Not wanting to miss the joy of frostbite, I returned to Garden Valley this morning in order to finish a long-distance wiring installation. Some friends decided that having Christmas lights on their entrance gate was a must-have. So, having the Happy Kubota and 500' of Type UF-B wire (direct burial), I went to Lowes and bought a GFI breaker and assorted small parts for this install. This morning I finished burying the cable at the enjoyable temperature of 19. At least it was sunny. Karen of the Shirer came out and told me that Bozeman had received 6" of snow last night. I guess she was trying to cheer me up.
Starting the Happy Kubota was an interesting experience. Glow plugs not withstanding, I cranked the thing for 20 seconds before it roared to life. Diesels are such a kick.
Tomorrow AM I'm scheduled to go tear down a small embankment of DG. This will take me and the Happy Kubota an hour or three. BM could probably do this in 15 minutes while basking in the luxury of a heated cab. Fortunately it's only going to get down to 17 tonight...which means it'll be a toasty 23 or so by the time I get outta the shed with the Happy Kubota.
On the brighter side, my cab for the Happy Kubota arrived a few days ago. It awaits installation down in the comfy garage of the Boise place. This'll help. At least it'll shield me from flying dog poop when I clear the roads up here. Terrible things happen when the shit hits the fan (snow blower fan, that is).
The Final StrawI'm speechless. Fortunately my fingers still work.
For some time I have been worried about the Redneck Contagion. Stitch has it now. Twice in the past two weeks she has suggested that we need to buy a quad. Normally I would have promptly beat a path down to the Honda or Yamaha dealer at the mere hint that she'd given the green light to this but now I'm leary that she's "under the influence". Her rationale for wanting a quad is interesting and unexpected. She has stated, "I need a quad to ride down to the mailbox just like the other neighborhood ladies do." I figure it's just a matter of time until she wants her own skid-steer (AKA Bobcat).
More EvidenceThe Redneckitis that I seem to have had a few symptoms of has bloomed into a full-blown case. A few days ago when our latest Kalifornistan import finally brought his backhoe up from El Cajon to his place here in the smoke-tainted forests north of Crouch, there was a veritable stampede of neighbors heading over to his house to see the new arrival. Trampled hawthorne and Ponderosa saplings evidence the "human wave" that the neighborhood experienced.
A newborn child or keg of Bud wouldn't have caused such a rush! The only thing that probably could have held a candle to this event was if a neighbor had purchased a new Dodge 1-ton with the Cummins diesel and power windows. Or maybe a Ford with the latest Powerstroke incarnation.
All us guys stood around and gawked at the "new" hoe. The fact that this sun-bleached old warhorse had spent the last two years out in the middle of a SoCal field didn't seem to phase anybody. Nor did the small pool of hydraulic fluid collecting under the hoe's boom. The proud papa beamed as he answered those predictable new hoe questions like, "How much does it weigh?" and "How deep will the hoe go?"
In any event, a good time was had by all and an irrigation water baptism date has been set. Rob the Flyswatter has been named Godfather and I have been designated as "Digger heir-apparent". This was the biggest thing to hit the neighborhood in months and the excitement was palpable. The proud family treated us all to steak, shrimp, and double-baked spuds. What an event!
A Moment of ClarityMost of the past month I've lived in the vicinity of Crouch/Garden Valley. This has afforded me the opportunity to meet quite a few folks and get familiar with "the way people do things around here". It is interesting in contrasting the lifestyle of the average high-tech Boisean with the day-to-day fight to survive war that the locals endure. I came to the not-so-surprising conclusion that there are many rednecks here and other products of selective inbreeding (PoSI). I try to remain detached and take my lead from the i/o.
However, my world sorta came crashing down around me last Monday. Rob (the fly-swatting crazy guy from a previous post) and I were working an "overburden displacement" (see previous post) job for our homeowner's association when Rob noted that the Happy Kubota was very thirsty for s'more of that #2 diesel fuel. Since Rob is the master "overburden displacment Officer", I volunteered to run back to the "shop" (a 14x14 shed) and get more fuel. I jumped in his pickup and headed back (I commute everywhere around here in the Happy Kubota); loaded a jerry can (Is that PC?), and headed back to the worksite.
While heading back slowly to place of our work (neighborhood speed limit is 15 MPH), I found myself tapping my foot to the music Rob had put in the tape deck of his pickup. It was the venerable John Denver singing, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." About that time Havoc the Wonderdog (who had been in the back of the pickup the entire time), stuck her head in through the rear window of the cab. I looked back at her in the rearview and found her looking at me by way of the mirror.
Suddenly I was transported about 1000 feet into the air and took in the entire scene. Some dude who looked just like me was slowly tooling along the gravel road with a dog in the back of his rig with "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" playing on the cassette. Crap! It was me!! I had become one of those I was supposed to be observing!
The only way it could have been better was if I was smoking and sharing a Bud with my dawg. I guess I have something to work towards now. Oh, and I need a rusty old pickup that smokes alot. Come to think of it, I have one. This is disconcerting.
A Word Not To Say Around the Insurance AgentGarden Mountain Earthworks LLC, our latest (if not greatest?) corporate entity formally came into being 8/9/2006. This, at least partially, explains why I've not posted in some time. I've been too busy being "a Captain of Industry". Sorry. In my own defense I want to say that I've had 67 corporate lunches and "entertainment expense items" and have thoroughly squandered the retirement plans of all our employees since my last post.
In memory of my past employer (HP), I've instigated covert coverage of all employees in hopes of finding out who on the board has been divulging important corporate info to the Garden Valley press corps.
But I digress.
What I really want to discuss is a new way to give an insurance agent a cardiac. I've almost knocked-off ours by uttering the phrase, "Our son just finished driver's ed." He's a hardy soul though and had survived my attempts...until I found the "Magic E-word". I happened upon the magic word while attempting to secure liability insurance for the newly-hatched Earthworks enterprise. I called our State Farm agent and told him of the new company. He seemed genuinely pleased. That was until he asked what the new biz was about and I said "Excavation". At that point I could hear choking and it sounded for all the world like the dude had swallowed a rubber chicken or that dead lizard that the i/o had found. A few minutes later he apologized and said that his assistant would be calling back later.
Well, she did. This was "Tammy the Assistant" who was well-known for having the real brains behind our agents operation. It embarrassed me once to call our agent and ask for Tammy...but that's another story. Tammy the Assistant (and Brains) told me that State Farm didn't insure companies that did excavation. I couldn't understand that given how safe digging trenches is. (Actually, digging
is pretty safe...it's the working at the bottom of the trench that has been known to cause problems.) Actually the Happy Kubota, realistically, refuses to dig trenches deeper than 3-4 feet. I tried to explain that, but I had mentioned the deadly 'E' word and the water was thus poisoned and no explanations (facts) would set the insurance train back on the track.
Well, what to do now? I turned to the Internet because I trust everything I read from that source. I went to something like "dumbassinsuranceagents.com" and requested a quote from one of the local (Boise) agents. My first email from this guy was positively wonderful. He waxed poetic in describing how much he'd like to insure my small company. Then I dropped the 'E'-bomb on him. He never got back to me. I wonder why.
Actually I hate to admit it, but I was somewhat in the dark about reasons nobody wanted to talked to me about my biz. Then I had the "E-word Epiphany". I decided to battle this problem with a Thesaurus...and vowed to never use the accursed "E-word" again.
In retrospect I can understand why insurers would be hesitant to insure excavators...so I chose to choose words which better describe what I do.
Stitch made a few uncharitable suggestions in that regard.
Eventually, what I settled on was Sprinkler installation since that's closest to what I really do which deals mostly with routing/fixing irrigation and potable water lines and "stuff" that our real backhoe moron breaks or does half-assed. Excavation really isn't what the new biz is about but seemed like a good catchall phrase. But I learned my lesson.
Just today when preparing an invoice for the homeowner's association, I caught myself about to use the dreaded word. I changed the E-word to the phrase "overburden displacement" in describing the digging-up a drain pipe and relocation of it to another area in which I had performed "overburden displacement" (AKA trenching, AKA ditching, AKA E-word).
