Mama said there'd be days like this there'd be days like this my mama said

It rained over an inch last night, and a big bunch of the plumbing didn't get filled with water. It floated, and drug up the oil water separator with it.

Pictures of the carnage?

Your floating tank stories scare me. I just dropped a 115v 3” Grundfoss in my well temporarily, so I can fill my septic tank soon as I cover it.

Back when we built this house that's what a friend of ours who was a plumber made sure we did. Said he saw more than one concrete tank float up after a heavy rain storm!

Setting records for rain and cold in May and so far in June. Mother Nature seems to beating us up some.

I was too pizzed to take a picture. Plumber knew he screwed up, and this is the second floating event in as many years. I contemplated walking away, except I have that rotek bearing to install and 3 jobs that are starting all at the same time and I'm not really that guy.

Last Tuesday night into Wednesday we received 6" of rain on one site. That's a lot even for us down in the southeast. There were at least 40 water rescues from flood waters in the area.

today made up for yesterday. I left yesterday as it started to pour again, and we had a plan to come back and finish it off. The site contractor crew was happy and good to work with. We bedded the pipe in with some class A sandy pit run with few rocks to look out for, I eyeball graded it pretty close while they used my excess to backfill the elevator core that had just been waterproofed. It is nice to do an excavator dance with competent folks with hardly a word. They had a JD 410 TLB for a hoe pack, and that is awkward in the tight spots so I let him use my 35 where it made sense. We got almost everything backfilled but for the want of a riser for the oil water separator. They will just fill that in with cap break. They are telebelting that in Monday and I will run for that riser and then demob off the site.

What's rain?

Jobsite coordination? What's that? There is a job getting inspected today and I was informed they needed me to backfill it on Saturday. I said call me when you get inspection. He pre-calls me and says it will be noon. I say "call me when you get inspection and I will mobilize and be there in ~2 hours" I get the call at 105 PM After loading a 1.5 yard Gar-Bro bucket with pea, I clean the machine, load up and get into Seattle traffic. The interstate is bad so I roll highway 99 all the way, countless lights but still faster. Get in and out of the pit with another 11.5 tons of pea for this urgent job. I got there at 330. Not bad considering Friday traffic. I am greeted by a concrete pump truck sitting in the only access and 4 mixers plugging up everything. Jobsite coordination? Some bad words were uttered, then I unloaded the mini and hoe pack and left.

You need the Black & Decker Mind Reader.

I needed the plumber to take one look at that show and tell me to park it till Saturday. Today did not go swell either. We have a 9 am start for noise. It was 10 before they cleared everything out of the way and I could get started. Then we discovered that they had made a grade bust at a step down in the building and they had to cut that out and re-do it. The bright side? It's so tight back there that once they cut it out of my way I could get some things done

Keep us updated.

Same plumber that messed up and caused the oil water separator to float? He probably got some of Dogsh@t Dave’s sweet Floridian export totally awesomely, neon blue, crystal meth made with genuine radioactive celcium 137 from Hanford. Has the plumber been spending extra time in the blue room?

it was a collaboration. He had delegated some of the work to another guy and he apparently did not process the information on the grade change. Imagine a building with a 1.5' step down. It has a couple of ramps on either side of a bathroom group. The plumbing for that group is on a branch line in the lower level and the fixtures are on the upper level. Like I said I am taking full advantage of that plumbing being out of my way.

The new guy I hired to cover for our vacation drug up today. That got me a little excited, and I called the hall and luckily they had a candidate. I'll get Monday ~Wednesday to get him up to speed before we leave.

Next New Guy, early August hire. This is what we call the bottom of the barrel. I was hoping for a little more, he talked a good line, but the reality is..........harsh. I watched him do a few things and it was slow but controlled. Then we lifted the mini into some really precarious stuff, and I did what I thought was the worst of it, hanging 10 on a steep slick slope between some mass footings and a wall pour. I started tearing the spine of dirt off and backfilling against the wall to make it passable on the way up, showed him what was up, then went to get water for compaction. I got the hose and climbed a ladder and find my new mini inches away from bashing the cab on the wall. He kept tracking into trouble and I said " just chill I'll be up". He had that look of terror on his face of a guy out of his depth. Later he said it was good he did not get fired on his first day. It was trivial for me to get away from the wall, and I finished up the footing drain dig and backfill operation. We landed the mini straddling that cut to the left and half on the spine and half on the footing. I clawed it down, dug the footing drain and made it driveable on the way up, then went back down and hoe packed the loose. He is going to the big job tomorrow without me. They can decide if they want to roll the dice again, I am leaving Wednesday!!

The aggravations seem to get worse the closer to a vacation that you get. Enjoy your time away!

Last flight of the mini today. I took the Crosby shackles off the boom pick points and had a stray thought. Bumblebees are not supposed to be able to fly, according to aerodynamics and size. My mini can fly when I put the Crosby bumblebee wings on it When I found the new guy in over his head, I was looking over that lower set of bar on the left from a 16' extension ladder from down below. He was up against that high wall. I had done the really sketchy part already.