On 6/3/2010 9:50 AM, Becker, Dan wrote:
>> You know, I wasted half the day
>>      
talk about wasting half a day... we were working on a 1,200' brick 
bridge deck and we needed to do probes at the very far end and by the 
time we got all our tools loaded up in the wheelbarrow, access via 
stairs by foot... everything we take in on a day has to come out on the 
day (lest some kid throw it off the bridge into a train or vehicular 
traffic -- the generator we chained to the railing and it was not in the 
river the next day)... and walking back and forth gets us worn out 
before we even do any work, all loaded up we got told we could not do 
the probes, on hold -- that only took about five conversations and two 
hours... so we put all the tools/equipment back and loaded up to go 
inside the bridge and take some steel coupons -- down the manhole, walk 
back 300' on the catwalk, carry all that crap, 85 degrees, pigeon shit 
dust being kicked up, sweat, sunburns from previous days, we ran out of 
drinking water, grinder sparks, ancient rust falling inside our shirt 
collars, curious about the river water directly below us, wondering if 
we should exchange fluids w/ the Circle Line if anyone will notice... 
and the minute we are almost set up we are asked to move our truck, and 
then we get set up again we are asked again to move our truck so we say 
to hell with it and eat an early lunch then another friend/consultant 
that we have not seen in ages shows up and we talk w/ them, then finally 
back in the hole it takes us less than an hour to do the extractions and 
another 3 hours to clean up and get off the site, it had got hot in the 
afternoon so all the folks that wanted to chit chat w/ us had gone away 
I suspect -- still don't know if we have permission to do the probes... 
but feel kinda bad for the environmental guy that needed a few square 
inches of the waterproof material from one of the probes, don't know 
where he drove in from, but after several hours of dickering around we 
told him he might better go home once we understood what he was asking 
us questions about

][<en

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