Dispatch from a Construction Zone
Sep. 11th, 2010 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pinksoniaWow, I haven't said anything in a while and not for any particular reason. If done plenty of the "composing entries in my head" thing, and yet, just never seem to sit down and type them out.
Recently I've been having fun times working in the projects. They are tearing the old ones down (well the place we're currently working on was just a big empty lot) and building mixed income housing (which everyone is already calling the "new projects"). I know nothing about construction and they threw a fit when one of my bosses came out with me the first day to make sure I was comfortable with monitoring because I'd never done it before -- not really a great start. Then that boss got sent to Alabama on a project, so I got put under a different boss who had just come back from a *huge* project in Florida and was hoping to take a few days rest. The back-hoe(or is that track-hoe)/bulldozer driver hit some foundations, so there was no rest to be had. Oops. They did turn out to be fairly uninteresting foundations, but we could match them up with a specific house on the old maps, so that was pretty cool.
Since then I've been watching them dig little holes around pylons that had been driven (apperently 39 feet) into the ground in order to cut them off a few inches below ground level. I have no idea why. So I get to stand around and watch a bunch of guys with shovels and the back-hoe. Really they all crack me up. I get called Miss Allison (which sort of weirds me out). I've listened to conversations on whether or not a 22 ft python could eat one of the guys -- a conversation that involved much quoting of animal planet -- and one were an older man advised the best way to pick up girls was to listen to early Micheal Jackson albums and sneak some of the lyrics into your conversation. If you try that out, let me know how it works, since I'm rather skeptical and don't have a lot of call for picking up girls.
We even got of work early on Thursday since the project area is near the Super Dome, and they were afraid that we wouldn't be able to get home because of the parade.
Recently I've been having fun times working in the projects. They are tearing the old ones down (well the place we're currently working on was just a big empty lot) and building mixed income housing (which everyone is already calling the "new projects"). I know nothing about construction and they threw a fit when one of my bosses came out with me the first day to make sure I was comfortable with monitoring because I'd never done it before -- not really a great start. Then that boss got sent to Alabama on a project, so I got put under a different boss who had just come back from a *huge* project in Florida and was hoping to take a few days rest. The back-hoe(or is that track-hoe)/bulldozer driver hit some foundations, so there was no rest to be had. Oops. They did turn out to be fairly uninteresting foundations, but we could match them up with a specific house on the old maps, so that was pretty cool.
Since then I've been watching them dig little holes around pylons that had been driven (apperently 39 feet) into the ground in order to cut them off a few inches below ground level. I have no idea why. So I get to stand around and watch a bunch of guys with shovels and the back-hoe. Really they all crack me up. I get called Miss Allison (which sort of weirds me out). I've listened to conversations on whether or not a 22 ft python could eat one of the guys -- a conversation that involved much quoting of animal planet -- and one were an older man advised the best way to pick up girls was to listen to early Micheal Jackson albums and sneak some of the lyrics into your conversation. If you try that out, let me know how it works, since I'm rather skeptical and don't have a lot of call for picking up girls.
We even got of work early on Thursday since the project area is near the Super Dome, and they were afraid that we wouldn't be able to get home because of the parade.