…when doing a roof job in 90 degree temps.
Courtesy of wordporn.com
Tag Archives: J.O.B.
It’s midnight. You’ve been drinking tequila. You suddenly remember you have to meet a client in the morning.
New Project
School bus conversion:
A ’67 Dodge D500 Mobile Home in a swampy hollow
A friend of mine was trying to unload several old school busses last summer before he left the state. This ’67 Dodge was wallowing in the muck, and it took a front end loader to get the beast out. It had been gutted and converted into a mobile home during the early 1990’s. At one point it had a small oil-fired heater, and it came with a propane range.
This is what the interior of the bus looked like when we pulled it out of the muck. After installing a new starter and a couple of new frost plugs, the bus, with its 413 Hemi ran just fine. It did have a little bit of trouble stopping with several leaking wheel cylinders, but brake fluid is cheap.
After getting the bus up to some semi-remote property I own and want to build on, I gutted the interior of the bus once again. I did get the new floor down, but the J.O.B. and a very early dumping of snow shut the project down in September.
Now that the road is solid enough to haul materials in, the bus conversion is back on.
One can never have enough projects.
Silence is Profit
One of the best messages yet from a company Christmas card:
“Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.”
After all, it worked for Colonel Nicholson…
The usage in this case may not have been in the spirit of the initial intent by Frank Ocean.
Laundry Epiphany
When one does three weeks worth of laundry, and realizes that everything going through the washer & dryer is work clothes.
It may very well be time for a vacation.
The Walls of Hades
I took on a painting job, even though I was far too busy to justify it, but I wanted the money. I sprayed out the ceiling and walls earlier in the week, and today I applied a coat to the bathrooms and kitchen via brush & roller.
Everything was going great, although the CDC did issue a warning when I pulled out the refrigerator and stove from the wall, but all I could see was the check at the end of the tunnel.
Then I reached the “master” bath. I’m not sure what the originally, invisible, film of toxic waste was on those walls, but it showed itself once the paint was applied. Okay, no big deal, I thought, that’s why they make Kilz Primer. So I started to apply that, and the toxic film ate through the Kilz quicker than a Great White goes through a seal pup. It was mortifying to watch, but I really became torqued when I realized the toxic waste had clung to the Purdy roller cover and I had to throw it away.
What was I thinking? I know better than to use a Purdy on a rental property.
An extremely frustrating turn of events, but it was 4:15pm and all I wanted to do was go home, open a beer and sit behind the Rover’s steering wheel and imagine that I was driving south, leaving the insane, “can you fit us in?”, mania that always hits just before the first autumn snowfall, well behind me.
I may be forced to mask off the tiny bath and spray the walls tomorrow morning, in an attempt to entomb the Blob’s spawn before it oozes out and ruins another perfectly good Purdy.
A New Drive
60 yards of rock later, and the start of a new driveway is in place. The truck time cost me 3X the material cost.
I could use a dump truck.
River Trip
I went up the Chatanika River today to install the metal roofing on a semi-remote cabin. What a great day to be on the river. The fish were jumping, ducks everywhere, and several moose tried to outrun the river boat. Definitely a nice change of pace from working near town.
It’s a cute 3-sided log cabin on a nice section of river. My only hangups were that I wanted to install the roof jack now for the chimney, but they were not ready to do so, and I would have liked to install just one run of metal roofing, but we went with a length that easily fit in the boat. Still, it was installed in one day, looks sharp, and no more tarp over the roof.
Not a bad day here in Interior Alaska.
-50 Day 2
Once again it was -50F in the valley. I think we hit a high of -35. Only two days of this, and everyone was crabby. Unfortunately, I was in a really good mood all day, and that just seemed to piss people off. Oddly enough, that just made me more bubbly.
I had to make a run into town to pick up some fuel de-icer for a client whose oil stove was acting up. He was one of the crabby ones today, even though I figured it was something simple like water in the fuel line. In town, I saw a guy on a motorcycle with a side car come out of the ice fog at a light. I knew I had far too many layers on to try to get my phone out to take a picture before the light turned. After picking up the de-icer, I saw the guy ahead of me on Farmer’s Loop. I took a quick picture, but it’s kind of hard to make out the crazy guy on the bike, but he’s ahead of the red pickup. Taking a photo in -50 degree temps is not as easy as it looks.
When I reached the customer’s home, I found that the fuel cap was flipped open, and the ladder leaning against the tank was covered in snow. I believe they call that, “An invitation”…
Construction skills at work:
When a customer calls me up and starts the conversation with, “I saw this really great idea…”, I know that I am probably in trouble.
This time was no exception.
“You start with glass blocks, drill a hole in it, then stuff miniature Christmas lights in the block, but I have no idea how to drill the hole, and I figured you would, so…”
When I did the prototype, I called the customer back and said, “It looks pretty good, so I’ll do it, but don’t tell anyone else about it. How many do you need?”
I received an email tonight with several pics of the blocks in action, with the message: “Everyone loves your blocks, and I’ve told them all about you… You’ll have to start a side business.”
Crap.
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