Carry On

Back to the beginning. When I first arrived at the McCarran jobsite, I was told that I must go immediately to the FAA offices and obtain my security clearance and badge. There was no access to much of the work without that all important badge.

I found the FAA offices and completed the paperwork and a photo was taken, but it was going to be a few days before I was given the badge; security checks had to be made first.

That first day I wandered through the various concourses and reviewed the work we were doing in those public areas. All was going well.

The next day I was summoned by radio to look at a problem that the fireproofing crew had in the baggage area. Oops! I radioed back and said I wouldn't be able to go there as I didn't have my badge yet. "You got your hard hat on?" was the next question. Sure. "OK, meet me at the Southwest counter in a few minutes."

I met the fireproofing foreman out in the public area where he told me that a hard hat would be sufficient for entry. And he was right. I spent the rest of the day working in all of those secure areas; my hard hat and a 2-way radio was enough authority for most everyone I encountered.

A note about those baggage areas…

Almost everyone has seen the slow and stately progress of their checked luggage as it travels within the ticketing area and then through the small opening that hides it from further view. That's a good thing. You don't want to see what happens to your luggage after it exits the ticketing area.

Chaos! The line accelerates and the bags go flying. Not necessarily with you. As I walked over and around the conveyor machinery, I would spot bags that had fallen off and were now hidden under the machinery. How long had they been there? Baggage in huge piles that didn't seem to have function or identity.

Now you know…

Sunny Las Vegas

After the Sierra Pacific Power Company building, there weren't a lot of big projects in town; Reno had run into a building slump, and so when I was asked if I wanted to go to Las Vegas for a couple of weeks to help out on a project down there, I was happy to go. The project was called McCarran 2000 and it was a remodel and expansion of the McCarran International Airport.

This was going to be a new experience for me as I had never worked on an airport before. I learned quickly.

Shortly after arriving in Las Vegas I rented a car until I could find a spare company truck to use. I heard that we had a few 'beaters' on the site and one of those would be sufficient for my daily transportation. Following directions, I found the motel where the Reno crew would stay while in Las Vegas. The company had rented some rooms near the airport and that was convenient. In fact, everything about the job was convenient! I would get on a plane (Sunworld Airlines) early on a Monday morning in Reno. Fly quickly to Las Vegas and get off the plane right there at the jobsite; the airport. Our superintendent was always waiting for us at the gate with a long list of problems! Then, on Friday, we would reverse that procedure and head north to Reno, leaving the problems behind us till the following Monday.

I had been told that the job would require my help for just a few weeks. And within the first week it was obvious that wasn't going to happen. I would need to be there much longer.

First, a description of the work. That included the all new terminal 'C'. New ticketing facilities throughout the old terminals and new ceilings throughout the concourses. Plus a dozen smaller projects scattered throughout the airport property. As a major subcontractor, we worked under contract with a general contractor (Stolte Inc.) that had a contract with the Construction Manager; Bechtel, Inc. All of this contract language had us tied up in a dozen different directions. We had always worked in northern Nevada before this and most work had been agreed to by a handshake and an eventual contract. That was not going to be the case here. These people played 'hardball'.

Our project manager was particularly bothered by the amount of paperwork that Bechtel generated and so it was decided that I would help him with that by simply being his presence in the field while he battled the bureaucrats.

I had a superintendent and 3 or 4 foreman to take care of the actual work direction and it was going well, considering the fact that we had crews scattered throughout the entire airport and I spent most of my time walking from one problem to another. And talking on a 2-way radio. If you have ever been to the Las Vegas airport, you know how large it is. I got a good workout every day. Twice a day I would get back to our jobsite trailer and then go to the Stolte trailer to pick up the flood of paper that was being generated.

It didn't look too bad at first, but each piece of paper required a response. Which generated another piece of paper. We would receive about 2" of paper every day, plus innumerable sets of drawings. Revisions upon revisions and they all had to be checked to see if they contained any contract changes. So you had to compare each drawing with the originals plus the revisions that you had already priced. And take care of business. Overwhelming!

We soon decided that 'overwhelmed' was exactly what Bechtel and Stolte wanted us to be. True or not, it certainly felt that way. I remember that once or twice a week, I would take some of my papers that needed work and get on the automated tram that took passengers out to the 'C' concourse. Then I would walk all of the way out to the end and find a chair. At that remote distance, I was just out of radio range and could spend 30 minutes of uninterrupted time, doing the paperwork that couldn't be put off; like figuring out the payroll for the week.

Finally

Once the Boardroom and the executive offices were complete, there wasn't much more for me to do…except for the 'punch list'.

If you don't know, the punch list refers to the beginning stage for the final approval and acceptance of the building and all of its systems. The architect or his representative will examine the building, room by room and note any discrepancies. That list of discrepancies, the punch list, is then given to the various sub-contractors to use as they remedy…or challenge the items.

True, sometimes we didn't agree with the architect and negotiations would follow. We couldn't refuse to do the work, even if we thought there was an error because they held the final payment. The power of the purse.

In this case, the architect handed over the punch list duties to the owner. Violent disagreement erupted from all of our offices! The architect has a role to play and he is supposed to represent the owner. The architect has the duty to perform the punch list. Giving that duty to the owner wrong; legally and ethically. As subcontractors we were pretty low in the food chain and the architect had a duty to protect us from unscrupulous or ignorant owners.

After much discussion, it was resolved; the owner would perform the punch list under direct guidance of the architect. We weren't happy, but we did want our money and soon. So at least this part of the job would move forward.

We all (the subcontractors) knew when and where the owners inspection was going to begin and we waited eagerly to see how it was going work. The inspectors had been issued yellow Post-It notepads to identify the items that needed correction and we thought that made sense; after all, who wants to read items that might say, "Touch up paint NW corner of room 1123, 6" from corner and 47" from the floor". A Post-It note right on the offending spot would make it easy to send painters back to do the work.

The inspectors left the first room and we walked in to see… almost every visible portion of the walls and ceilings covered with yellow notes! Hundreds of them! Literally!

Another violent disagreement took place almost immediately as we stormed architect's trailer. We insisted that he come out to the room in question and see for himself. I can report that he was stunned and silent. And he quickly agreed with us. More training was given to the inspectors and after a few months of plucking yellow notes off of the walls, we were through!

 
 

 
 

  

As seen from a satellite

The Sierra Pacific Power office building project was almost done. And what a project it had become. Close to two years for completion. From the time I arrived when there were just a few pieces of steel coming out of the ground till the end, when the completed building sat in a huge park, complete with streams and a lake. (they had to do something expensive with that underground river!)

And then there was the Board Room. It could be thought of as a major project all of its own. It was located on the 4^th floor, the Executive floor, where every Vice-President had an office with a view. And each office was exactly the same size. Exactly. When we began to layout the walls, we were told that these executives would probably measure their office and that of their rivals. And they did. Once we started the work, those VP's would show up every day to see if their office was being slighted in any way. And they all carried tape measures.

The wall coverings alone were worth over $250,000. Material only. Wool broadcloth at $110 a yard and used as wallpaper. I kept the wall coverings in the safe, also located on that floor. And the plans changed almost daily as the executives were inspired by seeing what another VP was doing to his office.

Back to the Board Room. It was the last thing that was designed by the architect. Until we actually began the work, that floor was simply a blank on the drawings. And since the floor was not on the bid drawings, we were able to do the work for a guaranteed fee over and above the cost of the materials. And what a fee it was!

We spent months on the boardroom alone. A room that wasn't much bigger than 40' x 40'. And at one time we had a dozen people; painters, working on the ceiling of that room.

I only wish that I had a few photos of the room. Polaroid was the technology of the day and I might have taken a few with the jobsite camera, but I have no idea if the prints remain.

Odds and Ends. All of the glass at the Command level (3^rd Floor) and the ground floor (Accounting) was bullet proof.

The original site was planted in grass with wandering paths alongside the artificial streams. These paths were also made into a PAR course for the employees. The streams were actually re-circulated water from the stream beneath the basement. Pumped up at the west end of the property and wandering through the streambeds and then back down again at the west end.

The migratory Canadian Geese loved the grass! Sierra Pacific hired a hunter to keep them away, but Fish and Game put a stop to that and they had to resort to using Carbide cannons to scare them. This worked for about a day. After that, the geese owned the property!

Today, I used Google Earth to see what the site looks like now and I see that the people who loved asphalt have won. The park is gone.

39°28'26.02"N Latitude

119°46'59.36"W Longitude

Spray Here

The Sierra Pacific Power project continued on and once the prefabricated brick wall panels were in place and the inside temperature was stabilized, we began the finish work; paint and wall coverings.

Ordinarily I was the Project Manager for the framing and drywall/lath and plaster portions of a project. Most times I was pulled off the job early and moved to another project that was just breaking ground. But not this time. There weren't many projects in the schedule and so the decision was made for me to remain and direct the work with the painters.

Solari and Sons, my employer, had always been a painting and decorating contractor and the kind of work that I did was somewhat new to the company. And the painters treated us as if we were step-children. OK, I could live with that. I just wanted to learn.

I knew the painting foreman by reputation; tough! So I introduced myself and told him that I would need all of the help I could get; that I would depend on him to educate me. It took awhile but we became friends. I would seek him out and ask his advice for every major decision and that helped.

And one major decision was soon to be made; the specifications called for a urethane finish on all of the exposed wood. That was every door and all of the trim. One of the painters, another foreman, told me that if we could change the spec's and finish the wood in lacquer, we could have a better looking job and at half the price. So we finished some samples and submitted the request along with a very modest decrease in the contract value. The customer bought it! And we were looking at a great profit if we could pull it off. For the problem with lacquer is the extreme flammability of the product when you are applying it. Plus the temperature had to be just right. Where were we going to find a place to spray it?

We were almost ready to rent a warehouse for the spraying when someone mentioned the basement. Half of the basement consisted of parking for the executives. And there were lots of them! So we were looking at almost 40,000 square feet of bare floor space. Plus, the basement had 2 very large exhaust fans to clear vehicle exhaust. A plan was made.

We turned the parking area into a huge spray booth; closing off all entrances with poly sheeting. Large propane heaters were brought down and turned on to warm the basement and the wood.

Once everything was ready to be sprayed, we barricaded the entrances, turned off the heaters and turned on the fans to vent the fumes. We couldn't risk an open flame or spark of any kind.

Well, it worked and beautifully. Although every time we had a 'spray day' I was tense and nervous until they came and told me that they had finished. You see, we hadn't told the customer about some of the dangers inherent in the use of lacquer. And I certainly didn't want to be the one to explain why the basement just blew up!

Yes, the painters had reassured me many times that nothing was going to happen; that they had it covered… but!

 

Pay Here

Spring soon became summer and despite the well meaning efforts of the QC team, we were making progress. The basement walls were framed and drywall was applied. Taping and painting followed and since the basement was always at a uniform temperature, we decided to keep our tools down there. We would all meet there early in the morning and enjoy a cup of coffee before opening the 'gang' boxes and beginning work at 7.

One morning, as I was about to go down the stairs, I noticed that the lights were out and it was pitch black in the basement. I hunted around on the first floor for the temporary power box that fed the basement and found it connected and it appeared to be on. I assumed that a circuit breaker must have failed so I grabbed a flashlight and went down the stairs. Oops! My flashlight revealed that the basement was filling with water! The water was easily 5 foot deep and climbing.

The construction management team found the problem at about the same time and quickly disconnected all the power to the basement. Pretty soon there were half a dozen pumps in action as they tried to drain the basement. This took most of the day and that night and it wasn't until the next day that we could go back down and see what damage had been done.

As I had written earlier, this building sat directly in the path of a underground river and a very large and powerful sump pump had been installed to keep the basement dry. This pump had been placed on a 'dedicated' circuit so that it would never be without power. 'Never' is a funny word. Not to be trusted!

With the pump in operation again and an army of laborers mopping and vacuuming, it was time to assess the damage. And there was plenty. The walls had been painted and since they had also been insulated, the insulation had become wet and soggy. We had to open up all the walls and remove tons of wet fiberglass. Along with tons of soggy drywall.

Of course we were paid for the damage, as were all of the other trades that had been affected by the power outage. And it was quite a bill!

Something to remember; the power company paid us. After all, it was their building and it was their circuit that had failed. But they simply passed these costs on to the rate payers. Their customers. So this decision to build in the middle of an underground river was already costing the customers of Sierra Pacific and would continue to do so as the building continued.

A War

As winter faded away, we began to improve our production and I added more people to the crew. And so did the customer; Sierra Pacific Power Company. The general contractor, or 'Construction Management' firm had built a small complex of trailers to house themselves, the architect (Black and Veatch) and the customer representatives. These representatives were going to be the Quality Control team to ensure that their building was all that it could be!

At first, there were only 3 rep's on the QC team but it grew. Of course it did. Sierra Pacific was a public utility and they don't know of any other way of doing business, except add more manpower to any project. Which meant another trailer to be added to the 4 that were already there.

And they were a curious bunch, these QC guys. You couldn't do any work at all without finding one of them peering over your shoulder and then quickly consulting their well worn copy of the project specifications.

It was soon obvious that no one on the project was trusted by the QC Team. Bad feelings! As typical construction workers, we banded together with all of the other trades and presented a united front to them. We could wage a specification 'war' as well as they could! And we did.

It took a long session with the architect to resolve our difficulties, but the architect sided with us and spent some time with his customers, explaining how buildings were actually built. Public utilities may know power… but they don't know construction.

The QC Team retreated, war was over and we continued on and back on schedule… for awhile.

More Winter

That winter at the Sierra Pacific site was brutal. Because of the slow start when an underground river was found below the building, we were working up on the steel decks in the middle of January. The ironworkers would get up as much steel as they could on the sunny days and then it was time for us to climb up there and drop hanger wires through the deck before the next sunny day; a day when they would pour concrete if the temperatures were reasonable. So, storms or not, we had to get the wires dropped. Snow and ice was everywhere and we had to move cautiously near the edge. It was only a 4 story building but that still meant a 60' fall from the roof if you slipped on the ice. There were days when I wouldn't let anyone get up on the building and that would put us behind schedule. And that meant we were sometimes back up on the decks when the concrete was being pumped, just trying to stay ahead of the 'mud'.

We had thousands of wires to drop. Each was 12' long and made of #8 galvanized wire with a 'pigtail' loop at one end. This loop had to be positioned just right so that the concrete would flow through the 'pigtail' and hold it. To drop the wires, we first had to layout the pattern of the future ceiling below us by locating the walls. Then we would use a heavily weighted 4' long piece of rebar with a sharpened tip on the end to punch a hole in the deck. With 3 or 4 of us punching on the deck, the noise level grew quite high! While we were dropping the wires, we each carried a bundle of 50 wires on our shoulder and tried to locate the holes and then thread the wire through them.

And when we weren't on the high decks, we were down in the basement, trying to layout and snap chalk lines to locate the walls we would be building. The basement was covered at that time as the concrete had been poured on the first floor level. But, concrete is not waterproof and all that melting snow from the floors above us would slowly trickle down into the basement; dripping on us continually.

I mentioned snapping chalk lines for the walls; because conventional chalk was just floating away in the water and not making a good line, we starting using 'lamp black', a pure carbon form of chalk. It would work right through the water, creating a sharp black line that wouldn't wash away. It also wouldn't wash away from your skin and clothes. We were quite a sight each day as we emerged from the dark and cold basement, bundled in filthy clothes and parkas, our faces black from the chalk.

Goodbye

I was thinking the other day that I have spent some time writing here about my jobs but not a lot of time writing about what I did before work entered my life. That would be back in the days of childhood, from age 4 to 10. Hmmm? I hadn't thought about that before…it's only six years. At the age of 10 or 11, I was jumping into the world of commerce by mowing lawns and delivering papers. I even went door to door as a magazine subscription salesman. Bye-bye childhood.

But what did I do for fun? As a child? Being an asthmatic, I got to spend far too much time at home and in bed. And my mother had to devise ways for me to entertain myself. One of her ideas was to give me modeling clay; the kind that never hardens and has the ability to stay locked forever within the fibers of the carpet. Great stuff! And I loved it; making armies and castles. Making automobiles and submarines. And I could merge the clay with all of my other activities; such as Tinker Toys and Erector sets.

And I loved to draw. Sketch. Doodle. Nothing ever came of it; I never became a 'famous artist'. I did have a dream of going to the Art Center and graduating from that famous school. I read everything I could about the school and I thought that would be heaven; to spend your days in class being 'artistic'. There didn't seem to be any work involved. But money was involved and so I didn't get to go. That and the fact that I wasn't able to focus on one thing long enough to become really good at it.

That probably explains why I enjoyed construction so much. I could enjoy each project because I knew that there was an end to it. I would finish and then move on to another. Never bored. In fact, the jobs that lasted over a year at the same site were dreaded. I enjoyed the size and the scope of such projects but hated the duration! Whenever a project came down to the last few weeks, I was more than ready to turn it over to someone else to finish so that I could begin another.

I thought, and still do…that working at the same job and in the same place for 30+ years would be worst possible fate that could befall a person.

Only The Best

Our fishing trip was in the fall of that year and pretty soon winter time descended on the jobsite. And Reno can become quite cold. Snow and ice were soon part of our normal work day.

And that work day began when we would leave Janesville very early in the morning and make our way, carefully, over the 75 miles of two lane highway into Reno. I say 'we' because my daughter, Alicia, had agreed to work with me as my 'secretary'. We had an old construction trailer pulled onto the site and hooked up to some power; enough for some lights and a miniature heater. My boss didn't want to spend any money on fixing the old wall furnace that was in the trailer, and so while I was out on the jobsite all day, Alicia was stuck in the cold trailer, doing my filing and copying tasks, while never straying far from the heater. We closed all of the other rooms in the trailer in an attempt to keep it above freezing in there.

At this point, the basement walls and slab had been poured. A most difficult task as there was an underground river flowing through the site. There was layer of clay about 20' down and the river ran on top of that clay. They had to drill a dozen de-watering wells around the foundation and keep the pumps going 24/7. Once the walls were poured, the pumps would be shut down and a very large sump pump in the basement would take over. This pump was on a dedicated circuit, one that could never be shut down, as at this stage; the basement would 'pop' up out of the ground if the groundwater was allowed to accumulate under it. Only after the weight of the entire building was resting there would it be safe for an occasional power outage.

Some info on the 'river'. The existence of this water was not known when the plans were drawn and it was only when a D9 Caterpillar broke through during the excavating, that it was discovered. The driver of the 'Cat' got off just in time as it dropped into the river in the desert. It then took two Cats to get it back out!

Back to the drawing boards. Besides adding a huge sump pump and an ingenious landscaping plan that utilized the water to create a myriad of streams across what was once sagebrush and alkali, the new plans required a lengthy delay. This is why we were doing this prelim work in the winter. Ah! But the plans…very lovely and quite expensive. You see; the basement could have been abandoned as its only function was that of the executive parking lot. A nicely heated and undercover parking garage. Snow should never fall on a VP's head. And besides, the rate payers would be paying for the building anyway. Wouldn't they want the very best for the executives that labored in this building?

Fishing

After a time I was back in Reno and the California projects were finished and faded from memory. Solari & Sons never got a foothold in the business there and transport across the Sierra's was always a headache. And since the company had most of the state to themselves, there was always plenty of work in Nevada.

And one of the projects I began was the new Sierra Pacific Power Company headquarters' building, located south of town, near Moana Lane. At first glance, just a simple 4-story office building.

But, after I received the construction drawings and began to plan for the project, I finally saw the true scale of the building. It was huge. Even today, if you drive by, you see the office building located in the middle of large and beautifully landscaped park like setting. The scale can only be appreciated when you're up close to it. And since there is a guard at the gate, most people don't see it up close at all.

NVE was going to be the construction manager on the project and I was told that the superintendent was going to be 'Smitty', a person that I had had some angry run-in's with in the past. He had been the superintendent on the Meadowwood Mall project and although we weren't working directly for him, he had tried his best to direct our work as he saw fit. That didn't happen because I told him 'no!' and some shouting ensued. Oh, oh! I was looking at project that might run for a full year and I would have to be polite all of that time. Could I do it?

It didn't look good at first; Smitty remembered me and told my boss that he didn't want me on the project. After some negotiations and apologies all around, a settlement was made and I was given a spot to set our job trailer. My home away from home!

And then, just to make certain that bygones were really bygones, I was told by my boss, Al Solari, to ask Smitty to join me on a fishing trip. We were going to go fishing on a private lake that is located off of the Mount Rose Highway and just below the crest leading to Tahoe. Little Lake was the name and there was a lodge and caretaker at the lake. Boats were available and the caretaker would handle all of the arrangements for us.

A little info on the lake; it had been purchased many years ago by the 'movers and shakers' of the Reno business community. Ascuaga, Solari, Quilici, etc. It was very private and only used by the principals and those they favored. OK, so I was favored once. But only once.

Smitty and I drove up together and didn't have much to say to each other. But after we got out onto the lake and Smitty and I started catching fish; our differences faded away. This was fun! We were both fly fishing and we could do nothing wrong that morning. And since it was a workday and there were no 'millionaires' on the lake; we had it all to ourselves.

That fishing trip removed all of the barriers that had grown between Smitty and me and we became good friends.

Crossing A Bridge

The Clarion Hotel project continued on as the Sacramento project finished up and I was soon spending all of my weekdays in Millbrae. And I soon discovered that if I wanted to get home to Lassen County before midnight, I would have to be on the Bay Bridge and headed east by 1 PM on a Friday. Any time later than that and the traffic was simply horrendous.

Winter time was the worst. In miles traveled, it made more sense to drive up I-80 and into Reno before heading north to Janesville. But Donner Pass is one of the few roads where chain controls are rigidly enforced and my company truck was not a 4-wheel drive model. When chains were required, I had to put them on. And join the crowd in the right lane that was traveling at 20 mph.

If I chose to travel the alternate route, Highways 32 and 36, I had to deal with roads that were not plowed or poorly plowed. Scary times going over Fredonyer Pass in a blizzard! Plus, these roads were lightly traveled in the winter and there’s definitely safety in numbers.

Once safely home on a Friday night, I had to start planning for a return trip on Sunday evening. Would there be a storm? Which way should I go? And one of my monumental mistakes had me sitting in traffic on I-80 in Verdi, Nevada. Thousands of us waited as the CHP directed 50 cars at a time over the pass at Donner. It took me 11 hours to go from Reno to Sacramento.

OK, back to work. Some of the panels for the Clarion were quite large and we needed to get an oversized load permit from CalTrans so that we could get them over the mountain.

Here’s how that works. You contact CalTrans and tell them all about your load. Size, height and weight. Origin and destination. You can tell them when you would like to make the trip…but they will tell you. And they also tell you which roads you can take and at what hours. It’s all pretty tightly controlled. As it should be. Until your truck gets to the toll plaza at the Bay Bridge. That was where the CHP directed our truck to join a few other ‘Wide Loads’ just west of the toll booths. The officer then said that in a few minutes, the toll booths would shutdown just long enough for these three trucks to get in gear and head for the bridge itself. He said, “You’ve only got a minute, so straddle the white lines and don’t let those b******d’s get ahead of you!” It worked.

Moving On Some More

Eventually the pile driving was complete and the old hotel stopped moving and we finished up our repairs without any more problems. Then it was time to start on the hoisting and installation of the prefinished skin of the building. The panels had been finished and stored in Reno so all I had to do was call the plant and let them know which ones I wanted. The truck would be loaded and on it’s way in a day. And the panels were finished in a dark brown color, so I didn’t have to worry about them being ‘smoked’ by the truck as they came over Donner Pass.

Interesting. I was parked near the corner of the project site, studying some detail on the blueprints that were lying on the hood of my truck. I was probably 50 yards away from the off ramp at Millbrae Avenue. Suddenly, I noticed that the truck was vibrating! It was bouncing up and down. Slightly. Nothing dramatic, but it certainly got my attention. I looked up and saw a concrete truck passing by on the Bayshore Freeway. As it moved north and away from us, the vibrations faded away as well. Sure enough, the soil in this part of the bay was less than solid and if you paid close attention, you could even feel the vibration of ordinary traffic, 300’ feet away from the freeway!

So, what would happen during an earthquake? I found out a few weeks later. I was in my hotel room/office and making a phone call to our Reno office when I suddenly felt the room shaking. Violently. I said goodbye in mid-sentence and headed down the stairs. Probably not the smartest thing to do…

Moving

While the Sacramento project continued on schedule and was even making some money, the estimators in Reno had been busy securing more work in California for me to run. We were going to be involved in the construction of the AC Transit headquarters building in Oakland and the new and remodeled Clarion Hotel in Millbrae.

Now I had to spend part of each week driving over to the Bay area to check on progress and determine when I would need full crews at each location. You couldn’t always depend on the General contractor to call you in time. They always assumed that you had a crew for them, just standing around and waiting to be called. Not.

AC Transit (Alameda County Transit) was located just off of East 14^th Street. And in a very undesirable location. I remember that you turned left just a few blocks from the East Bay Drifters motorcycle gang clubhouse. And the East Bay Dragons MC was close by.

I already knew the General contractor’s superintendent from a time spent in Reno on another job, so we had a good relationship. And he told me that just about everyone on the jobsite was ‘packin’. Guns in their lunch pails and guns in their vehicles. The jobsite itself was fenced with razor wire and everyone parked their car on the site and not on the street outside. Culture shock!

I talked a couple of likely guys into becoming foreman and distributed the plans and spec’s to them so that they might become familiar with the jobs.

The AC Transit project, except for location, was a pretty straight forward job. No mystery and I wasn’t going to worry about it. But the Clarion hotel was a different story. It was located near the end of the runway at San Francisco International Airport and close enough that the FAA had jurisdiction over the type of construction we were doing and the height of that construction. It was also a ‘panel’ job and that meant that the exterior skin of the hotel was going to be built in Reno and then trucked to the jobsite, where we would hoist it into place. And that’s where the FAA got involved.

We needed a crane for this work and the General contractor had one for us to use. A very special one that sat on railroad tracks located next to the building. It was a tower crane, but one that could quickly move to the end of the tracks and then lower itself to the ground whenever the FAA called to tell us they were going to use that runway for southbound take-off’s. Pretty cool! Except for the fact that we had no idea as to when they would call and so all of our schedules depended on which way the wind was blowing. A wind from the south meant we couldn’t use the crane until it shifted…but then we would be behind schedule! A no-win situation.

But first, before we could even begin new work, we had to repair the old hotel. Since the new hotel was being built on fill dirt and who knew what else that had been placed in the bay a long time ago, pilings had to be driven into the muck to support the new construction. As there is a law of physics that says there is a reaction to every action, sure enough, every piling driven in was raising the old hotel a few inches at a time. After a couple hundred hammer blows, the old 3-story hotel was about a foot off of its original elevation and water and sewer pipes were breaking every day. Plus, walls and ceilings were now cracked and broken. A big job for us and all extra work. $$$$

Back in Sacramento

The L Street project had continued without any delays while I was gone and although I would have enjoyed a few days at home after a working vacation, it was not to be. I was right back in my apartment in Sacramento and making the short trip downtown every morning.

And I shared that apartment with a fireproofer, Joe Tiki. He had been the number one nozzleman in Reno and we needed that kind of talent on this large project. Before I could hang (weld) panels on the outside frame, Joe had to have fireproofed them with Monokote fireproofing spray.

A little background. Fireproofing (and some plaster) is applied with a Thomsen ‘Tommy Gun’ fireproofing pump. Powerful! It will spray a bag a minute in high gear and that means the machine is literally screaming. It uses air pressure to diffuse the mix at the nozzle and in high gear; this produces a screaming sound that requires ear plugs. Plus you have to hold the gun hose between your legs while you maneuver the ‘whip hose’ to spray the structural steel. That hose pulses with each stroke of the piston; and has been known to jerk a shooter right off of their feet if the hose develops a ‘pack’ (Material that suddenly hardens in the hose and won’t pump any further.) All of this is happening while you are standing on a wet and slippery plank. Said plank is sometimes 20’- or more above the floor. In fact, my favorite memory image of Joe has him standing on one plank, laid across a couple of scaffolds and spanning the elevator shaft. He was walking, spraying and talking to me at the same time; and probably close to 200’ above the floor at the time.

Joe was a real craftsman; a one-eyed craftsman. He had lost his left eye in a plaster hose blowout; an altogether too common occurrence among plasterers who worked the ‘guns’. He wore a patch on his eye while working, so there were plenty of superintendents who questioned his ability. After all, you have to spray the fireproofing on evenly and to within 1/8” of an inch in thickness. Could he do that with one eye? Oh, yes!

And after work, Joe went without the patch, except while going out for dinner. Now there was a real chore; trying to talk to Joe while looking at one good eye and one that was white and shrunken into the socket. That took awhile, but then, after a few weeks, I forgot about it. But it was fun to watch others when confronted with Joe's odd eye.

Last story from camp.

This was our last camp on the base, and as we set up the mangers, Judy warned us that we were in rattlesnake country and to keep an eye out for them. He had seen this camp many years ago and remembered that fact. Well, we were working in thick grass that was at least 3’ tall; it was difficult to see our own boots, let alone a snake!

But sure enough, one was found. Judy quickly trapped it under his boot and removed its head. Now we were doubly nervous. How many cousins did that snake have? We began to move slowly; very slowly. And one of my tasks was to crawl under the hay truck with a logging chain to wrap around the axle as we made the heavy truck a ‘deadman’ for the long line of mangers. I wasn’t happy about that! I grabbed a pole and beat the grass thoroughly before getting down on my hands and knees.

While we finished up, Judy skinned the snake and took the meat down to the cook’s. We were having appetizers tonight! Quite a few as the snake was about 5’ long.

Pretty soon the riders showed up and we no longer worried about snakes; the vibration caused by 150 horses milling about is guaranteed to send any and all snakes to a deep hole in the ground. Or to the next county.

Once the bar was set up, we grabbed our drinks and the plate filled with breaded and fried rattlesnake. Very good. Tastes just like chicken…but you knew that, right?

And then a real treat. Once dinner was over and the horses were all watered and settled in, we got permission from Judy to walk down the road about a mile to a neighboring camp; the barracks of a howitzer battalion. We brought along our soap and towels and begged for a chance to use their showers. They were most gracious and invited us in. What bliss!

Camp Pendleton Continued

Our dreams of a lakeside camp evaporated, much like the water in the lake itself. But we had riders and 150 horses to think about and they would soon be riding in and expecting to see the mangers standing and filled with hay. And water for their horses. Water? It turned out that we had a ‘dry’ camp. The only water available was going to be the remains of the lake and it was located a couple of hundred yards away from the manger line. Too far!

Luckily, we had a Marine Corps Liaison officer with us. Groups like ours weren’t allowed to simply wander about the base unescorted, and so we asked him what he could do for us? The Marines quickly came to our rescue with ‘water buffaloes’, large trailers with water tanks on them and as many as we needed. And each came with a jeep and a Marine to make certain they were replaced as soon as they ran dry.

And since they had selected Privates to deliver this water, they would stand at attention and call us ‘Sir’ every time we spoke to them. Fun! After a week on the ride, there was finally someone lower than us on the social scale.

Spring Break

Earlier in this blog, I wrote about the spring vacations I would take each year and spend a week working as a wrangler on a trail ride. The DeAnza Trail Caballeros was the name of the group and there were always 150 riders and horses. Plus, 7 wranglers and assorted cooks and bottle washers. And the route always took us somewhere into the deserts of Southern California.

One of those years had us scheduled to visit Camp Pendleton as we trekked in from the desert side of this huge Marine Corps base. I had been told that we would enjoy a few nights camping out on the beach and after a couple of days of horse babysitting in the desert; that sounded just right!

Like all well made plans, this one came to an end rather quickly. As soon as we entered the base, we were told that the Marines were using the beach for amphibious assault training and we were going to have to go elsewhere. We were given an escort and told to follow that jeep to our campsite.

We were within smelling distance of the beach when the jeep stopped and told us that our camp for the night was just a right turn and a few miles away. The driver of the jeep handed Judy, our head wrangler, a map and headed back where he had come from. We all studied the map which showed us camping near a lake? OK, not the ocean, but a lake would be nice. Now all we had to do was get there. The right turn that had been mentioned was a jeep trail down into a dry wash, up again and then another jeep trail along the side of a steep mountain.

Jeep trails are just dandy for jeeps. But I was driving a 10 wheeler, a hay truck, fully loaded. And we had our 24’ box truck, plus a couple of pickups with horse trailers attached. And since the hay truck was the slowest when loaded, I was going to be the last one to cross the wash and up the hill.

So I sat and waited while watching the others, hoping to pick up some knowledge of the best route through the wash. Yikes! It was scary… as one after another, the vehicles came close to wrecking. I watched as the box truck came up on one side, teetering, and then fell back onto its wheels. Safe.

The other drivers walked back to tell me how to do it. I volunteered to let them show me instead. None fell for it. The only real good advice I got was to not slow down, no matter what. Pedal to the floor, get into second gear, if I could, before I hit the opposite side of the wash and then make a hard right at the top. More speed and don’t look down while traversing the side of the hill.

Off the edge I went; 15 tons of hay swaying and scaring the heck out of me as the truck rolled and pitched. I double clutched and got it into second about halfway across the wash and then accelerated for the narrow trail ahead.

“Turn hard right at the top” was my mantra and as soon as the front wheels cleared the top I spun the wheel and felt the load pulling me over to the left. It was one of those slow motion moments. I remember watching the faces of the other wranglers as they stood nearby to watch my attempt. They were all grinning! Jerks!

Then, with a crash, I was back on level ground for a moment and heading for the side of the hill…just as planned. The side hill climb was a piece of cake after the crossing and I relaxed. A few more minutes and I was around the mountain and looking at our camp site and a mud puddle. The lake.

Just Do It!

After a few hiccups, we were soon sailing along, panels flying up onto the building on a regular basis and making the schedule work. The real puzzle would come later when we reached a level where our ‘dinosaurs’ wouldn’t work any longer. And for that work we would need a large crane, but it had to be mobile. The city wasn’t going to allow us to block off this important street for more than 4 hours at a time, and a ‘crawler’ type of crane with a fixed boom length would require just that much time to get ready for the first hoist. I would need a very tall self-propelled hydraulic crane. And a very expensive one at that.

After some discussion with the general contractor, we figured out a way to have that same crane hoist material for the roofer and HVAC contractor; that would ease the burden by splitting the cost 3 ways. But it would mean that I would have to wait until those other contractors were ready. In the meantime, I arranged for our 15 ton Link-Belt hydro to be delivered from our warehouse in Reno. It only had a 125’ of boom on it, but it would help.

The Link-Belt was an odd piece of equipment; it had been purchased to hoist panels at our Lake Tahoe Harvey’s project because it was an all terrain crane, the kind with the really big tires! It had to work in snow and ice and those tires were perfect for that. But there was no snow or ice in Sacramento and the tires became a liability as they couldn’t be driven more than 25 mph and must be rested (cooled off) every ten miles. Our office and yard were about 10 miles away and it was a slow drive every morning.

A memory; we had a crane operator but I would sometimes operate it when he was busy doing something else. (We used him as general labor at times) And when it came time to send the crane back to Reno, a truck with a lowboy trailer arrived and it became my job to get the crane onto the trailer. Well, those big tires hung over the trailer by about six inches on each side. This left about 2’ of tire still on the trailer, but each time I went to drive on the ramp, I would look down and see nothing but air beneath the tire on my side. Yikes! And I would quickly back away. The poor truck driver kept signaling me that all was fine, that I was doing it right, but without being able to see the right side of the trailer; my senses kept telling me that I was heading for a fall. And I would back off…about 6 times in a row before I decided to close my eyes and go for it. Very embarrassing!

Dinosaurs

Once we had a trailer load of panels in our storage space next to the building, we would inspect them to see if they needed any repairs after their journey across Donner Pass. And we always had some damage. The most irritating damage was having the panels ‘smoked’. The owner of the building had decided on a white synthetic plaster finish and all it took to ruin the looks of them was diesel exhaust blowing across the panel surface for 100 miles or more. A poorly tuned diesel at that. The first truckload was delivered without being tarped and they had large black streaks on them, plus some additional damage from the binders that held them in place. I had to insist on tarps from then on, but that persistent smoke could still find its way onto the load; turning the outer panels a light gray in color.

After the repairs were complete, we had to find a way to move the huge panels from the trailer and over to a spot on the ground below where they were to be installed. We had a large forklift and some portable stop signs and we would try and halt traffic just long enough to move down L Street and place the panel, resting upright, against the building. Halting traffic without a permit was frowned upon by the authorities and getting a permit each time we needed 5 minutes of hauling time was more trouble than it was worth.

Up on the 6^th floor were our hoisting machines. Nicknamed ‘dinosaurs’, they had a short boom section coupled to a 220 volt 2 phase motor and some reduction gears that would allow it to hoist about 3,000 pounds. Each ‘dinosaur’ had wheels and counterweights to allow for heavy lifting. Plus, a section of pipe that we would raise to the deck above us, clamping the ‘dinosaur’ in place.

And since the ‘dinosaur’ couldn’t always be directly above the panel to be lifted, we used ‘snatch blocks’ to reroute the hoisting cable to a spot where it would work best. It was all improvisation and sometimes the cable was running at 45° to the ground and then back again, depending on what kind of obstructions we had to deal with. No one had ever done this before and so every time we successfully lifted a panel and welded it in place, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I almost forgot to mention the trees; the City of Sacramento was quite proud of it’s designation as a Tree City and the building permit stipulated that NO tree was to be removed or damaged during the construction of the building. Unfortunately, some existing trees were growing right over the building. This meant that sometimes we had to arrive on the jobsite at 6 in the morning while it was still dark. When the sun rose at 7, the offending branch was usually gone and the dumpster was full and covered.

Back in Sacramento…

Progress on the 777 L Street job was slow at first. The first 5 floors were made for parking and so the building was very ordinary at that point; rectangular. But once the building rose past the 6^th floor, there were all sorts of setbacks and jutting balconies to be framed. And by the time the building topped out with a heliport on the 17^th floor, it had a much smaller footprint at that level. To help the crew, and me, I decided to build a model of the building. I bought the heavy card stock and glue and an X-Acto knife. I spent my evenings at the ‘company apartment’ cutting and gluing until I had it completed. Now I could share my ‘vision’ with the crew. (Imagine how easily it can be done today with BIM)

It didn’t take long for the panel plant in Reno to build the panels that would enclose the lower parking levels. They were quite ordinary in appearance and wouldn’t take us long to install; except for one thing - I mentioned the building footprint; well, at ground level, the building took up all of the available working and storage space on three sides. The west side was a short and private alleyway and at most we could put one trailer load of panels in there. And only if the truck driver was good enough to snake a 40’ flat in there…backing it in from a very busy L Street.

A memory; I was standing on the 6^th floor and looking east up L Street. As far as I could see, (a long way!) cars were stopped in the west bound lanes. There was no traffic in the east bound lanes. Horns were blaring. And directly below me was our truck, jackknifed across all four lanes and up onto the sidewalk as the driver fought to slip the trailer through that narrow 12’ opening.

BIM -

Building Information Modeling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Progress.

When I started in the construction business, 'blue line' drawings were new and the standard was still an architectural drawing made with white lines on a dark blue background. And you had to have a certain skill to be able to make sense of those drawings. Spatial relationships. And not everyone was capable of it.

Luckily for me, I was able to make sense of them and interpreting these drawings became my career.

Then came CAD, computer aided drawings that could quickly be changed and reprinted. But they were still just lines on a piece of paper.

But BIM... a revolution! I only wish I was there to take part in it.

Where was I?

Let's see...I have finished the Steakhouse story and I've probably told you enough about Saint Mary's Hospital. I worked in Reno for 11 years and so there are plenty of 'monuments' of mine around that town. Maybe it's time for me to remember the out of town work...not necessarily in chronological order.

As I wrote earlier, C. Solari and Sons was heavily into the prefabricated panel business. And when there weren't enough casino hotels to build panels for, the estimators would look for business elsewhere. We had a huge panel plant and needed to keep it busy.

One day I was asked if I wanted to run some work out of town; Sacramento to be exact. The estimators had picked up a new project, a 17 story building in the heart of downtown Sacramento. 777 'L' Street, right across the street from the bus terminal and within sight of the Capitol.

It sounded like a good career move and there was talk of opening a branch office in Sacramento. I signed on for the job.

The first thing to do was to scout the area for a temporary office and a 'yard' to hold any equipment or panels. We found a plastering contractor that was going out of business, retiring, and they had the perfect setup for us on 'C' Street, right behind the levee. Then I found an apartment and I was ready to do business.

I went to the local Carpenter's Union and signed up with them, explaining that I would probably need a dozen men that could weld and work with structural steel.

Then it was time to look at the jobsite. I had driven by a few times and had even stopped once to introduce myself. Now it was time to examine the structure and see how well it was being built in order for us to weld panels onto the frame. It had to be square and plumb for it's full height and ironworkers, the ones bolting it all together,worked to different tolerances. We had to be accurate to within 1/4". Ironworkers worked to within 1". This could lead to some tension on the jobsite.

I had hired 3 men and so the first thing we did was to survey the work that had been done by the ironworkers; using a laser to see how plumb the steel was. Oops! it wasn't plumb at all, and since the steel had been bolted up all of the way to the 7th floor, it was going to be a fight to get the ironworkers to fix it.

After some tense negotiations, we all agreed on what was to be done and I agreed to furnish laser measurements for the ironworkers to follow from that point on.

More later...