Weird day... W-E-I-R-D... D-A-Y...

Most of this is in the Town of Blacksburg, VA. Home of Virginia Tech.

First weird thing... in the same day I'm dealing with two different clients named Bruce (first name, not last). Just odd.

Then, after I drop off the survey sketch to the first Bruce, I swing by the house and lot of the 2nd Bruce, and it's not quite like I had pictured via aerial on the GIS... It's much steeper and grown over than I had expected. Well, I get my recon sheet out and put my belt on and Schonney and shovel, and I start waving it around. ZING, there's my first corner, a nice iron rod with flagging. I pace out my 94' along the street R/W to the next one, and I pace right inbetween 2 water meters. I take one step back, wave my buzz box, and ZING, there's my second rebar. Then, I start looking at my recon sheet vs. what I see on the ground and it looks about right, but that fence on my lot sure looks like it's about 300' from the street... my lot is only 162' long on this side... Well, I pace down 108' looking for a departing lot line monument. Nothing, nada... it's a mess of briars and limbs and craap and I may not even be on the right angle. So, I pace down 53' more feet and cut around a little bit, and I'm still up against this 6' high stockade fence. Now, I'm starting to think I'm crazy or I fouled up my pacing something awful. Anyway, I trudge on down to the end of the fence and there's no flagging or anything, so I give up there. I head on back to the vehicle to snag a drink of water thinking that I'm going to go down the other side of the lot and find some stuff before I pull out the robot. For some reason, I take a look at my recon sheet (another surveyors loan plat) and the address... **EMBARRASSED** I'M ON THE WRONG LOT... and not next door, I'm on the other side of the street at the wrong end of the street. I got my intersecting streets wrong and didn't look at the address when I pulled up **HOMER SIMPSON "D'OH"**

OK, so I get out of there as soon as possible, I didn't even pull up my pin flags.

So, I drive down TO THE CORRECT LOT, and what do I see...

Somebody has been out on the lot already. So, I call my client, who actually lives 4+ hours away, and ask him if he had already gotten his staking done. He's as befuzzled as me. He's says "I talked to another group, but I didn't like their answers, you were straight up with me and sent me a PDF of the lot from the courthouse, I did not tell them to go ahead". He sounded genuinely frustrated. Well, I said "somebody has already done this". So, I walked around the lot, took a couple of pics and emailed them to the guy. Hopefully, he'll call back and have me verify the plat/lot, but it won't kill me if he doesn't. I have a feeling with VT being a big Engineering school, that maybe a CE student did the field work, but I actually think that my client had no idea that this had happened. He mentioned something about his son, and that's what makes me think that there's something else going on.

Then, as I was at the vehicle, taking off my belt and such to leave, a local lawyer that I'm dealing with on a different project thinks that I have an acreage listed wrong on a small parcel to be traded... and when I get back to the office, I ssee that he's right. I don't usually get phone calls like that from others, they just go on their way with it. Said lawyer even sent me his preliminary copy of his deed for me to look over, and I had a couple of edits, but again.... THAT'S JUST WEIRD!!!

I'm back at the office, but now afraid to leave for anywhere... because I have no idea what might happen.

Carl

But truly, today was one for the books... and that was just the morning.