doing design work on a downtown site that got a fresh ALTA about 6 months ago. client gives me a copy of the ALTA, i cringed as soon as i saw the name on it- rhymes with mock & snark. 4 corners, 3 of which are set. which in and of itself isn't remarkable for this part of town, but i did the site 7-8 years ago and i know for a fact that whatever you set there, it's not gonna be iron rods like the survey called for. an acre of high density downtown, zero lot line use and you're hanging the whole thing on a found PK nail. no ties, no basis, no nada. sure enough we roll up, walk out to the middle of the alley where the first iron rod was supposedly set- zilch. no noise, no PK, no anything. go around back, climb down into the creek, give friendly greetings to the coupla dudes helping each other to some intravenously applicated liquified opiates, climb all over limestone creekbed looking for the other two set iron rods. it was a cursory act, in all honesty.
not sure why i got mad at that point, not like it was in any way surprising. so i decided to look up the branch office phone # for mock & snark in the particular little hamlet in oats country from which this fine representation of our work was generated. told them i'm a pretty agreeable guy most of the time, and while i didn't very much understand or admire their particular operational model, that i wasn't inclined to go to the board over much. the man (who, come to find out, has licenses in SIXTEEN states) apologized profusely and promised to have corners set by friday. funny thing is i spent the rest of the day recovering and locating a bunch more stuff adjoining and nearby, and already know that the stuff of his i shoot in on friday is going to be wrong.
oh, and the client is pissed because i told them that if they wanted me to plat it i was going to need another reasonable fee for analyzing and establishing a monumented boundary that wouldn't put their condo obelisk into 3 different rights-of-way.
edit: two thoughts. first, i'm awfully easy going in life. but one thing that keeps me on edge is screwing up a survey, and i'm out running every last one of mine these days. i can't for the life of me imagine signing stuff where you've never even MET the party chief. second- forgot to mention i accidentally walked up on (for the third time in my surveying life) a couple of bums getting biblical. under a loading dock this time. makes me wonder what everybody else's worst recurring on-site experience is.
Wait. Getting biblical. Turning into pillars of salt? Making a mad dash across the Red Sea while the waters are parted? Feeding the multitudes with practically nothing? Surviving a plague of locusts? Wearing a coat of many colors? Climbing out of an ark on high ridge?
Now, as to the serious part of your post, there is absolutely no excuse for such foolishness to be quietly condoned by boards of registration. In my experience, the bigger they are, the more likely they are to generate pretty documents based on far too little real world information. Once you can afford a trillion dollars worth of insurance coverage, why sweat the details.
> Wait. Getting biblical. Turning into pillars of salt? Making a mad dash across the Red Sea while the waters are parted? Feeding the multitudes with practically nothing? Surviving a plague of locusts? Wearing a coat of many colors? Climbing out of an ark on high ridge?
>
> Now, as to the serious part of your post, there is absolutely no excuse for such foolishness to be quietly condoned by boards of registration. In my experience, the bigger they are, the more likely they are to generate pretty documents based on far too little real world information. Once you can afford a trillion dollars worth of insurance coverage, why sweat the details.
:good:
(I had to Google "getting biblical")
I googled "Getting Biblical" too. Not familiar with that one. I take it they were philosophizing, under that dock. Correct me if I am wrong.
I feel your pain, on the rest of it. But to see a few bums getting Biblical, would be a bright spot, in an otherwise painful day! (I make joke!)
🙂
N
things you almost see in the field
Once, while surveying near a nice subdivision in a nearby town, I was cutting my way down an overgrown property line. I broke into the open with my last swipe, and noticed several unusual things. A radio lightly playing by a nice pool, a lounge chair in a flat position, a bottle of suntan lotion with the top laying nearby and still rolling in a circle; things still moving and and a gate at the far end of the pool slowly swinging shut.
Hmmmmm, sez I. Whadimiss?! o.O
on-site experiences
> makes me wonder what everybody else's worst recurring on-site experience is.
Had a large project in the middle of OKC about ten years ago. It was in some of the filthiest and decrepit urban blight that city had to offer. One had to be careful of the used hypodermic needles littering the area.
But far worse: regularly we were horrified by seeing hobos and bums purge their bowels.....I'll never shake hands with another person again. It took me two years just to be able to fist-bump someone.
My gunner on this job was a young kid and his horrified disbelief of how some folks lived was almost funny. I remember the first hooker he saw. He blurted out, "Who would ever pay for that?"
On the same job he had the gun set up near a RR bridge abutment. I was across the river maybe 2000' away. He got on the radio and told me there was "two humans having sex under the bridge". He sounded terrified and confused.
My reply was, "Is it a male and a female?" He replied it was.
I told him I guessed there was nothing wrong with it and they'd probably be gone shortly.
There was a pause and he came back on the radio and said, "There's a LOT wrong with it!"
That poor kid was never the same. I was glad to get that project out of my hair.
I have done the same thing, mad. However, I didn't want to wait, so I called the company, told them to email me their coordinate file, when and got on their control points and put the rods back in (they were senior corners) as they said they should have been (even though they never made it and there was no reason for them to be gone).
I felt better after driving several rebars into compacted clay.
things you almost see in the field
Harold, you gotta work on those stealth surveying techniques!!!LOL 😛 😉 😀
As far as weird crap seen in the field, we once walked up on a person defecating in the center of a city, paved street. He didn't care that we walked up on him either.
I've always made a point to make as much noise while in the brush and woods to let anyone else out there know I was a human and if they listened close enough that I was surveying.
How is it that there is always screams and laughs whenever nudity is involved?
B-)
We had a crew witness a stabbing at a dice game. Working on a topo in a housing project where there was a heated dice game going on. One of the guys involved in the other game accuses another of cheating, and they get into a shouting match. The party chief is out front narrating the entire thing spat to the I-man. At first it was amusing, two guys yelling at each other, but then one of them pulls a knife and stabs the other. The party chief yells at his I-man that they need to get the hell out of there right now (he may have used some slightly stronger language) and the I-man tosses the legs into the van with the instrument still attached, roars up to the Party chief, who leaps into the van, and high tails it out of there. Back at the office we excused the crew for coming in from the field a little early after we'd heard what had happened.
I can beat that.....
Working at a gas plant when it blew up...... 200 meter tall ball of flame behind 6-600,000 gallon tanks of what are essentially kerosene. Our office got an angry call from plant security, because we left the site at a high rate of speed without signing out.
