Spring is Here

Last week I finished up my work at the CIS project. We had a couple of pours mixed in with a few poor weather days. It went from 60 and sunshine on Monday to blizzard-like conditions on Thursday which carried into Friday and Saturday. Sunday morning we woke up and it was back up into decent weather again with some wind.

Thursday I had a 4 hour training learning how to do onscreen takeoffs (actually a great tool) and then went back to the job and packed up. Friday morning I had another training at the area office and then moved my things into the area office. I am scheduled to be here until May 12. I hope that is accurate.

Last night we went on a walk with the boys down to one of the parks in the neighborhood. On our way back I took the double stroller with the boy in it and we went off-roading. They all thought it was so fun to go up and over everything and even Van was laughing hysterically. It was so important to them that we beat mommy home. Everything is a race for them. Lately one of their favorite things to do is play a game they call "Baby chase" where they run around the main floor and Janna tries to catch them. She is a good sport and plays over and over.

I am getting excited for the summer. I have all the days off that I needed to get for our trips to Newport Beach, CA and Coeur D' Alene, ID. It can't come soon enough. Of course, then it flies by and we are back to wishing it was still to come.

We are looking at doing a no-cost refinance to lower our interest rate on our house. We found an excellent guy to help us. The industry has taken such a huge beating that I think they are desperate for business. I tried the company who bought our loan, but they weren't helpful at all. We actually called in on a mailer and this guy has been fabulous. We will end up saving almost $60 a month, which is huge for us. We are trying to eliminate any unnecessary expenses where we can. If we can effectively do this I think we will be on the right track. If we can take a portion of that and spend it on food storage and put the rest into savings, then I think we will be establishing good habits and doing things we can teach our boys how to do as they get older.

We got our lawn aereated a week ago by the boy scouts. The timing was good because of all of the precipitation we received this past week. We seeded the areas where the previous owner's dog had decided to dig, and the grass has started to come up. We also noticed yesterday how the entire backyard is quickly becoming green. Hopefully with a week of sunshine it will really come into its own.

Our link to CR Trivia

So yesterday I got my marching orders. For the 2nd time since I transferred to the Building Group, the project I have been assigned to is having finance issues. Yippee. So in the mean time after this week I will be moving to the Area Office to help in the estimating department. It does have its upside, they don't start as early, I'm not on my feet quite as much, and I'll get some estimating experience until (if, when, should) the job starts.

We are finishing up a few more things at the CIS job this week and after Thursday I will be done here. I have a full day of training and reading with 3rd graders all day Friday, so Thursday afternoon will be the final hours for me here, for now. I will come back for about a week to do topping slabs but that won't happen for about 6 weeks.

We got box seats to the Rockies-Braves game last night. I was a little hesitant at first because the temperatures were low yesterday and there was a 60% chance of precipitation, but we decided to make a night of it. Turns out we spent as much or more time getting to and from the game as we did at the game itself. After scoring a quick run in the top of the 1st inning, both pitchers were very efficient. Until the bottom of the 8th inning, no one scored and most innings went quickly. There were a lot of 1st pitch groundballs. We got to see the future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine pitch a jewel of a game. Unfortunately for him his bullpen couldn't hold the lead. In the 8th, Tulo led off with a double, Helton struck out looking, and then Holliday sent the first pitch over the center field wall. It was awesome.

Luckily the game ended up being the shortest game in Coors Field history, 2 hours and 5 minutes. I think the boys thought it was still too long. They didn't take naps so they were ready to leave as soon as they ate their hotdogs. They always love the train ride there. The train was pretty empty so they jumped around like monkeys most of the way there. We had a fun time.

Panoramic Picture of the Jobsite

Here is a picture of work I took at the end of the day today. My camera phone takes pretty good panoramic pictures. You can see the progress we've made since the last post. Since Monday we have put up all the wall starting to the right of the yellow trailer and working our way around. I hit 40 hours for the week this morning around 10am and they want to work Saturday. Ugh. It's still going well, just fast, plus we are a carpenter short.

We'll have the perimeter wall done this week minus the access road and then we'll have the elevator walls to do and about 10 stoops around the building. I heard this week that I'll be here til April 11 and on to the next project. I'll be back to do 6 topping slabs and maybe the sitework.

One Big Buck

This buck was taken in Alberta, Canada I believe. I don't know a lot about it but it was shot by a friend of mine's-friend's son. So I am 3rd party. It's big.

Work, work, work

Here are some pictures of the new project I have been assigned to. We have spent the past 2 weeks working on the foundation. The first picture is the only one with me in it. I am on the left working on the building layout and establishing grid lines which control everything layout-wise related to the building. You can see that we have had phenomenal weather. The first 2 days of spring have been top notch.Setting forms for the foundation. There is a 3 inch layer that goes down between the forms called void form that keeps the foundation up off of the soil. The clay soil here in Colorado is expansive and will push up on the foundation if this layer of "space" isn't allowed for. I don't have a picture of the void for on hand.This surveyor is "as-builting" the piers that were drilled down to the bedrock. You can see what he is standing on is cut out to allow the concrete to set up on the pier. The surface he is standing on is masonite which is covering the void form so the concrete doesn't crush it when we pour the concrete. You can also see that the rebar is starting to be tied here.This is what the pour looks like. The 2 workers at the bottom are finishing it and the guy standing on the form is placing the concrete with the chute. The other two are vibrating the concrete to get all of the cracks filled in and eliminate bubbles. They also make sure it is poured to the correct elevation.Here is the final product. It was backfilled a few days later so all you could see is the top. The black blanket on the right is covering the next day's pour to keep the heat in. This is what the foundation looks like after it is backfilled. This building has this funky radius that we had to layout. It was kind of time-consuming, but turned out really nice. The ironworkers finished tying the iron and it is ready for the wall to be formed up.

After we poured the entire foundation of the building we poured the Elevator slab in the center which you can see in the upper right of the picture above in front of the green backhoe. It was 2'6" thick. Today we finished forming up the walls and poured 60 LF of concrete. On the ground are an anchor bolt template (by the bucket) and a couple embed templates. If you look next to the paint cans you can see how the embed templates are put in the form. When the other side of the form is put on we put the embeds in their specific designed location and get them within 1/8" of where they are supposed to be. This is why I spend so much time working on layout. Everything is built off of those grid lines I mentioned earlier.

I am enjoying the project. My day is non-stop start to finish. I am on my feet all day so I have been exhausted at the end of every day. Janna probably wishes I wasn't so tired. I fall asleep on the couch almost every night, sometimes around 7:30. Good for me, not for her.

What's In A Name?

Very Interesting

Lucas
There are 47,058 people in the U.S. with the first name Lucas.
Statistically the 818th most popular first name.
More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name Lucas are male.

Lee
There are 667,915 people in the U.S. with the last name Lee.
Statistically the 24th most popular last name.

Lucas Lee
There are 104 people in the U.S. named Lucas Lee.

New Project

Monday I started on a new project. It is a Federal Gov't building, 45,000 SF, 3 stories. Currently we have the core and shell contract and are awaiting the Tenant Finishes contract.

We had been waiting for the building permit to come through and it finally did while we were in Omaha. Last Friday Brice and I packed up our things and moved them over to the job trailer. Monday I took some time to move my stuff into my new desk and set up my computer, then had to go back to the old site and get a few things we left. Once I got back the work began.

I spent about a day and a half putting together Excel Spreadsheets to help me track the work we do related to Concrete. I will be able to do a lot more outdoor things now that those are put together. Wednesday I spent the day putting together work plans and quantities for my General Foreman, Brice, to simplify his life when we start forming the footing. Thursday was a joyous day of going over rebar drawings and verifying the engineer's work. Funny they have a novice check the pro's work, but I actually did catch a couple of things. That took ALL DAY.

Yesterday was the payoff though. I was able to be outside ALL DAY. After a week of staying busy (rare) I was able to stay busy nonstop. My super, John, does a good job of telling me what he needs me to do, what his expectations are for me, and how to most effectively and efficiently go about my work. He started as a field engineer and is one of the best teaching Superintendent's we have I have been told. So I am trying to learn as much as I can from him.

I started learning how to use the Leica Total Station survey equipment. I checked all of the layout the Subcontracted Survey Company did and make sure their layout hadn't been altered or destroyed. I also laid out the grid lines on the Drilled Piers and we laid out the outside edge of our forms. I did a lot more after that, checking my work in different ways, but for the most part you probably won't follow me, so I won't go into detail. We got a lot done today and I learned a lot, which, is most important right now. I stayed later that most do on Friday but was able to get some extra work done that will get us going faster on Monday. If we are going to make any money on the concrete (because we are self-performing the work) I have to stay ahead of the work and have the layout ready to go. I'll post some pictures next week from work.