Evolve or die

[Jims5543]

The Dog asshole is known by the police BTW - it seems he threatens everyone telling them if he lets his dogs out they are dead. Part of what I discovered is that he is 58 years old which tells me a man that age behaving that way is not mentally stable.

I pity his neighbors.


Moving on, my BIL is on his way home from the hospital, they adjusted his meds and want to see him in 3 weeks again to further adjust them.

They also told him that is he does not get in better shape he is going to die, I hope that motivates him to get his shit together.

What is killing me is he kept this a secret from me for 2 weeks, I noticed he was not sending work back to me, I asked and he said he was fine and needed to catch up (a lie) he could not get out of bed, we found out he was sleeping 18 hours a day fatigued and exhausted.

I am so behind with my clients it is not funny, I did not want to use him as an excuse, I just told them we had a drafter turn ill and we are short handed. We are not THAT far behind, they are just spoiled by our fast turn around times.

This entire ordeal has me rethinking how I am running this place, I think I want a full time drafter in house, then toss the larger projects to the BIL. Keeping my in house drafter freed up to turn out the smaller jobs faster.

The only problem with that is finding someone worth a shit, the last time I looked around for help the pool to choose from lacked chlorine.

I am going to toss my feelers out. Right now, I am just going to put in the hours again to keep up. 

[94touring]

I wish I remembered how to run Cad, it would give me something to do sitting in hotels.

[cstudep]

We hardly use 2d cad anymore in my world. We used to do some pretty awesome shit in 2D autocad with blocks and menu/lisp routine automation. Been living in the 3d cad world for a little over 20 years now and it has really curtailed my 2d cad skills, still use it but not like I once did. I have developed some pretty mad 3d cad skills though so at least there is that I guess.

It's been a real long time since I have done any surveying work, I always enjoyed being out in the field but have always enjoyed the cad side as well.

[Jims5543]

I wish I remembered how to run Cad, it would give me something to do sitting in hotels.

I already have a remote guy with my BIL when he is not broken. I really just want someone handling everything I do so I am no longer doing any drafting, just checking and signing. I used to have a full time drafter, when I did, I did not do any drafting at all. I am just wearing a lot of hats now, I am still in Housing Crash / Great Recession mode when I do not really need to be, or do I?

More and more news articles stating the housing markets (at least in Florida) are crashing. I have been seeing it for close to 2 years now, as I have said in the past Land Surveyors feel it first, then everyone catches up to us. I will probably muscle through this hiccup and wait to see what happens in the next 3-6 months before doing anything.

We hardly use 2d cad anymore in my world. We used to do some pretty awesome shit in 2D autocad with blocks and menu/lisp routine automation. Been living in the 3d cad world for a little over 20 years now and it has really curtailed my 2d cad skills, still use it but not like I once did. I have developed some pretty mad 3d cad skills though so at least there is that I guess.

It's been a real long time since I have done any surveying work, I always enjoyed being out in the field but have always enjoyed the cad side as well.

The tech in land surveying is changing a lot, what I do? 2D is perfect for me.

I have friends who work in big corporations using amazing tech.  Drone tech is insane now. The Drones now have Survey accuracy GPS and Lidar cameras, I watched a field demo from a company where the drone flew over us on some county property while we watched a big screen TV and could see it mapping everything in real time in 3D.

Then a cad tech comes in and cleans up any "noise" that may have confused it.

The investment into something like that is too rich for me, we are talking over 100K possibly 200K. I didn't ask because I know I cannot afford it. LOL!


OK another big push Friday, I have about 60 files on my desk many are just stupid little things, a lot of revisions, as in oh, I want to change the design of this pool type of stuff.

[Jims5543]

I lied, I had about 40 files, my BIL emailed this morning and wants to work, I set him loose on 10 Plot plans for a builder reducing my work load from about 50 files to less than 40.

After kicking ass for the last 4 hours I am down to 4 files. + what he is working on.


I was looking for a drunk pic for Mudhen with no joy, and I found these pics from when Topcon sent a film crew to shadow me. I felt special for a day. LOL

One of my friends who saw the video, I need to find it its on you tube somewhere. Said it was endearing to see an older pickup with some dents on it in the background indicating a real down to earth small company and not some big corp.

And that was exactly what my Topcon salesman said to me, he said it came off great because I actually use the gear. My hands on experience translates through the video and you can sense I actually use it.  A couple of other interviews they did the Surveyor who oversees the Corporation, who never works outside, wanted to be in the video so they pretend to use the equipment not really knowing what they are doing and it shows.

I never thought of this as a big deal, I just thought it would be fun to do an interview. My one surveyor buddy pointed out that I am now on the internet in perpetuity a cool legacy to leave behind. Imagine if there were video's of my Grandfather online right now I could go look at?  I never thought of it that way.  So pretty cool opportunity and experience.  Good thing they did not interview me 3 weeks ago. LOL!!

[MiniGene]

I My one surveyor buddy pointed out that I am now on the internet in perpetuity a cool legacy to leave behind. Imagine if there were video's of my Grandfather online right now I could go look at?  I never thought of it that way.  So pretty cool opportunity and experience.  Good thing they did not interview me 3 weeks ago. LOL!!

That's why I think it's cool to start putting stuff on YouTube.  A couple of years ago I started two channels.  They're both pretty small and nowhere near being in YT's partner program, but maybe they'll be out there for a while for my kids to look at long after I'm gone.

BTW, I've been lurking here semi-recently.  This is my first post in a very long time.  Good to read and catch up on things. :)

[Jims5543]

That's why I think it's cool to start putting stuff on YouTube.  A couple of years ago I started two channels.  They're both pretty small and nowhere near being in YT's partner program, but maybe they'll be out there for a while for my kids to look at long after I'm gone.

BTW, I've been lurking here semi-recently.  This is my first post in a very long time.  Good to read and catch up on things. :)

I honestly had not considered that until my friend mentioned it, I have 2 channels, I am not about monetizing it, although I have considered putting an effort into creating car content and see if I can make some money doing something really fun, playing with cars.


I just walked in from surveying a house for a pool, while I was there, the 20 something year old son comes home. I am in the back yard doing my thing, he comes out of the house and sits on the back screen room on his phone. then I smell the devils lettuce and hear him coughing realized he is getting baked right in front of me. It's legal here (medically) so no real taboo, just thought it was wierd.

The crazy part?  right after he finished blazing his MJ, he jumped back in his pickup truck and drove away. I thought that was stupid.

[Jims5543]

This is a community I work in once a week, all the buildings you see are 4 plex town homes. Everything you see in these pictures are for sale and not sold, some have been sitting for 6 months to 1 year.

I was talking to a super out there and commented on how many for sale signs there were, he told me they only have for sale signs on half the empty houses.  Corporate told them to pump the brakes on new house starts. This includes single family homes they have a lot of those sitting empty too.

I am getting orders for maybe 2 closings a week, which means the RE market has dried up.  If it were not for the pool companies I aligned with, I would have nothing to do. 60-70% of my work at the moment is pool work.

[Jims5543]

I ended up doing a free survey this morning for the nicest man.

An attorney I work for sent him to me due to a property line dispute.  The felt the neighbor behind was on his property up to 5 feet. He hired the Real Estate attorney the uses me to sort this out who in turn told him to hire me.

He was 81 years old and spry as could be, he had a 2020 440i in his driveway, we got talking cars, he used to be into drag racing and ran an Olds 442 with a 2 speed Hydromatic in it. Anyway, the more we talked the more interesting he got. He is a retired engineer, he moved to Florida from Uruguay when he was 24 years old he was recruited by NASA and worked at KSC until he retired. He still has family in Uruguay which is crazy as I sold my E21 BMW to a guy who grew up in Uruguay who always wanted an E21.  Him and I still text our car antics back and forth from time to time. His is in the midst of swapping a BMW V12 into a E30.

There was nothing wrong out there, I felt horrible charging this guy just to tell him that so I told him I would not be charging him and it made his day. He wants me to wing by and show him my fun cars.  I have a new car guy friend. LOL!!


Interesting side story about the Real Estate Market as well. Last week we had some issues with a seller not wanting to open his gates for our crew, I drove out to the property Friday morning and met the Realtor there he was shadowing me while I worked and we chatted. I asked how business is, was he selling any houses?  He said all of the sudden everyone wants to buy a house, he said for the last year, hardly any sales, now in the last few weeks he has people fighting for the nicer houses again. 

I noticed, the last 2 weeks, an uptick in existing home sales orders. Things appear to be taking back off again.

I am not sure how I feel about that, I am starting to turn away off the street customers again, I just do not want to be that busy anymore.

[Jims5543]

I must be a masochist. I could have had a nice day today and been back in the office by noon, instead I got back at 430.

The one big builder I work for is expanding out to Okeechobee. Its about a 1.25 hour drive from my office. I assumed they purchased a block of lots in a new subdivision. Wrong! They purchased scattered lots all over town.

I just got back from surveying 9 lots out there. I have no idea who would want to live there unless they lost a bet.

I almost got attacked by 2 pit bulls on one street that were running loose.  On another street I was chased by a territorial mutt that did not like me.

Lesson learned, we are now a constitutional carry state, time to strap on the 9mm.  The Pit Bulls really rattled me, they were not nice dogs and would not let up, they follow me about 100 yards and would not let up. 

I was going to punt this away and let them find a local surveyor to Okeechobee, now I wish I had. I may back out of this still. It is making my life hell.

The only thing keeping me from doing that is I am up-charging these, my prices are doubled in order to absorb the drive time.

On top of that the flood gates have opened up wide and orders are pouring in, I have not seen this kind of action since 2021 when everyone was moving to Florida. Interest rates and prices slowed that down over the last 4 years, to my amazement, everything is ramping back up.

Our email is on fire, orders pouring in, its so bad I just made the decision to stop taking on all off the street customers.

Okeechobee is a giant trailer park, minus the trailer homes, it is just white trash land, garbage everywhere, the only place I see garbage all over the sides of the roads and in yards like is in the ghetto.

Houses still have hurricane shutters on them all over town, despite hurricane season being over for almost 3 months now. I guess they are ready for next season in 5 months.

No pride in ownership everything is run down, houses need paint and roofs and landscaping upkeep, 70% of the houses out there look abandoned. It was a very depressing afternoon out there.

I have probably already worked 40 hours this week and its only Wednesday afternoon. I have been coming in early, staying late and still cannot keep up with all the orders pouring in.

I was not expecting this at all, I expected at least another year of slower business.

This has me pondering hiring a field guy to take some of the load off me, the other crew is already loaded, I have been working longer hours to help keep up.

How about some pics!

This is the mutt that was hounding me. He finally gave up as I walked up onto a vacant lot away from its "territory". Notice the lovely landscaped yard in the background with cars all over the place. Pretty typical out there.



Lost count as to how many of these trucks I saw in driveways out there.


These ducks started following me around, again notice the lovely yard. They were a welcome break from the dog, grateful they were not bloody ducks.  You can see the front bumper of a pickup parked in the back yard.
I wish I had time to take more pics, I walked 5 miles today working out there lugging my equipment around.


Tomorrow I have to survey 5 acres, then all over the place again, will be lucky to get back into the office by 3pm.

What am I doing????? I promised myself we would back off and here I am balls to the wall again. There is something wrong with me.

[MiniDave]

Hire another crew for cripes sake!   

[94touring]

Good thing you didn't come across any rabbits.

[Jims5543]

I was most fearful of the ducks, thank god it did not turn into a Monty Python moment.

[Jims5543]

Dealing with local Government building departments and their inept staff has to be one of the most infuriating things I have to do.

I spend about an hour a day dealing with "rejections" from various building departments.

One I just deal with makes me wonder what the hell kind of people are reviewing these permits.

They rejected my survey because I had a wall dimension wrong on a house, I look at the survey vs. the house plans and everything matches. I cannot figure out what is wrong, turns out they were reading the house plans wrong.  I wish this was a one off, this is a weekly occurance.

Then they reject my survey because they want to know the road centerline elevations, they are on there, it is VERY clear where the centerline of the road is, BUT, they force me to write the words "Centerline of road" and point to it.

Then we raised the elevation of the house slightly because it is on septic, after I reviewed the approved septic permit I deducted that the house needed to come up about 2 inches higher.

That was just rejected, they forced us to drop the house down 4" except, now the house is in violation of a county building code which requires it to be 18" over the centerline of the road, the elevation the forced us to is now 17" over the road centerline and I am not sure we can make the septic system work dropping it down 6" like that.

I wonder if they will realize what they did and force us to raise it back up?

This is one house, each rejection was dealt out one at a time, I have now gone back and changed this survey 5 times in one day.

This happens all the time on many jobs.

I used to love this job, the last few years, these municipalities have made it hell getting anything permitted anymore.

2 local County Building Departments are hell to deal with, my prices in the last 4 years in those areas have more than doubled due to dealing with them. My competitors have done the same, we are all on the same page, if we are going to deal with this relentless bullshit, we are getting paid for it.

/rant

[Jims5543]

Sunday at the AX event my BIL came out and hung around for a little while, I was driving when he showed up, then I had a break before I had to work. He does a lot of my drafting for me.

Come Monday, he fell off the face of the earth.

A client reached out to me Monday and wanted to know if I could handle updating a 1 year old commercial survey for a closing this Friday. I said sure, it entailed more than just updating the survey, I had to go back over the title commitment and plot out / adress any changes to the title work, it changed a little too.

I emailed my BIL Monday afternoon and told him about the job, tossing the old survey to him and the title work. I asked him in the email to let me know if he had time to do it and if he didn't to let me know asap.

I didn't hear from him all day Monday or Tuesday, I started to worry he was really sick. I texted him on Wednesday around noon, askign if he was OK and to answer my emails. Dead air.

I asked my wife to text he sister and see WTF is going on, just hoping maybe his phone was lost and really dreading he got sicker.

Turns out he is feeling like crap and has been in bed since Monday with no energy. His stubborn Irish ass thinks, "tomorrow I'll feel better so I will just keep quiet until tomorrow", tomorrow turns into 3 days.

SIL confirms he is bedridden and cannot work. Fine, I just need to know WTF is going on.

We had promised 2 jobs to clients Monday, on Tuesday I drafted one up and on Wednesday drafted the other up. Then I had this commercial job to deal with on top of the dozens of jobs on my desk. I took that home last night and plotted the title commitment I started at the office at 0600 yesterday and did not get to bed last night until Midnight.

I got into the office this morning at 0615, then I took off and visited the site this morning, checking for changes and re-flagging the property corners.

I just delivered the commercial survey, now I have about 10 pool permitting surveys I need to draft up and send by tomorrow.

I just wish he would let me know when he is down, the 2 days of silence killed me.

[Jims5543]

Oh and I went to pick up 200 cut rebar I ordered last week, these are the property corners we set. I asked for 8 bundles of 25.

I arrived to find 2 bundles of 100.

No one is picking that up. I had to break them apart and load them into my FJ by the handful.  What a PITA.

I went back inside and told the person I ordered from, I need these in bundles of 25 we toss the bundles in our work trucks and cannot deal with bundles of 100.

[94touring]

What's a bundle of 100 weigh?  200-250lbs?

[Jims5543]

What's a bundle of 100 weigh?  200-250lbs?

Grok (AI) to the rescue.

To calculate the weight of 18 inches of #5 rebar, we need to know the weight per foot of #5 rebar and then scale it accordingly.
#5 rebar has a nominal diameter of 5/8 inch (0.625 inches).

The standard weight of #5 rebar is approximately 1.043 pounds per foot, according to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) specifications for steel reinforcing bars.

Now, since 18 inches is 1.5 feet (18 ÷ 12 = 1.5):
Weight=1.043 lb/ft×1.5 ft=1.5645 lb\text{Weight} = 1.043 \, \text{lb/ft} \times 1.5 \, \text{ft} = 1.5645 \, \text{lb}\text{Weight} = 1.043 \, \text{lb/ft} \times 1.5 \, \text{ft} = 1.5645 \, \text{lb}
So, 18 inches of #5 rebar weighs approximately 1.56 pounds, rounded to two decimal places.

Explain rebar sizes

Steel density variations

156 lbs.

20's Jim would have laughed and threw it in. 50's Jim with a back injury? Tossed them in a handful at a time.

The younger spawn rode with me to my storage and helped me unload it. I then tossed the FJ in storage and grabbed the E30 for the weekend. I spend Fridays in the office. Woot!!

[jeff10049]

Dealing with local Government building departments and their inept staff has to be one of the most infuriating things I have to do.

I spend about an hour a day dealing with "rejections" from various building departments.

One I just deal with makes me wonder what the hell kind of people are reviewing these permits.

They rejected my survey because I had a wall dimension wrong on a house, I look at the survey vs. the house plans and everything matches. I cannot figure out what is wrong, turns out they were reading the house plans wrong.  I wish this was a one off, this is a weekly occurance.

Then they reject my survey because they want to know the road centerline elevations, they are on there, it is VERY clear where the centerline of the road is, BUT, they force me to write the words "Centerline of road" and point to it.

Then we raised the elevation of the house slightly because it is on septic, after I reviewed the approved septic permit I deducted that the house needed to come up about 2 inches higher.

That was just rejected, they forced us to drop the house down 4" except, now the house is in violation of a county building code which requires it to be 18" over the centerline of the road, the elevation the forced us to is now 17" over the road centerline and I am not sure we can make the septic system work dropping it down 6" like that.

I wonder if they will realize what they did and force us to raise it back up?

This is one house, each rejection was dealt out one at a time, I have now gone back and changed this survey 5 times in one day.

This happens all the time on many jobs.

I used to love this job, the last few years, these municipalities have made it hell getting anything permitted anymore.

2 local County Building Departments are hell to deal with, my prices in the last 4 years in those areas have more than doubled due to dealing with them. My competitors have done the same, we are all on the same page, if we are going to deal with this relentless bullshit, we are getting paid for it.

/rant

Yep it's bullshit here too, The libtard shit from salem trickles down to us they are a special kind of stupid. I wanted to extend a building I had 20' in length, and an issue of drainage field line proximity came up. The drain field line was 6" too close to the back/gable end of the building. Keep in mind the line runs away from the building, not across the back, but straight away. The very tip was 6" too close.

So no watershed or effects from the building at all. I asked for a variance and got the stupidest answer, he said if I do it for you everyone will want it WTF? how about do your job dumbass. If my line ran parallel to the downhill side along the watershield from the roof, I wouldn't even ask for a variance or expect to be denied. Each case is different. Use your head, my situation is a non-issue.  But seeing as I have way more drain line 30 feet more than needed by code, I said, well, I'll just cut a foot off the end, and we're good. Nope, gotta apply for an alteration permit and may not get one because of all the alleged septic issues that don't actually exist in the area (another story of corruption).

So, a different approach is that a slab has different rules than a building, so I apply to pour just the slab for parking, but with footings for possible future building expansion. No problem, so we do the slab next summer. I bury the test port at the end of my drain line, stick a dummy pipe in the ground a foot back, and apply to build the addition. The issue never even comes up again lol so I pull the pipe and uncover the original after the final. The sad part is that a non-issue cost me 6 months trying to work it out. Inept is a nice way of putting it.

You don't even want to know about the new sidewalk and swale rules, let alone water meters being placed in the street. Keep in mind that this is snow country, and things in the streets don't hold up to road graders very well. Especially the many gravel streets we have but they won't hear any input from the local folks who know how to design stuff around here because some dumbass behind a desk in the valley knows whats best.

It's seriously depressing and stalls progress and growth for the town. The cost to do anything is becoming astronomical, you could be looking at well over $100k just in SDCs and permits to break ground on a single-family home. 

[Jims5543]

The work around you came up with was brilliant.  It is almost comical dealing with these municipalities.

I just signed off on a new driveway permit survey, the amount of BS I need to place on there is insane.  Much of it is repetitive as I am copying it off a county diagrams already on file, for some reason the diagram is not enough, I have to copy it onto my survey.

I am conflicted by these insane regulations. While I find them annoying, stupid and unnecessary, they are good for business. LOL! My mental health suffers as a result dealing with these wonderful people. The bottom line is, it is very good for business.

One city I work in, the City Engineer and I became friends, I remember in 2017, she emailed me and gave me a heads up over new regulations. She informed me pool companies were no longer allowed to plot out their own pools, they had to have a survey done where the surveyor plots the pool after surveying the property. She then said to me, congrats! This should be good for business. That stuck with me.

When I met my surveyor friends for beers they were all bitching about the new rule and how much they hate plotting out pools. I said, send them my way I love doing pools.

Now 50% of my business is pool work, one company that does pools is also a Paver company that does patios, driveways and walkways. Existing home sales dropped off a cliff in 2022, that was followed by new home construction starts dropping off too.

The pools have stayed consistent. I am happy I jump all over that 5 years earlier.


Many years ago I was helping this guy permit a detached garage on his land, it was a 12 car garage / shop. He was a vintage muscle car guy.  As we were fighting our way through permitting he told me he wished he just built the fucking thing and paid the fines.

Seems he did just that years earlier on another property he owned, he just built it, got caught after it was done, then pulled all the permits after the fact paying fines. 

He told me in hindsight, it was faster and cheaper than doing it "the right way" with all the delays and BS he had to go through.

[jeff10049]

Yep, they force you to do things under the radar. I'd rather do it legally, but they make it unreasonable, if not impossible. I tried to put a unit heater in my garage years ago, and they wanted R22 insulation everywhere. At the time, there was no actual way to bring a garage door to R22. That and I only have 2x4 framing, so it's hard to do there as well. They also wanted me to dig out the footing of the slab and install 2" foam board all the way around the slab. All because of energy laws that apply to a conditioned space. Now, a wood stove or portable heater does not fall under these regs, nor do commercial buildings, so you can waste all the energy you want that way. But if a feller wants to occasionally hobby on his classic mini in his home garage, hell NO! NO WAY! FU.

But they told me that if I don't heat it over 50, the regs don't apply. I thought about it and figured, ok, that's not too bad. I mean, if it's -10 outside, I'm pretty happy to put on a sweatshirt and work in 50 degrees. So I said ok, that works for me. How do I do that? The answer was we don't know, so I found a thermostat with a lockout feature, and they said no, that won't work. Ok, so I found a thermostat that only went to 50. No, you could just change that out, ok fine, how do I do this? Same answer, we don't know, but if you can figure it out, it's legal.

WTF I give up, just put the heater in, pull some strings to get an LP tank set, and I have heat. I figure if we ever sell and it comes up, I'll just remove it. Best part is my insurance was fine with it, so long as a qualified person did the gas work. Luckily, I am a master fitter and just provided them with that info, and we were good to go. Either way, I could have also just had a fitter run the line.

[MiniDave]

I was going to say - how would they know if you put one in? Does it get hot in summer too? Would the same rules apply if you wanted to put a mini-split in to cool and heat both?

[94touring]

I guess I don't know how they'd know you have heat and air in your shop unless they do pop up inspections.  Particularly if you have portable units. Either way sounds annoying. 

[94touring]

...

[jeff10049]

I was going to say - how would they know if you put one in? Does it get hot in summer too? Would the same rules apply if you wanted to put a mini-split in to cool and heat both?

In this case, the LPG line needs to be signed off before a tank can be set, so that's why I started down the permit road. But we made it happen, turns out I was only hooking up a preexisting line that must have been installed at some long forgotten time in the past, just need a pressure test and good to go

In the case of a mini split, if you bought it and installed it yourself, no one would know, and I doubt any issue would ever come of it. The same energy laws do apply to a/c anything permanently installed and automatically controlled that creates a conditioned space, and then you have to follow the rules. I don't know if there's a temp limit on the a/c side to get around the rules, but since they have no idea how to do that, it would not matter.

That's why they said I could install a wood stove. I need to be present to stoke the fire, and I can't just set a thermostat and walk away; it does not fall under the energy laws. Nor do any portable units even if they are controlled by an automatic thermostat.

I actually thought about mounting my unit heater on a stand with wheels and creating a new label that said Dayton Portable Unit Heater and telling them I need to install a gas line to connect my portable unit heater when I wish to use it LOL.