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Post by whitefang on Dec 31, 2019 10:59:33 GMT -5
Don't know when most of you will see this, but it's getting posted New Year's Eve morning.... If you go out tonight, make sure you take extra caution (on the lookout for drunken fools behind the wheel) and also plenty bail money! Get back here in one piece. Whitefang
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Post by jbone on Dec 31, 2019 11:28:23 GMT -5
We're staying in bar a last minute gig miracle. And Happy New Year if a bit early.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2019 13:34:30 GMT -5
whitefang I live in a gated community, our streets are private property the police have no business in here, unless called out. I can booze it up all I like (which is not very much)and drive home safe and sound. No bail money needed Fangster.
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Post by whitefang on Jan 1, 2020 10:36:34 GMT -5
Well, the "bail money" advice is a traditional thing based on some past experience, and mostly now too facetious. And I did forget to remind y'all to put your money out. Whitefang
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Post by jbone on Jan 1, 2020 11:19:19 GMT -5
We did go to the rec room here and play a set last evening. What the heck, we had to rehearse anyway! Well received but still poor.
Happy New Year! Good things to come.
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Post by earleg on Jan 1, 2020 16:06:33 GMT -5
Hava Great 2020 guys!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2020 16:37:43 GMT -5
Happy New Year to all of you folks out there.
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Post by whitefang on Jan 2, 2020 10:24:39 GMT -5
So far, so good. Whitefang
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Post by jbone on Jan 2, 2020 12:01:22 GMT -5
First of all, a Happy New Year to you all! It's that time again, to consider the year just past. A year ago we have been full time on the road in our new-to-us travel trailer for a bit over 2 weeks. We had a tumultuous beginning, a 7 hours drive in pouring rain from Bartlesville OK to Little Rock AR. Very difficult and scary first day! We stayed in LR for 2 or 3 days to kind of regroup and get our feet under us after having had about 14 months of resettling twice and making a go of it in Tulsa for the previous year. So then we headed pretty much straight south to Lafayette LA. We planned a month there and after about 3 weeks our old friend the Asian Lady Beetle showed itself, and we packed up and rolled out quick! We were determined that we had to avoid those things considering we'd lost our last travel trailer to them. Onward across the Gulf Coast on Highway I-10. I'd taken a workamping job on north Fla. but when we got there after 2 solid days' travel, it was a bust. We stayed in Lake City for a short time and visited Tampa area very briefly, then found a state park at the edge of the Panhandle and lucked into a week there. Reservations proved to be hard to come by in Fla. We then lucked into a city park in a small city close to the panhandle, near Crawfordville, south of Tallahassee about an hour. Ended up staying there for a month and found a couple of places to play music, in Carrabelle and Apalachicola. WE also did a lot of exploring along the coast there. Beautiful places but also some devastation from a hurricane a few months before we arrived. We love coastal areas, there is a different and vital energy there. I got to do some fishing a few times and we walked a lot of beaches and hung out in some coastal towns. Vital, funky, and cool! Coast towns, what a rare and lively place! But then I took a job based in Tallahassee and we pulled up stakes and got a spot on the edge of town. The job didn't pan out and it was getting time to head north for summer with a stop in North Carolina, so we moved along east and north, to a place 30 minutes from the coast. This place was a lot of work. I was the "it" guy, whatever needed doing I was "it"! We'd been there a short time and Jo had a spill on a beach and ended up with a fractured vertebra. Big question mark on how she was going to heal up and all. We got with an orthopedic guy and then a neurosurgeon, and the prognosis was optimistic. Jo had some hard times for a while both with meds and with recovery, but she has come back incredibly well! In early May we made plans to head north, and I got a job in W. Va. Which again was not a good fit, so we took 2 weeks at a park in Va., and relaxed. My next job was near Binghamton NY and again, was not for me. We found a park not far away and settled in for a few weeks. We explored the area there a lot and went through the Catskill Mtns. a couple of times, which was gorgeous. I ran across another job at a resort in the Lake Champlain Islands, and we headed there in late June. Great place! Lovely area with the Adirondacks across the lake on one side and the Green Mts. on the other. Lots of very nice country to explore, and we found a few gigs in the area. By then Jo had been healing from her fracture for several months and we'd been practicing for a while. Farmers market, farm burger stand, and a pub in Burlington saw us back in the game. While we were in South Hero VT Jo began designing some improvements to the inside of our rolling home, and I got busy doing the things that needed done. Paint, new counter tops, etc., went together over the summer. New half wall between bedroom and living area too. Wall treatments. There's a bit yet to go but things are much nicer. Once we settle for the summer in a few months we'll get the floors redone and meanwhile I have some paint to finish up. We got to see a lot of the Lake Champlain area and did trips to both the Adirondacks and the Green Mtns, as well. Late October saw us on the road again, avoiding the wintry weather that had begun in VT. On our way west and south we stopped in Little Rock for a few days and visited a few friends, then on to the big state of Texas! I took a job in south TX which while the folks were very nice there it seemed there was little opportunity for doing music, so we headed for the Hill Country not far from San Antonio. And here we are! I have a little workamping gig which covers the site and we're busy looking for gigs. So far a couple on the books for this month! That's the past year in a nutshell. We plan to be here for several months, visit the Alamo, look up an old friend or two, explore this hill country area, play some music, and in late spring we're planning to head back north for the summer. More on that later! We've logged about 5k miles towing the trailer in the past year. And maybe 8k exploring after we've parked the rig. Over all, it's been a heck of a year. It's had some lows, but also some very good highs. Our goal to see more of this great land has been met and is still being met. Playing music every place we can, adding new songs along the way, taking it to the folks, it's been soul satisfying. We have met the challenges which has arisen with some grace and we've come through some difficult times no worse for wear. It was a good year and we're anticipating the next one to be equally or even more great!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2020 13:54:34 GMT -5
jbone that was some year amigo. That story reminds me of some of my travels, although I always hated my job, (I was a union bricklayer) I could work anywhere in the US or Canada, all I had to do was call an 800 number, and they would tell me where the work was, and I would call whatever contractor was suggested by the automated phone system. Many times I got there and hated the union job, and would go out and find a non union job in the same town. Once I realized that I could find work anywhere, I changed my work ethic philosophy. I realized that since I lived in my Travel Trailer, I could piss off every mason contractor in any town and just move down the road a hundred or more miles and find a whole town full of new masonry contractors to piss off by quitting whenever the foreman got shitty. I was a real good bricklayer, top 90%, I was fast and everything I did sold. My hiring line was; "I will make you money and everything I do for you will sell". As soon as the foreman got shitty (Most of them are like gorillas in heat and angry at everyone and everything). My method in quitting would be; I would call the foreman over, while polishing my trowel with a cloth (I used that towel to clean the mud off of my tools at the end of every every day). I would politely thank him for the opportunity to work for him, but at this time I will have to leave your firm for greener pastures. All in a very nice tone and very politely. (Thanks pop for giving me that heads up on how to quit a masonry job). The polite quitting never failed to puzzle that foreman. If there was no one else to work for in that town, off I would go after collecting my last check, on to the next town, never to return. I did that for years, and many times on my way home I would see another brick job and ask if they needed help and most times they would say "can you start now", but I hated my job I would beg off until the next Monday.
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Post by whitefang on Jan 3, 2020 10:45:50 GMT -5
I find it odd that someone who claims to "hate" their job(when "profession" is what you probably meant) as much as you do would still do it well enough to be in the "top 90%". Most people who hate their jobs don't put enough effort into them to do passable work.
As a retired autoworker, I never really LOVED my job, but I held several different jobs in the plants over the years, and as I saw it more or less as a means to an end( cover expenses of home, family, etc.) I thought it best to do the jobs well enough to keep the boss off my ass and give no excuses for "letting me go". Plus, the monthly pension without any 401-K issues doesn't hurt either.
The auto industry was(and still is it seems) shaky enough so that I really wouldn't have liked to be constantly on the hunt for employment in order to feed and clothe my wife and child( then children) and provide adequate shelter and provide the children a stable environment in which to grow. But there's never been any gypsy blood in me so I always tried to keep put somewhere. After I left my 1st wife, Alicia and I moved four times in a nine year period. That was enough for me. Even after she died I decided to stay in this house( and take over ownership) because I've formed strong bonds with several of my neighbors over the last five or so years. Whitefang
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Post by jbone on Jan 3, 2020 12:11:58 GMT -5
As for work ethic, I did a lot of different things to get a loaf of bread, a table to set it on, and a roof over the table. Most jobs I did, I learned to love the work. Most jobs I left it was over my bosses or coworkers being substandard. You can love the work and despise the humans who work next to you or the people who manage.
Having had some hard times where I could not find steady work, I learned early on to be grateful for the job I had.
This workamping deal is mostly easy work. I have learned to avoid heavy labor like landscaping and maintenance, and instead I am focused on housekeeping. One gig I did was pretty much do everything on a 60-site park, from escorting to site leveling with a rake and shovel to break up the beaver dam 3/4 of a mile through the woods so the park would drain after it rained. Redo broken PVC plumbing. Garden. Ant kill. Weed Kill. It should have been 20 hours a week and it was more like 35, and I was expected to be there evenings a lot. When it came time to leave I knew I'd never return there even though they loved me. They also worked me about twice the hours it was worth. The idea with this is, hey, I'm done with 40+ hour work weeks, I want to work for a site and be done. If I can get a wage and work a bit more- say 30 hours instead of 20- okay, good. There is a balancing act to do. A manager needs certain things done and a workamper needs a site. The trick is to find the work one can do well and easily and trade that for a site. I hooked up and hauled after one night at one place. They did not tell us we'd be just below a busy highway- 24 hours a day traffic- and 50 yards from a coal train railroad, 24 hours a day. Another place, it was falling apart and the owner was stuck in how it "used to be". And stuck in expecting full time work for a site that was worth about 10 hours a week. No cable, wifi, phone service, damp and muddy most of the time, and 3 staff when he needed about 10 at least. The good folks I work for become references and the others disappear in the mists of history. There are sites and pages where RV park managers post opportunities. It takes a little time to sift through but one can find agreeable opportunities listed by state, see reviews, pics etc., and send off inquiries. The hiring process is by email and phone and you can tell quite a lot from a standard set of questions. It's all pretty informal. People come and go from these gigs a lot. Of course location is a big factor. I look at the north for summer and the south for winter basically.
More people are setting off on full time RV living adventures every year, and they are younger. The landscape is changing some, more toward full time wage paying jobs in some cases, and whole families on the road. Home school, pets to care for, bills to pay. But there are plenty of more casual part time opps even so. I'm set through the end of '21 and into '22 right now. Lake Erie from May to November and Florida Panhandle from November to the following spring. Or possibly back here, but the weather here is a bit cool. Plus we do love coastal areas for the music opportunities!
Similarly, some places you play a gig at you don't want to cultivate any return dates and some you do. The successes you talk up and the failures you don't speak of.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2020 19:36:05 GMT -5
I find it odd that someone who claims to "hate" their job(when "profession" is what you probably meant) as much as you do would still do it well enough to be in the "top 90%". Most people who hate their jobs don't put enough effort into them to do passable work. I did not hate my job when I learned it, I began to hate it later on. I learned my trade working as a union apprentice working for the largest masonry contractor in the USA at the time. My father was friends of the family who owned that business. I was not only good at it, I was one of the best bricklayers in the city & when I was only a year into my apprenticeship I won the local union apprentice contest.
The next year when I was in the city wide contest (which was 4 locals) I won that. I went on to come in second at the state contest which was all of Pennsylvania. I would have come in first but our local guy who was part of the overall judging crew told me the Local 1 guys cut me down a few points. I belonged to Local 64 of Philly which was the housing local, The big local was Local 1 of Philly, and they seemed to be jealous or something and the local 1 guy's vote caused me lose 1st place by 1 point.
From there my employer Joseph Anastasi of Anastasi Brothers Corp, called me into his office the next Monday, and told me that he was so impressed by what I did, he let me out of my time 8 months early, which means my pay doubled that day and from then on I was a journeyman.
From there I began to work on some of the finest jobs in town and the surrounding states, I was a corner man always (those are the finest and most respected bricklayers) The corner men build all of the leads, and the rest of the guys just fill in between the leads. Later on I became a layout man which are even more respected in the trade than the corner men The layout men lay down the first three courses of brick and the 1st 2 courses of concrete block, that is pretty complicated on big buildings).
Then I started doing the hippy thing, and one Monday after doing some LSD the night before, I went to the job-sight and watched some of the old guys (40 year olds)(I was about 26 at the time) Anyways I watched the old guy's getting out of their cars and they could not straighten up, their backs hurt so bad. I knew right then that what they were suffering from was my future as well. So I began to dislike that idea a bunch and after a bit I quit the job working union and went into the business myself, building fireplaces, steps, veneers, Then I learned to do concrete work, and added that to my list of things to do (That was where the money was in my home town).
But I hated the east coast a bunch so I moved out west here where bricklayers mostly lay concrete block, 36 pounds each CMU (concrete masonry units) I had to lay 300 of them daily. Which is 10,800 pounds with my left arm, and about 3000 pounds with my right (trowel) hand daily. And as I got older the more it hurt at the end of each day.
My "JOB" was not a profession, it is a trade. That is me below at the state apprentice contest.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2020 20:17:13 GMT -5
As for work ethic, I did a lot of different things to get a loaf of bread, a table to set it on, and a roof over the table. Most jobs I did, I learned to love the work. Most jobs I left it was over my bosses or coworkers being substandard. You can love the work and despise the humans who work next to you or the people who manage. Most of the time I quit my jobs were because of the foremen, or supervision as I said above, most bricky foremen are like male gorillas in heat with the same sort of temperament, not too bright up top but bully like in their delivery. Many times I just hated the type of work an a particular job and would quit on a moments notice, (And on my way home I would usually find a new job)
I was never out of work for long however. I had kids to feed, and that is why I stayed at it for so long.
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Post by whitefang on Jan 4, 2020 10:52:13 GMT -5
"Trade", "Profession", it's all synonymous. Bricklaying contests sound like something the company you'd work for would have at their annual company picnic. If I quit every job I had because the boss was a prick I'd have never worked ANYWHERE long enough to earn a pension. I can still count all the foremen I worked for that I still like and respect on one hand with fingers left over though. Some( a very few) did know how to work with people while others( like the ones you mention, and we had them too at GM) acted like the word "foreman" was a fancy word for "lord and master". Whitefang
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