Your stories about engineers are great and really strike a cord with me. I was talking to one of the operators about a truck I was having trouble with and mentioned I had to pull the heads and have them machined so I could install screw in rocker studs and new valves and springs. A repairman laughed at the statement and said sure you are, but who is doing the work for you? I told him I was doing all of the work but the machining. He couldn't believe that an engineer actually worked on his own stuff and that I knew what I was doing. (I really didn't have a clue, but learned.) Now we help each other troubleshoot all the time.
JB
Great experience! You pay the company lots of dividends by working together with mutual respect.
Too many young engineers (and some older ones) never seem to have the respect for the crafts that they should. And they seem to be very proud of the engineering skills they have and are eager to display those skills to the "uneducated". I'll give you a little unsolicited advice. Nobody needs to know you are a skillful engineer. They assume you know lots more than you do and really laugh at you when you fail to know everything. What they do need to know is that you are a person, and especially a person who respects what they know and are up against in their job. When there is a problem and the engineers are called in, the guys with the problem know what needs to be done, they just don't have the authority to do it. Listen to them and you'll be a superstar.
I'm sure you can grasp the situation where I had to demonstrate a heilarc welding technique none of our shop welders knew. If was very important through that process that I not laugh at their skills, nor that an engineer, much less a supervisor had welding skills they didn't have. By holding my tongue I had a lot better relationship with all the crafts than I had before.
What is interesting to me, surprising, and even amazing, are the skills and knowledge collectively held by the non-degreed employees in a company. I've always said "we could buy all the materials and just dump them in the yard and tell the guys to go get it. I guarantee you they could get the project built, and it might embarrass us how well they would do."
I know its a little late now, but I've seen this new product at Menards that's OSB but it has a plastic like material on the one side. Then you use a tape for the seems and it seals all the weather out. Might be too expensive for barn use?? Man it would be nice to have the help you get
Is that the material Thomas Payne used in his shop? As you might guess, I'm not much for premium solutions. (galvanized siding, no colored steel) I rely on the sheetrock and paint to seal the air out. No Tyvek wrap even. If you have integrity of the internal membrane, a little airflow into the insulation is not all that damaging to your insulation effectiveness. Part of that system is no electrical penetrations through the sheetrock. Of course that's not for everyone, especially those who have to have electrical inspections
Man that came together quickly and looking good! Your progress is astounding. Especially considering taking the time to run errands and pick stuff up too.
Better get some doors and lights up quick... Vicky won't like you fiddling with her parts in the dark or for the world to see! She may be a flirt but still have to maintain a modicum of grace and civility.
No, no,no, no! Going slow, must work harder, must go faster. No rest allowed, work, work, work.
Did I ever tell you I work for a slave driver. When I was building pole barns during my previous retirement it took me two employees to finish a building. Several jobs, I'd hire a helper, we'd dig the holes, set the poles, put on the purlins. The next day he wouldn't show up. Hire another that wanted to work and we'd put the tin on. They get to stay on the ground (need somebody on the ground, don't want the liability of them on the roof, and I can't QC each screw installation from the ground). Sometimes they'd finish the job and sometimes I'd finish it alone the next day.
Got a question - is it Guster like Rooster or Guster like Duster? I'll let you crow about your dust free shop...
See Andy, told you it would only be another week and you'd be done'ish. Good work.
"My oldest great grandson's other grandfather" - this is too many generations of complication for me. Never have been good keeping track of such things though.
Vicks looks fantastic.
GB.
You got me on that one, I could really make progress if I didn't have to go to Houston tomorrow
(I'm an MD Anderson patient and they have summoned me)
You think generational complication because both of my great grandson's grandfathers were helping?
How about this: My wife has a brother 8 years younger, and a sister 16 years younger (they were worried when the youngest turned eight). My step daughter married the SIL who was two years older than me (hey, you can't do anything about it, and he did have a backhoe and dump truck). At Thanksgiving, his son came to the dinner at my sister-in-law's house. They hit it off so the SIL's son married my sister-in-law. That is, my grandson married my sister-in-law. So now my grandson is my brother-in-law. Daughter calls him Uncle Son - Her aunt's husband is her husband's son. Got it?
The grandson's daughter said it best when she was eight. Wife's brother is named Ronnie. So her step mom's brother is her uncle Ronnie. Ronnie is also my SIL's uncle (his wife's uncle) so the little girl says: "grandpa, you ahve an uncle Ronnie, and I have an uncle Ronnie, and it's the same uncle Ronnie, does that mean you are your own grandpa?" And that relationship is better than the song where the guy proclaims he is his own grandpa because he married his grandpa's young widow. We have had some interesting labels on Christmas gifts, like "to my Grandson from your Brother-In-Law". This is all true
There will be a test later.
You made Miss Vicky blush. (thanks Bobby)
She is really fun when we're out alone 
She seems to like it though. One guy yesterday just popped her bonnet to take a look at her private parts 
Kind of bothered me that she was OK with it 
