Bill_G, retired, affluence of effluent, and errata

[raison de arizona]

Supercool!

[bill_g]

Yesterday I ordered two dozen tee shirts silk screened with either Emily or Barbara for $205. 6oz white cotton in mixed sizes, half with Emily, and the other half with Barbara on the front. Local shop, husband/wife team, only about a mile from my house. Delivery by the end of Feb. I'll hand them out when the famdamnly gets together at the end of March for a belated Christmas with our GD and her daughter Emily.

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[AndyinPA]

Nice!

[bill_g]

I'm going with Option 2 (customer provided art framed). And I had to bump up the qty adding four XXXL for some of our big boys in Spud Miner Country.

[bill_g]

Mouse Man!

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20240209 avi suranis.jpg (5.58 KiB) Viewed 424 times

[bill_g]

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[MsDaisy 2]

You were standing on something 150ft up in the air?

I do not do any high places of any kind if I don’t have to and if I do have to I don’t look down. If I do my head starts to spin.

[bill_g]

You were standing on something 150ft up in the air?

I do not do any high places of any kind if I don’t have to and if I do have to I don’t look down. If I do my head starts to spin.

Yep. You stand on the cross beams. You toss a double D belt over the beam above, tie off to that, and walk across. Once in position you add another belt and a second lanyard to so you can Spiderman out if needed. You stand on any of the steel, but not the bracing cables. You draw upon those kindergarten playground skills they taught you at four years old. It's giant jungle gym.

If a new guy tells me he's NOT afraid of heights, I worry. You have to respect gravity. You only become high maintenance if you turn into paint and we have to rescue you. Wobbly chicken legs is pretty normal until you acclimate. The tower moves like a boat. It sways. Just a little. So you're constantly correcting your weight as you stand. That gets tiring. That's where my calf burn is coming from.

[jemcanada2]

I don’t do heights either. Except for maybe waterfalls.

As one friend always yells at me “get away from the edge!!”

You may have to zoom in to see me in pink on the ledge of the falls.

[MsDaisy 2]

Yep. You stand on the cross beams. You toss a double D belt over the beam above, tie off to that, and walk across. Once in position you add another belt and a second lanyard to so you can Spiderman out if needed. You stand on any of the steel, but not the bracing cables. You draw upon those kindergarten playground skills they taught you at four years old. It's giant jungle gym.

If a new guy tells me he's NOT afraid of heights, I worry. You have to respect gravity. You only become high maintenance if you turn into paint and we have to rescue you. Wobbly chicken legs is pretty normal until you acclimate. The tower moves like a boat. It sways. Just a little. So you're constantly correcting your weight as you stand. That gets tiring. That's where my calf burn is coming from.

Bill Gates does not have enough money to pay me to do such a thing

[bill_g]

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[qbawl]

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[bill_g]

I don’t do heights either. Except for maybe waterfalls.

As one friend always yells at me “get away from the edge!!”

You may have to zoom in to see me in pink on the ledge of the falls.

I can see the pink, but the resolution is too low to zoom in. I like the picture though. That is a big hole. Amazing what water can do. I had some friends that would go cliff sitting with me. Just dangle the legs over the edge, and don't lean over too far. What a rush. Loved it.

[bill_g]

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They are really good numbers for my age. OTOH, men in my family tend to be clocks. The hands just stop moving, and that's it. I'm not going out slowly like Mrs. It's going to be tick tock tic.....

[Slim Cognito]

Great!!!

[bill_g]

Great!!!

Yeah. We tend to be fatalists in my job.

The tower we were working is in a popular public park in the Tony part of town. The cheap homes go for $2M. There are some serious castles up there. Anyway, a passerby asked me about our PPE - my harness, helmet, lanyards, etc. I told him we wear all this stuff so our widows will receive the full death benefit. It doesn't actually stop the inevitable.

[Rolodex]

You were standing on something 150ft up in the air?

I do not do any high places of any kind if I don’t have to and if I do have to I don’t look down. If I do my head starts to spin.

Same.

Bill, did you hear about the radio tower that got stolen in Alabama a couple of weeks ago? A 200' tower...stolen!!

[Reddog]

I don’t think it’s a profession you start later in life. I’ve noticed that heights bother me more the older I get.
Also, too. Technology has changed a lot. The first time I worked at height for a job was cleaning bus bars on a 50 ton overhead crane. No locks, or tags. Simple waist belt, with simple rope. No shock absorbing lanyard, with load indicators, or full body harness.
Old film reels of the Iroquois working on high steel actually gives me a sense of vertigo just watching.

[bill_g]

I don’t think it’s a profession you start later in life. I’ve noticed that heights bother me more the older I get.
Also, too. Technology has changed a lot. The first time I worked at height for a job was cleaning bus bars on a 50 ton overhead crane. No locks, or tags. Simple waist belt, with simple rope. No shock absorbing lanyard, with load indicators, or full body harness.
Old film reels of the Iroquois working on high steel actually gives me a sense of vertigo just watching.

Oh yeah. The films of the guys in street clothes and shoes walking the steel of the Empire State Bldg and the Golden Gate Bridge were frightening. No harnesses. No helmets. Just a net down below. Holy Cow Batman.

[bill_g]

Same.

Bill, did you hear about the radio tower that got stolen in Alabama a couple of weeks ago? A 200' tower...stolen!!

Yep. That was discussed here someplace. I read about in the trade news, and it appears to be absolute fiction and fraud. The station mgr got the story out to curry sympathy and support grift for the station, but they hadn't followed the FCC rules, or paid rent on the leased land. For now they are off the air awaiting a final determination.

[bill_g]

I don’t think it’s a profession you start later in life. I’ve noticed that heights bother me more the older I get.
Also, too. Technology has changed a lot. The first time I worked at height for a job was cleaning bus bars on a 50 ton overhead crane. No locks, or tags. Simple waist belt, with simple rope. No shock absorbing lanyard, with load indicators, or full body harness.
Old film reels of the Iroquois working on high steel actually gives me a sense of vertigo just watching.

Oh yeah. The films of the guys in street clothes and shoes walking the steel of the Empire State Bldg and the Golden Gate Bridge were frightening. No harnesses. No helmets. Just a net down below. Holy Cow Batman.

Discussing this further - I started climbing in the early 80's in Detroit. I had a EE and couldn't find a job. Took a repairman position in a radio shop in Lansing, and then moved to their Detroit shop. We built towers out of necessity because while the terrain was prevailing flatish, it had it's high and low spots that obscured simple rooftop antenna installations. We just needed to get a hundred feet up to be above the deciduous canopy and the little bit of lumpy dirt the glaciers left in Michigan. That meant civil engineering, plans, calculations, and proposals. MSU being an ag school required all that to get your paper. So, I took the state test, got my CE stamp, and we started constructing our own.

The second problem was labor. There were plenty of fitters and riggers, but they wanted union wages we couldn't afford at the time. Plus they had all the work they could handle. Getting materials was easy back then. Finding climbers was hard. So, I got involved, taught myself how to do it, and we stacked hot dipped galv steel tubing all over the metro area. Pretty soon we had jobs all over the state. Then the company owner died, and his widow sold to another group. I did NOT like those guys, quit, and joined up with some competitors I had made friends with.

I was unemployed all of twenty minutes, and then became a partner in their biz. I tried to build up a similar business again, but my two partners were not so enthusiastic, and within months I was papering the country with my resume. I got a nimble from a small rural family owned telco in Oregon. We hit it off. I drove out, sized them up, I told them where I wanted to go with my ideas, they coincided with where their company wanted to be, we agreed on a compensation package, and then I went back to Michigan long enough to move the famdamnly out.

Telco service in Central Oregon has a lot of single phones at the end of miles of aerial cable. There is no ROI at $25/mo. It's all loss that get reimbursed by the Rural Telephone Act at the end of the year. But, that meant we had to carry it for a year. So, I worked up a plan to put up mobile telephone towers in our service areas with mobile phones at the subscriber locations. We could put in dozens of subscribers for the cost of one aerial service. We were able to expand pretty rapidly, and I was stabbing steel into the dirt all over the place.

And then Congress busted up the Bell Tel monopoly opening up all the major metros to us. We moved to the Portland area have lived here since. By that time we had created our own construction division with tower crews, CE engineers on staff, electricians, and plenty of laborers. We drew upon military service members as they came home, and expanded the company up and down the west coast along I5 generally by acquisition of similar companies. By the end of the Clinton administration we were in all the markets from Canada to Mexico.

When the telecom meltdown happened in the late 90's, we were in a better position than our competition. We never leveraged any of our projects. All those years of living on annual lump sums taught us how to control our cash flow. As competitors dropped out, we purchased their assets, and brought on personnel. It's been nothing but steady growth. A good ride, and during that time I still worked my own projects, built my own customer base, and developed some pretty loyal relationships.

If you made a 911 call in the Oregon, Central Valley CA, and parts of central WA in the last few years I probably bled of some part of the hardware your call went through. If you were a LEO, FF, or EMT, you definitely talked through stuff I built. It was nice when the 70yo OG asked if he could climb to the 150 level one last time, and the guys found me PPE that fit.

[BeastofBourbon]

That is such a nice story. Thanks for sharing. BTW, was that Stonehenge that you were on yesterday? Do you know why it's named that? Does the sun shine through it in a special way on the solstice? Inquiring minds want to know. It looks more like a Sasquatch to me.

[bill_g]

That is such a nice story. Thanks for sharing. BTW, was that Stonehenge that you were on yesterday? Do you know why it's named that? Does the sun shine through it in a special way on the solstice? Inquiring minds want to know. It looks more like a Sasquatch to me.

I was at Council Crest yesterday - the city tower west of KGON.

Ha! No. I don't know how they came up with the name even though we manage the property. It's owned by Stonehenge LLC, and it leases space to eight commercial FM stations, several LPTV stations, and several dozen land mobile systems. KGON is the station most people are familiar with. But, It's got Charlie FM, The Wolf, KLUV, KBOO, KISN, KOPB, XM, and a few others. Portland Public Schools has some distance learning stuff up there. The Feds have some stations. There are two commercial wifi providers up there, a whole bunch of microwave repeaters, some amateurs, and at least one more page of tenants I can't recall. There's a lot going on besides KGON.

I general don't go into the tenant spaces except to chase down electrical issues. Their own engineers maintain their equipment. We mow the lawn, trim the trees, empty the garbage, scrub the toilet, change the lightbulbs, maintain the genset and the HVAC, and keep the card key system working. You know, all the sexy stuff.

It has almost a half million watts of energy coming off it. The main array at the top is fed with a single 24in water jacketed transmission line. The water is circulated to keep it cool. It goes up 650ft through the center tube. We have special chain mail suits we wear if we are going to get within 300ft of the array. No one is supposed to climb it without a permit. We want to know who, when, and why you want to get fried up there. That doesn't mean they do. Once you get into the tunnel, the tube is yours to go vertical. Hence the card keys so we can track access.

We have a way to transfer the load of each station to a lower array to put the energy below the climbers. But it has to be coordinated with the stations. That takes time. And the chance of arcing is pretty good. It can be exciting. So, those switches are locked up. Once again, human ingenuity prevails, and we've found people have done it without authority taking a station down in the process as the smoke emerges and the Halon discharges. (heavy sigh)

The view from the top of the building is pretty awesome. While the gate prevents vehicles from entering, there is a city public trail through the property, and you can walk past the gate easily. When you walk down to the KGON parking landing on the east side, you have full view of SE Portland, the airport, part of the river, Mt Hood, and the range. At night the city lights are really pretty. We maintain a nice lawn area on that side for people to enjoy and soak it all in. Despite that, they still find a way to climb to the flat roof and set up their parties on that. We leave three big garbage cans to throw away their trash. Nope. Their arms can't reach the lids. They can't bend over far enough to put their recycleable bottles in the bins either. And we keep buckets of paint around in case someone decides they want to get artistic.

It's an interesting place that's for sure.

[bill_g]

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[bill_g]

It's Thursday - garbage day - the day I gather stuff and put it to the curb to be hauled away tomorrow.

The biggest mystery to come from today's adventure is: What to do with three pairs of dentures? That's $12,000 of dental work. It seems a shame to send them to a landfill, but they have no value without her jaws in them. Sheez.

Moving on - Her bathroom was my goal. It's one I've avoided to the point that when I had some guests over recently we discovered you couldn't flush the toilet without lifting the lid and manually prying the flapper off the drain. It had gotten biological in there and glued the flapper down. I spent some time scrubbing it after soaking it in white vinegar. I may have to replace the mechanism. We'll see. But, that inspired me to press forward.

She didn't seem to want to part with her hair brushes. The big drawer under the sink had a dozen old ones in there. The tines were permanently bent from being crushed under old hair dryers, thrashed towels, half boxes of Q-Tips, hair spray, and other sundry personal care items. Round filed.

The next drawer up was a clobber of towels and wash cloths. Some tattered rags mixed in with brand new never used. Matching new stuff refolded and stacked. The mismatched will get rotation in the kitchen towel collection. The rags - Round filed.

The electric nail grinder/shaper/Dremel tool (with all it's attachments) - Round filed

Two old hair dryers - Round filed.

Two new-in-box hair dryers - stowed for now. I might have guests someday.

Barber scissors will be cleaned and kept along with the assortment of new toothbrushes. The Efferdent and Polygrip are going bye-bye. The new toothpaste moved to my bathroom. The dozen new bars of bath soap can stay. The three tubes of Suave hair gel - gone. The several new bottles of Ulta Peach Body Wash will go to work. There's bound to be someone there that will be grateful. The cleaning supplies will be divided between here, my bathroom, and the wash room. It's not like Comet or Spic-n-Span go bad.

All the Maxi pads - round filed.

Four new boxes of vinyl gloves (size large) - stowed for now along with the covid face masks and two new packs of disposible wipes. The open ones were round filed.

How many bottles of hand cream, moisturizing cream, Gold Bond, Jergens, Oil of Olay, rejuvinating cream, age defying cream, facial scrub, exfoliating scrub, exfoliating pads, nail polish remover, a bottle of something I don't know what it is ... do I need? I thought none. Poof. Round filed.

The cat was absolutely fascinated. He kept walking into the drawers and cupboards as I progressed until he finally took a spot on the toilet lid to observe his master and King going nuts slowly.

By the time I got done, the garbage can was 2/3rds full. That's enough. I have to work up the energy to roll it out now.