Good morning!!!!

[jbrumberg]

Are you going to get hammered? Or just pleasantly pissed.:drink:

I do not do "hammered" well anymore I now lean towards pleasantly "happy."

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I do not do "hammered" well anymore I now lean towards pleasantly "happy."

In situations like those you described, Jay, I prefer comfortably numb. Bourbon @ 3 fingers per x 2 usually does it...:drink:

 

[RedNeckGeek]

First repairman from the utility showed up about 10AM, only 2 1/2 hours after I phoned in the outage. He'd already looked at the pole and transformer and found two blown fuses. Said he couldn't understand what would cause that, and I came clean with the digging and the bare spots on the wire. He starts to climb down in the trench and I move to turn off and unplug the generator, then clarify for him what that line does an how I've been backfeeding the subpanel in the garage with the generator output. Came clean about not using a transfer switch, got a little lecture, which led me to confess my sin and plead for mercy, being as when the Safety Shutoffs started I couldn't get an electrician to install one, and was within a couple weeks of replacing it with a whole new inverter based solar system. That settled him right down; I think he appreciated that I leveled with him and wasn't trying to hide anything. That kind of behavior gets people killed. We had a pleasant time from there. He trimmed back the cracked conduit, showing me a cool trick for cutting it with string, then he wrapped the torn insulation with electrical tape to get me by. Another crew is supposed to show up this afternoon with a new transformer, and before he left I had the name of a metal building manufacturer not far from here where he got his 40'x60' barn. Really nice guy, as have been all the PG&E people I've worked with. Now maybe with a new board and CEO the company can get its head out of the dark place it's been and start taking care of business.

My take away is to kill the main breaker so the buried line isn't hot while I'm digging. That way even if I crack the conduit and scrape a wire again, I can make the same repair and still be able to have grid power. That transformer has been making noise since I bought this place, so that'll hopefully end up better, too. I was told there would be no charge, but then again the next crew may have a different idea about that...

In the first hour after resuming the dig, more than half what came out of the trench was large ottoman sized rocks. and now the top of the trench is 3' over my head, enough that I don't really feel comfortable going into it anymore.:shocked:

 

[sodamo]

RNG, glad to hear repair went well.
I can’t imagine getting in any trench that deep. Be careful.

 

[sodamo]

RNG your story reminds me of an incident of my own back a few years ago. I had lost my catchment tanks due to a combination of insufficient fill and significant rain fall that caused the tanks to float up, busting their connections, necessitating relocation.
I had prepared the new pad area and thinking I might want to shore the back banking a bit with some roofing tin I proceeded to pound in some steel fence posts. Of course there would be a rock here and there. One post proven particularly stubborn so I just redoubled my efforts with the post pounder, finally breaking thru. Wasn’t many minutes later wife went to house and yelled back there wasn’t any power. A quick check showed my inverters all off - I remembered the conduit run to the house, but thought I was far enough away. Sure enough, I had driven the post thru the conduit and 2 conductors, shorting out system. Unfortunately it didn’t just trigger the breaker but took out the inverter. This was about half distance between house and utility shed. Was quite a challenge to get enough slack to splice damaged conductors, then repair the PVC conduit. Ended up replacing the inverter. As each section of house was on own subpanel and I only damaged the run to spare bedrooms life wasn’t interrupted during repair.

 

[Bird]

RNG, glad to hear repair went well.
I can’t imagine getting in any trench that deep. Be careful.

Yep, as David said. We'd hate to lose you.

 

[Thomas]

64F high thin clouds.

5 miles down the road elevation 510 ft and dandy lions are popping up and sounds lawns mowers,here 1310ft mostly brown no signs tree buds popping.
Got lot more done today and I thought for even clean the inside pickup and gave new burn barrel good try out.
While outside working heard loud crack than crash large pine tree finally fell across neighbor driveway which been dead couple plus years with bad lean...what nasty mess and flatten mailbox.
Time fire off bbq for my kind of cheese buggers. :licking:

Enjoy the evening all.

 

[jbrumberg]

In situations like those you described, Jay, I prefer comfortably numb. Bourbon @ 3 fingers per x 2 usually does it...:drink:

The perfect % and dosing.

BTW: Your learning "on the fly" both on the ground and in the air is pretty impressive. I am not worrying about the "in the air" escapades along the learning curve of debris fields/fly-aways. Be careful on the "terra firma."

 

[RoyJackson]

I do not do "hammered" well anymore I now lean towards pleasantly "happy."

I always try to maintain the "pleasantly happy", but occasionally (rarely), I take one sip too many...
And both my wife and stepdaughter let me know all the details the next day...

 

[RoyJackson]

…and now the top of the trench is 3' over my head, enough that I don't really feel comfortable going into it anymore.:shocked:

Before I went in the Navy, I worked as a plumber's helper/apprentice. I liked the job, but working in trenches really sucked...especially after a rain. Most were, BTW, well over my head.
Although safety requires shoring the side walls, that didn't happen often. It is imperative you always...without fail...have someone on the ground who can both dig you out and call for help.

 

[Looking4new]

I always try to maintain the "pleasantly happy", but occasionally (rarely), I take one sip too many...
And both my wife and stepdaughter let me know all the details the next day...

That is the worst part of getting smashed...The morning after, you've already got a big head and someone close to you will give you an instant replay of the evening before and what you got up/down to.
Back when I drank lots, I would never drink unless I was alone or with someone.

 

[Buppies]

Temperature got up to 78 now cooling but lots of wind more storms Sunday night

RNG nice skills with backhoe

Quit drinking long ago now diabetes gets in the way nice designated I can be

 

[RoyJackson]

That is the worst part of getting smashed...The morning after, you've already got a big head and someone close to you will give you an instant replay of the evening before and what you got up/down to.
Back when I drank lots, I would never drink unless I was alone or with someone.

Yup!

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Well, what a day. First started last night, attempting to sleep.... hour here, hour there....
then, at one point during the attempts, I heard a strange sound. Unfortunately, I convinced myself that it was a room to room fan that was running....I rolled over and finally fell asleep. This was sometime between 1 am and 3 am.

Then at 5:30 am, wifey went to the bathroom.... I was told that we have no water... :shocked: not even a trickle. I was now awake... and recognized that the sound I had been hearing was gushing water...:confused2: I heard it coming from the direction of the bedroom window.... looking out, I saw a babbling brook that should not be there.... we live in the high desert!

So, getting dressed on the run towards the front door (I still do not know what I put on), got out to the main water shutoff and stopped the flow. I could tell where the leak was from the tell tale giant washout / pothole. I knew what I would be doing for the day, and it was something I was not going to enjoy!

Got the tractor fired up, had to switch out the PHD for the BH, and off to digging in muck I go! Found the pipe 4ft down where it should be. I was happy that I put a band of bright orange vinyl tape about six inches above the pipe I originally put it in, but getting that next scoop with the BH, snagged the pipe! That little voice was telling me stop! But I did not listen.

Break out the shovels and time to get dirty! And dirty did I get! My son came over and took over the job for me. He had it all cleared out. Broken elbow and pipe.... 1 1/2 inch main. I cannot wait to see the water bill!

Went to the shop, dug out my plumbing supply box. Nope .... everything but 1 1/2 fittings. The piece of pipe I had was about 6 inches too short for the repair. Oh well, wait for the hardware store to open at 9....

Had to wait in line, about 5 people before me, but only about a 10 minute wait. Got everything needed and went back to the muck. My son said he would get in the trench and do the fit up. He never did real plumbing before, so a good learning experience. I showed him how to measure the pipe / fittings, do a dry fit up, then glue. Successful job! We used the fast set wet glue, but still were going to wait 4 hours for it to dry.

I was reminded by wifey that I promised my other son that we would go get the trim needed for his garage (yes, he is trimming out his man cave with stained 1x4 ponderosa pine). So, while waiting for the pipe glue to dry, went to the lumber yard. What a bunch of crappy wood they had... went through about 80 boards to get 32 good ones. Then went to get 264ft of other millwork, that we paid for, that they only had about 60 . Had to go through their whole millwork rack to find a different trim that they had enough of. Of course it cost more, which we had to go and pay before we could load it!
2 hours later, that fiasco was over, just as they were closing up for the day.

At least the glue was dry (After now 6 hours) by the time we came home. Pressurized the system, no leaks! :thumbsup:
Definitely going to leave the trench open overnight, just in case. Needless to say, I did not work on any of my projects already in progress. Tomorrow is another day. Hopefully it will not be as exciting!

 

[LouNY]

Well at least the ground dried out fast, if you had done that here you would have had to pump the water out of the pond you would have, then work in knee deep mud.

 

[rswyan]

71F @ 20:30 and calm. High made it to 72F which about 7F above normal for this time of year here.

Got backhoe removed and BB put on and got the upper part of the drive graded out a bit ... at least to the point that there are no obvious chuck holes. Used maybe 2 heaping buckets of crush to try and eliminate a couple of dips. Needs more work.

Then started working on the part where it slopes down towards the house. The west side of that section is lower than the east side and that's where the runoff goes ... consequently it was more eroded and it had to be have last years's leaves cleaned out before it could be filled and graded. Got about 3/4 of that done and then it was time to break for dinner.

After dinner I came back out and worked with the blower to clear out a section of the turnaround where there was a heavy accumulation of leaves. Had to get the string trimmer out and cut down the old stalks of last year's weeds on the edges so I could actually blow the stuff off the driveway. That area will need further cleaning tomorrow before it gets any crusher run.

Upgraded forecast: no rain tomorrow, partly sunny, and a high of 72F ... so should be able to make further progress ... :thumbsup:

The Kubota just rolled 2200 hours ... so I need to change the oil before I get going (assuming there's a filter in inventory), probably grease the loader again too.

 

[Buppies]

Nice work LS sorry that happened

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Gosh, Ted, ever figger out what part of that pipe caused the leak?

At least I know how my conduit got broken.:laughing:

To finish my fiasco, the crew with the transformer came by while I was eating lunch, and by the time I was done they already had the new transformer installed and wired. They had an adventure on the way to the house, having taken the abandoned road from my cul-de-sac that goes down to an even smaller turn around by the lake. Lots of low hanging limbs, deep ruts, and missing pavement, all in a GIANT 6x6WD boom truck. I'll have to go down there tomorrow and see how much foliage they took out. I don't know why they didn't turn around after ten or twenty yards, but the young driver said "the GPS said it was the right way to go".:laughing: I showed their crew leader what I'd done, and his only concern was that the meter come back on and show the correct reading, which it did.

I don't care what anyone says about PG&E management, but the line workers again showed themselves to be very professional and forgiving. I feel sorry for them working at such a poorly run enterprise, and hope nothing but the best for them once the bankruptcy is concluded.


I opened the main breaker before I started digging this time, and this was the view at the end of the day. I only had a handful of rocks on the left when I started, but I had a wealth of them by quittin' time. Kinda fun in a challenging way figuring out how to get them in the backhoe bucket, I guess once the thumb gets installed it won't be any fun anymore.:confused2: Really slowed down and concentrated, too, working on smooth movements, and moving two and sometimes even three valves simultaneously. When I'd get jerky again, I'd slow down until it smoothed out. No more broken conduit, and by the end of the day I had the right amount of curl figgered out on the bucket to get it to skim along the top of the conduit and clean it off along the bottom of the trench. That also involved lifting the boom, then uncurling the bucket to keep the angle of the teeth just right. Another kind of challenging fun, and by the end of the day I was mentally wiped out. Time for some of Jay's therapy!


You make a good point about running the backhoe and flying the drone involving the same sort of skill set, Jay. The axes of motion are different, but the idea of working slowly to stay smooth is the same, as is trying to coordinate multiple motions. I just hope the tractor doesn't take to the air next time I curl the bucket or the drone dig a hole if I push a joystick the wrong way.:laughing:

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Anybody hear from Drew today?

Hope he's OK...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

LS, sure is nice having a backhoe for jobs like that

Got some more drone flying in. No videos posted yet. Here is sunset picture.

Son never finished the mowing, so I did it before dark.