Medical Facility Diagram

I mentioned on a previous post a recent survey of a medical facility in Montana, and how long it had taken to measure out the building with my measuring wheel. I just thought I would put up the AutoCAD diagram to show you what the building looks like.

The dark lines are the building exterior and the lighter lines are some interior building sections. What you are probably barely able to see as blue markings are dimensions. You can click the photo to get a closer look, if you want. The building's main level is one floor but there is some basement area. The main level is about 180,000 sq. ft. and the basement area is around 50,000 sq. ft.

This is just part of my job with an insurance company - performing inspections on commercial accounts and documenting and reporting building areas and construction data to our cost estimators in Des Moines.

I've Been to Montana Once More

I was gone all last week working in Montana and I made my triumphant arrival, as is my custom, back in Bismarck at about 5:45 pm on Friday. I put 750 miles on my car and visited Wibaux, Glendive, Richey, Vida, Wolf Point, Glasgow, Fort Peck, and Sidney. Whenever I say Wibaux I think of the slogan "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down." I inspected a bulk fuel dealer, a truck stop, a car dealer, an investment office, a post office, a school, a senior citizens center, several apartment buildings, and a large medical facility.

On Thursday and Friday I spent a total of about six hours at the medical facility. This is the first time I had been there. They have had several additions to the building and I noticed some previously obtained building dimensions were incorrect, so I decided to go ahead and redo the measurements for the entire building. Often times when there is snow on the ground or there is some form of inclement weather I can do my measurements inside the building. However, this building has a lot of irregular shapes and different wings shooting off in all directions so I wasn't able to do so. I donned my snow boots and trudged through the snow banks in the subzero weather to get all of the outside dimensions. Yes, you can feel sorry for me now. Ha.

On one leg of my trip I took the highway from Beach to Sidney. That was a nice drive with pretty scenery, lots of hills, and a curvy road. On the route was a natural gas plant in North Dakota I never knew existed. The plant is southeast of Sidney and only about 1/2 mile east of the Montana border on CR 32. County road 32 joins ND Hwy 16 with MT Hwy 23. With some research I found out this is the Bear Paw Energy Grasslands plant and they produce about 100 million cubic feet per day. Below is the Google aerial view.

Since I've been home my theme has been Donovan's pinewood derby car. He is too young to do much work on it yet - pretty much all he could do is paint the car. I asked him if he wanted to paint and he was not interested. He knew exactly what he wanted though, which was a black car with yellow stripes.

Last weekend I cut the vehicle, a pickup, spray primed it, and then painted it yellow. This morning I taped the stripes and spray painted the black. I think it turned out OK.

Last year I purchased a scroll saw and am so glad to have it for this project. I used the saw for Gerrit's last car and for his car the year before I borrowed my uncle's scroll saw. Prior to that I had worked with a coping saw and that took seemingly forever but was really probably about an hour. It is not a soft wood. The scroll saw made the cuts in five minutes.

This evening I started work on the wheels and axles. I'll post a picture of the finished car some other time. Donovan's race is this Tuesday evening!

Oh, and the picture at the top is from Wibaux.

To Des Moines and Back

As Nancy mentioned, I got back yesterday from a business meeting in Des Moines. This was the almost annual Risk Improvement Representative educational meeting at the home office in downtown Des Moines. The meetings are held about every 1 1/2 years, alternating between spring and fall, so I call it "almost" annual.

The photo above is looking out from my 4th floor room at the Hotel Fort Des Moines toward the parking garage/office building across the street. Most of downtown Des Moines is connected by skywalk so the walk to the home office from the hotel was all inside.

There are 900 employees in our home office and about 200 employees in the Des Moines branch of the company. They are in the same building, so I usually just say we have about 1,100 employees at the home office. The Bismarck branch has just under 90 employees.

I left mid-morning on Saturday and arrived in Eagan, MN at about 5:00 pm. After an overnight stay at my brother's house, I left for Des Moines on time because we had a meeting at 4:00 pm on Sunday.

The meetings ended at noon on Wednesday, and I headed out as soon as possible for South Dakota.

Heading west from Des Moines I eventually ended up traveling north on I-29. I took that all the way up to Brookings, stopped for supper, and drove the rest of the way westward to Huron for an overnight stay. The picture of the road sign was taken near Iroquois, SD. Almost the entire way from Brookings to Huron was foggy.

In the morning on Thursday I did some work in Huron and then drove over to Miller for some more work. The big cowboy is on the south end of Miller's main street. Leaving Miller at 2:00 pm I drove the rest of the way to Bismarck, stopping once in Selby, SD for a short break.

I put 1,450 miles on my company car this trip. The "big" 2009 Chevrolet Impala averaged almost 30 mpg on the trip to Des Moines and 31 mpg on the drive back home. Not too bad in my opinion.

Now I am busy working on washing clothes and packing again for a trip to Williston. Good times.

View From A Cage

It occurred to me that my siblings and some other friends and relatives have not seen my office, at least not the interior. I worked late today and when I stood up to stretch I had the idea to take a few pictures to share. All were taken standing in the center of my cubicle. I am sure all of our blog visitors will find them very interesting. Ha!

In this shot I am looking west. The person immediately west is a first responder. She works in claims. They have interesting phone conversations.

Looking north. On the other side of that wall are more cubicles. The person just north of me also works in claims.

Looking east. This person works in personal lines underwriting. I don't what else to say about that. She has a potato on her desk dressed up to look like a person. A rotund person at that!

Now we are looking south. Jay is in the cube just south of mine. He also works in personal lines underwriting. He has a child in cub scouts. Along this south wall are the offices of the managers along with the front desk. I am sad because my manager just resigned today. I like him as a boss and friend.

So, yes, I work in the middle of a cubicle farm. Our office calls them cages. Because my job is unique to our office, I don't have much to do work-wise with the people around me. They just kind of drop me in the middle of wherever there is an open spot. Works for me.

And, a good time was had by all.

Went Down South

Last week I traveled down to south central South Dakota -- working the Chamberlain, Platte, and Miller areas. I get to Chamberlain fairly often as we have an agent there with quite a few of our accounts. I did inspections with cities, counties, and schools mostly, but also a couple of service shops. Nothing too exciting or interesting.

I don't really like school property inspections. Other than the fact that most are fairly large, schools tend to have a lot of architectural features and built ins that take a lot of time to document. Adding to that, my predecessor didn't do the best work and has a lot of mistakes -- meaning that I basically have to redo all measuring and documentation.

I had never been to Platte before. Platte is sort of a Dutch community so naturally I felt right at home. No, not really. It is a Dutch community but is pretty much like any other small town. Apparently there is a man there with exactly the same name as my brother, Doug. Yes, the last name too!

On Thursday night I stayed in Miller, SD. There is a small hotel that is sort of a dive and then there is a major chain hotel that is sort of a dive. I stayed at the chain because I get points. The hotel is owned by Indians. Indians from India, not American Indians or Native Americans.

I had a communication problem at check-in, but I did understand when she handed me my room card and said, "Room two-terty-two." I've never had Indian food but I think the hallways smelled of it. Maybe the food tastes good but the smell in the hallways wasn't the greatest.

After bringing my stuff up to the room, I started setting up and plugging in all my equipment. That is when I noticed this nice feature. Most hotels have bedside wall-mounted lamps with plug-ins. I don't know what happened but in this instance the cord is wired directly to the outlet behind the cover plate. Very much not up to electrical code. I'm considering contacting the corporate office just because I'm sensitive about electrical issues. The code is written the way it is for a reason and that is generally because at some point something bad happened and they figured out that, hey, maybe we shouldn't allow this to be done. The saying is that OSHA codes are written in blood.

I sat in this chair but I did not do this! Yuck, right?

New Wheels

Today I took delivery of my new company car. This is the 2009 model of the Chevrolet Impala LS. It was ordered by fleet back in July. I never told Nancy the car had been ordered because I wanted to see how long it would take her to notice when I took it home.

I found out yesterday the car was at the dealer so last evening I cleaned it up inside, vacuumed, and took my stuff out. Got a call this afternoon that it was ready and headed right over to Stan's place to get myself some of that intoxicating new car smell.

I parked my old and new cars next to each other to get some pictures. Here my old car, in Glacier Blue color, is in the front. It has almost 66,000 miles on it. We took delivery of this one in January of 2006.

The color of my new car is called Gold Mist Metallic. They no longer offer Glacier Blue - I think it was only available for a short time in 2006. The body on the 2009 models is still the same, but there is one exterior physical difference other than the color . Can you tell what it is?

My 2006 has a very light gray interior. It was the only interior color offered with that exterior color. Unless you really like a light gray interior I would not recommend it. Shows every little stain or dirt mark. On my new car I chose ebony for the interior. Ebony is like a dark charcoal. In 2006 a front split bench seat was the standard option and that is what it has. For 2009 a bench seat is not an option - just bucket seats with a console. No more traveling in this car with the whole family.

Until this year our company fleet manager has deleted the OnStar (one year service free) and XM Radio (three month service free) options from the company cars. These are standard on even the base LS model. For 2009 they decided to change that and keep those options, but neglected to inform the dealership for my order. Oh well, my current car didn't have OnStar so I'm used to not having that service. When my 2006 was ordered they saved $400 by deleting OnStar but I see now it is only $85. I suppose they figured for $85 it was worth if not just for safety reasons.

So, did Nancy notice the new car? She really didn't have time. Just before sitting down for supper Samantha was standing at the sliding patio door by our dining room area. All of sudden she says, "Daddy, you got a new car!" Imagine that, our three year old was the first one to notice. That's funny.

After supper I took the whole family for a drive around the block. A good time was had by all.

Do We Know You?

Mmmm. My favorite mug filled with my favorite coffee.

We are back now. At about 4:45 pm yesterday we pulled into our driveway. I had been gone on a business trip working in NE Montana and Nancy and the kids rode along and stayed at her parent's house in Williston, ND. I'm sure Nancy will fill you all in on the events of her week, as I will mine in another post another day.

We were having a beautiful rain at the time of our arrival in Bismarck-Mandan, and the first thing I did was make a pot of Dirt Road Roasting coffee. I had really missed my good coffee, as usual. After getting the pot brewing I moved the van out of and backed the car in the garage so we could unload without getting things wet.

We hadn't intentionally neglected this blog. Nancy's mom has only a dial-up internet connection so Nancy didn't spend a whole lot of time on the internet. Plus she was kept pretty busy. On my end, I had loaded photos on my personal laptop so I could make a few posts. All of the hotels I stayed at had wireless internet available but the connections were so poor I could barely move around to my favorite sites.

Most hotels are like that - they have wireless internet but a good strong connection is really hit and miss. My nearly ten year old laptop is sensitive to a poor wireless connection and doesn't function well internet-wise with one. My comparatively new work laptop didn't have a problem with a connection but WebSense blocks almost all blog sites. It doesn't matter because I wouldn't blog using my work laptop anyway.

Have a good one, everyone! It is good to be home.

South Dakota Trip

Once again, I made a triumphant return to Bismarck yesterday evening after a trip deep down into South Dakota. I left Monday for Mitchell, SD. I met my brother for supper and after that we drove around Lake Mitchell and some other sites in the area, including the Corn Palace, of course.

Tuesday I did some work in the Mitchell area and later drove to Brandon, SD for an overnight stay. After working in Brandon, I left at about 1:15 pm for Bismarck and arrived at about 7:45 pm. My three day route put 1,000 miles on my car.

I wouldn't normally travel that far for 1.5 days of work, but the boss mandated I had to be back in the office today for a meeting with personnel from our home office. Also, this work down there had to get done this week. Otherwise I would have worked locally to make better use of my time.

One interesting company I inspected makes fire trucks - everything from small rescue and quick attack pickups to pumper, ladder, boom, tanker, and heavy duty rescue trucks. A boom is a fire truck with an extendable boom with a water nozzle at the end and a light tower (but no ladder), enabling a fire department to easily reach multi-story buildings.

The chassis (frame, drivetrain, cab) comes from their other plants in different states and here in South Dakota they make the customized body (part behind the cab) for the truck. Entirely from scratch. They do some amazing work.

The bodies are made off of the chassis and are not installed on the chassis until completed. They move them about the plant on large wheeled carts.

Here a completed truck is undergoing UL (Underwriters Laboratory) testing. This is a detailed testing done to every truck to make sure every part of the truck performs according to UL standards. When done, the truck is UL certified. The sound of the big diesel engine running under load was wonderful.

This plant completes, on average, close to one truck for every working day. They indicated 20 trucks per month. If we do the easy math, that works out to 240 trucks per year. I really enjoyed this inspection.

The Prairie Rose

Not too long ago, I posted about some old steam and power shovels located at the Divide County Pioneer Village in Crosby, ND. In 2000 I think it was, I had the opportunity to visit Falkirk Mine near Underwood and actually enter one of their huge walking draglines. Falkirk Mine is a surface or strip mining operation.

I mentioned before that I used to work for the North Dakota OSHA Consultation program, which was initially with the ND Dept. of Health but later at Bismarck State College. Our manager in 2001 was the previous safety manager of Falkirk Mine. Of course, he knew the replacement safety manager and arranged for us (the two safety and health consultants) to go up to Falkirk to learn of their safety management practices.

Some specs on the dragline. The bucket has a 105 cubic yard capacity and weighs over 200,000 lbs. empty. Compare that to the 4 yard bucket on the power shovel from my previous post. The dragline is electric and operates on 25,000 volts DC. The total weight of the machine is around 13,500,000 lbs and it moves via two large shoes.

The dragline functions to remove overburden (dirt) above the coal. I believe the overburden is 40' to 60' deep in this area. Falkirk Mine operates with two draglines, and we visited the Prairie Rose. The other one is called Chief Ironsides.

This photo was taken as we were leaving, but fits better here at the beginning. It is my co-worker Stephen, and the dragline had stopped to walk away from the face of the pit to get at more overburden. I think we were close to a football field away. The operator's cab is just above and a little to the left of Stephen's head.

Cockpit view as the operator grabs a bucket of dirt. His head is at the lower right. He sits in a comfy chair and the entire machine is operated using two joysticks. The dragline collects data as far as weight of each scoop and the length of each cycle, and transmits it back to the office.

Dumping the load on the pile. The power plant, Great River Energy, is visible in the background.

The interior of this beast. Visible is only a small part of the entire machine. I believe we were told it was three stories tall on the interior from the deck to the ceiling. The deck is the same level as the cab, and there is a good amount of the machine below the deck.

We went on top of the machine. This provided a great view of the area. I think the boom is between 250' and 300' long.

Looking out from on top of the dragline. The pit area nearest is area from which the dragline has removed overburden, but coal has not yet been mined. Where the pit shifts over to the left is where they were actively mining. You likely can't see it, but at the closest end of that mining area is a payloader.

Here is the view from that payloader up to the dragline. We had driven around to take a look at the actual coal mining part of the operation.

Stephen later went on to work on a consulting basis for the mines around Gillette, WY. His family is from that area and his dad works at one of the surface mines there. Around Gillette the overburden is not nearly as deep, 20' at the most I think, so they don't need such large draglines.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and looking at the pictures. I know I enjoyed the visit.

Williston Work and Adventure

I think Nancy may have mentioned this, but while we were in Williston last week, I was working. Well, Tuesday through Friday anyway.

I worked in Williston, Watford City, and Arnegard in North Dakota and Sidney and Fairview in Montana. I visited a bulk fuel dealer, a bulk LPG (propane) dealer, a crude oil trucking company, a hardware store, a rock crushing operation, a funeral home, a low income 4-story apartment, a road contractor, an RV dealer, a bar/casino, and a ready mix concrete operation. It was a good week and I got a lot of work done. Kind of nice when everything is within 45 miles of "base." I was busting it this week to get the reports done, and I'll have to work some this weekend to finish up.

Near Sidney, I was checking out a propane storage plant and this nice field of alfalfa was next to the plant. I couldn't resist taking a picture - the alfalfa plants were 15" to 18" tall!

Sidney is in the flat and fertile Yellowstone River valley. A lot like the Red River Valley I suppose, except for here the edges are well defined and you can see the plateaus or bluffs from pretty much anywhere. The valley is 3-4 miles wide in the Sidney area.

This is an aerial view of Sidney and the Yellowstone River valley. In this view you can only see one pivot irrigation system. In the areas I saw, they were using mostly ditch irrigation.

When I am working I take what I call "in between" pictures. I take them in between building surveys to easily differentiate between buildings when I go to upload the pictures from the SD card to my laptop. Once in a while they turn out OK, and I think this one is interesting. Better, at least, than what I often do - take a picture of my shoe.

During the week I also did some work at the house for Nancy's parents. One job was replacing a kitchen faucet. My projects usually hit some sort of snafu, so I was kind of afraid of this one. But it went super smooth with no problems. Yes!

On the Sunday after we got there, we went on an adventure trip. We visited the farm Nancy's dad (and his family) used to own and some of the oil wells that Nancy's mom has.

Here we are arriving at the farm. From left to right is Nancy's dad, Laurence; Nancy's brother, Loren; Loren's wife, Kelly; and my kids Gerrit and Aleah.

This is the house that Nancy's dad spent a good part of his life in.

Even though the family no longer owns the property, everyone felt comfortable just going in all the buildings. No one lives here and no building was locked. I was sort of uncomfortable just going on the yard, so I didn't go in the buildings and instead wandered in the yard taking some pictures.

This is one of six oil wells that Nancy's mom has part interest in. I think most of the wells are not pumping though, so our inheritance isn't building up yet. Just kidding! Her wells are all fairly old wells, drilled between the 60's and 80's.

Nothing Is Certain Except Death And Taxes

And wobbly wheels on shopping carts.

I was out of town last week for work. Left on Tuesday and got back on Friday. The trip took me on a loop in northeastern North Dakota. I worked in Jamestown, Grand Forks, Grafton, Park River, Edinburg, and Edmore. I visited a tire shop, a trucking company, a cycle and marine dealer, a body shop, a garbage service company, a funeral home, and a steel erection contractor. My job gives me a lot of variety that way, and I like that.

I really like the smell of new tires so I enjoyed visiting the tire shop. And I like motorcycles so the visit to the cycle dealer was a good time.

I don't really like it, but a visit to a funeral home is usually interesting in some way. This particular business had three funeral homes in three different cities. At least this time there wasn't a body in a prep room. Although, if there is I usually say I don't really need to see the room. No thank you - I can catch it next time.

This guy shared with me something I had never really thought about regarding burials. Their area has a high water table so they have to basically dig the hole, say a few words, and then get the casket in the ground. No digging the grave the day before, or even hours before. In one recent burial the grave was already full of water after a short graveside service. When that happens they have to pump out the water, set the casket in, and replace the dirt as soon as possible.

It has to take a certain kind of person to own and/or operate a funeral home, or to do mortuary work. It certainly isn't something I could do. Not my cup of tea. In this case the business owner had hoped to take over his family farm, but when his family sold the farm he went into mortuary service. That seems like kind of a leap but I would assume there is more to that story.

I'm sure for most people in the business it is a vocation or calling, but in the back of my cynical mind I often wonder if it isn't mostly for the money. That is a negative thought, isn't it? Again, that probably comes out because there is no way I could see myself in that industry.

Have a great day!

Too Much Time On My (Their) Hands

Last week I was working on some building surveys in Dickinson when I came across this unfinished unit behind one of the buildings. It is a pedal car to be powered by four people. The thing looks to be fairly well engineered - it even has a rear swingarm with coil-over shocks and it looks like both the front and rear sprocket derailers (shifters) are meant to be functional. Those bars going up from the handlebars could possibly be meant to hold guns. Whatever the intended use of the vehicle, it looks like it would be a hoot to drive!

Since I referenced a Styx song in the post title, I suppose I should add a video of the song "Too Much Time on My Hands."



That is a good song, but it isn't one of my favorite Styx tunes. Here is one that is: "Snowblind." Enjoy, my friends, the video that is below this paragraph.



I can't believe I haven't uploaded my Styx CDs to my mp3 player. I need to get that done!

Proofread, Please

Below is a business card from a company with which I recently worked. Did a property survey/inspection there. I stuffed the card into my pocket, but never really paid any attention to it. When I got back in the office the following week, I took it out to put in my Thunderbird address book. It was then I noticed a problem. Take a look to see if you can notice anything about the card.

There are two spelling errors! I really can't believe that. I mean, a business card is easy to proofread and check for errors. And that is something you should really take the time to do - the card is representing your business to some degree. If I were choosing between two body shops and all else were pretty much equal, it may affect my decision. You could ask if he isn't conscientious enough to make sure his business card is right, how much care is he going to take with my car?

This shop is a one man operation - the owner is the only one there. He was a good guy and the shop was really nice. It was a good operation. The shop had excellent housekeeping. I visited two body shops in that area and his was definitely the better shop.

I suppose it would be kind of anal retentive for me to call him to let him know about the errors. Yea, it would. Most likely he already knows but doesn't want to spend the money for new business cards. Besides, it would be like the pot calling the kettle black.

Changes

I visited several home improvement centers in Bismarck today during my lunch break. We are planning to replace some windows in our kitchen and dining room and are getting some price quotes. Tomorrow I hope to get to some other building centers in the area.

If you haven't been to the Bismarck Menards for a while, you are in for a little surprise. There has been somewhat of a transformation. I saw this before but they have added a mezzanine storage area near the south side. They have expanded retail area into the former warehouse area on the south. Things have moved around some. The aisles are now wider - I think now two carts can easily pass each other in most aisles. It appears there is an expanded product line as well - more food for one thing. They have added a garden center. They have changed out the sales registers to be more like the ones in newer Menards stores. Overall it is a big improvement.

Speaking of changes, we had a big announcement at work this week. Obviously it only affects me but I thought I would mention it here. Our company has branch offices throughout most of the United States with a home office in Des Moines, IA. On Monday they announced the Denver branch manager is retiring this fall and his replacement is our branch manager, Dennis! One of the corporate vice-presidents announced it to us via a video (not live). It was a big surprise to everyone. He also announced Dennis' replacement, Marilyn. Marilyn is another manager in the office - she works under Dennis. I should rephrase that. Dennis is Marilyn's supervisor. Now there will be a round of job changes in our office as people move up and around.

I don't know what changes will come about, but I can't foresee any big changes when Marilyn goes aboard as the branch manager. I am secretly happy that my supervisor, Brian, isn't the one moving into the position. I really like him as a boss. He is a great guy. Brian is another manager on the same level as Marilyn. Marilyn is the underwriting manager and Brian is the marketing manager.

When I write e-mails to Brian I am always afraid I am going to send one with the i and a transposed - Brain. I've caught it a few times when I read it through before sending. I'm sure he has had it happen before, though.

Good times.

Home Again, with PEEPS

I was on another trip for work this week and got home today basically right at 5:00. This time I went down into the heart of South Dakota - Redfield, Highmore, Chamberlain, Oacoma, Murdo, and Kadoka. Put another 900 miles on my car.

Last night I stayed at the Comfort Inn in Pierre. Very nice. They just remodeled the interior. Everything was nice and new and in good condition. One thing I liked was that the work desk was large - I had two laptops and a big inkjet printer on the desk and there was still plenty of room. The wireless internet connection was good on my work laptop but my way old personal laptop struggled. It usually does in hotels for some reason. Poor old thing.

Looking at the weather and roads online last night I had some concern about how my trip home might go. I could see the snow was moving out of the area but thought the roads might still be bad. I called my parents this morning, though, and knew I would not have a problem. They were already at 32 deg. and climbing. I was sure by the time I got to the area of concern that the ice/snow would be melting off.

I took Highway 83 all the way up from Pierre. There were dry roads until Gettysburg and then just wet roads all the way to Strasburg. Most parts had a little slush between the tracks but that wasn't a problem. I left Pierre at 9:45 and got to my parent's farm at Noon. When I hit the ND border the roads immediately improved. I think they did a better job at removing snow, so there was no slush. When I left Strasburg for Bismarck at 3:30 the roads were completely dry until it rained when I got close to Bismarck.

I had some extra time last night, so I went browsing at Wal-Mart. Yes, I did buy some PEEPS for my family. I noticed an interesting product in the Easter candy aisle. Barn Yard Buddies appear to be a copy of PEEPS. Barn Yard Buddies are a marshmallow candy in the shape of animals. They were strangely heavy, were made in China (!), and did not appear to be selling very well. I suppose they were heavy because of all the lead, right?

I took some photos of the product with my camera phone. I'm sure people thought I was strange - taking pictures of candy. The yellow ones are chicks, the blue ones are cows, and the purple ones are bunnies. They looked kind of grotesque to me.

Al's Rollerdrome

About four months ago I was in Dallas for work. It was a long trip but it was enjoyable. As I was driving from one place to another I noticed this building.

I stopped by to get a picture of it. Al's Rollerdrome is obviously no longer in business and the building appears to no longer be used, unless as a storage building. The building itself is in very poor condition - at least I don't believe the end wall should be concave and the roof wavy.

I can't help but think the business would have lasted longer had the name been Big Al's Rollerdrome instead of just Al's Rollerdrome. To me Big Al's Rollerdrome just sounds like more fun.

Dallas is a small town in south central South Dakota - close to the border. Have a good day!

Working for the Lord

Works every time!

A business I worked with today had this up in their customer lobby area. Thought it was pretty neat so I took a picture. I enjoy my job and hope to work there a long time, so I smudged up the photos. Privacy and confidentiality, you know.

Communication and Stupidity

This past week, in doing inspections, I worked with a hearing and speech impaired person. He could not hear and could not speak. What I usually do is have someone show me the buildings, take me to rooms or places normally locked, and answer any questions I think of at the time. In essence the person gives me a quick tour. After that I am able to work on my own gathering the information I need.

This hearing/speech impaired person was a custodian and took me around to five different buildings. We communicated mostly by gestures and by writing on note pads. Sure would have been nice to know at least some sign language.

One building was a 4-H exhibit building with a livestock barn in the back. A room to the side had an interior garage door that was locked. By gesturing and facial expression I indicated that I wondered what was inside. Tucker squatted down and gestured back in the room. My first thought was that he meant toilet and that it was sure a strange place for a bathroom. He could tell I was confused and so again squatted, gestured in the room, and then back to the open area of the building. Oh, this is where the chairs are stored. Doh! I am dumb.

Bonesteel On My Mind

Nancy let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, so I might as well mention that I drove down to Winner, SD this afternoon/tonight. Left Bismarck at 4:20 and got to Winner at 9:20 - it is about 300 miles. It was misting/raining for the last few hours of the trip and rained steadily for the last 1 1/2 hrs. I just checked radar and it looks like Bismarck has rain moving in from the east.

I plan to be in Bonesteel and Fairfax tomorrow. These are located close to the Missouri River, on the west side, down by the Nebraska border.

The photo at the top is from a news aggregate and social networking web site. Daily they post one or more Photoshop contests where people take an original photo and modify or "Photoshop" it to look like something else or to add something to the picture. I often save ones that I like, and save them with the submitter's profile name so I know who did that particular Photoshop. Here is another example. The theme on this one below was to make a picture showing the last photo the person ever took. Remember Toonces from SNL?

Welcome, Nancy

A big welcome to Nancy! Thanks for joining me on this wonderful endeavor.

What you see above is a look into part of what I do on my job. (You can click on this to view bigger photo.) This is a Jr./Sr. high school building in South Dakota with over 90,000 sq. ft. of building area and a value of around $9,000,000.

When I finish a property survey I then need to make a diagram or drawing of the building in AutoCAD and label dimensions, include info on building features and information, and add info about exposures (what is near the building or in the area). Buildings are divided in sections based on number of stories or construction height. The blue markers with a number inside are approximately where I stood to take a photograph. The number corresponds to the photo number as input in the survey report.

If you look at the section information on the left side you'll see, under Section A for example, the occupancy of that section, the square footage of that section, and basic construction information (1-12 MNC). 1-12 means that it is a one story portion that has a 12' eave height. MNC stands for Masonry Non-Combustible, meaning brick, block, or concrete walls with a steel roof structure (joists or beams).

Physically measuring out a building like this can take quite a bit of time and so can making the diagram. A measuring wheel makes the job easier. Working with AutoCAD is one of my favorite parts of the job.

Goodnight!