construction stories. the good and the bad

Im cautious who i sub work to, so i dont get a bad name because crackheads are sleeping on your lawn... If i got the call that was going down on my job id call the cops and send some real guys... Never would happen though like i say im careful who i sub to.

Oh and hey its been a while. I havent really seen you around since we both joined around the same time. Whats up man? Hows life treating you?

The first high-rise I worked on was 50 stories tall. Many mornings going to the top only to be fogged in. One morning before they had put the facade on the outside of the building we took a gander over the edge on the 50th floor. Here we are holding on to a beam looking over the edge. I don't like heights at all and even now as I type my hands start sweating.

Speaking of heights, I had to install some speakers at a football stadium. The customer just had to have them installed on the field lights. We rented a 120' boom lift. The light tower was 100' tall. If you have never operated or rode in a large boom lift like this there is nothing else like it. The boom arm on these things are heavier than the turret that supports them. The only way to extend them to 100'+ is to have the boom arm perpendicular to the turret. Otherwise the thing will tip over. Once in the basket on the light pole the constant sway is to say the least nerve racking. The guy working with me had no problems. Me on other hand, I was gripping the whole time.

CoCoSativas said:

Oh and hey its been a while. I havent really seen you around since we both joined around the same time. Whats up man? Hows life treating you?

Click to expand...

Thanks for asking - life is hitting me hard in past 24 or so. Mum has revealed she's full of cancer, it's in pretty much every major organ except brain (that we know of) & is telling us she wants no major efforts to stem/eradicate it.

My stepdad passed end of last year - he too wanted no treatment, so we watched him die over almost a week from no water/food. Hospital kept him highly drugged & he went slowly, but on his terms. Mum wants same.

Rest of life is actually pretty good - great kids & Mrs. - and I just ordered some grade A herb thru mail order (no connections for a few years & Mrs is against growing while kids at home/minors). Should be HIGH by Tuesday next. It's been a month or so since I hit any.

Following your CO2 thread is interesting - the ones chiming in with neg comments piss me off, but fuck 'em.

Be well

OranguTrump said:

Thanks for asking - life is hitting me hard in past 24 or so. Mum has revealed she's full of cancer, it's in pretty much every major organ except brain (that we know of) & is telling us she wants no major efforts to stem/eradicate it.

My stepdad passed end of last year - he too wanted no treatment, so we watched him die over almost a week from no water/food. Hospital kept him highly drugged & he went slowly, but on his terms. Mum wants same.

Rest of life is actually pretty good - great kids & Mrs. - and I just ordered some grade A herb thru mail order (no connections for a few years & Mrs is against growing while kids at home/minors). Should be HIGH by Tuesday next. It's been a month or so since I hit any.

Following your CO2 thread is interesting - the ones chiming in with neg comments piss me off, but fuck 'em.

Be well

Click to expand...

That thread is over Pretty much. Im exhausting my rooms air, and no longer running the bio2.

Once i get a led going im going to start adding co2 from the bucket again. Or i might look into bottles but im going to try to do a neat and pretty original grow. Organic coco grow, led lights, co2, it should be cool.

Sorry to hear about your parents man. Thats rough.

Also the no growing situation... Thats harsh. Maybe if you live in a warm enough place try a outdoor guerrilla grow. Autos would be real handy in that scenario

So I recently hired one of my guys kids. They are both chain smokers to the max. I smoke a few packs of smokes a week. Thes guys smoke a carton between 2 of them in 2 days.

Anyway, sr says to jr yesterday, "son your smoke is out". Im like wtf? So jr lights another one. Im like "are you guys ok"? Like really do you tell eachother when you dont notice you dont have a smoke going so you can light up?
So then sr walked around for 20 minutes just smoking. Im like what are you doing? He says smoking... dude ur 46 get to work and stop smoking so much. You are almost twice my age why am I telling you this.

Man his truck just stinks man. Mine smells like weed, his like old smoke butts and sweat.

Im buying a new dodge diesel soon and giving mine to one of the guys who works for me to use. Ive been training him for the past year and im going to get him going on his own. Hes a year older than me ive known him a long time. We wernt friends growing up but went to the same high school. I sold alot of weed back then and he bought off me a few times. He grows too, another grower I know hooked us up again and he needed some work and I needed cheaper labourers. Hes the only guy on the team who knows I grow.

Power washed a asphalt roof today. I took a eazy job for the day for cash and left my guys to kick ass on a basement development. Did they ever kick ass today.
Anyway i am fucking crispy. I got a hell of a sunburn.

So im washing away, smoking a 3 paper joint (like the 6 papers ricky does) and this sexy couger comes out to watch. Shes probably twice my age but i dont mind lol. So i toss this thing behind this smokestack, she comes right over and grabs it. I was a little worried until she picked it up and hauled it to relite it. She was bored and figured the sound of a machine on the roof meant theres a man up there to chat up. Yeah i like to talk so i made her day until i said im married.

Too bad lady. I would have gone and put on a show if i was single but im not. There was a few of those though back in the day before i got married. I used to hook up with all sorts of women i met on sites. Clients, passerbys i chatted up for a number, i even nailed one of the site clean up girs, some mexican girl called rosie i think.

I got a 1100 ft/lbs cordless makita hammer drill today. For a cordless, its nuts. Mine quit yesterday so i needed a new one. I got that one and a cordless Milwaukee sds. Its lightweight and killer. Ive been looking at hilti gear a while but they want 1500 for a rotary hammer that has extraction. No thanks i dont drill enough concrete. I do put up alot of signs and chain link fence but not enough to spend 1500. Maybe get their 400 dollar hammer drill next time.

Lol"you got a big enough joint there Rick?lol way too many stories to name just one.but one in particular we were doing a roofing job and for some reason the owner flipped out for no. reason.crazy writer lady.anyway she steals all our ladders, air compressors,the whole nine yards.never did get it back.crazy bitch

CoCoSativas said:

Clients, passerbys i chatted up for a number, i even nailed one of the site clean up girs, some mexican girl called rosie i think.

I got a 1100 ft/lbs cordless makita hammer drill today. For a cordless, its nuts. Mine quit yesterday so i needed a new one. I got that one and a cordless Milwaukee sds. Its lightweight and killer. Ive been looking at hilti gear a while but they want 1500 for a rotary hammer that has extraction. No thanks i dont drill enough concrete. I do put up alot of signs and chain link fence but not enough to spend 1500. Maybe get their 400 dollar hammer drill next time.

Click to expand...

I think all the cleaning ladies are named Rosie.

You might look into a Bosch hammer drill. I have a corded one I have been using since 2000. Have not had one problem with it. It takes SDS bits also.

Besides, having your tools stolen, the one thing that seems to always start a fight, is a radio. One day a co-worker and I were trying to test some nurse call system at a hospital that was being built. My co-worker at the time was about 6'5" and 230lbs. Not really someone to jack with. So this other worker with another trade starts blasting the radio while we are trying to test. Very difficult to test audio equipment with other audio signals interfering. So he asks the guy twice to turn the radio down. Twice he turns it down then blasts it again. So, my co-worker had enough. He goes over unplugs the radio and cuts the cord right at the radio. The other tradesman comes out wanting to know who messed with his radio. There's my buddy holding his cord. This other guy is pissed and starts going off on my co-worker. Next thing I know my buddy has this guy lifted off the ground by his throat and up against the wall. I intervened and saved the other guys life. Most jobsites now days ban radios for this very reason.

My next story will be why it is necessary to have rails around a scissor lift platform.

Haha!oh boy!don't even get me started with radio fights!lol

shithawk420 said:

Lol"you got a big enough joint there Rick?lol way too many stories to name just one.but one in particular we were doing a roofing job and for some reason the owner flipped out for no. reason.crazy writer lady.anyway she steals all our ladders, air compressors,the whole nine yards.never did get it back.crazy bitch

Click to expand...

Stunned ****. You wouldnt pull that on me or id loose it and pull a crazy ass stunt... Want me to strategically cut out some joists in your floor? I dont think so. Im a real miserable fuck.

Yeah im a huge trailer park boys fan. Ive been rolling multi paper joints since they aired that shit back when i was in school... I watch the show pretty much every day, over nd over. Its probably a bit much but it never gets old for me...

Skinny Leaf said:

I think all the cleaning ladies are named Rosie.

You might look into a Bosch hammer drill. I have a corded one I have been using since 2000. Have not had one problem with it. It takes SDS bits also.

Besides, having your tools stolen, the one thing that seems to always start a fight, is a radio. One day a co-worker and I were trying to test some nurse call system at a hospital that was being built. My co-worker at the time was about 6'5" and 230lbs. Not really someone to jack with. So this other worker with another trade starts blasting the radio while we are trying to test. Very difficult to test audio equipment with other audio signals interfering. So he asks the guy twice to turn the radio down. Twice he turns it down then blasts it again. So, my co-worker had enough. He goes over unplugs the radio and cuts the cord right at the radio. The other tradesman comes out wanting to know who messed with his radio. There's my buddy holding his cord. This other guy is pissed and starts going off on my co-worker. Next thing I know my buddy has this guy lifted off the ground by his throat and up against the wall. I intervened and saved the other guys life. Most jobsites now days ban radios for this very reason.

My next story will be why it is necessary to have rails around a scissor lift platform.

Click to expand...

Yeah i messed up, the Milwaukee is corded, makita is cordless... The bosch is nice but the new toys should keep me goin a while. The makita has a traditional chuck, the mil is a sds combihammer.

I dont allow radios on site. I smashed the last one with my sledge. I dont tell my guys turn that shit off twice. If you dont listen you can get a broom and sweep your fucking shit off the floor...

Ah lifts. Weve pulled some funny shit on a articulated 46'... My deaf employee dropped a sawzall from full extension. Pop that bitch was toast.

Yeah ialmost forgot, all those mexican site cleanup girls are called rose, rosie or some other shit like that...

Forgot to mention until i saw someone who posted here already, i saw someone spraying high velocity lacquer today, no mask. Guess who it was, same no mask hero who sprayed the oil primer with no mask.

Fucking DIRTY!!! Glad im not that crazy, i dont want white lungs man

Skinny Leaf said:

The first high-rise I worked on was 50 stories tall. Many mornings going to the top only to be fogged in. One morning before they had put the facade on the outside of the building we took a gander over the edge on the 50th floor. Here we are holding on to a beam looking over the edge. I don't like heights at all and even now as I type my hands start sweating.

Speaking of heights, I had to install some speakers at a football stadium. The customer just had to have them installed on the field lights. We rented a 120' boom lift. The light tower was 100' tall. If you have never operated or rode in a large boom lift like this there is nothing else like it. The boom arm on these things are heavier than the turret that supports them. The only way to extend them to 100'+ is to have the boom arm perpendicular to the turret. Otherwise the thing will tip over. Once in the basket on the light pole the constant sway is to say the least nerve racking. The guy working with me had no problems. Me on other hand, I was gripping the whole time.

Click to expand...

There was one under-equipped company i spent a few weeks with back in the day, that was renovating a 5-story stucco apartment building with a mansard overhang at the top. The pump-jack scaffolding they used for the walls didn't extend out far enough to roof that mansard, and they didn't have an extension ladder that would reach that high… So they hung the skinniest helper by his ankles over the edge of the roof to do that part of the job! no ropes, just one guy on each ankle. thank god i was a big Entenmann's fan back then!

Ive never learned any construction skill, i'd like to and i'm sure I will with time. Some people learn because their father used to do it. right now I'm more concentrated on my pencil pushing people relations job. Save up some money and maybe if one day I own a place I might try myself on renovations. I've thought for a while how I think construction skills can be valuable and it just seemed like an uknown world to me,

It seems like a gratifying job if you can pull some nice work and be proud of it and if you can make good money on top of that too. But also to be able to do the work for yourself.

I've seen a show, I think it was called catching a contractor. There's a lot that can be said on the subject.

Cheers I enjoyed the stories

I guess I'll start when I was 15 and we were roofing my aunts barn. Her son my cousin was a real lazy fuck would never do no work and general burn out all around. So that day he is helping us roof the barn and we had 2x4's tacked in to walk across as we worked our way up because it was too steep to stand so I carry up a load of shingle and step off the ladder onto the 2x4 and my dumb ass cousin had put one nail in it right in the middle... down I went. lol... 6'1 250 down the drain lol... still feel that one! Landed flat on my back, saw a flash of light and couldnt walk for about 2-3 weeks lol...

CoCoSativas said:

Thats really sad to hear about the worksite deaths man. Thats a real buzzkill...

Yeah I dont do roofing. I hate heigts, thats one of the few construction things I dont do. Scaffolding.. No fucking way.

Highest I go on a ladder is 24 feet. I dont go up 40 footers. I get vertigo from heights. I would likely fall to my death.

Click to expand...

Used to love bein the guy they told to carry the twenty footer up the 40 footer... not.

I fucking hate roofing.families been doing it 40 years now.crazy stories I could tell you guys.but one of my favorite memories is smoking a joint with my dad on the roof.

So... one day I'm out doing a round of pick ups of granite slabs to take back to the shop for fabrication. I pull up to the slab store, they load me up with 8 10'x9' slabs of some red shit called Iron Ore Red each slab was worth like 6 grand. I get loaded up and my buddy who was my helper at the time was in the bathroom and comes out running towards the flatbed. I didn't get what he was going to do at first, but then it hits me and I see him accelerate, "He's about to jump" I tell myself... let me back up and give you some quick background on this guy, anything where there is a minute chance at getting hurt, this is guy that gets hurt... so back to the story. He comes barreling towards the truck and leaps trying to jump on to the back of the bed, well he makes it, but overshoots and slams face first in to the sharp side of the slab, splits his cheek wide open. So we clean him up and get him bandaged and super glued up pretty well, enough to stop the bleeding. We hit the road finally and are on the way to the job site. Because of all the weight and value of the slabs I am driving 5-10 under the speed limit the whole way, as I approach one of the biggest intersections in the city as far as traffic is concerned an ambulance sitting at the red light of the other side of the intersection flicks on his sirens and doesn't perform a intersection check, he just books it as fast as he can. As you can visualize at this point, traffic on my side of the intersection is moving at 45-50mph in what is a 6 lane moving intersection with 10 lanes total including right and left turn lanes. So the ambulance comes shooting in to the intersection causing a lock up, luckily nobody gets in to an accident but people are sideways and in mid intersection... I see the mayhem and apply my brakes as slowly but steadily as I can but my truck begins to skip because of the weight of the slabs. I come skidding in to the intersection on the far right trying to avoid hitting anyone in my lane headings, but just my luck on that day, the ambulance was right there as I was skidding and it t-bones me, snapping all of my slabs in half (almost $49,000 worth of slabs), but that isn't the worst of it. The ambulance was found at fault and come to find out at trial they were carrying a patient who was ok at one point, but flatlined the next moment unexpectedly, and they lost them in the ambulance because of the accident.

Holy fuck.you win sir syzurp.I don't think I can top that.that is fucked!!

prune said:

There was one under-equipped company i spent a few weeks with back in the day, that was renovating a 5-story stucco apartment building with a mansard overhang at the top. The pump-jack scaffolding they used for the walls didn't extend out far enough to roof that mansard, and they didn't have an extension ladder that would reach that high… So they hung the skinniest helper by his ankles over the edge of the roof to do that part of the job! no ropes, just one guy on each ankle. thank god i was a big Entenmann's fan back then!

Click to expand...

Poor skinny bastard. Im glad i own the company so no one could tell me to do that shit.

Thats hillarious tho id be taking a shitload of pics