My work has been trying to eat my soul. If I did not like my job it would not matter, but I do, and it does, and I am trapped in LA LA Land.

Being in a deadline driven industry, I am oriented to get things done, while this project seems destined to never end. My badge was extended until the end of March. This was scheduled to be an eight week project and I am staring nine months in the face.

Your tax dollars at waste.

Someone told another trade that it was OK to remove stuff that I have already installed, thereby voiding all warranties and any interest in my completing that particular aspect of this project. There shall be much whining, finger pointing, and blaming in the near future, and I can’t seem to bring myself to care. I have tried my best to do the right thing throughout this project, but the bureaucracy insists on reinventing the construction industry without understanding the industry. I tried to warn them before they began removal, but they failed to heed my warnings. This will become an expensive mistake, and I look forward to learning just who is going to pay.

There is so much ‘cover your ass’ going on in LA LA Land that there is no time for ‘get ‘er done’, and now that the money has run out no one cares. They seem to think that there is an endless well of dollars and time, while I believe that the well has run dry.

On another note; my house is on the market and I am anxious to sell. With the market the way it is I will never get what I could have a few years ago, but I do need to get something a bit smaller. This place would be great for a passel of kids and pets, but is far too big just for the Mrs. and her pack. We are going to weekend in the rig and try to get the pack adjusted to smaller accommodations.

I have been toying with the idea of doing a ‘Quote of the day’ kinda thing here. I have in mind just a simple posting of things that I overhear while going about my day. It would at least get me back into posting again.

Any ideas?

I had someone ask me if I was in anger management. I told them that I don’t need it because if I get too angry my wife beats the shit out of me me.

I spend all my time getting the house ready to sell. Why is it that I am putting more time and money into the house to sell it than I did just to live in it? (Like the answer to most questions of this kind; money.)

And since the theme of the year is still downsizing; I downsized my mouth. I recently had all my teeth pulled and now wear dentures. “Why in hell would you do that?” you might ask. The answer is, “Because I lost the genetic lottery and had really bad teeth and gums.” My mouth was in bad shape and I was in constant pain for a long, long time.

It is difficult getting used to dentures, but I feel better than I have in years. The pain was a part of my life that I became used to. Now I feel like a new person and am embracing life in a new way. I am also learning to eat all over again.

I may even be a little less cranky. (and monkeys shall fly outta my butt)

The Los Alamos thing is on hold again. There are things happening up there that I just don’t understand. I have heard people blame it on Government work, but I have worked Government jobs before and have never seen anything like this. The most surprising part for me it that everyone seems to go along with the delays and no one seems to be trying to solve the problems. Everyone has just given up and trudges along like prisoners in a chain gang.

I am very fortunate in the fact that my company agrees with me in the fact that we have pulled off the job until they become ready for us. I am also fortunate in the fact that I have another project to go to while this one meanders along at a snails pace.

Since this is Sunday, I think I will go paint a bedroom and move some furniture.

Have a crabby day!

My joy is without limits.

Telluride is a beautiful place, with great mountain views and a quaint atmosphere. I will not be sorry to leave just because this particular jobsite has been the worst place I have ever been asked to work. It is difficult to know just who is really responsible for these conditions, but whoever it is should be put in the field to see what things are really like instead of hiding in a climate controlled office with filtered air and thermostats.

‘What one can’t cure, one must endure’; and I will no longer have to endure.

From what I hear, I should be happy that I have another job to go to. Trades people from all over the country are telling me that they have no place to go after this is over. I have been very lucky over the years and should not whine and bitch about the lousy jobs, but I *DO* appreciate all the good ones I have been on, which far outnumber the sites-from-hell.

I predict that the run of bad sites is over for a while and I can get back to having a life outside of work and thinking about something other than how much I hate a place.

I can’t wait.

I just finished a fine breakfast and am trying out a new keyboard that the Mrs. chose to give to me. Her new computer won’t use this one due to a tragic not-matching plug accident.

I kinda ended up with a new computer as well, a nearly fatally corrupt unit that one of the ungrateful bastards had for a while. I got my little grubbies on it and began stripping useless nonsense from it immediately. The virus protection was wasted and the firewall barely working at all. I am presently doing battle with a Trojan that got in when he used to leave his machine run for months at a time.

Again; You can lead a child to knowledge, but you can’t make him think.

On a better note;

I dragged my doghouse back to sanctuary and am going to be sleeping in my own bed again for a while. The project is (hopefully) drawing to a close and I am going to commute again. After about a year living in the Doghouse I am ready for a toilet that flushes and a shower that is bigger than a footbath.

The asylum that I call a jobsite is worse than ever with fingers pointing in many directions and panic joining the smell of manure in the air. The manure is from the brand spanking new landscaping and the panic is from the general contractor realizing what was actually going on for the past year.

They have an event scheduled for Wednesday and appear to be hopelessly not ready. There is temporary fencing going up to keep the innocent from falling in a hole or tripping on some construction debris that never seems to make the trip to the dumpster. I am finally getting to the point where I am more amused than angry. We have completed all our contract work and are there just to see what things they want changed or improved.

Between the job being close to done and sleeping at home again I might just turn back into a person that the Mrs. might want to spent time with.

For a place that advertises service ‘in about an hour’ I think that this service is less than perfect.

I think I will pay them a visit and show them a little of my Troll side.

The last time I got glasses I waited for far longer than the two weeks they said it would take. I remember talking to them just before I left for deep South Texas. It was January of ‘06 and I was in a much better mood.

I had another opportunity to show my Troll side this week when one of the people that are supposed to be running the asylum decided to call me out in public for a rather small problem that I pointed out to him a couple of weeks ago. He had decided that I should take it upon myself to fix this problem for him.

It was not my problem, and I refused to fix it. Then I shoved his face in the fact that he did not even know what the problem really is. I knew more about this thing than he did, having actually looked at the plans, and made everything that I was involved with as was called for. Too bad that someone else made an error that made other things not work as they should.

Now I am certain that he will be looking for something to pull on me. He is that kind of guy. He could have saved himself some embarrassment by just doing his job instead of stopping at the obvious answer. Actually pulling out a tape measure and checking things might have helped, too.

I have noticed that the people that are supposed to be in control of this project are like drunken airline pilots. They are at the controls and have not looked out the window for quite some time. When one of the stewards points out that the ground seems close, the pilots reply that nothing is wrong and not to say anything to anyone else. In the meantime the plane is slowly getting closer to crashing.

Just yesterday I thought I heard trees hitting the belly of the plane while the pilots were out to lunch.

It must suck to be them.

I should be jumping off the plane any time now. We have finished installing things and I am just waiting for the list of things that the people that design buildings want us to make better. This list is called a ‘punch list’.

I was supposed to have all the punch lists for all areas at the end of this last week.

I actually received one list for one area. There are many areas left to do.

It must suck to be them.

I am not the one(s) that you should be mad at. I am just another guy trying to feed his family and get ahead in the corporeal world. I did not intentionally disturb your long sleep and would be somewhere else not disturbing the dead if I had any say in the matter.

Please leave us industrious worker-bee/ field types alone, but please do feel free to torment those that actually run this job and sit in the office trailers. It is entirely their fault. They are the ones that choose to make holes where you are resting. They are the ones that feel that they have to move your bones; not we field people.

After working with these particular office types I envy you your long rest. I am kept awake at night wondering what kind of stupid decision they are going to make and what it will take to fix these changes that they have failed to think through. I run from crisis to crisis caused by their lack of ability and jump through hoops to get the things done that would be finished long ago if they had any organizational skills at all. I am very tired.

I believe that if those particular office people were not here, the building would be done by now and you could all go back to resting as you were before all this hubbub began and they started digging in your bed.

I think that it would be appropriate to put some ectoplasm in their poop holes or force ghostly projections into their overly warm entrails. Covering their desks in some green, bad smelling, other worldly slime would very much deserved. Plugging their toilets or talking through their phones and computers would seem appropriate for what they have done to you.

I understand why you feel that you have to extend physic tendrils of terror up the asses of the people at this site; it’s just that I think you are choosing the wrong people. If you pick those that are actually responsible they will whine and cry far more than those in the field. The people in the field are used to getting the short end of the stick. If you perform physic enemas on the office people they will cry like little girls, while the field people will just roll their eyes and think, “Here we go again, sigh.”

We actually WANT to be somewhere else, while the office people think the longer they are disturbing you the more money they will make. You see, they blame you as the reason they are not done. They claim the ‘weather’ is the cause, but we all know that they are saying that YOU are the reason they are late.

I hope that I can persuade you to let those of us that actually do things get on with the job and confine your torture to those that have their hands on the reins of the job; The Management. That way we can finish much more quickly and you can bestow upon them the punishment that they deserve.

Thank you.

It has to be magic. They just disappear in the blink of an eye only to return sometime later like ghosts from the mist. If you ask them where they have been they always say, “To the bathroom.”

I have never been able to teleport to the bathroom. I wish I could. That would save me a lot of time every day instead of hiking to the filthy, graffiti ridden outhouses that pass for sanitary facilities on most construction sites. I could flick myself into a nice clean facility with real flush toilets and paper that does not feel like it was originally meant to be used to smooth wood.

I have asked these metaphysical people how they do it and they refuse to share their secret. I have tried threatening to fasten the outhouse doors shut while they are inside until they tell me the secret, but if they can flick in then they can probably flick out as well. That would explain why they laugh at me.

If this keeps up I will have to convince them that flicking will cause them to become immune to getting high and that drugs and alcohol will no longer have any effect. I believe that is the only thing that would influence their thinking.

If I can’t flick then they shouldn’t either.

Too bad I don’t believe a word of it.

This theory is, however, rapidly becoming something of an urban legend. People do love to have something to gossip about. They especially love it when it involves delicate parts of anatomy and pain for others.

I am hoping to escape this particular jobsite fairly soon, but if the individuals that run the asylum don’t get their shit together I will be getting Christmas cards there. They were supposed to be trying to get a Certificate of Occupancy in about five days, but without permanent power, water, carpet, air conditioning, or all the doors, I don’t think they are going to be ready.

It is my opinion that the powers that be are actually quite delusional about the state of this jobsite. (Note: Too many meetings cause enough brain damage so you can no longer see the real world.)

I really do have to finish soon. The next job is rumored to be ready and I want some time off to readjust to the real world instead of the imaginary reality of Santa Fe.

Please wish me luck. I think I am going to need it.

It is real Troll weather here. I love it. This is a great day to sleep or snuggle with someone you love. Much needed moisture is making mud and puddles for people and pets to play in. This is just good weather for Trolls that live in the desert.

We are experiencing the remains of hurricane Dolly, which managed to plough through Brownsville Texas and surrounding areas to do tens of millions of dollars of improvements. This is a Good hurricane in my mind.

On another note;

I am trying to reaffirm myself in the world of the living. The weather is helping. It has been an extremely stressful couple of weeks and I need to kick back a bit and remember what it is to be alive as opposed to being a slave to a badly run jobsite.

This job is trying to kill us worker people. Some people claim that this site is haunted by the disturbed remains of the graveyard over which we are building. I think it is just badly run by inexperienced people who are unable to tell the difference between running a jobsite and letting a jobsite run them.

But it looks to be over soon. My crew hit two milestones this week and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This light hopefully is not another train bearing down on me.

After this I am taking a week off. I think I deserve some form of vacation and have ample leave waiting for me.

The Park that I live in, in the land of the lost, has just become a little less lost and offers free wi-fi! I will now have communication abilities! I hope to post a little more frequently now that I will have my ‘puter with me.

Life is improving!

I must be getting old. I remember when you had to pay your dues to get ahead in life and you did not expect to have a secure future handed to you like a grabbing Big Gag Calorie Free Fast Meal at a fast food drive up window.

When in the hell did I fall out of the short buss? Did being a working person in America change in that much the last ten years? Did I miss the memo telling us that we all get a free pension, job security, good pay, and a comfortable life because we just happen to think we deserve it?

I had a man quit on me today because I did not respect him. (His wording, not mine.)

In my opinion there is not a lot to respect. He is whiny and complains about having to actually work for a living. He seems to have problems with showing up for forty hours a week. He thinks he can dictate what work he gets to do and when he should do it. He thinks it is acceptable for him to throw his trash on the floor and leave it because someone else should pick it up. He seems to think he is above working with people like us and deserves some nice, climate controlled office job.

He is correct on one thing; I do not respect him. He has failed to earn my respect in a simply glorious fashion.

In this declining economy I am surprised that people still act this way. When people with Masters Degrees are trying to get jobs picking up animal poop in a shelter one would think that having a good paying job would make a person more interested in actually keeping that job. *

I guess I am wrong.

I am constantly amazed at just how clueless some people are. They still think that the government is spying on us from space and that all you have to do get a good job is to tell someone that you deserve that job.

In the alternate space-time that gives birth to these asshats, no one takes applications for jobs because some person is meant for that job and fills it. All positions are filled all the time and all jobs are high paying and comfortable with bosses that like and respect everyone and there are no harsh words ever. Everyone gets the perfect job for them and everyone loves what they do from auto technician to zebra wrangler.

I like my space-time better. In my space-time you earn the respect of your peers and you work to improve yourself and your skills. In my space-time you prove to others that you are skilled and capable and leave the drama at home. In my space-time you earn what you get, not have it handed to you.

But that’s just me.

*(I was told about the Masters Degree people by someone that hires the people that pick up poop in an animal shelter. I did not make this one up.)