Last Three Months In Pictures

    If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then this post will give me a chance to catch up with some of you    The past 3 months have been some of the busiest  in years. 

      I know how to build “margin” in my life, and it’s slim….Ready?  Here goes…

We played host to a family reunion in July.  Wife’s siblings (she’s one of 7) were all back in town to connect.  I love my wife’s family.   They’re not perfect but they really work at staying involved in each others lives. They are scattered all over the United States.  I took one of my nephews to work one day:

Nephew bonding with Uncle Doug, pouring cement

Late July we hosted concert # 3  in the 2009 Bear River Concert series.  Here’s a picture of  Jesse Martin, Gayla Drake Paul and myself after the show

In 1999 I stayed several days with a family in California while attending a conference.  We’ve kept in touch ever since.  Catherine and her son Jonathan came for a visit. She was originally from the Midwest, came back for a school reunion, wanted Jonathan to connect with some of his roots.  This is a picture of all of us one Sunday morning

Here’s Jonathan seeing what potatoes look like fresh from the garden

Here’s Jonathan petting one of the hens.  I think it’s Joy

In early August, I got a call from someone saying “Let’s do it”  We’d been talking about building him a new 26,000 sq ft warehouse.  Here’s a picture of the first day digging footings.  Once we broke ground, this project  has been a priority .

We had 11 inches of rain the first 2 weeks of this job, our ditches had to be repeatedly pumped out in order to pour the wall and footings.  Here’s one area with 5 feet of water in mud.  Made for some long days

 

  

Dad always said, never ask someone to do something you won’t do yourself (I think many of our government leaders missed that lecture)  Here’s a picture of nephew, son and myself  bucketing mud off the footings.  The mud was too thick for the sump pump so we did it old school.

 

Speaking of school, I started teaching part time in a new community college building.  This is a picture of me in the shop. I teach 2 construction related classes from 12:30 till 2 Monday through Friday.   I love the class, have a great bunch of guys, but it has been brutal in terms of  my schedule.  I go to my first job (building new warehouse) from 7:30 till 11:15 , run home, clean up, head to the school, teach, then go back to the construction site.  In the evenings, most nights I have to work on the lesson plan for the next day.  It has really cut into the time I typically blog.

    In late August, we hosted concert # 4 with GDP 3.  Here’s a view through my video camera. 

Here’s a picture of the cement pump starting to pour the floor in the warehouse.

 

Forgot to mention, we have a bumper crop in the orchard this year, so we’ve started picking apples.  Here’s two little cousins picking apples

 

Here’s a picture of my son with some of the cortlands

   Last week friend and fellow blogger Kristina and family came for a visit.  I think we all made lots of memories.  Here’s a picture of us after we got off the river kayaking. 

Here’s a picture of Kristina in the kitchen cooking w/o meat.  She really is a great cook.   I could get used to having a full time maid

 Applejam (Concert #5) took place over the weekend that Kristina and family was here. They were a great help.  I’m guessing there were at least 120 people here for that.  Here’s a picture of a brother sister duo who were awesome.  He sang a Neil Young song that sounded as good as the original.

Young lady on the right  just finished singing @ Applejam.

     I did get on stage and sing an Alison Kraus song with Kathy, DJ and Lori during Applejam.

I’m going to have to stop there.      Wanted to stay in touch w/ those of you that are regular readers.- later- DM

My New Teaching Gig

      Standing in front of the class today I began to diagram how to frame  the rough opening of a house window.  I looked at the marker in my hand and gasped- it said “permanent marker“

       I grabbed the eraser, took a swipe at the black  line- nothing happened , so I grabbed the spray bottle full of cleaner,  saturating the board, the black line began to bleed.  The students loved it.   ;-)

     This is my second week of teaching part time in a local community college.   I’m teaching  a series of  construction related  classes.  One of the things you want to keep in mind as a teacher is to start each session  with an attention grabber -this certainly was.

   As I set up the syllabus (class outline)  for the class,  I decided to grade the students in  3 areas- information,  their notebooks, and attitude.(also called “professionalism”) 

     Information changes.   In my mind, what’s the point of memorizing tons of random bits of construction trivia  if 10 years from now it’s obsolete.    Only 50% of their grade will be tied to knowing facts.

     In the work world I inhabit,  a person’s ability to get along with their peers (and customers) casts a much larger shadow than most people realize.  This sort of stuff was never mentioned in high school  when I was growing up.  You either pick it up later   (or not) after  you graduate.     

        In my class, it counts for 30% of your grade.  What I’d really like to do is make it count for 70%  …. maybe next year. 

     Finally, I”m asking all of the students to keep a 3 ring binder for the class handouts.  In it there is a section for a glossary, class notes, field trips,  review sheets, the course syllabus, etc.

     This also ties into what I”ve discovered as a businessman- it’s called keeping a “paper trail“-noting important conversations.  Who I talked to, when I talked to them, what we discussed.  It’s making copies of anything  I send in to the insurance company, Big Brother, I mean the IRS.

      Document, document, document.

     In my mind, if I have one year to shape young minds, I’m going to   impart some things they can take with them, no matter what career path they choose.

     Last Friday, it was time  to do some review, so we played a combination Jeopardy/ Wheel of Fortune.  I needed Vanna White, so I e-mailed our school administrator who is a great sport..  She agreed to be Vanna,  she came in for  30 minutes while we  reviewed Safety, Loads, Footings, plans and specs, Concrete, etc.

      Here’s what you would have heard….

      Concrete for 10 ….
“Your friend built a new home just two years ago.  He calls you up to tell you the driveway in front of his garage door has developed a large crack.  What do you suspect is the reason?”

Safety for 50

      “What do the initials PPE stand for?”

      And finally, here photo from my other job illustrating something my dad taught me several years ago….

“Never ask someone to do something you wouldn’t do yourself.”

Here’s  of 3 of us cleaning the mud off of our footings after pumping 5 feet of water out of the hole…here’s what it looked like before we got the water out:

I love my job(s)  :-)  Thanks for reading along! DM