinnati. Both were working for Sam Minnielli General Contracting at the time and both had worked for Bill Minnielli before that..
It was difficult time finding a job. The larger companies were afraid to hired me. I can still hear John Marks, Vice President of Dugan and Meyers, say "if Iwas to hire you and spend time and money on you how do I know if your old company called with a project in the Bahamas that you wouldn't be off." My only defense was, I am home to stay.
So when I ran into Sam Minnielli and he told me about his small utility company, he hired me. I did have experience in dirt but very, and I mean very little in pipe. Lets face it, with the experience I had I wouldn't have hired me for a utility company. Most of my experience was building buildings.
On the first morning at Sam Minnielli General Contracting is when I met Carl and A.J. A.J. was a dirt foreman, a scraper man. Carl was a dozer operator, a finish grade dozer man. I forget now which one complained about the other making the same amount as he, Sam's solution was to pay one two cents more an hour than the other one.
A.J. was the character. He talked all the time mainly about him. He worked hard and played hard, it showed on his face. We were doing a sub-division for John Sansalone, the clearing was piled in a row so we could dig a hole and bury it at the back of the lots. The fire department called me about six in the evening and said our wood pile had caught fire. They, the fire department, speculated that kids smoking had caused the blaze. They were there and would let it burn out. The next day A.J. fessed up that he bought some gas and started the fire then left the site. I was furious, nothing I could do though. This was A.J., he would rather do something on the shady side than do it the right way. You could not help but like him, just don't trust him.
Carl was just the opposite. He talked very little. When he did talk it usually meant something. He did have a sense of humor. I can remember one time I saw him grading a street in the same John Sansalone subdivision off North Bend Road. John's brother, Tom, laid out the street and Carl had questions about the grading.
I was on site sometime after Tom left. “Hee, hee, hee,” thats how he laughed. “The smartest man in Hamilton County told me to grade this street by his stakes, look at them if I grade it that way it won't drain to the catch basins.” He preceded to tell me how Tom Sansalone told him he was the smartest man in Hamilton County. “Just look. Hee ,hee, hee, it won't drain, hee, hee, hee. The smartest man in Hamilton County told me to grade that way, hee, hee, hee.” He fixed Sansalone's mistake and no ever knew but him and me. This was Carl, he took pride in what he did and always wanted it to be right.
They are both gone now, I am a little sad. Two characters in their own way. Mike Whitaker summed it up best, A.J. lived to be seventy seven, in Whitaker years thats a long time. Even though Carl died two months earlier, he had a longer life.
It was difficult time finding a job. The larger companies were afraid to hired me. I can still hear John Marks, Vice President of Dugan and Meyers, say "if Iwas to hire you and spend time and money on you how do I know if your old company called with a project in the Bahamas that you wouldn't be off." My only defense was, I am home to stay.
So when I ran into Sam Minnielli and he told me about his small utility company, he hired me. I did have experience in dirt but very, and I mean very little in pipe. Lets face it, with the experience I had I wouldn't have hired me for a utility company. Most of my experience was building buildings.
On the first morning at Sam Minnielli General Contracting is when I met Carl and A.J. A.J. was a dirt foreman, a scraper man. Carl was a dozer operator, a finish grade dozer man. I forget now which one complained about the other making the same amount as he, Sam's solution was to pay one two cents more an hour than the other one.
A.J. was the character. He talked all the time mainly about him. He worked hard and played hard, it showed on his face. We were doing a sub-division for John Sansalone, the clearing was piled in a row so we could dig a hole and bury it at the back of the lots. The fire department called me about six in the evening and said our wood pile had caught fire. They, the fire department, speculated that kids smoking had caused the blaze. They were there and would let it burn out. The next day A.J. fessed up that he bought some gas and started the fire then left the site. I was furious, nothing I could do though. This was A.J., he would rather do something on the shady side than do it the right way. You could not help but like him, just don't trust him.
Carl was just the opposite. He talked very little. When he did talk it usually meant something. He did have a sense of humor. I can remember one time I saw him grading a street in the same John Sansalone subdivision off North Bend Road. John's brother, Tom, laid out the street and Carl had questions about the grading.
I was on site sometime after Tom left. “Hee, hee, hee,” thats how he laughed. “The smartest man in Hamilton County told me to grade this street by his stakes, look at them if I grade it that way it won't drain to the catch basins.” He preceded to tell me how Tom Sansalone told him he was the smartest man in Hamilton County. “Just look. Hee ,hee, hee, it won't drain, hee, hee, hee. The smartest man in Hamilton County told me to grade that way, hee, hee, hee.” He fixed Sansalone's mistake and no ever knew but him and me. This was Carl, he took pride in what he did and always wanted it to be right.
They are both gone now, I am a little sad. Two characters in their own way. Mike Whitaker summed it up best, A.J. lived to be seventy seven, in Whitaker years thats a long time. Even though Carl died two months earlier, he had a longer life.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Experiment
In the course of my job I've experimented on several different things, the most being fly ash. I've experimented using corn syrup in class “C” fly ash, I've experimented in making light weight aggregate with fly ash, I've experimented with spent bed material. One of the most interesting happened on an fly ash land fill but not with fly ash.
My wife says that I am walking source of useless information. She's right, but don't tell her that. You do don't want to play against me in Trivial Pursuit. This time I was in New Johnsonville, Tennessee at a TVA plant. Only at TVA would they put a fly ash pond in the middle of the Tennessee River. That's exactly where it's at, you have to take a bridge to get to it.
For years TVA has been stacking fly ash from this pond under high voltage utility lines. These are the ones made out of steel three to four hundred feet high. TVA had been stacking so long that the we were approximately one hundred feet below the lines plus or minus.
One morning I was talking to Dave Schneider, our surveyor, out on this fill when he got shocked getting into my SUV. It hit me, I remembered a made for TV movie I had seen with Ralph Waite for 'The Walton's' fame. In this movie he played a father of a high school girl who was protesting the construction of high voltage wires over their farming community.
Her high school science teacher filmed her holding up a neon light bulb, like you probably have in your basement or shop, you know about four feet long with two metal points coming out of each end. The type of light that is in every public building. Well this girl walked in under these wires that was several hundred feet above her and held up bulb with nothing attached to it, just held up a bare bulb with her right hand and it lit up. There was enough electricity in the air to light this bulb.
I told Dave that if he held up a neon light it would light up and his response was BS. No, I told him I had seen it done, I didn't tell him I had seen it on TV. He laughed and dared me to try it. So the challenge was on.
The motel we were staying at used neon lights in the bathroom so I borrowed one. I got to the job site around six thirty, still dark. I knew I was going to win this dare because there was a slight glow inside my SUV when I drove up on the fill. I covered the bulb with a towel and waited for Dave and his co-op to get come in.
Guess what, my mind with useless information stored in it paid off. When Dave held up the bulb and it was shinning almost as bright as it did in my bathroom I won the dare.
I will talk about New Johnsonville and TVA in future blogs.
My wife says that I am walking source of useless information. She's right, but don't tell her that. You do don't want to play against me in Trivial Pursuit. This time I was in New Johnsonville, Tennessee at a TVA plant. Only at TVA would they put a fly ash pond in the middle of the Tennessee River. That's exactly where it's at, you have to take a bridge to get to it.
For years TVA has been stacking fly ash from this pond under high voltage utility lines. These are the ones made out of steel three to four hundred feet high. TVA had been stacking so long that the we were approximately one hundred feet below the lines plus or minus.
One morning I was talking to Dave Schneider, our surveyor, out on this fill when he got shocked getting into my SUV. It hit me, I remembered a made for TV movie I had seen with Ralph Waite for 'The Walton's' fame. In this movie he played a father of a high school girl who was protesting the construction of high voltage wires over their farming community.
Her high school science teacher filmed her holding up a neon light bulb, like you probably have in your basement or shop, you know about four feet long with two metal points coming out of each end. The type of light that is in every public building. Well this girl walked in under these wires that was several hundred feet above her and held up bulb with nothing attached to it, just held up a bare bulb with her right hand and it lit up. There was enough electricity in the air to light this bulb.
I told Dave that if he held up a neon light it would light up and his response was BS. No, I told him I had seen it done, I didn't tell him I had seen it on TV. He laughed and dared me to try it. So the challenge was on.
The motel we were staying at used neon lights in the bathroom so I borrowed one. I got to the job site around six thirty, still dark. I knew I was going to win this dare because there was a slight glow inside my SUV when I drove up on the fill. I covered the bulb with a towel and waited for Dave and his co-op to get come in.
Guess what, my mind with useless information stored in it paid off. When Dave held up the bulb and it was shinning almost as bright as it did in my bathroom I won the dare.
I will talk about New Johnsonville and TVA in future blogs.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Splash Mountain
It happened one night, it sounds like a movie from the thirties with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. If this was a movie then I would be Clark Gable and the woman would be the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney world. In an earlier blog I told you how I got to Slash Mountain and how we worked around the clock. What I didn't tell you is what happened the first time I worked twenty eight straight hours. Back to 'it happened one night.'
I got to the field office about five thirty in the morning as I always did. Phil Burton and Pete Martin were starting their second pot of coffee getting their game plan ready for the day. Phil wanted me to spend some time on another project, the convention center at the Grand Floridian. It was crucial that he be at Splash all day and may not be able to cover the convention center. I would cover for him.
It was about an hour before sunrise when I grabbed my flashlight and walked around the reservoir, even with the light stands you had to look out where you were walking. All light was directed to the hole. Over night they had excavated to the upper sub grade. The sheeting subcontractor would make the final repairs on the east side today, then we could excavate the lower sub grade.
Around seven that morning I drove over to the convention center. The sun was just rising, men were coming in, the foreman asked me to take a couple of shots with the instrument on some landscaping mounds. At Disney you were not done until Buena Vista Construction came in to do the landscaping. We agreed he had some grading on one of the mounds the other was right on the money.
Before I left I told the foreman to call me instead of Phil today. He was competent and knew his men I knew I didn't have anything to worry about, but I would check in a couple of times anyway.
I got to the Orlando office on Contractors Row at Walt Disney World a little after eight that morning. It was on Disney property but outside the area where you needed a vehicle pass to go so the public could get into Contractors Row. Contractors from all over the United States were here, the best of the best. Our office was once owned by Dugan & Meyers out of Cincinnati, their name was still on the trailer. When they ran into some bad financial times we took trailer over and their spot. Next to us on one side was Centex-Rooney a large contractor from Ft. Lauderdale that had offices all over the United States. On the other side was Big Bob's Miscellaneous Metals, ran by Bob and his wife.
Steve Monahan and his wife Barb worked for Dugan & Meyers, when they cut back Steve, Barb, Bob Inkrot and Dave Schneider all came to work for us at Gerbus Brothers. Steve became our Florida Manager with Barb becoming the office manager, Bob went to our estimating department under Doug Sterit, Dave went to surveying and layout at the TransAsh division. They all went back to Dugan & Meyers after times got better.
Enough for now on Splash Mountain, I'll go further in detail in the “It happen one night” blog.
I got to the field office about five thirty in the morning as I always did. Phil Burton and Pete Martin were starting their second pot of coffee getting their game plan ready for the day. Phil wanted me to spend some time on another project, the convention center at the Grand Floridian. It was crucial that he be at Splash all day and may not be able to cover the convention center. I would cover for him.
It was about an hour before sunrise when I grabbed my flashlight and walked around the reservoir, even with the light stands you had to look out where you were walking. All light was directed to the hole. Over night they had excavated to the upper sub grade. The sheeting subcontractor would make the final repairs on the east side today, then we could excavate the lower sub grade.
Around seven that morning I drove over to the convention center. The sun was just rising, men were coming in, the foreman asked me to take a couple of shots with the instrument on some landscaping mounds. At Disney you were not done until Buena Vista Construction came in to do the landscaping. We agreed he had some grading on one of the mounds the other was right on the money.
Before I left I told the foreman to call me instead of Phil today. He was competent and knew his men I knew I didn't have anything to worry about, but I would check in a couple of times anyway.
I got to the Orlando office on Contractors Row at Walt Disney World a little after eight that morning. It was on Disney property but outside the area where you needed a vehicle pass to go so the public could get into Contractors Row. Contractors from all over the United States were here, the best of the best. Our office was once owned by Dugan & Meyers out of Cincinnati, their name was still on the trailer. When they ran into some bad financial times we took trailer over and their spot. Next to us on one side was Centex-Rooney a large contractor from Ft. Lauderdale that had offices all over the United States. On the other side was Big Bob's Miscellaneous Metals, ran by Bob and his wife.
Steve Monahan and his wife Barb worked for Dugan & Meyers, when they cut back Steve, Barb, Bob Inkrot and Dave Schneider all came to work for us at Gerbus Brothers. Steve became our Florida Manager with Barb becoming the office manager, Bob went to our estimating department under Doug Sterit, Dave went to surveying and layout at the TransAsh division. They all went back to Dugan & Meyers after times got better.
Enough for now on Splash Mountain, I'll go further in detail in the “It happen one night” blog.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Luther Borgeston
Have you ever been in a stupid moment? Or have you ever felt like you fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down? As Bill Engvall would say “here's your sign.” Today is the anniversary of my stupidest thing I ever done. I know because Luther Borgeston told me so.
Luther was one of my top three favorite superintendents of all time. He was on the General Electrics plane out of Iran, the last American plane to fly out of Tehran during the revolution in 1977. I was lucky enough to have him on his first project in the United States in seventeen years. He and his wife Martha lived in Iran the entire time.
Luther sent Martha back to the states the day after the Shah left the Iran for Egypt. When the Shah was admitted into the United States he knew all hell would break out. His final job was to disable all the heavy equipment we had on his projects. Luther passed his experiences on and taught me how to deal with muslims which have been proven to work.
Luther told the story of how he was seated on the floor outside the cock pit when he heard the co-pilot ask the pilot about the point of no return. This is on all the flight reports, it's the point where the pilot can turn around and fly back to the airport he took off from, usually it's the halfway point. On this particular flight the pilot replied that it was at the end of the runway, if they could take off with the weight they were carrying (over one hundred people were sitting on the floors of this 747) they won't be returning.
One Monday morning, Luther came in to my office raving about a movie Martha and he saw over the weekend. He told me that I had to see it on the big screen, not at a metroplex with multi screens, but on the really big screen. With all the action, this is where you have to see it. So the next weekend I went with Luther and Martha to see the movie. The movie was “Raiders of the Lost Arc.”
One other time he came in and wanted me to go with Martha and him to New Braunfels for Oktoberfest. New Braunsfels was settled in the 1880's by German immigrants outside San Antonio in the Texas Hill Country. Coming from Cincinnati, I was used to German Beer so the beer wasn't what impressed me about this trip, it was the food. The German food was terrific. I brought home enough strudel to last me a month.
I not only learned my job by being around Luther, I gained true friends with him and his wife. They both have since pasted on, I was pall barer at both funerals. They never had any kids, a nephew took care of the arrangements. Luther had an address book that had over eighteen hundred names and phone numbers in it, this nephew called everyone in the book. The funeral home was packed for the entire time it was open to the public. The church was standing room only. They touched a lot of lives.
This time of year, I think of Luther and how he stuck with me that night outside of Caracas. If he hadn't been with me I might not be here today. More about my stupidity and the situation later.
Luther was one of my top three favorite superintendents of all time. He was on the General Electrics plane out of Iran, the last American plane to fly out of Tehran during the revolution in 1977. I was lucky enough to have him on his first project in the United States in seventeen years. He and his wife Martha lived in Iran the entire time.
Luther sent Martha back to the states the day after the Shah left the Iran for Egypt. When the Shah was admitted into the United States he knew all hell would break out. His final job was to disable all the heavy equipment we had on his projects. Luther passed his experiences on and taught me how to deal with muslims which have been proven to work.
Luther told the story of how he was seated on the floor outside the cock pit when he heard the co-pilot ask the pilot about the point of no return. This is on all the flight reports, it's the point where the pilot can turn around and fly back to the airport he took off from, usually it's the halfway point. On this particular flight the pilot replied that it was at the end of the runway, if they could take off with the weight they were carrying (over one hundred people were sitting on the floors of this 747) they won't be returning.
One Monday morning, Luther came in to my office raving about a movie Martha and he saw over the weekend. He told me that I had to see it on the big screen, not at a metroplex with multi screens, but on the really big screen. With all the action, this is where you have to see it. So the next weekend I went with Luther and Martha to see the movie. The movie was “Raiders of the Lost Arc.”
One other time he came in and wanted me to go with Martha and him to New Braunfels for Oktoberfest. New Braunsfels was settled in the 1880's by German immigrants outside San Antonio in the Texas Hill Country. Coming from Cincinnati, I was used to German Beer so the beer wasn't what impressed me about this trip, it was the food. The German food was terrific. I brought home enough strudel to last me a month.
I not only learned my job by being around Luther, I gained true friends with him and his wife. They both have since pasted on, I was pall barer at both funerals. They never had any kids, a nephew took care of the arrangements. Luther had an address book that had over eighteen hundred names and phone numbers in it, this nephew called everyone in the book. The funeral home was packed for the entire time it was open to the public. The church was standing room only. They touched a lot of lives.
This time of year, I think of Luther and how he stuck with me that night outside of Caracas. If he hadn't been with me I might not be here today. More about my stupidity and the situation later.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Blizzard of 1978
As I woke up to snow this morning I was reminded of the blizzard of 1978. Of course the weather this morning isn't even close to that day, but after surviving my first blizzard, every time I wake up to snow I think of that day.
The radio on Wednesday before the blizzard was talking all day about the weather change and the snow that we were to expect. Being from Cincinnati, I knew it could change and apparently the architect for Mulberry Church of Christ which bid on Thursday was thinking like me. When I called him about four in the afternoon on Wednesday the bid was still due at one the next day. The church was a million dollar bid, and with a tremendous amount of mill work.
By the time I left to go home I had the bid under control with all categories covered. Arnold Beck, the company I worked for, would do the concrete and carpentry. We probably had fifteen to twenty subcontractors and that many material suppliers. Usually we tried to have three or more prices in each category, on this bid when I left to go home I had at least one bid in each.
That night I met my good buddy Doc for dinner and I pitched a proposal to a group of investors for a farm I was looking to buy. It was seventy degrees when we left the bar. We laughed about the blizzard and thinking it had missed us. How can we have a blizzard by morning when it was seventy at one o'clock?
Well about three o'clock the wind woke me up and it was snowing. When I got up around six we had about a foot of snow with an inch or two of ice underneath and the wind was still blowing. All I could think of was my bid being due at one. My transportation at the time was a Firebird Formula, a sports car.
That morning the only people on the road was salt trucks, four wheel drives, and me. Making it to the office by nine, I was the only one there. Calling the architects office every fifteen to twenty minutes and no one answering was frustrating, I made it in, where was he? And is my bid still due at one?
Mel Wahlert picked Barry Carney up in his Bronco and came on in around ten o'clock. They were surprised to see me. The architect finally answered his phone around eleven o'clock and postponed the bid for twenty four hours. So I had to go through this all again tomorrow.
The next day, before I left home, all the counties declared a snow emergency and the only vehicles allowed on the road were four wheel drives. My little sports car made it in again. This time the architect did not answer his phone so I no choice but to delivered my bid to his office on Mt. Lookout Square at one only to find out it was closed. Now I'm mad, he knew yesterday that I was ready and he postponed it twenty four hours when he could have told me to have it ready on Monday.
My sports car had trouble in two spots in those two days of travel. One a lady spun out on I-275 in front of me and I momentarily lost control. The other was stopping on a slight grade on the ramp to Colerain Avenue. The first one I got out and pushed the lady back on the highway and the second I made it up by gunning my engine and moving a few feet at a time until I made it into the intersection.
It was satisfying to know I worked those two days when others gave up. The architect probably felt sorry for making me come in, we did get the job. This experience made me start looking for a job in warm weather.
The radio on Wednesday before the blizzard was talking all day about the weather change and the snow that we were to expect. Being from Cincinnati, I knew it could change and apparently the architect for Mulberry Church of Christ which bid on Thursday was thinking like me. When I called him about four in the afternoon on Wednesday the bid was still due at one the next day. The church was a million dollar bid, and with a tremendous amount of mill work.
By the time I left to go home I had the bid under control with all categories covered. Arnold Beck, the company I worked for, would do the concrete and carpentry. We probably had fifteen to twenty subcontractors and that many material suppliers. Usually we tried to have three or more prices in each category, on this bid when I left to go home I had at least one bid in each.
That night I met my good buddy Doc for dinner and I pitched a proposal to a group of investors for a farm I was looking to buy. It was seventy degrees when we left the bar. We laughed about the blizzard and thinking it had missed us. How can we have a blizzard by morning when it was seventy at one o'clock?
Well about three o'clock the wind woke me up and it was snowing. When I got up around six we had about a foot of snow with an inch or two of ice underneath and the wind was still blowing. All I could think of was my bid being due at one. My transportation at the time was a Firebird Formula, a sports car.
That morning the only people on the road was salt trucks, four wheel drives, and me. Making it to the office by nine, I was the only one there. Calling the architects office every fifteen to twenty minutes and no one answering was frustrating, I made it in, where was he? And is my bid still due at one?
Mel Wahlert picked Barry Carney up in his Bronco and came on in around ten o'clock. They were surprised to see me. The architect finally answered his phone around eleven o'clock and postponed the bid for twenty four hours. So I had to go through this all again tomorrow.
The next day, before I left home, all the counties declared a snow emergency and the only vehicles allowed on the road were four wheel drives. My little sports car made it in again. This time the architect did not answer his phone so I no choice but to delivered my bid to his office on Mt. Lookout Square at one only to find out it was closed. Now I'm mad, he knew yesterday that I was ready and he postponed it twenty four hours when he could have told me to have it ready on Monday.
My sports car had trouble in two spots in those two days of travel. One a lady spun out on I-275 in front of me and I momentarily lost control. The other was stopping on a slight grade on the ramp to Colerain Avenue. The first one I got out and pushed the lady back on the highway and the second I made it up by gunning my engine and moving a few feet at a time until I made it into the intersection.
It was satisfying to know I worked those two days when others gave up. The architect probably felt sorry for making me come in, we did get the job. This experience made me start looking for a job in warm weather.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Ice and Cold Weather
Have you ever been so cold that you had to look down to see if you had your pants on? The coldest I've ever been was the morning I left Hanna, Alberta at three in the morning. Even when the Bengals played at 53 below I don't think I was as cold as that morning. Driving the two hours to make an early morning flight out of Calgary on Delta, it was so cold that when I hit fog I would have to stop and scrape the inside of my windows. How cold was it? It was forty below, if you ask Celsius or Fahrenheit then you can do the equation and find that it is exactly the same in either. Bottom line, at forty below it is cold.
The worst ice was the January of 1994. It started snowing the day after Christmas, on New Years day it rained. All the melted snow and the rained combined into ice when the temperature dropped after dark. For the next week it snowed a little each day. I had to dig myself out each morning then slip and slide until I got off the side streets. Every time it got above freezing it rained and added to the ice then came the deep freeze. With a couple inches of ice and a foot of snow Cincinnati was in trouble, Kentucky was worse. In Ohio you could get around, Kentucky shut down, the only roads open was to the airport.
With projects like Plant Daniels in Pascagoula, Mississippi and Shawnee Plant for TVA in Paducah, Kentucky, I was shut off from visiting these projects. I wasn't too worried about Widows Creek in Stevenson, Alabama but some way I had to get to Plant Daniels.
The project was a new silo area and a mile roadway through a wet lands utilizing fly ash from a pond to make the fills. Being at a critical spot in the job, I thought it better for me to be there. Not only to help with decisions but it was a great learning experience. Plus we were in the middle of negotiating a five year deal to manage the fly ash disposal.
By now it had not been above zero at any time of the day for five or six days. Bob Inkrot and I was to fly to Pascagola in TransAsh's twin engine Cessna, along the way we were to stop off in Marietta, Georgia and pick up TransAsh's director of marketing, Mike Hammons. Even though the plane was hangared in Blue Ash we were going to fly out of Lunken because the plane could not take off with a full load of fuel to make it to Marietta. I could have flown out of Blue Ash but I chose meet it at Lunken with Bob and a good thing that I did. While taking off it slid off the runway and crashed. This may be the closest I've ever come to being in a plane crash.
Any way I was got on a commercial flight to Mobile that afternoon. Now you have to remember that Kentucky is shut down except for the roads to the airport. While driving there I was thinking that how unsure I was about getting home Friday night. If I got back to Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Airport could I get home because of the roads? Would my car even start in sub zero weather after being out side and not being started for three days?
I never thought of those things again until the flight back because I was in seventy degree weather for those three days.
The worst ice was the January of 1994. It started snowing the day after Christmas, on New Years day it rained. All the melted snow and the rained combined into ice when the temperature dropped after dark. For the next week it snowed a little each day. I had to dig myself out each morning then slip and slide until I got off the side streets. Every time it got above freezing it rained and added to the ice then came the deep freeze. With a couple inches of ice and a foot of snow Cincinnati was in trouble, Kentucky was worse. In Ohio you could get around, Kentucky shut down, the only roads open was to the airport.
With projects like Plant Daniels in Pascagoula, Mississippi and Shawnee Plant for TVA in Paducah, Kentucky, I was shut off from visiting these projects. I wasn't too worried about Widows Creek in Stevenson, Alabama but some way I had to get to Plant Daniels.
The project was a new silo area and a mile roadway through a wet lands utilizing fly ash from a pond to make the fills. Being at a critical spot in the job, I thought it better for me to be there. Not only to help with decisions but it was a great learning experience. Plus we were in the middle of negotiating a five year deal to manage the fly ash disposal.
By now it had not been above zero at any time of the day for five or six days. Bob Inkrot and I was to fly to Pascagola in TransAsh's twin engine Cessna, along the way we were to stop off in Marietta, Georgia and pick up TransAsh's director of marketing, Mike Hammons. Even though the plane was hangared in Blue Ash we were going to fly out of Lunken because the plane could not take off with a full load of fuel to make it to Marietta. I could have flown out of Blue Ash but I chose meet it at Lunken with Bob and a good thing that I did. While taking off it slid off the runway and crashed. This may be the closest I've ever come to being in a plane crash.
Any way I was got on a commercial flight to Mobile that afternoon. Now you have to remember that Kentucky is shut down except for the roads to the airport. While driving there I was thinking that how unsure I was about getting home Friday night. If I got back to Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Airport could I get home because of the roads? Would my car even start in sub zero weather after being out side and not being started for three days?
I never thought of those things again until the flight back because I was in seventy degree weather for those three days.
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