Category Archives: construction

Bible study, construction, critique group, family, home improvements

Grinding, Part 2

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In my last post, I wrote about how I was grinding through a bunch of tasks, and, to keep them all straight, I needed a to-do list.  I’m in The Dungeon right now, writing this, and I don’t my current to-do list with me, so I’m starting a new one.

I do these on a long, narrow note pad that we’ve had for years. I found this pad in the desk in The Dungeon, something that isn’t used too much. I was given to us when we bought our house in Bentonville in 1991. Time to use it up I would say. It’s perfect for to-do lists.

As far as what got done from the last to-do list:

  • Flu shots.
  • Heard back from two contractors. One gave me a little more information on his schedule, moving the work out some. The other apologized for not getting me an estimate yet and established a date when he would. I would have to say, I feel a little better about contractors today.
  • Got my hair cut.
  • Continued to write in my current work-in-progress, A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I should finish a chapter today, putting me at 70 percent finished with the first draft. That puts me a little behind where I hoped to be by this time, but I’m not unhappy with my progress.
  • Got some filing done, though I have much more of that to do.
  • Attended my writers’ critique group last night. A good meeting; I might blog about it next.
  • Have started getting things together for Thanksgiving.

And Thanksgiving will dominate my next to-do list, which I started by interrupting writing this. Lots to do in terms of cleaning and organizing. Also buying in some groceries. I’m trying to plan our meals so that we get to Monday night’s supper, the last we will have alone, finishing the last prepared item.

It will be a good Thanksgiving, with both of our children, their spouses, and all our grandchildren here. It may also be the last family gathering at our house for a while, as henceforth we might shift these to our daughter’s house.

So carry on, everyone. My wishes to out to you, a bit early, for a happy Thanksgiving.

construction, Engineering, home improvements, miscellaneous, The Teachings

Can’t Get In A Rhythm

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Here it is Saturday afternoon. Yesterday was my regular blogging day. I like to post by 7:30 a.m. Obviously I’m not even close. It seems that life is conspiring against me, with task after task that must be done pushing out the tasks that I’d like to do.

The biggest thing coming up, aside from important medical appointments, is the distribution of the physical effects of my mother-in-law’s estate. Just two weeks ago we finished distribution of her remaining financial assets. There weren’t many left, but we had waited to make sure another bill didn’t come in.

The physical estate consists of odds and ends of furniture, linens, books, photos, letters and cards, knickknacks, and decorations. Some of these were hers from her first marriage, some where her second husband’s, and some they acquired together. Her second husband has two daughters by his prior marriage, my wife’s step-sisters who we used to see regularly and had good relationships with. We told them we were finally ready for the physical distribution. So they are going to drive here next Saturday, spend the afternoon going through things, and drive home again—thus minimizing coronavirus exposure.

Getting ready for it has started. Last weekend I did some organizing and took an approximate inventory of the more major items. We also got a letter out about it by e-mail and Messenger to the step-sisters and Lynda’s brother. He lives farther away and won’t be making a trip here. He gave us his desires on the phone.

Meanwhile, Thursday I had a full day of work for my former company, consisting of a final inspection, site visits, luncheon, and former meeting. Some reports were due, and some edits to City drainage standards. That work spilled over to Friday morning. As I worked on that the fact that I had a blog to write escaped me. I was going to do a book review. I’ve finished three books I haven’t yet reviewed but want to. I wasn’t sure which one to do next, so I had some thinking to do before I could write the review. I suppose that will be Monday’s post.

Meanwhile, I continue transcribing letters from our Kuwait years into a Word file. With six to go, I’m up to 77,700 words and 138 pages. When formatted for a book that will be well over 250 pages, especially if illustrated with photos as I would like to do. I will finish those around Tuesday. I say “finish” because I don’t know for certain that I’ve gathered all letters from those years. We have a large gap in correspondence with Lynda’s dad, and a three month period in 1989 with no letters at all. Her dad may not have kept all our letters (accounting for that gap; or they could be in another notebook or box), and the time gap includes some travels during which we wouldn’t have sent letters. Still, I will hunt some to see if I missed any before I declare the transcribing “done”. Lynda said, “This didn’t have to be done now, you know.” Yes, I know. But if not now, when? Will live be any less crazy, less hectic, less busy once the pandemic ends and rioting in our urban areas subsides? I think not.

This week, as of this morning in fact, I’m caught up on yardwork. That’s not to say I don’t have more to do, but both front and back yards are back to a maintainable point with normal effort. Next week I’ll clear away some logs left from other clearing, and begin carrying posts across the street to the fort. But I feel good about the yardwork.

Friday I go to the hospital for an echo-cardiogram (my third), a stress test (my first), and something else cardio related. The will be a whole day gone. Meanwhile, my weight is down (5 lbs. this month), my blood sugar readings are in a good range even after the doc reduced my insulin dose from 25 to 10 units. I’ve been reducing it gradually and will finally hit 10 units tonight. So health is good.

Get the estate distribution behind us, get this transcribing behind us, get these tests behind me, see a reduction in workload for my former company, and then and only then will I be able to concentrate on my novel-in-progress. I read a little for research in it now and then, but not much new writing, and I won’t have any this week. Get these major items behind us, and hope no more come up.

Oh, yeah, our new roof is in and looks good. But the gutter covers they shipped were the wrong size and the worker installed them anyway while I was gone Thursday. They look like you know what. Some of our gutter is damaged. I got on a ladder, took photos, texted them to the superintendent, and said, “Are you proud of this work?” He said he sent them to corporate and will take care of it. My evaluation of the company depends on them making good on that promise.

construction, Engineering, family, Health, miscellaneous, Writing

Not Quite Back To Normal

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Summer is here in NW Arkansas. This week we will be in the 90s (one day may hit 100), no chance of rain. Definitely stay-indoors weather. We have a couple of appointments that will take us out for a while, but not a lot. Time to get things done, get back to normal.

Except, the time has come for some major work on our house. Three hailstorms this spring have severely damaged our roof. Our insurance company, on the second inspection, agreed. We will get a new roof and some work on the gutters. Since our attic space is not ventilated, I’ll spend a little money and have some vents added. Since some water leaked in and stained the ceiling, we will get a new living-dining-entry room ceiling.

But before that work is done I wanted to have some trees cut away from the house. I arranged for that work with the tree company that worked for us after the August 2019 storms, asking them to hold off a little until the visit of our grandchildren was done. The guy called me Saturday to schedule it, then called me back and asked if they could do it that day. So my Saturday up till about 1 p.m. was consumed with directing their work. At the same time I picked weeds from the front yard, something I had delayed doing. It’s now weed free except for a small area where I had to stay clear of due to the tree work.

After that I was way too tired to do much of anything. I did get some blackberries picked. If I do so again this afternoon I will have enough fresh ones to make a cobbler.

At the same time we may have another bug matter we have to deal with, different than the one from May 2019. Lynda has picked up on the decluttering effort and is working on it. That makes the house a mess, though “this too shall pass”.

And, to top this all off, my residual work at CEI has decided to peak right about this time. Last week I made six construction site visits with the man I’m training to take the work over. I still haven’t written the reports yet. I hope to get them done this week.

And, Lynda had her first cataract surgery last Thursday, with the other one soon to come.

Through all of this I try to remember I have a writing career. Stock trading continues and can’t be put off as writing can. The corona virus pandemic makes little difference to two retired people. Church and Life Group on-line takes up almost as much time as they did in person.

Once again, I hope to return soon to writing. I hope to return to the blog series I started on racism and lawlessness. Plans abound; time to execute them is difficult to find.

construction, Documenting America, Engineering, reading, self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Random Friday Thoughts

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Can a graphics duffer create the print-book cover to go with this? Enquiring minds want to know.

As I look out from The Dungeon windows at 06:47 a.m., the sun is hidden by the tall trees at the rear of our backyard. But enough sun gets through I can tell it will be a sunny day, at least to start. Storms are predicted for tomorrow, and might start in a small way sometime today.

Yesterday was a busy day. In addition to stock trading in the morning, I did a few writer things. I’m trying to create the print book cover for my friend’s book. I made a good start on it despite the fact that it’s been a year since I created a cover. Using G.I.M.P., a no-cost alternative to Photoshop, I managed to get the overall sizes of each part of the cover in place. I found some good notes I wrote on that. Alas, I’ve forgotten enough that I didn’t get it done in the time I had. Hopefully I will this morning.

I then at a quick lunch, hopped in the van, and went to do some engineering work, final inspection of one site and monthly inspections on three other sites. I completed the final inspection, with a little arguing with the contractor thrown in. Not bad arguing, just them obviously not appreciating the things I found. I got a little testy at one point when they gave new information about a structure I’ve been trying to get them to modify. Why they didn’t give me that info months ago is a mystery.

I went to the first monthly inspection, walked the site, saw only one or two things out of the ordinary. This has been a problem site, with me constantly finding things they are doing in violation of City codes. They’ve started to get much better. They had installed almost all the handicapped ramps incorrectly. I decided to let the first few go, but I found a new one wrongly constructed. They will have to change that. They also had one where they attempted to construct it correctly, but came up short. Fortunately the correction is inexpensive.

The engineering work to that point took me from 12:30 p.m. to about 3:30 p.m., with two more sites to go. I was beat and dehydrated, as I hadn’t taken water with me. I decided not to do the other two inspections, leaving them to the employee of my former company who joined me yesterday for training purposes. I came home, rested an hour, then wrote the reports for the two inspections.

Then I took it easy in the evening. We had plenty of leftover chili to use for taco salad, so had that for supper, and a slice of turtle pie for dessert. I spent much of the evening on the computer working on the reports as well as trying to find some photos in the company files to prove the point I tried to make on site.

I’ll soon be creating a cover for “Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition”. It will be a simple re-creation of this one.

I wrote an e-mail to the CEI project manager, telling her my inability to do the two other inspections was “most likely a combination of too much sun, frustration with [the other] engineer and developer and contractor, age, and perhaps a creeping retirement-starting-to-care-a-little-less each month.” I haven’t heard back from her yet. I have trained the other man to do these inspections and had no doubt he could do the remaining two and write acceptable reports.

I spent no time in the sunroom, didn’t work on my own books at all, didn’t make much progress on my to-do list. My wife and I did a little reading aloud, and we took a very pleasant call from our oldest grandson and had evening devotions with him. Our reading carried us after normal bed time.

So, up this morning after sleeping through the night, ready to “awaken the dawn” that I see unfolding out the window. It’s fully light out, though the trees still obscure direct rays. On to other things for a couple of hours, then back to the book cover work.

construction, Engineering

Mediation Brings Mixed Results

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Yesterday most of my work day was spent in a mediation of a construction dispute. This was my second one of these. The first, in December 2007 (or was it 08?), was for a client of ours that I had worked with. I started the project, got under construction, and turned it over to another engineer when I took our training position.

This one was not my client. Another engineer in our office handled this project. It wasn’t even our design. We took over a few months after construction had begun, to help out a new client. But I was involved in helping that engineer make decisions throughout the project, was familiar with the issues, with construction in general, and with the mediation process, so he asked me to participate and the client agreed.

In the first one, the parties were $450,000 apart on a $2.3 million project. I thought no way could these two come together and a settlement be reached. It’s going to court for sure, I thought. But the mediator’s job it to help the two parties find some point in the middle where both feel it is worth not going to court if I can get or give that much.

A normal mediation session begins with everyone in the same room. Each side states their claims, and their response to the other’s claims. Then the two parties go to separate rooms, and the mediator goes back of forth between them. His job is not to determine who is right and who is wrong. He doesn’t reveal details of discussions in the other room. He does summarize the other sides arguments, and helps each side to see where the other might have a valid concern. He keeps pushing for a settlement. “What is it worth to you to avoid going to court?” he’ll ask.

Last time the issues and amount involved were clear. The settlement was reached fairly easily. A lot of back and forth, but in the end our client didn’t have to yield too much to avoid court. This time the issues were clear, but the dollar amount in dispute was not. It was about $300,000 on a $1.2 million project. So it was really a lot bigger than the last one as a percentage of the project. Since the parties had already had several meetings in an effort to resolve this, the mediator dispensed with the normal statements of positions and had us go immediately to separate rooms.

Since all involved in the mediation are subject to a confidentiality agreement, I can’t reveal specific discussions. We took most of the morning just defining the amount of the claim. It turns out neither side had understood what the other side was really claiming. They started farther apart than we thought. Our side consisted of us two engineers, the client’s chief executive, and the client’s attorney. After a working lunch the mediator said the main problem on the other side’s part was they were disputing a claim that some work was defective, a big chunk of the project, in fact. They admitted to one, smaller piece of defective work which they offered to fix, and wanted a certain number of dollars to change hands in their favor. It was still way far away from where we were at.

About 3:oo PM I concluded it would not be settled; we were headed to court. If that happened, both sides would sue the other. I felt that our client was in the right and would most likely win in court. But a jury is a crap shoot. They don’t always side with the one in the right. We considered the likely success of lawsuits. The mediator finally asked the question: What is it worth to you to avoid going to court? Our client suggested what he was willing to do. He gave up much more than I would have had I been in his positions. The mediator shuffled back to the other room and was gone a long time. Had the other side refused the large concession?

When the mediator finally did come back, he had a typed agreement in hand. It needed one modification, but it basically ended. it. Well, not quite ended, since the clients board of directors has to approve it. But it’s mostly over.

I would not describe either of these mediations as pleasant. But, they were probably better than being a witness at a trial. I’ve done that too, and it isn’t always fun. Having been through two of these is better experience than just one. Hopefully I won’t have another in the next 7 years, 3 months, and 2 days, but who knows? Construction can lead to disputes; disputes have to be resolved; meditation is cheaper than other remedies. So I guess bring it on if needed.

construction, family, miscellaneous

The End is not Yet

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I can’t believe how busy I am. Even while in Oklahoma City this last weekend to celebrate my grandson’s birthday, and Mother’s Day, I had much to do with the church parking lot–e-mails and figuring. By Saturday evening I was mentally exhausted, and sat down to watch Saturday Night Live, something I haven’t done since 1974. And something I won’t do again for perhaps another 36 years. What a disgusting show.

Work is very busy. I have no time to write, no time to read for pleasure. No time to exercise. No time to keep up this blog. I’ll keep trying. The first glimmer of light should pop up around the 19th.