Since 4:30. . .

Cha-clunk! Cha-clunk! Cha-clunk!

Well, I guess this is better than prison.

- Sent from my iPhone

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Arrrghhhh!

Hey, who let all these spiders in here!

Yeah yeah, I know, where the hell have I been? Well, wouldn't you sorry sacks of lizard lips like to know!

I'm in a musical mood and I've been up working since midnight on two hours of un-fitful sleep, so I'm feeling a little, oh, what's the word? Deranged? Must be, cuz today's first musical selection in none other than the polished forehead of Paul Anka breaking down a big jazz horn rendition of Bon Jovi's It's My Life. Yeah, no shit.



Today's early morning second selection is a big brass, woodwind groove, wonderful arrangement from the Eastwood/Sheen vehicle The Rookie.



And lastly, the only song I can still play on the piano, start to finish, after years of childhood lessons, the theme from the wonderful movie series, The Pink Panther. Screw the cowbell, moar horns!



Killing that triangle, drummer!

Hell, let's do one more for my good pal and semi-functional nutcase in Costa Rica, Sean-Sean, The Girl From Impanema.



Top shelf! Ace on the marimba there.

Well, good morning all, wake the fuck up, there is shit to be done, don't let life pass you by. By the way, how y'all been?

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Man vs. Machine. . .

Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it. -- Salvador Dali

In the famous words of Buckwheat, "Here I is!"

I apologize for the long delay in returning to the blog contraption. My penance for being a bright, hardworking man has been paid and now I can go back to being a lazy slacker which I much prefer.

The recent weeks have been filled with many long days, some 14 hours or longer in length, slogging through mud and mire, dust and blistering sunshine, yet we have achieved our goal.

Here is a photo of my nemeses:


These are deep foundation drilling machines used to install under-reamed or "bell" piling for large buildings. In my hometown, we are blessed to have some of the most expansive and useless clays on the planet and about 40 feet or so down beneath these highly expansive clays lay a strata of unweathered blue clay in which these deep pilings are founded.

So, for a month, I've been monitoring the installation of these pilings and all assorted ignorance, hijinks, foolishness and chicanery that goes with it. I'll simplify it as such: if an architect draws a straight line on a piece of paper, then several dozen men can find a way to turn that straight line into a rhombus, hendecagon or worse even, an irregular icosagon.

Construction is a matter of inches, tenths of an inch, hundredths of an inch and each one counts. Don't get your initial elevations or benchmarks correct and the whole building with either be to high or too low, too far left or right or worse even, not square. Enter me. I am the straightener. I am the predominator. I am the "decider." And I decided and decided and decided until I was blue in the face, but no amount of deciding can stop a dozen hard-working Mexicans, 4 Cajuns and a handful dopey white guys from screwing some shit up.

Alas, in the end, it all worked out. Construction people are pretty smart, maybe not individually, but collectively and if all else fails, you can always get the architects or engineers stirred up with an RFI (Request For Information). In other words, we screwed the pooch with a stale donut, a #9 rebar, two gallons of axle grease and need some help.


Kinda makes me miss the hardcore days of the professional kitchen. The stress, the anger, the lunatics with sharp utensils within arm's reach. Only difference is, the food is better.

Greetings all. I have returned.

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Square Pegs, Round Holes. . .

A metaphor or two. . .

My work is like the song that says, "...wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round..." except the bus I am on has square wheels made of granite fingernails and the road is made of blackboard. My body is constructed of delicately laminated crystal cementations which are slowly being de-aggregated on the atomic level from each fall of the wheel's edge as some smelly lard-ass standing in the aisle of this crowded third world bus rests their lard-haunch on my shoulder as I sing Tom Sawyer at the top of my lungs in an effort to squelch the overwhelming input of noise, vibration and personal violation. "No his mind is not for rent, to any God or government..."

My work is like sharing a ten-course tasting menu dinner with Matthew Modine and tempering uneasy feelings of indecisiveness because I don't know whether he's a brilliant actor or a hack, but then I remember Vision Quest and either way, brilliant or not, I still want to punch him in the face. The squid ravioli is divine though. . .

My work is like waking up after a long night out and finding myself in a bed in a strange place. I look about and see various womans undergarments strewn around the room; a pair of six inch heels next to a black, spangled purse and a tiny magenta and iridescent blue bodice mini-dress hanging on the bedroom doorknob. I roll over to find a warm body next to me. I turn on the bedside lamp only to be confronted by a lumpy and hairy man-back, riddled with pockmarks, moles and fresh lesions indicative of a lustful night. Lunging from the bed in panic, I catch a glimpse of myself hurtling by a wall-length mirror and shriek in agony as I realize that I am a Thai transsexual hooker who turns tricks on the corner in Sunset and Vine in Los Angeles. All I need is $2500 more for the surgery. . .

This is me........going to work......

Thanks to all of you for stopping by during my extended absence. I'll be posting over the weekend hopefully and with the results of the BBQ contest this past Saturday also, photos included.

See you soon!!

Oh yeah, Greasy? Hope you guys are ok after the rattles this week. Let me know how you are!

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Tuesday's Zen. . .

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. -- Kahlil Gibran

And since I didn't post yesterday, Breda fills the gap with a cutesy animal video that's gonna make you run right out and buy whatever the hell that little thing is!

You may now return to you regularly scheduled programming of hating your work.

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Tiredness. . .

400 road miles today.

Egypt Hill, Georgetown, Pinola, D'Lo, Magee, Collins, Seminary, Hattiesburg, Wiggins, Gulfport, SeaBee Base, Walnut Grove, Bond, Brooklyn, Hattiesburg, Lux, Mount Olive, Harrisburg, Old Pearl, Egypt Hill.

*snore*

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And One And Two And Three And Four. . .

Ah, the high life!

Sorry the bloggerino here has been a little dull and bare lately. We've been getting the joint here ready for an inspection by civil service agents (my favorite!) employed by the mighty United States Military.

Basically it's like this:

Here's a hoop. Jump through it.

Now jump backwards through it.

Now jump forwards through it.

Now jump through it in metric.

Now we'd like to see all your jumping reports in quadruplicate. Metric and English units, divided, sub-divided, collated, triplicated once over, randomized and paper-clipped.

No, no. BIG paperclips.


Man, all I can say is Thank God It's Friday. I'm going to go drink a peck of Heineken and a gill or two of Jagermeister!!

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Ok, Ok. . .

I'll take back what I said earlier about worthless civil servant jobs. We all know someone who works for the government and it's not necessarily their fault that they look like tools from time to time. I've worked around enough government entities to know that sometimes, they actually write idiocy into job specifications and therefore the employee is not to blame.

However, there are examples of lame incompetence.

Recently, Beatrice was called for jury duty in Texas. She tried calling the courthouse for information and this is the message she received. Listen closely to this important announcement:




I rest my case.

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As Buckwheat Once Said. . .

. . .here I is!!

Back safe and sound in the confines of Worksville.

Let me just say that sometimes I'm smart. And sometimes I'm really smart. And other times I'm really really smart. This ain't one of those times.

At the Jackson airport this morning, after a rather uneventful flight, I wheeled my bag out to the parking garage to find that some dumbass left his truck window down all weekend. That'd be this dumbass right here. Yet, thankfully it appears that the innards were unmolested. Even the crumpled up dollar bill tucked under the armrest/console thing was still there, crumpled up.

So, thanks to all the people who walked past my truck and didn't steal my all-important dollar. Or my Gourmet magazine. Or my dirty workboots. Or last week's Clarion-Ledger.

In celebration of the goodness of humanity and my return to slavery work, let's play a personal fave of my by The Pretender's, Back on the Chain Gang.

Indeed.

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Is It Monday?

Another lovely winter day begins here in Mississippi. New Year's Eve I was freezing my boo-tay off trying to break in a new fire barrel and today? Well, it's threatening rain and it's 55 degrees outside heading to a high of 65. It's a blizzard out there.

We are sitting around the office with not much to do on this lovely Monday (Friday?) morning. We have no lab work to speak of and the likelihood of a contractor calling today is minimal. But there are two ding-dongs so far who want to make life miserable for everyone else, so we wait. We wait. We wait.

Hey, the phone is ringing. . .hang on a sec. . .

Wrong number.

So, good morning planet Earth! How you doing today?

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Fun In The Pot Sink. . .

First, a history lesson.

The French are wonderful cooks and chefs, from the country housewife of Normandy to the 3-star Michelin-rated Parisian top chef. However, I know a dirty little secret. The French owe most of what they know to the Italians.

Yes, it's true, but they'd never let you know.

Some many centuries ago, Catherine de Medici married French King Henry II and in the process brought with her a plethora of culinary ideas and techniques by virtue of her Italian servants and cooks. This laid the foundation and groundwork for centuries of culinary refinement, an evolution of cooking and technique beyond scale. The French are owed a great deal, but it was the technique and knowledge of the Italians that started it all.

My first "real" chef was a Frenchman named Phillipe. Phillipe cut his culinary teeth suffering through the apprentice system in France, which is more or less like an extended boot camp that lasts for years. According to Phillipe, during his formative years he spent hours upon hours tournéeing carrots, peeling potatoes for pommes Lyonnaise, frenching racks of lamb, etc. Many days early in his career, much of his prep ended up in the stock pot. "Do it again," demanded the old-line chefs! It's a hard way to learn and the dedication it takes to survive is incalculable.

He was a wonderful man, a compassionate man, a great chef, and I learned more from him than I could ever write in a blog post. I, at some point, became his apprentice while working at a 5-star hotel with a name that sounds a lot like Ditz-Barlton. Yes, I'm trying to protect their image because one day, we defaced Phillipe and the pot sink in the main kitchen all in one fell swoop. The local health department would have had a stroke had they known.

Sssshhhh! This is insider information, so don't tell anyone.

On Phillipe's last day, in great culinary tradition, we hatched a plan to humiliate him by dunking him in something, or dumping something on him or somehow damaging his psyche prior to his departure. This is the food world equivalent of dumping the Gatorade cooler on a winning coach after a football game. This ritual says many things and it is different for each person involved. Some people are showing love, others are saying "goodbye asshole!" and a few are involved solely because it means making a huge mess without repercussion.

For Phillipe's departure, the evil pastry folks downstairs whipped up some colored meringue or Chantilly cream for plastering him and our plan was to corral Phillipe, dust him with flour as we hauled his big, lanky ass to the pot sink and proceeded to defame him with the whipped delights. At some point, an unknown genius decided to prepare a special garbage can brimming with the filthiest foul and filth known to the culinary world for a final, nasty deluge of goodbye for Phillipe.

Poor Phillipe put up a helluva fight as we carted him towards the pot sink, his body draped across five of us and the rest of the kitchen staff in tow. As all plans seem to go, it misfired, and the flour intended for Phillipe ended up coating the face of my buddy Carlos, sending him into a fit of gagging and wheezing as several of us crammed Phillipe down the narrow passageway. Then some fool spastically hurled the garbage can of food jism at all of us, covering most of our team in an indescribable, smelly ooze. Luckily, the majority of the bilge hit the mark of Phillipe as we slammed him into the pot sink, whereupon we unloaded liberal doses of the whipped something-or-other on him.

Many weeks later, when I had the evidence I had captured on film developed, I realized that the garbage wasn't the greatest insult of the exercise, nor was it the slathering of the whipped something we applied. In the mayhem of the moment the statement was lost. I took another long look at the photograph and had a great chuckle as I realized the significance of what I saw. .


Viva La Italia Phillipe!

So, you see, stupid pot sink girls? You ain't got nothing on real chefs. Stick to frying chicken. And bathing your rotund bodies at home.

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Workity Workity Work. . .

Sorry for the extended absences, but work has been the mother of all mothers lately. I guess that's the penalty for taking a little vacation time and enjoying myself away from the rigors of work.

Currently, we are involved in a very large soils investigation. In a weeks time, we have performed 207 exploratory borings across an 80-plus acre site and in the laboratory have completed roughly 2/3's (about 400 individual samples) of the soil classifications using the test methodology invented by Albert Atterberg. Let me simplify that for the layman. . .we've been eating dust sandwiches all week.

Most of the work, actually all of the work, is quite repetitive and mind-numbingly boring (get it? boring?), but on occasion you run across an anomaly in the soil which raises some interest. Such as in the photo below. . .



We're not quite sure what this crystalline substance is, but our geologist seems to believe that it is either gypsum or some sort of calcite. I'm hedging on the calcite as Yazoo clay (the type of soil shown) is loaded with calcareous nodules. Interesting, isn't it?

The difficulty with heavy (Yazoo) clay is the ability of the material to retain large quantities of water, which in turn, creates tremendous changes in volume. Yazoo clay can easily take on it's own weight in water and it is this "activity" exacerbated by seasonal water changes that can tear a home or building in half, literally. That is what makes the material difficult to build upon and the reason our roads in Jackson are so terrible.

In this part of Mississippi, there are a couple of options: you can try to create a buffer of at least 7 feet of less-expansive clay in between the bottom of the foundation and the Yazoo clay or you can use a deep foundation system, such as underreamed (bell) piling. Cost is typically the issue and usually the undercut and backfill option is the most cost effective, unless it is a large or heavy construction like a multi-story office building, parking garage or a large warehouse with high walls where wind pressures and uplift are concerned.

The truth, as in most cases with Mother Nature, is that she usually wins. I posted a photo some time ago of an odd shaped concrete structure and what that thing is, is the top of a bell piling. Obviously the shaft should be straight like the ones in the background and not mushroomed out as in the photo, but I suspect that there was some sloughing or possibly it was raining that day the concrete was poured for that piling.

Anyway, that building was constructed back in the early 1970's and the Yazoo clay beneath it has swelled so much that the crawl space under the building no longer existed and the soil was pushing against the floor joists above it. The pressure became go great that it heaved the floor and broke two piling where they were connected to the building by an exterior poured-in-place concrete grade wall.

I'd say that's some badass dirt, wouldn't you?

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It's Official. . .

my garden is dead. And all it took was three and a half weeks of neglect.

*sigh*

Well, I'm ready to get back on the road again. I've washed all the clothes, cooked a heap of food for the dastardly dad and the creepy, gay retiree across the road who I call Fruiticus Cakeus.

Poor Fruiticus is such a pain in the ass (no pun intended) that even his own family, who own about 1000 acres of pastureland over there won't have anything to do with him. He lives alone in an old home on the property and to the best of my knowledge has never been married nor fathered any children. I don't know if he's gay or not, but he makes some statements from time to time about my looks or hair that's enough to give a dead animal the creeps.

I wonder what this week has in store for me? More frustrations? Hopefully nothing but successes. We need it.

I'm staring in the bathroom with dread. Not that I don't want to take a shower, but I know that right after, I'm back in the truck headed south. And I guess my vacation to my old stomping grounds in Costa Rica is on hold until further notice also. Who knows when life will return to normal?

Sometimes I want to just throw up my hands and say "Fuck it and fuck you! I'm leaving!" I've done that a time or two. But I suppose my days of irresponsibility are over and I can no longer walk away when I get fed up.

I was talking to an old friend recently and I suggested to her that we pack our stuff and just take off traveling until the money runs out. Then after the money is gone, wherever we are, we work. . .until we have enough to make it back. Writing about and photographing the whole ordeal.

Well, one can dream. . .

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Almost Free. . .

This evening I find myself still stuck in Gulfport. It has been another long week of minor victories, countless frustrations, occasional arguments and in the end, progress. Slight progress.

One more lovely evening in Gulfport probably won't kill me, but I'll be glad to be home, even if only for a day and a half.

Today I spent most of the morning and afternoon in the woods of what will eventually be a subdivision of single family homes. After two days of site layout and one day of drilling for soil samples I could pretty much draw the entire 88 acre property of the back of a napkin if you like. I've seen entirely too much of the flora and fauna that will some day be pushed over to make room for homes.

I always feel a bit of sadness on projects like this. Sometimes it really bothers me that our "progress" comes with such a heavy cost for the rest of nature. Most of the beautiful trees will be destroyed and a lot of animals will be displaced or killed. My soft side is disturbed. I guess I have to just shrug my shoulders and move along. Such is the world that we have created.

On a brighter note, I had a wonderfully crisp and delicious salad today from the local market. There was a very well produced salad bar in the market around the corner with a plethora of nice bound salads and accompaniments for the lettuce. I ate lots of beautiful crunchy things and it was simply fantastic. What I needed after a long day of sweat. Hydration by vegetable. Who'da thunk it?

Now it's time for a shower and a bodily inspection for chiggers. I'm nearly certain that I picked up a few in the low scrub of the woods today. I fear. . .I fear. . .

Is that an itch?

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Hell.

3:30 a.m.
gulfport, mississippi - july 2008

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Out To Lunch. . .

Folks, sorry I haven't been able to post much over the last couple of days, but life being what it is, which most of the time is unfair and unpredictable, I find myself working very much harder than my lazy constitution generally allows.

I spent the morning broiling over an asphalt parking lot as we verified the thickness of the asphalt overlay and the granular limestone subbase, which is about as fun as what I will do tonight, which is monitor a 1200 cubic yard concrete placement starting at 9:00 p.m. I suspect that by 6 in the morning I am going to be a basket case the likes of which has never been seen before.

*sigh*

All work and no play makes Brett a dull Burning Toast.

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One Of The Most Beautiful Things. . .

. . .happened today.

Stuff got done.

Yes, believe it or not, in my simple little world of construction, stuff got done. And I am happy. I think I deserve a beer and a pat on the back. Congratulations me, you did great. Thanks.

Tomorrow I expect to have another chance at greatness and should I not be given the opportunity, then fine I'll accept it. For now anyway. Dogs can't have their day every day you know.

In the morning I get to go to one of my favourite places in the state. We are going to the Stennis Space Center where the bulk of the rocket testing for NASA for over 40 years has taken place. Some many years ago we worked on the original construction of the some of the more recent test stands and although I've never seen a rocket tested up close, I have been on the campus when they fired one off. You could see the white smoke rising above the pine groves in the distance and the rumbling was phenomenal. Neat stuff.

Years ago, on the wall at the check-in center, there was a huge color enhanced satellite image of the mouth of the Mississippi River at Empire, Lousiana and it just fascinated me to no end. The detail was just incredible. If I remember correctly you could see the city of New Orleans also, including the Superdome. I love stuff like that.

Paint me what I am, a nerd.

I think you can buy those photographs and I've always wanted to, but never have.

I've also always wanted to buy a tow trailer, build an enclosed kitchen on it, call it "The Joint", and travel across country from festival to county fair to roller derby selling good food to strange people and making a documentary about the experiences/hijinks.

I would call the film, The Joint: Smokin'.

I have yet to get around to that either. Maybe I'm just too damn lazy.

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Thrice In Nice. . .

Hey, I'm drinking beer at work, what are you doing?

Again, bloody hell, again. Last night I skirted the 4th level of salad hell inferno hoping to ride the momentum right the heck out of town, but little did I know that the inverse gravitational influence cubed of Bibb lettuce is the equivalent of doing a face plant into green Jello at 75 miles per hour.

So, now I'm stuck. In Gulfport. Still.

And to make matters worse, I'm out of clean underwear. Which gives me about three options.

I can walk around naked. I can go commando. Or I can buck up and shop at Wal-Mart on a Friday evening.

Neither of these options seem to appeal to my sensibilities. Just ask Nils, the Wal-Mart in Gulfport on a Friday night is a fairly frightening experience.

Yet, my boys down there rubbing against rough denim for a full day tomorrow sounds like. . .ah, forget it, this post is going nowhere.

I leave you with the kind words of my grandfather, Daddy Ray, who was more or less the human genomes of Archie Bunker and Fred Sanford photosynthesized in a petri dish full of bourbon:

Daddy Ray: "One of these days boy, when you get old, your balls are gonna sag."

Me: "But Daddy Ray, I'm only 8 years old."

Daddy Ray: "Son, trust me. I've got big balls and they sag."

Me: "Daddy Ray?"

Daddy Ray: "Yes?"

Me: "What are 'balls'?"

Daddy Ray: "Son, bring me another bourbon, I have to fire up the tractor and bush-hog the hill."

Me: "Neat or on the rocks?"

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Gentlemen. . .

excuse me, sirs? You're really not contributing anything positive to this ever worsening situation.


water works
biloxi, mississippi - july 2008

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Thank God For Tuesday. . .

Ow, my leg hurts.

Ow, my back hurts.

Ow, my shoulder hurts.

Ow, I have to go the the dentist.

Ow, my baby is sick.

Ow, what is the worker's comp. claim number?

Ow, how come I don't have any vacation days left?

Ow, why is my house foundation settling?

Ow, it's gonna cost what?

Ow, that's too much.

Ow, the fax machine doesn't work.

Ow, I mailed time sensitive materials to you through the regular mail and it took 4 days to get there.

Ow, I work for a government entity that builds your roads and bridges, we lost your paperwork from 5 years ago.

Ow, can you send it again?

Ow, the equipment is broken.

My Monday in a nutshell.

How was yours?

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