Picture Post.

     I thought pictures might be fun, so buckle up, we are about to have too much fun.

  

This is mine and Day's home, after a snow storm. In keeping with the having fun theme, in our house, it is fun for Day to correct my grammar. The argument is how to say, this is mine and  Day's home. Is that correct, or is it correct to say, this is my and Day's home, which is what she thinks it ought to be. She also threw out, me and Day's home. Please help us solve this grammar mystery, keeping in mind, it is more fun when I am correct. 

After a heavy snow fall, it is difficult for the birds to find food, yes I enjoy feeding the birds. And, you should not neglect them either.

Now I mentioned having fun, so I thought I would add this picture. I sent this one to a friend after she sent me one of her standing in waste deep snow. This is fun in South Hadley,  at home.

Connor, one of the excavators, Smitty and Wild Bill digging out our footings.

That snow drift is about eight feet deep.

Again, six to eight feet deep.

This is fun, on the island at work. The last storm started Monday night and into Tuesday.  Obviously we did not work Tuesday and the island asked for limited personal on the island on Wednesday so they could clean up.  We came in on Thursday and began our clean up, the whole crew, the whole day shoveling snow. Snow storms are incredibly expensive and counter productive to construction projects, but all part of building in the winter. 

So after a day of shoveling, it is back to work. Big Jerry and Matty building walls.

As usual, the rebar looks good, and the work area is clean and neat, just the way I like it!

The rest of the crew, Smitty, Wild Bill, Feldy and Rod, stripping walls.

By the end of the day on Friday, the outside of the wall was all stripped and cleaned up, ready for the waterproofers to come in, and, ready for another 4"- 8" of snow on Sunday night. Really, another storm? 

"Look, it is a boat, a landing craft, no it is a bucket of bolts!"

     Getting concrete on the island is the challenge for us. The free ferries can only do it at high tide, plus or minus two hours, and cannot do it when there are westerly winds. The west winds means the waves are hitting the ferry beam to, making it difficult for the ferries to enter the harbor. Beam to means, they are hitting the side of the boat, and with the weight of the concrete,  the boat cannot maneuver quick enough to enter the small mouth of the harbor safely. We have another option, but it is costly, $10,000 a day, so we are always looking for other options.

     We found a landing craft as an option, a boat with a tailgate that drops down and the truck drives on and off. The benefit of the landing craft is it doesn't have the low tide issues, it can come at anytime. So, we met with the owner, who came out to look at the docks, and thought his boat would work. We then set up a time for him to bring the boat out and make sure it would tie up to the dock. The day he was to come out, the seas were rough, and both he and the island canceled. Before its first delivery, our boat was canceled, great. We rescheduled, got a visitor app for him, spoke to the dock master, and thought we were all set. On this island though, never presume everything is all set. The visitor app was for one week. With some more bad weather and a holiday in there, the week had run out by one day, and he was in route. So several phone calls and a little bit of construction worker charm, the ladies at the front desk pushed through an app pretty quickly for me, problem solved. Nope, the visitor app with a boat coming in, set off Homeland Security alarms, oops! So yes, I got called into their office to explain why I have a boat, coming into their harbor and neglected to tell them about it.  "I told the dock master, he knew," I said. Their reply was, it is my responsibility not the dock master's to inform them of boats coming into their harbor. Now how was I suppose to know. Well anyhow, more charm, and they allowed him to continue to come to the harbor,  but there are rules.

     They cannot leave the docks, no big deal, they weren't anyways, security must be present, ok, and they need to call security when they are outside the harbor by phone and radio, and they wanted his eta. Great, moving on. I call the boat captain and give him instructions and the appropriate phone number and channel to hail them on. The boat should be arriving between 10:30 and 11 o'clock. Security is calling me by 12, to find out where my boat is, I call the captain, and his new eta is 1 o'clock. He has GPS right, he should know what time he will be here, right? So at 1:45, I get a phone call from the dock master saying my barge is outside the harbor,  great, I call the captain to remind him he needs to call security, the number I gave him, ok he says and hangs up. Two seconds later, I get a phone call, "Plum island security,  this is captain so and so of boat 503 (the name of the boat) we are outside your harbor, " good grief, you called the wrong number, and he did not hail them on the radio. Can I do anymore to piss these people off, yes I can.

     This bucket of bolts is listing to the port side quite a bit (leaning) and he is struggling to make it in the mouth of the harbor, on a good day. I have twenty people from security, dock crew and the general contractor all watching this, shaking their heads. After finally tying off, Captain Crocodile Dundee informs us, he has no steering and he used a hand rudder to get here, and he has no electronics. That means no radar, no GPS and no radio! Needless to say, the dock master said, I don't think so Curly. Well, it was fun to watch, talk about, write about and I hope, fun to read about. Next post: snow, Smitty and Feldy.

What does a rear end, a starter, a hammer and a badge all have in common.

     Well, when you are Wild Bill, they are all broken. That's right Bill had a bad week.

     Apparently Bill's rear end in his car was broken, so Wednesday he decided he would go home early, leave his car with his father, who would start working on the car while Bill was at work. Bill on Thursday morning, borrows his father's car to come back down to the island, fills the gas tank in the morning, and the starter is no good. Now that is two cars and a day off of work.

     As far as the hammer, he thinks his hammer is fine, it is not. The hammer is way too big, and the handle is falling off. It is time to get a new, smaller hammer Bill, trust me.

     Lastly, Bill's badge is not scanning correctly for the security guards and asked him politely, to get a new badge, which we did.

     So I would like to say to Justine, hide all your breakables, Bill is on his way home.

99 yards, woohoo!

     It has been awhile, so to my loyal readers, I am sorry. The good news, there are many stories  to tell, first, some new additions to the crew.

     The first is Jerry Day. Every time Jerry sees my wife, he likes to tell her, if she had married him, her name would be Day Day. We call him Big Jerry, Jerry the Clown and a number of other things. I would like to say this, I started pouring concrete when I was 15, I have been doing this for thirty two years and have met a lot of concrete guys. Jerry Day is the best concrete guy I know. He is a master at his trade, whether it is floors or walls, he can do it all and do it great. I am happy he is part of our crew. Jerry showed up last Wednesday. Next is Smitty, who came last Friday. Smitty has been part of this company longer than me and still one of the hardest workers I know. And then there is Feldy, also showed up last Friday. Feldy is one of our newest foreman, hard worker, smart and damn handsome. So we are now a family of eight.

     The next big story, 99 yards of concrete this week. That's right, the tides were good and the winds and weather were good. Monday being a holiday, there were no freight ferries, so we poured 22 on Tuesday, 11 on Wednesday, 33 on Thursday and 33 on Friday. So a good week for PVCS. It didn't look like it was off to a good start on Monday though.

     Like I said, Monday was Martin Luther King Day, so most of the island had the day off, including quite a bit of the security. Well nobody said anything to us, and we showed up on Monday morning after an hour and a half drive, and we were almost sent home. Apparently there was not enough security to baby sit us. Well the general contractor made some phone calls and got us on the boat. Which upset some of the security because they now had to do extra work. Also, PVCS hired a safety consultant to visit our job sites and advise, well he had his visitor app. in, but because of the holiday, the person who signs in visitors was off, and Skip got sent home. Sorry Skip. We made it to the island safe and sound, and began our day. Now, I like to plan ahead, work smart not hard. By Friday, my whole week was planned out, however, the engineer was not on board with this.

     My plan, Monday finish getting my wall ready for a Tuesday pour. Monday and Tuesday, get footings ready for a Wednesday pour. Tuesday and Wednesday get more footings ready for a Thursday pour, and so on. Monday at about 9 am though, I find out my wall that I should be pouring on Tuesday is not correct, not our fault, the drawings are wrong. So now I cannot pour my wall on Tuesday and have nothing else ready to go. If tides, wind, weather and the ferries allow, I need to get concrete on this island though. As usual, my crew did a great job, and we got our Wednesday footing pour, ready for a Tuesday pour. And all week we played catch up, and fixed the issues with my wall and poured that on Thursday. I have more stories, but I think I will post this, and leave those for my next few posts. The next one may be about Wild Bill, his car and his damn hammer.

 

Harder than we anticipated?

     Our last pour was last Tuesday, and our next anticipated pour should have been that Friday  or the following Monday.  So, what has happened since then? We poured last Tuesday and started prepping for our next pour on Wednesday. Thursday's temperature, -4 degrees and the winds were blowing about 25 mph. I am not sure what the wind chill factor was, but it was freakin cold. We did manage to stick it out all day though. But, when it is that cold, it is difficult  to get much done. Jobs don't stop though, and you do what you can to be productive. When your job is outside, you work in the cold, in the rain and in the heat, that is just how it is. But, when you work on an island, you don't work when the seas are rough.

     Thursday  night I drove home to keep an appointment, up at 3:30 am, called to make sure the ferries were running, and headed of to work. By the time I got to the ferry an hour and a half later, they were canceled. I must admit, when you are in a hotel all week, having Friday off, is not that bad, but it doesn'the help the job much.

     No work on Friday, now means our Monday  pour gets pushed to Tuesday. Tuesday was not the best day, the tides meant a truck on the 2 pm ferry and the 3 pm ferry. The 3 pm would get to the island by 3:30, start pouring about 3:45, and he would probably miss the 4:30 ferry. My thought was, big deal, so he gets on the 6 pm ferry, and I get yelled at by the concrete company. Well come to find out, the 6 pm ferry is not big enough to take the mixer back. So, pour half of the wall, or wait?

     Given that it is cold, and we have to pre heat the formwork before the pour, and heat after the pour, I decided to wait until I can get two trucks out here. Wednesday was out, no trucks Wednesday,  so Thursday or Friday. I put orders in for both days, just in case ferries get canceled on Thursday,  I still have Friday  as an option. This is now, over a week with no concrete.

     Now the office is getting nervous and I believe, irritated, but at what or whom? The tides look good for next week, weather looks good, temperatures look good, so hopefully, we can pour some concrete. I hope the office understands,  me and my guys don't want to be here any longer than we have to. We want to go home, hotel life sucks.

The short holiday weeks are behind us.

     I know I have fallen a bit behind in my posts, but you really didn't think I was going to keep this up did you? How much can be said about concrete, well actually quite a bit.

     Concrete is a composite material composed mainly of water, aggregate, and cement. Often, additives and reinforcements are included in the mixture to achieve the desired physical properties of the finished material. When these ingredients are mixed together, they form a fluid mass that is easily molded into shape. Over time, the cement forms a hard matrix which binds the rest of the ingredients together into a durable stone-like material with many uses.

Famous concrete structures include the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal and the Roman Pantheon. The earliest large-scale users of concrete technology were the ancient Romans, and concrete was widely used in the Roman Empire. The Colosseum in Rome was built largely of concrete, and the concrete dome of the Pantheon is the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

After the Roman Empire collapsed, use of concrete became rare until the technology was re-pioneered in the mid-18th century. Today, concrete is the most widely used man-made material (measured by tonnage).

     Much more could be said about concrete, but we should discuss our job on the island. We all love the holidays, and I trust yours' were great. Day and I spent Christmas Day in Jersey, with her family, and that weekend with my family, and we were very happy to spend New Years Eve alone, just her and I. Anyhow, I do love the holidays, but two short weeks, back to back, can really screw up a job. The Monday before Christmas, if you remember, we stayed late to get a pour ready for Tuesday morning, which was cancelled due to sea conditions.

Wednesday was Christmas Eve, we worked a half a day, in the pouring rain I might add. Thursday was Christmas and Friday we took off. So, we pour on Monday the 29th, not bad right, came out pretty good.

We worked Tuesday, and a half a day on Wednesday to get ready for a pour on Friday the 2nd, but the ferries were cancelled. Ok, we will pour on Monday, but the ferries got cancelled. That brings us up to date. Our first wall pour

has now been cancelled twice, along with a delivery of materials that we desperately need to continue building, because we are not pouring, but if we are not pouring, that is because the ferry has been cancelled, and we aren't going to get the materials either. Let's hope for calmer seas tomorrow, and some concrete. Now the office is calling, wondering how things are going. Well, we have used up 30% of our man days, to pour just 20% of the concrete. This is not terribly unusual, jobs start out slow, and pick up, but these needs to pick up. It won't take long for a concrete job to go to crap, if you can't pour concrete.