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Blast from the past surveying style!

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(@second-generation)
Posts: 41
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16 years ago I interned with Southwest Florida Water Management District(SWFWMD) as part of a college credit. I spent four 10 hour days working with two different crews. Meet some cool people and got to see the government side of the business.

I spent 3 of my days doing a topo in a dry lake bed in my home town and the 4th day way down in a part of Tampa I had no clue existed. The final day I was helping topo a river bed (more like a rainy season river) to put in a wooden walking bridge for Walker and joggers to cross the river when the river flooded over the road that past thru it.

16 years later 13 miles in on my morning run I came across that vary river. That far into a run I don't usually stop but this time I had to take a minute and reminisce. This is the second time I've come across a foot bridge that I worked on during my runs. Unfortunately I don't carry my phone so sorry no pictures. Whomp whomp.

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 1:21 pm
Andy Bruner
(@andy-bruner)
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It will happen more than once. I will ride by a site and think, "Yeah we did the boundary survey on this", or "I staked the streets in that subdivision", or "Dang that was a thick bunch of privet and kudzu we had to cut through to get that sewer line in". I worked for an old surveyor that was over 80 when he retired, he could tell us where to look for an iron pin that he had set 40 years before, and he was right.
Andy

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 3:00 pm
(@second-generation)
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Andy Bruner, post: 399453, member: 1123 wrote: It will happen more than once. I will ride by a site and think, "Yeah we did the boundary survey on this", or "I staked the streets in that subdivision", or "Dang that was a thick bunch of privet and kudzu we had to cut through to get that sewer line in". I worked for an old surveyor that was over 80 when he retired, he could tell us where to look for an iron pin that he had set 40 years before, and he was right.
Andy

My dad is the same way. 76 years old. Still working in the field and has a mind like a steal trap!

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 3:51 pm
(@john-thompson)
Posts: 85
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I've heard it said that you never cross the same river twice. Does that apply if it's a dry river bed? What if there have been times when the river did run between your crossings?

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 4:45 pm
holy-cow
(@holy-cow)
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There is a bridge on a state highway I cross on a semi-regular basis. I always make note that the water is about eight feet deeper than it would be otherwise because of the concrete dam we designed about 1000 feet downstream of the bridge. That was day one running topos and getting paid to do it.

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 4:50 pm

(@mark-mayer)
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About 10 years and 3 employers ago I did an ALTA for site in NW Portland. Last month a contractor my current employer serves assigned the stakeout work to us. While I was drilling out a location for a Bernsten plug - a control point - I looked over and saw an iron rod and cap I had set for the ALTA about 3 feet away.

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 6:04 pm
bill93
(@bill93)
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I forgot to take a book to church this morning that I intended to give to someone. I went prepared to set up sound equipment for the people who will play there in two weeks, not today. I just about went out without the tripod for a GPS session this afternoon. I heated up the wrong dish for supper leftovers. Getting absent minded for sure.

But every time I drive pass one of the hundreds of bench mark disks I've reported over the last 12 years, I know just where it is. Strange how the brain works (or doesn't).

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 6:14 pm
paden-cash
(@paden-cash)
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Mark Mayer, post: 399467, member: 424 wrote: About 10 years and 3 employers ago I did an ALTA for site in NW Portland. Last month a contractor my current employer serves assigned the stakeout work to us. While I was drilling out a location for a Bernsten plug - a control point - I looked over and saw an iron rod and cap I had set for the ALTA about 3 feet away.

If there are any surveyors out there that are close to my age...and would actually admit it, I bet they've run into the same thing I've ran into a couple of times in the past: tripping over your own mistakes.

One that comes to mind was in an industrial warehouse area close to the interstate where I performed a survey about twenty years ago. I couldn't get thinks to fit worth a hoot...too many cooks had spoiled the broth. I was basically faced with a decision to either honor one "set" of monuments, or the other.

Fast forward twenty years and we were back in there working in an adjoining block. I really didn't remember the previous survey until I noticed a data point in the collection file that noted a found pin...with my number on it.

To make a long story short, it probably would have been better had I made the alternative choice twenty years earlier. Oh well...live and learn. 😉

 
Posted : November 13, 2016 10:09 pm
FL/GA PLS
(@flga-pls)
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paden cash, post: 399479, member: 20 wrote: If there are any surveyors out there that are close to my age...and would actually admit it,

Buddy, I believe we are real close in age 9/10/1950 (and still raising hell I might add) and I have seen my own corners pincushioned by my own crews because they are too lazy to operate a shovel. thay are, of course, ex-employees. 😎

 
Posted : November 14, 2016 4:16 am
(@lmbrls)
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As you get older, you will listen more patiently to someone claiming you made a mistake, as you have become much more aware that it can happen. You still don't have to like it.

 
Posted : November 14, 2016 6:28 am

Andy Bruner
(@andy-bruner)
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lmbrls, post: 399485, member: 6823 wrote: As you get older, you will listen more patiently to someone claiming you made a mistake, as you have become much more aware that it can happen. You still don't have to like it.

I agree. The FIRST thing I do when I hear that someone disagrees with "my" monuments is to check my work. I know of one I set incorrectly about 15 or 20 years ago, it is in Newton County. NO I won't tell you where it is, the Statute of Limitations is LONG past.
Andy

 
Posted : November 14, 2016 7:13 am
holy-cow
(@holy-cow)
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I know a fellow who admitted to using the wrong monument once. The problem was on a standard parallel where the section corner to the north and the quarter section corner to the south were only something like 15 feet apart. He grabbed the wrong one. Mental mistake.

 
Posted : November 14, 2016 8:19 am
makerofmaps
(@makerofmaps)
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Second-Generation, post: 399449, member: 1477 wrote: 16 years ago I interned with Southwest Florida Water Management District(SWFWMD) .

I wish I could remember who I used to deal with all the time at swfwmd. I think he was over all the surrveying. I used to always get control from him around Tampa Lutz Odessa area. That would of been around mid 90's -2000. That's one of the reason I moved up here to God's country (Chattanooga area). I got tired of watching Odessa and Lutz turn into a big subdivision.

 
Posted : November 14, 2016 8:28 am
FL/GA PLS
(@flga-pls)
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Second-Generation, post: 399449, member: 1477 wrote: 16 years ago I interned with Southwest Florida Water Management District(SWFWMD)

Long before you arrived the nickname for SFWMD was "Swift Mud". (In reference to the C-15 being opened, "by accident") 😉

 
Posted : November 14, 2016 8:44 am
holy-cow
(@holy-cow)
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You just confused the heck out of me. I know practically nothing about dating sites, but I'm pretty sure anything that starts with swf is referring to a single white female. The wmd really had me guessing. Will make do? Won't marry deviates?

 
Posted : November 15, 2016 7:55 pm

FL/GA PLS
(@flga-pls)
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makerofmaps, post: 399502, member: 9079 wrote: That's one of the reason I moved up here to God's country (Chattanooga area). I got tired of watching Odessa and Lutz turn into a big subdivision.

You ought to see it now, in twenty or thirty years the whole state will be a giant subdivision with lot's of instant slums thrown in for good measure.

 
Posted : November 16, 2016 4:14 am
FL/GA PLS
(@flga-pls)
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makerofmaps, post: 399502, member: 9079 wrote: God's country (Chattanooga area)

It's a little smokey up there ain't it? Hope you all are ok! NC. and GA. too.

 
Posted : November 16, 2016 9:29 am
makerofmaps
(@makerofmaps)
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FL/GA PLS., post: 399864, member: 379 wrote: It's a little smokey up there ain't it? Hope you all are ok! NC. and GA. too.

We are right now. It is very smokey. 3 fires are within 5 miles of my house. 2 on Lookout Mt. and the one on Fox Mt. I am actually in GA but work downtown Chattanooga.

 
Posted : November 16, 2016 12:33 pm
Andy Bruner
(@andy-bruner)
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makerofmaps, post: 399896, member: 9079 wrote: We are right now. It is very smokey. 3 fires are within 5 miles of my house. 2 on Lookout Mt. and the one on Fox Mt. I am actually in GA but work downtown Chattanooga.

Do you work for the firm that was Hensley Schmidt during an earlier life? I lived right off West East Brainerd Road (exit) for about three years.
Andy

 
Posted : November 16, 2016 2:27 pm
makerofmaps
(@makerofmaps)
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Andy Bruner, post: 399923, member: 1123 wrote: Do you work for the firm that was Hensley Schmidt during an earlier life? I lived right off West East Brainerd Road (exit) for about three years.
Andy

I worked for Arcadis which was the same firm just years later.

 
Posted : November 17, 2016 10:31 am

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