How'd it go today?

Boring day. Didn't do much of anything at work, but my time was still taken up, so I couldn't do anything more interesting. Got home, and found my keyboard I spilled soup on had some dead keys. I tried rehooking up my old model M I took out of service and washed, and it's working good, though my preferred model M has dead keys. I'll have to open it up and see what's going on.

The soup board is a POS anyway. It was the keyboard that came with my refurb computer. The keys were mushy and cramped, and I spent as much time correcting typos as I did typing. The chassis also has a lot of flex. It's just a little better than nothing. The old classic model M is hard to beat for a "stock" keyboard. Nothing better than a buckling spring switch :^)
 
Easy day. Finally unloaded the truck; washed everything that could have been carriers of the oak wilt fungus. Trashed the old boots I took, but washed the laces to use in another pair.
ran the truck to the car wash to get the Mich. salt buildup off, just in time for snow and freezing rain here. They’re out spraying brine on the roads right now. Crane job is off for tomorrow.
Finished a couple hours of certification CEUs for the DMRC (Delaware Medical Reserve Corps). Have to get my shots updated and get vaccinated in order to go volunteer at the Covid immunization sites.
 
Put 8K in trees on the ground and mostly cleaned up. 3 loads of logs with the 550 to a buddy's house 8 minutes from the job, It was 90% ash so he can burn it this year. All other big wood is cut and stacked by the street for pick up, Had to drop the last tree in the dark, as it's raining / snowing all day tomorrow and I needed the traction for this job. We dropped three big trees across a pipeline right of way. After the first one was down, some guy wearing a hardhat and driving a small white pick-up walks into the work zone asking "who's in charge".

The neighbor called when she saw the first tree down, she called Texas Eastern, who owns the pipeline. They sent a reconnaissance plane to take pictures and the dude was there in 45 minutes. He showed me the aerial photos on his phone. I didn't see the plane, but the guys did. He started reading me the riot act. No skid loaders or trucks can be run on the right of way (we had the 17,500 GVW F550 back there as the ground was frozen this morning. There were three or 4 dents in the lawn that you could twist an ankle on, but nothing that was going to take out a pipeline. I never thought a thing about it. I know they just put a new pipeline in that area, so I figured that had to be unbreakable by falling trees.

In nearly 40 years I've never even heard of anyone taking out a water line dropping a tree.

Mike (the guy from Texas Eastern) proceeded to tell me that there are two pipelines and the old one is from 1943 and because of the rock in the area, it's only two feet deep. And if it gets ruptured there are 800 lbs of gas coming non-stop with a potential blast zone of 500 feet. The first thing I said to him is that I won't do anything without his say so. He interrupted me a couple of times and it could have gotten heated, but I just told him"you're in charge"... Whatever you say goes". He was pretty cool with that, let me finish the job, just wanted to make sure I had enough big wood down offset from the lines so that the trees didn't hit the ground directly on top of the old line, and that I cleaned up the right of way and the neighbor's property. I thought that pretty cool of him as he easily could have shut the job down and I would have had to get a climber in, which would have sucked.
 
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I've heard of people getting killed doing less, pipelines are no joke. A water line means nothing compared to a natural gas mainline, and water lines are usually all hdpe anymore, and tolerate ground movement way better. Mainlines actually run at such high pressures they are a considerable percentage of the hoop strength of the pipe. You have a limb poke in the ground and even cause a small dimple it could blow, and if they wanted to they could still charge you to dig it up and inspect it.
 
I was not dissing the guy. I was 100% compliant. And I appreciate the advice. maybe I'll take some pictures to show there was no significant soil disturbance.
He was also complaining about damage to the grass. He was a little pissed because there had been a big wind through that area in 2019, that knocked down a ton of trees, the remains of which were visible just outside the ROW in the woods. The homeowners wouldn't pay so Texas eastern had to spend 80K getting the clean up done, then the homeowners all wanted grass planted. The thing looks like a fairway. Shot video coming. Phone SD card ran out of storage
 
Oh i belive they were mad about the grass, it's crazy how nice they have to have stuff sometimes. It's honestly like nothing ever happened there. Good job in letting him run the deal, best thing to do there.
 
I would have probably done the same thing. Big open space like that I would have had no idea I could blow up the freaking neighborhood with a tree limb. Thanks for the education. I just learned something.
 
Maybe marginally hardy in your area, but check this plant out.


Caffeine bearing US native holly. Appeal to your independent spirit? Who needs coffee when you can have a nice glass of I. vomitoria! Kinda like Yerba Matè I'd suppose

Would definitely be in my garden if I lived in the south
I ordered some of the tea on Amazon, we shall see. Sounds like a nice mildly stimulating drink. Once you get past the name anyways.
 
Kyle,
I had taken the old pair of Salomon boots with torn foxing, soles-getting-soft, upper pulling away from the soles, and no longer water resistant, - I was retiring them anyway.
The new pair of Salewa climbers are by the back door looking very clean and stiff, and ready to annoy me until they are broken in!
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I've heard of people getting killed doing less, pipelines are no joke. A water line means nothing compared to a natural gas mainline, and water lines are usually all hdpe anymore, and tolerate ground movement way better. Mainlines actually run at such high pressures they are a considerable percentage of the hoop strength of the pipe. You have a limb poke in the ground and even cause a small dimple it could blow, and if they wanted to they could still charge you to dig it up and inspect it.
What post # started this discussion?
 
My MREs came today. They were a few days early...

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Amusingly, they had that piece of bubblewrap on top. MREs are built to survive a 100' drop. I don't think that bubblewrap adds much to that equation.
 
I love MREs! Well, except for those fuckin' omelettes. I have no idea how they passed testing. They may be slightly better than starving to death, but I'd have to try the latter to be sure. Thankfully, they're no longer issued. I have the luxury of saying "Nope!", but I bet it sucked for the guys in the field who got to the cases last, and ended up with a choice of omelette or omelette D^:
 
Called a late start due to ice and then called off an hour before normal start time. Well everyone but me. I went in and did some repairs and loaded trucks for tomorrow. 3 days of crane work lined up for the rest of the week. One might have to be postponed due to the amount of precipitation. Mats can only do so much. At some point it’s just to wet. I’m going to check it out tomorrow afternoon but I’m really not liking the idea of putting a crane on a lawn ( matted) right now. Gotta go out to the garage and locate a few quickies. I gave one to a friend and shortly realized my extras were not in my truck.
 
Where do you order them from?
I've been getting them from amazon. I used to buy from ebay, but ebay's always a little iffy. I had ordered from one guy a couple times, then he flaked out or something on the third order, and I had to petition for refund. I got it, and it wasn't a huge hassle or anything, but amazon is just more reliable for stuff like this, and I don't think prices are out of line(currently).

Back when covid first hit, they shot up to ~$400/case. I'd consider $80/case a very good price. I paid $204 shipped for these two cases(24 meals). Not an amazing deal, but fair I think. It's about what you'd spend at a fastfood joint if you didn't buy off the dollar menu.
 
I’ve only eaten a couple of MREs. Friend of mine was in the Guard back in the 80s and gave me a couple. Back in around ‘80, my grandpa kept one of the old sardine can K-rations in the trunk of his car. One day, he opened it up and we sorted it out. Can of beans and a can of crackers is all I remember for certain (there was more food but I can’t remember what it was). Salt, pepper packets, a 4-pack of cigarettes and some paper matches. I’d say things have improved....
 
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