So I??m pounding curb stakes and it is getting late. The sun is trying to tell me something. I am tired as hell and then a gust of wind kicks up, knocking off my unsecured floppy hat.
Instinctively, I quickly reached up to capture it, with the hand which held my hammer.
Ow!
It was time to box up and go home.
@wendell does this inspire you to draw another cartoon?
I love true stories from the surveying world.
I once worked for a rather grumpy PC.?ÿ There were four of us on the crew and we gave him all the deserved hell we could.?ÿ?ÿ
One day we were in the van preparing to start our day of pinning lots in a new addition.?ÿ Ol' Grumpy was being his nasty self and had just chewed us all out for moving his plans and FB out of his reach.?ÿ We were explicitly told to NEVER TOUCH HIS STUFF AGAIN.?ÿ About that time one of the guys that been outside freshening up a control point opened the side door of the van and it was a particularly windy day...
Suddenly the copy of the plat from which we were working left the PC's lap and took off across the barren landscape like a scalded dog.?ÿ The PC looked at all of us like somebody was going to run and grab it.?ÿ Almost instantly we all remembered his angry reply about 'never touching his stuff again'...nobody moved.?ÿ He looked directly at me and I instantly replied "not on your life".
We all got a good laugh at ol' fatso chasing down a plat in a thirty mile an hour wind.?ÿ If it hadn't have gotten caught on a fence he'd still be chasing that thing.?ÿ He was grumpy all day long.?ÿ But at least this day he had a reason to be. 😉
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I've done the same thing trying to slap a deer fly on my head. More than once. It hurts. Slow learner I guess.
I once worked for a rather grumpy PC.?ÿ There were four of us on the crew and we gave him all the deserved hell we could.?ÿ?ÿ
One day we were in the van preparing to start our day of pinning lots in a new addition.?ÿ Ol' Grumpy was being his nasty self and had just chewed us all out for moving his plans and FB out of his reach.?ÿ We were explicitly told to NEVER TOUCH HIS STUFF AGAIN.?ÿ About that time one of the guys that been outside freshening up a control point opened the side door of the van and it was a particularly windy day...
Suddenly the copy of the plat from which we were working left the PC's lap and took off across the barren landscape like a scalded dog.?ÿ The PC looked at all of us like somebody was going to run and grab it.?ÿ Almost instantly we all remembered his angry reply about 'never touching his stuff again'...nobody moved.?ÿ He looked directly at me and I instantly replied "not on your life".
We all got a good laugh at ol' fatso chasing down a plat in a thirty mile an hour wind.?ÿ If it hadn't have gotten caught on a fence he'd still be chasing that thing.?ÿ He was grumpy all day long.?ÿ But at least this day he had a reason to be. 😉
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How dare you move his FaceBook beyond his reach, that's just playing dirty for certain!?ÿ ;)?ÿ?ÿ
Foolish basketball coach during my Freshman season became frustrated one day in practice and told me he never wanted to see me dribble again.?ÿ Several of my buddies overheard this comment.?ÿ A few minutes later, he had us line up along the half court line, then he would throw the ball to one of us and challenge us to get into a spot where we could shoot a basket despite him guarding us ferociously.?ÿ One on one.?ÿ Did I mention he played college ball just a few years earlier??ÿ When he tossed the ball to me I launched a shot from right there at half court.?ÿ He went a bit berzerk and asked why the Hell I had done that.?ÿ I reminded him of his statement from a few minutes earlier as my buddies all laughed their heads off.
I launched a shot from right there at half court.?ÿ
Did it go in?
When I was in H.S. our BB team in the district championship was behind one basket and the crowd counted down as the clock was running out. Our team got the ball and headed down court. The guy with the ball threw from the center line and made the shot as the clock ran out, throwing it into overtime, and they won to go on to state where they lost.?ÿ Most exciting game I ever saw.?ÿ
Nowadays I don't follow sports - only if I know the players well enough they would recognize me.
That reminds me of a story my brother told about something that happened in the 1970's after I left home.?ÿ They were watching a college or pro basketball game and some of the players were missing freethrows.?ÿ Dad commented that he couldn't understand how somebody playing at that level could miss.?ÿ My brother ans sister told him it wasn't that easy, but he insisted. Dad hadn't played basketball since 8th grade in 1934, if even then.?ÿ So after the game they went out to the hoop on the barn and Dad warmed up.?ÿ From approximately the right distance he then made 10 of 10.?ÿ He had incredible hand-eye coordination, estimating, and other skills that I did not inherit.
One of the first surveys that I worked on I was the rodman and in the process of getting shots on fence corners had removed the prism from the pole so I could hold it over the center of the fence corner. Went to step over a low fence line next to a t-post that had an upside down coffee can on it. What I didn't know was that coffee can had a yellow jacket nest in it and they weren't happy about my decision to cross the fence next to their nest. One of those yellow jackets landed on my ear and without a thought I took a swipe and managed to bring a prism right into my temple area. Think the sting on the ear would have been less painful!
A few days ago I was tying some row monuments next to a hogwire/barbed wire fence.?ÿ Another crew had flagged one up but I was having a hell of a time spotting it.?ÿ I was leaning left and right to try to see around a fence post and some weeds when I leaned forward too much and poked my forehead on one of the barbs.?ÿ It wasn't very deep actually but I felt something warm on my skin so I put a hand up to test the damage and...?ÿ fingers were immediately covered in blood, it was dripping all over my glasses, and the wind was blowing the blood across my eyebrow where it ran into my eyes and down my nose.?ÿ Of course I parked several hundred feet from the monument ???? so I had to walk like a hunchback to keep the wind from ruining my clothes.?ÿ When I got there I looked in the mirror it looked like someone was getting murdered.
The company gave all of us a zombie survival kit for the trucks a couple weeks ago and it actually came in really handy here.?ÿ Still a ridiculous situation though...
@bstrand?ÿ
Just wait until your physician puts you on various medications including a couple that thin your blood a bit.?ÿ As my dad used to say, "You're bleeding like a stuck hog, boy."
Fell down a landslide while marking line and the machete came tumbling after. 10 minute hike from the truck. Luckily just a little blood not a gusher????
@jed I had a young guy working for me that had a limb fall from a tree he was in the process of cutting down. It hit him in the head, nocking off his hardhat and left a gash just about like that in his head. We put a little spit on it and finished the day. When he got back to town. Once his wife (a nurse) looked it she immediately took him for stitches. She didn't care for me much after that.
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The previous week I had smashed (popped it like a grape) my index finger between the hammer and a chisel, punching a hole in asphalt, and really could not use my hand. The boss had asked that I show up for work anyway and "guide the newbie" in what he needed to do. At the time he was supposed to be brushing into a corner. Being the newbie he was standing way back and just flailing at it. I told him to give me the machete and I would show him how to do it the right way. So using my left hand ( I swing with my right) I took a big swing which missed the offending limb and promptly split my knee open. The newbie never came back to work.
Something else we shouldn't do, in the wind.
Jerry Jeff will explain:
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Never make the same mistake twice; or at least try to avoid it...
I was banging a stake on a construction project with an audience of project managers and workers. The hammer handle broke on the upswing and the hammer flew up and hit me in the head. I was wearing my hard hat, so no damage, but a lot of laughs.
Historic boundaries and conservation efforts.
With my luck the hammer would be fine but somewhere in the middle of all this, with that crowd observing, I would release enough gas from the lower orifice to rattle windows and melt plastic.