[USER=11256]@Richard Imrie[/USER]
Bless you, dear fellow, for you have caused great glee to erupt within these walls. That was one of the best laughs I have had in a while. Mrs. Cow had to investigate, so was treated to a reading of your adventure. Her outburst was similar to my own. Several select friends with whom I share wonderful stories via email have been presented with the opportunity to "bust a gut" laughing.
Holy Cow, post: 410067, member: 50 wrote: [USER=11256]@Richard Imrie[/USER]
Bless you, dear fellow, for you have caused great glee to erupt within these walls. That was one of the best laughs I have had in a while. Mrs. Cow had to investigate, so was treated to a reading of your adventure. Her outburst was similar to my own. Several select friends with whom I share wonderful stories via email have been presented with the opportunity to "bust a gut" laughing.
Same here! That was one of the funniest things that I've read in a long time.
Edward Reading, post: 410072, member: 132 wrote: Same here! That was one of the funniest things that I've read in a long time.
To be honest the normal day I have doing this engineering and now surveying stuff (last 4 years or so) my heart regularly wants to explode with anger, so humorous moments are a blessing.
[USER=11256]@Richard Imrie[/USER]
Yup. Top notch post.
Richard Imrie, post: 410062, member: 11256 wrote: Years ago me and a mate from engineering school had a job at the council doing video inspections of stormwater and sewer pipes. On the latter it was mostly to check for illegal connections. We werenÛªt told of the risks (and were too dumb to work it out for ourselves), but fortunately for other reasons we avoided going into MH's including fear of what we had seen in them on the video. At one site we had videoed from a MH in a private garden upstream to the house at the top of the line and found nothing out of order. The next morning we were in the same area, but doing a different branch, when the posh elderly woman owner of the house approached us to say she lived alone and had seen us in her garden the day before and wanted to know what we were doing. So we explained, and she was more than happy with that, but then requested that we reopen that MH in her garden, as she ÛÏhad always wanted to see what was in itÛ. I tried to give body language suggesting that was not a good idea, but in a flash matey had popped the lid and all three of us were peering in. Being at the top of the line it was shallow and the sun lit up the inside and there peering back at us, shipwrecked on the haunching, was a gigantic fresh golden yellow turd. Simultaneously all or heads swiveled to follow the direction of the only incoming line, namely the one that went straight back to her house, and matey exhaled a giggling exclamation that rhymed with ÛÏclucking bellÛ. She took off like a scratched cat, cussing that there must be an illegal connection to her pipe and demanding that we locate it and prosecute the offender. As she passed through and slammed her front door, matey called out ÛÏthere isnÛªt, we can show you the video if you wantÛ. Never saw her again.
I shared it with others too!
One of the first lessons my father taught me surveying was if you go into a manhole you will die.
Needless to say, I've never went in one.
When I was a young rodman, my PC insisted that I go down each manhole to get the inverts with a bubble level. I did it not knowing any better until we popped one and it was a brick manhole full of white cocroaches. I refused to go down this one. He sent me to the truck and did it himself. We got back to the office and he told the survey cordinator about my refusal to obey only to be scolded for first trying to make me go down the manhole and doing it himself as this was in the early 90's and he had been told we were no longer going down without proper training and gear. He was old school and taught me much of what I know today, and I felt bad for my disobedience but I couldn't go down there and was justified in the end.
I now employ his son and we laugh today, but that day there was no laughing!!!
Beer Legs, post: 409782, member: 33 wrote: It's defined as a confined space and you need the proper gear before entering. Just ask OSHA...Tripod, gas sniffer etc.
20+ years ago we did it just like that. Sent the gas meter down on a rope, had the tripod, harness, ventilation, etc, all set up. If the meter registered for H2S or not enough oxygen, we didn't go in. If it went off with a guy down there, we cranked him up fast.
When I read things like this, I'm pretty happy that my company did it right, and no one was in danger. Today I make it really clear to anyone getting inverts, to not go in them. Nothing is worth that.
We just use a parakeet.
Never been in one and never will. Company and personal restrictions do not allow. If I wanted to play with poop I would've been a plumber or pumped septics..... Heard way to many stories of surveyors going in and ending badly. Everytime I dip one I have a specific "dip stick", latex gloves and try to hold my breath...
Although I do get in these massive underground Strom water catch systems to get elevations on the weir plates. Typically they have never been live, but the last one was. I had to have a harness hooked to one of those retracting cable systems and some air sensor things. 3-4 hours in there pounding headache and felt awful. Told the boss never again I'll quit first...
Holy Cow, post: 409779, member: 50 wrote: Back in the olden days (1950's) of farming nearly every farmer had some sort of chemical spray rig that mounted directly on his tractor and included a 55-gallon barrel positioned directly behind the driver's seat. He would pour in the water, then pour in the correct amount of liquid chemical, then grab something like an old wooden broom handle to stick through the bung hole to act as a stirrer to blend the mixture. After a vigorous stirring, the slippery, wet broom handle would be removed with bare hands and tossed out of the way for future use. The hose connected to the pump would then be inserted loosely into the bung hole. Next came the adventure of bouncing along through the area needing sprayed with excess chemical mixture sloshing out all over the lid of the barrel and frequently splashing the tractor driver as well. Long term health issues ensued for many before scientists realized the cause/effect of this widespread practice.
Back in the olden days of surveying nearly every surveyor stuck his head in a sewer manhole with some frequency. Some inserted their entire bodies through the opening. Long term health issues ensued for some but it took years for the link between cause and effect to become apparent.
In those days, in my home town, there were apple orchards as far as the eye could see (now mostly vineyards). Springtime would bring out the sprayers... In the pre-dawn hours you would hear what sounded like jet taking off. It was actually the sound of big pull behind sprayers. big as a car. Look out across the valley and you could see a small cloud in the orchard a mile away.
The ranch owners would be yellow/brown on all of their exposed skin (like Donald but darker). My dad said it was nicotine in the spray.
