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Been doing this for too long
One of the problems with working in the same region for a few decades is the built-in hope that today you will agree with your own work from many years earlier.
Back in 2007 we tackled a giant mess of home cooked descriptions adjacent to a little town and one of its additions. Far too much time went into the courthouse research and attempting to decipher what was intended with a 50-piece jigsaw puzzle of tracts. Our 2007 client owned four tracts of varying sizes and dates of origin with three different points of commencement.
Received a call early this week from a great fellow we worked for in January. He has already purchased one of the other puzzle pieces. It is near but does not adjoin any of the four tracts from 2007. His piece falls in a portion of our 2007 plat that we simply labeled “other tracts” and did not show in detail.
This will be an expensive survey despite the inch-thick file of information we already have.
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5 Replies
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A few years ago I did some work in a notoriously fubared area of large industrial tracts. I thought I had everything reasonably hashed out. When I went back out there to set some pins I realized the crew had not looked in the correct area for a couple of back pins. Out with the pin-finder and I find a pin. But it’s about 6′ from where I had imagined it should be…but it has a cap on it.
I’m down on my knees with my snoot in the hole (cussing the ineptness of all other surveyors) trying to read the name by rubbing my spit moistened thumb over the top. Hell, it’s mine! ??? From the style of cap I knew it had to have been there at least 15 years.
I know it’s happened to everybody else at one time or another….some of us can admit it easier than others.
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After 25 years and about 4,000 surveys, I sometimes wonder what I was thinking when I recover some of my older work. Another thing I hate is pulling out an old job file and not remembering the job!
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I have done jobs I never actually laid my eyes upon although my crew was actually under my supervision. I guess that’s just one of the things that happen here in the fast lane.
I did a job not too long ago and I found when I got out there most of the pins were mine. And two of the section corner references were mine also, although I would swear I’ve never been there. I was able to get ahold of my old PC while I was out there (sitting in the truck feeling like an Alzheimer patient). It took some chatting but I was able to get him to understand where it was at (a rather rural area). He remembered the job.
I had been there! I did the boundary field work but I never returned with the crew when they set some 40-odd lot corners. Last time I was there it was pasture with a dirt road. Twenty years later there are a dozen houses with asphalt roads. No wonder I didn’t recognize it.
I Dodged the ‘dementia bullet’ that time…
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I here ya buddy!
A couple of years ago a local surveyor here in town (that I have known since he was a 3′ tall) mentioned recovering a Territorial Mile Post just South of town recently, that he and I remonumented nearly 40 years ago. I had ZERO recollection of ever finding that bugger, and told him that I must not have been with the crew that day!
The next day he sent photographs of me holding the wood post, marking the cap, and sitting on the tailgate of my truck drinking a beer!
I still have zero recollection of that day…and considering what a big deal it was to find those 1873 [wood] Mile Posts (we found several on that project), it might be time for me to go fishing!
Loyal
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Been down that road. After 45 years of surveying I’ve run into my own monuments and record surveys and actually had to call my old work wrong! Embarrassing but you gotta be honest and file/remonument with your latest survey evidence and assume liability for your earlier work. A tough bullet to bite.
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