Humorous Story Time. Everyone chip in!

Many moons ago we were working on the preliminary info for designing a dam to be used for irrigation purposes. It was to be in a pasture inhabited by about 100 dairy cows. We were using blue flags and we were using red flags. Somehow, those danged cows liked one color but not the other. When we returned the next day, nearly every flag of the one color had been pulled, chewed and dropped somewhere else. All but one or two of the other color were still flying proudly.

In 1968 or so we were surveying in Plantation, Florida where the big Westfield Broward Mall is now but was then just cow pasture. Flat and soggy cow pasture, and every time we went there we would get the van stuck, then the cows would form a circle around us and stare.

Years ago, in the early eighties, I was an "instrument man" we were doing a huge traverse with extra-long legs; maybe 1/2 mile minimum and using a geodemeter laser edm for distances. We were in a "metro" area with heavy traffic and shopping centers and a lot of development going on. We were using tripods with a prism on top of the tribrach and 4' range poles screwed on the top for sights.

One leg we set up backsighted a long distance, and then I turned with the t2 to the foresight across and over a big construction site going on to another place 1/2-mile away. Good angles, moved forward, and I set up and went to sight my backsight where we left a tripod/prism/rangepole set up.

I looked back and scanned and scanned the horizon looking for the backsight, couldn't find it with my naked eye and searched through the instrument. My impatient party chief, who was always on my case anyway, kept asking what the problem was (and I kept telling him I couldn't find the bs.) He finally pushed me aside and said "I'll find it for you then." He looked for about a minute and said "there it is and left the instrument pointing at his finding. I got up there and saw where he had found a steel fence post with flagging on it. I told him that wasn't it, and he got even madder and said "well you find it then".

I had to scan quite a while and I finally found the very top of the range pole....just a piece of white pole with the threading on top of it. It turned out that the large wall of a big building been framed and propped up while we were on the move between setups. (A lot of the wall was "bare skeleton" but they had some firewall portion with the fireproof material on it right on line. We ended up putting the prism on top of the range pole and making sure it was plumb both ways and I sighted the very tiptop of the pole and prism. Once the roof would go on, no one would be able to resight down that line.

This goes back to the days of transit and steel tape.

I was out with one other guy. He was I-man, I was BS,FS & chainman.

I'm moving ahead and come up upon an electric fence. Touch it gingerly - no shock. Pinch it lightly - no shock. So it must be off. Step over the fence, move ahead dragging the tape over the top of the wire.

Get to the next station, give foresight, let him get HI on my plumb bob string. I pick up the tape at my end, position the string over the add foot, yell ready. He picks up the tape at his end - proceeds to scream bloody murder, jumps back about 10', and starts cussing like a sailor.

I had on rubber soled boots. He didn't.

I laughed my rear end off.

He still holds it against me to this day.

I'm still laughing!

ever been bent over at a fence line, knotting some flagging on the bottom strand of wire, and suddenly felt something clamp down on your arse like a hydraulic vise?

something about them horses...

I don't know if this qualifies or not because we were traveling between jobs. I didn't really think it was all that funny at the time but my instrument man sure did and loved to tell the story. We'd just fininshed up a small job and were en route to get started on another when I had to pull out into busy traffic on the highway. I must have misjudged the speed of the fellow I was pulling out in front of. I was focused on the details of the next job. We get to the light and I look in my rearview mirror and this fellow is ready to blow a gasket, face beet red and giving me a spirited one hand salute and standing on his horn. I was in no mood so I jump out and yell at him at the top of my lungs, 'What is your problem Mr.!? 'You cut me off!!!', he shouted. At this my point my instrument man is thinking there's about to be blood spilled. I turned to the guy and roared at him at the top of my lungs, 'Well ... I'm sorry!!!'. You could just see all the color drain from his face. He didn't know what to say. 'Well ...', he stammered, 'that's okay'.

there was also the time i was doing a simple residential title in town (back in '00 or '01, when i averaged 5+ a day for a year). got used to the usual nobody's home scenario: walk to the side gate, do the pre-emptive dog whistle to see if you're getting any surprises. i whistled, no response, cracked the extremely weathered gate, and saw a back yard devoid of any biological life- just mud and paw prints. and it smelled like a pig barn.

i was half way through the gate and from around the back corner of the house popped the biggest rottweiler head i've ever seen. it saw me, didn't make a peep but leapt out and starting sprinting my way. i had just enough time to get back through the gate and latch it (all the while listening to what sounded like an elephant stampede headed my way) before it launched itself at the other side of the gate which, due to its aforementioned condition, came unmoored from the two posts on either side of it. so i stood there for a good 5 minutes holding that gate up with my back, that horse-beast roaring at me from the other side of dead half-inch cedar fence pickets, before my i-man got the van cleared out enough for me to take a two-step flying leap at it from where i stood. i made it, slammed the door, burned rubber, and made two phone calls: one to the cops to report a maneater on the loose and one to the boss to let 'em know this client was gonna need another surveyor.

Those are fine stories

If it is alright, I'm gonna share some of them with my brother, who used to survey, but is now a preacher in Ohio.

Nate

1979. My first day at my "new" job at one of the premier civil firms in town.

I lived 40 miles east of town and had to drive some hard roads just to get there. I wanted to be early and spunky on my first day so I was driving "obtusely" to get there quick. A half a mile east of the office this grey-haired old duffer pulls out in front of me and then proceeds to drive like it's a school zone.

After a couple of courtesy honks I pass him at 6000 rpm hanging him 'the finger' as I roared by. Old coot.

I get upstairs and press palms with all the other surveyors and scribble some info down on a new hire sheet. Then the Chief of Parties wants to take me up front and meet the founder of this fine firm; a staunch Lt. Col., U.S. Army, Retired Commander of the 26th Field Artillery Battalion, 9th Infantry Division. I walked past pictures on the wall of this guy shaking hands with Patton and Ike. Impressive...

We walked into his office and I was introduced...to the same old goat I had just flipped off and nearly ran off the road. I could tell he immediately recognized me. (Might have been the beard, maybe the pony-tail...maybe the jean-jacket with the "Zig-Zag" man embroidered on the back...)

He shook my hand, looked hard into my soul and took a long, deep breath before he spoke. I wanted to wet my britches... With my hand firmly gripped in his, he said," I can appreciate a man that likes to get to work on time." Then he winked and smiled.

I worked a long time for that Man and learned a lot. I got lucky. He should have thrown me out on the street.:-X

Evert Stong, PE, LS

Nail driven into the top of a hub and a paper target attached. Took about 4 trips before the horse lost interest, he was picking the target off of the nail, moving only the target, look at me and spit it out and grin. Yes, horses have facial expressions and a sense of humor, most can't read them.
jud

:good: 😀

Great story. What a great man and disposition.

My First Planning Board meeting

Was in Fairview TN back in oh lets see, about 1981. I was presenting a subdivision plan where all the lots had sufficient frontage on a developed road, were adequate in area and maybe there were 7 lots. About as basic as it can get. The developer was a Nashville builder, sort of a cheap builder, not a quality construction for sure.

So I make the brief presentation and step back for questions. The chairman immediately moves for approval and suddenly this man jumps up from in back of the audience and starts yelling at the chairman, "You only want this approved because you're going to do the building!" The Chair responds with "You're just angry because you're not going to be doing the building! MEETING ADJOURNED" And everyone moves to the parking lot.

Well the fists start flying between the Chairman and the audience member (who I am now told in the Mayor of the town) The Mayor is short, maybe 5'5" or so, and very round. the Chairman is about 5'10" and average build.

The Mayor suddenly leans back pulling his right fist back, ready for a big punch, sucks in his breath (you could actually hear the inhale) and his pants drop to the ground exposing his polka dotted boxers.

Friend step in, break the fight up and I quietly disappear. Never again have I had such an enjoyable planning board meeting. True Story, lance Broom from Ragan Smith Murphy was with me and could vouch if anyone knows him 🙂 I doubt the fight made the meeting minutes...

Dtp

One my odder experiences was getting falsely accused of surveying for a new road.

Years ago when a friend first told me about geocaching, and the cache he had hidden in a local park, I didn't have a GPS. I solved his puzzle involving two crossed lines (he used a rectilinear lat-lon grid, not geodetic) and I thought I might find his cache without a GPS. I used the topo map and plotted the location, and went out to the park to search.

I paced from two park boundaries to my spot but couldn't find the container. I found out later I was 50 or 60 feet off and much later realized my biggest problem was mixing NAD27 and WGS84 values. Ya gotta learn somehow.

So here I was double checking the pacing and a guy comes rushing across his backyard into the park and accosts me. "What are you doing, surveying a road through my park?" The only equipment I had was a hiking compass and a piece of paper, but he had seen me pacing and placing a couple sticks for reference. No GPS, no instruments, no safety vest, no tape, no laths. Well, there was a street that dead ended at the park, but I tried to assure him I had nothing to do with placing roads. He wouldn't believe me and I thought I was going to get punched out before I finally got him to believe that I was playing a hide and seek game.

Wasn't funny then, but seems like it now.

Many years ago when I was on a 4-man crew doing a bridge job (low man on totem pole) lunch time rolled around, and, since we were in a desolate area, I brought a sandwich in my lunch. Took a bite and it seemed unusually chewey. Looked at my co-workers (laughing) and looked in my sandwich. Seems they added a few Styrofoam packing peanuts they found in the vehicle. Veeeerrrrry funny!

:good: That's pretty darn cool. Great story.

“He shook my hand, looked hard into my soul and took a long, deep breath before he spoke. I wanted to wet my britches... With my hand firmly gripped in his, he said," I can appreciate a man that likes to get to work on time." Then he winked and smiled.”

Obviously a man with perception.

The Dead Dog Survey

Lady calls for a survey for a bizarre reason. She and her husband owned an oddly shaped tract in a semi-rural subdivision. A few houses had been built but there was lots of open space. They intended to start construction within a few months. But, that is not why she was calling.

They had a large dog as a pet for many years. It had died. This lady and a friend wrapped it up in some favorite blankets, took it to their building site, dug a big hole by hand and buried the dog so that he would always be close to them. Meanwhile, a fellow who had built a house two oddly shaped tracts away witnessed this. He developed the thought that they were burying drugs. To him it appeared that this was happening on a neighbor's lot where nothing had been built. He calls the Sheriff's Office and reports what he believed to be happening. When the deputy arrives on scene all he finds is a fresh pile of dirt. He questions the fellow who called it in. He tells them the name of the owner of the lot HE THOUGHT owned the burial site. The deputy goes to that completely innocent and unaware party and eventually is convinced that they have no idea what he is talking about. They suggest he check with the lady who called me once he took the innocent owners to their tract and they conclude the fresh dirt is not on their land. So the deputy tracks down my clients, demands they accompany him to the site and requires them to dig up whatever it was that was buried. The dog reappears. The deputy is mortified. Then he has a thought that will help cover his tail. Is the dog on the correct property? The couple tell him that they are pretty sure it is but they can't show him any property corner monuments. He tells them to get it surveyed or else.

Guess what. The dog was on the correct property. But only by a few feet.

The Dead Dog Survey

had a similar situation with a family cemetery and a rather dubiously subdivided tract that somehow made it through all the approval hoops. anyways, somehow it was decided the whole thing was... grandfathered in (literally), thus not violating any current setback requirements.

also once worked for a relentlessly cranky, borderline psychotic rpls who happened to particularly piss me off one morning before we started a big topo. the next day i got an angry call from him wondering why there was a 3D polyline and 20 shots labeled "deer" crossing a set of boc,foc,gut breaklines. he didn't like to edit topo, i guess...

The Dead Dog Survey

If they were building a house, they certainly needed to know where the property line was.

But otherwise, they shouldn't have had to pay for a survey to develop evidence that might have shown they buried the dog on the wrong lot. That would be a prosecution-side expense that a court maybe or maybe not would order them to pay after being convicted of a misdemeanor. If burying a dog on someone else's lot is in fact even a misdemeanor.