The stress of juggling multiple projects simultaneously during the busy summer and fall season. As soon as one has been completed I need to hit the ground running on the next or fall behind schedule. If I go down I take down a half dozen construction crews and engineers with me. If something gets missed or flubbed, the first finger is usually pointed my way. Being the sick bustard that I am, I love the challenge, but I get tired sometimes. It use to cost me sleep, but no more. I've learned to just roll with it.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Hah! The oracle of Altamonte Springs knows about old stuff because he's even older than I am.
Ahhh shaddup, all that damn methane you exhaust is screwing up Mother Nature, so there! 😉
Snakes are way down the list of things that cause me nightmares. It is usually a car running over me and or my crews. This is a much greater concern in my location. The worst nightmare that I had in a long time was I dreamed that I married my first wife again. I woke up screaming.
lmbrls, post: 384365, member: 6823 wrote: Snakes are way down the list of things that cause me nightmares. It is usually a car running over me and or my crews. This is a much greater concern in my location. The worst nightmare that I had in a long time was I dreamed that I married my first wife again. I woke up screaming.
ditto. few years back i was taking the literal last shot of a solid day's worth of topo- a flow line shot on a CMP that was about four feet from the EOP on an interstate service road, right where an exit ramp merged. concentrating on the DC and i hear the sound of rubber breaking loose on asphalt. turn around and the back end of a honda civic goes by my hip maybe 18" away, about 70 mph. he'd come off the interstate too hot, overcorrected (which he was in the middle of going by me), bounced off the guardrail on the other side of the feeder road, came back across and plowed into the guardrail about a hundred feet past me. most amazing thing was the dozen or so cars behind him who all somehow managed to snake through without so much as a one of them locking up their brakes.
about 15 years ago was shooting in CL on an FM road (that's- in most cases- an undivided two lane highway for all the non-texans) where a new road was going to cross. very low traffic, mid-day (no glare issues, in other words). had cones set up for a couple hundred feet in either direction, wearing enough safety gear to marshall a chinese new year parade. saw the subaru coming my way, did the usual cease work/wave and acknowledge/make presence known. old guy in the subaru veers out of his lane, into the cones, and is plowing them down like a harvester with no indication that he's gonna stop. about the time my adrenaline started getting unbearable he finally jumped on his brakes, stopped maybe 10 yards shy of me. his wife was in the passenger seat, clearly upset. she sticks her head out the window and yells at me because her husband has a heart condition and i didn't do anything to ease it.
i'll take snakes and spiders and virtually anything else nature can toss my way (horses and hogs are the worst of the animal kingdom, as far as i'm concerned). it's the man-made stuff that gives me the most heartburn.
flyin solo, post: 384372, member: 8089 wrote: she sticks her head out the window and yells at me because her husband has a heart condition and i didn't do anything to ease it.
WOW! Love this kind of woman!! ALL the world is from THEIR perspective.... Thanks for sharing!
I am laughing... nervous laughter!!
We stopped working in traffic during daytime hours after our "crash" truck got hit. We then started closing the whole road down at night. After about the 20th car blew the barricades, we made the choice to not take any more jobs that required being on the pavement for more than an occasional center line shot. Some people are just too stupid. I don't mind horses, I perfer a horse to an ATV, but hogs, ugh, hate them, shoot them if the landowner doesn't mind. Same with skunks! I have a strong dislike of skunks moving in the daytime!
Monte, post: 384378, member: 11913 wrote: I have a strong dislike of skunks moving in the daytime!
Well, you could survey around my parts... but you'd have to stay away from Capitol Hill
Monte, post: 384378, member: 11913 wrote: I don't mind horses, I perfer a horse to an ATV, but hogs, ugh, hate them, shoot them if the landowner doesn't mind. Same with skunks! I have a strong dislike of skunks moving in the daytime!
i only mentioned horses on account of the time i was hunched over in a fenceline trying to fish an old pipe out of the mud. suddenly felt about like the time the electrician told me the master panel was off... horse clamped onto my collar bone and picked me up off the ground, then kept insisting that i stay REALLY cozy with the barbed wire fence. just glad they're vegetarians. don't think i've ever been bitten that hard- not even the pit bull that got me on the back of the arm that one time. i don't hate horses- i just hate curious horses, especially when i have things to get done.
James Fleming, post: 384379, member: 136 wrote: Well, you could survey around my parts... but you'd have to stay away from Capitol Hill
I got a brother that lives in that area, so I visited once. There's too many people in those parts!
Construction staking.
It was ok the first couple of times learning the techniques and short cuts but then dealing with the contractors, sun, noisy yellow machines shaking the ground and kicking up clouds of dust to
Inhale.
Don't mind clearing line except for green briar jungles and yaupon bushes
Ya better have a very sharp blade or it will whip your butt.
Yaupon is native to this area and the genus name is Ilex Vomitoria which is kind of appropriate if you have to
Whack at it.
Collecting from deadbeat clients...
Monte, post: 384277, member: 11913 wrote: Walking across a cotton field at 3pm on a 108F august day carrying the hammer, shovel, metal locator, gps/rod, lath and finding a covey of quail the hard way
You mean without a shotgun?
dmyhill, post: 384400, member: 1137 wrote: You mean without a shotgun
Yeah, no shotgun. The landowners lease out the quail hunting rights down here for mega bucks, and this poor ole surveyor don't make that much!
Starting to be more aware of the safety dangers of working solo as I continue to age (a young 46 now). Gonna bring along a younger helper that I can also mentor over time. Lemons. Lemonade.
flyin solo, post: 384381, member: 8089 wrote: i only mentioned horses on account of the time i was hunched over in a fenceline trying to fish an old pipe out of the mud. suddenly felt about like the time the electrician told me the master panel was off... horse clamped onto my collar bone and picked me up off the ground, then kept insisting that i stay REALLY cozy with the barbed wire fence. just glad they're vegetarians. don't think i've ever been bitten that hard- not even the pit bull that got me on the back of the arm that one time. i don't hate horses- i just hate curious horses, especially when i have things to get done.
I once was working on a crew staking a large diameter outfall sanitary sewer that paralleled a large creek. Access to and from the route was difficult and were stuck parking on the public road and packing our gear in and out. If we were lucky maybe only 300 yards, a few times it got a lot longer.
One afternoon I was walking across a pasture I had crossed a dozen times in the days before. I had a stiff-legged tripod on my shoulder and a K&E transit in a wooden box I was carrying by the leather strap. It was hot and I was happy the day was over.
I suddenly realized that my feet crunching the dead grass as I walked WERE NOT the only crunches I was hearing. I turned around and there was a 4000 pound Brahma bull walking slowly behind me...trying his best to sniff my butt like a cur dog.
I didn't even stop at the fence. With blood that felt like ice water in my veins I gingerly walked up the barb-wire like rungs on a vertical ladder. I hopped to the ground and turned to look at that beast. He just stared back and flicked his tail. He also gave me a big old bovine nod and shake of the head and slung snot on me.
He coulda killed me and I'd have never known it.
lmbrls, post: 384365, member: 6823 wrote: Snakes are way down the list of things that cause me nightmares. It is usually a car running over me and or my crews. This is a much greater concern in my location. The worst nightmare that I had in a long time was I dreamed that I married my first wife again. I woke up screaming.
You gotta read John Giles book!!!!!!!
Brad Ott, post: 384437, member: 197 wrote: Starting to be more aware of the safety dangers of working solo as I continue to age (a young 46 now). Gonna bring along a younger helper that I can also mentor over time. Lemons. Lemonade
I hope you got a better pick of the younger crowd in your local than around here. I find one good one for about every 7 poor ones. And in trying to keep from killing the bad ones some days, I feel like my blood pressure is gonna be the end of me, and I'm about your age!
I figured we all had the same least favorite....guess not.
Mine is...
"Excuse me! What are you doing on my property!"
Or
"What are you doing? Surveying? Which house? Well if your surveying the house down there, why are you over here?"
The worst days of the year.... presidents day.... mlk day... Columbus day... because I work on these days but all the pesky nosy neighbors are off from work!!!! Peaking out their windows!!
Nate The Surveyor, post: 384307, member: 291 wrote: Ticks, and Clients trying to get something for real cheap.
Cheap is better than wanting it for nothing! Bc some want that too!