Concrete isn’t a stranger to me as I have poured 1,000’s and 1,000’s of yards in my career as a general contractor. Problem is that I have not poured any in the past 10 years and that was about 100#’s ago. There was only 2 of us and in the past I would have had 4 guys on the job but I figured we could handle it. We did but not without pain. The driver was a jerk and made a lot of extra work out of it. It put me to the point of total exhaustion about three times. The last time I noticed my sight had gone blurry and I thought I was having a stroke. Then I realized that I had just been looking at the sky, checking for clouds and possible rain, and had looked right at the sun which was probably the cause of my blurred vision, so I called off the stroke and we finished the pour. We started at 7 and didn’t finish until 4:30 and it really came out looking good [only by the grace of God]. Here I am 63 years old, one hundred pounds overweight, hurting shoulder and ribs [ibuprofen wore off], totally exhausted and now putting tools away. Something jumped out at me, in the shop, and down I went and then as I was putting a large chain away, I dropped a section of it and it rapped my knee hard enough I almost cried. Took a shower and as I was drying my foot off, it slipped inside the tub and I went face first into the sink. Somehow I managed to bring up an arm and kept from smashing my teeth onto the faucet handles. I then went downstairs and smashed my good knee into the coffee table. My wife and I were headed out to eat and she just looked down at me wreathing in pain on the floor and said, “I’ll drive!”
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Concrete pour from hell
Yesterday was the day to pour concrete for my daughters house for her patio. It wasn’t going to be a big pour but about 3-1/2 yards. It is 31 feet long and 9-1/2 feet wide. The poor was 1st scheduled for Friday but they [concrete company] called Friday morning and cancelled because of equipment breakdowns and rescheduled for Tuesday morning but I cancelled because we were having two days of rain and rescheduled for Wednesday morning. Tuesday night I got up from my desk, after leaving one of my drawers open, and tripped over the drawer, went stumbling across the room and hit the floor right next to my sleeping dog. I missed the dog but landed on my shoulder. My wife said I hit the floor so hard I shook the entire house. Hurt my shoulder but I’m tough so I just took 4 hits of Ibuprofen [200mg] and went to bed. Well, don’t you know, I awoke with an extremely sore shoulder but in case you missed it, I’m tough and just took more Ibuprofen and went and set up for the pour. 
Concrete isn’t a stranger to me as I have poured 1,000’s and 1,000’s of yards in my career as a general contractor. Problem is that I have not poured any in the past 10 years and that was about 100#’s ago. There was only 2 of us and in the past I would have had 4 guys on the job but I figured we could handle it. We did but not without pain. The driver was a jerk and made a lot of extra work out of it. It put me to the point of total exhaustion about three times. The last time I noticed my sight had gone blurry and I thought I was having a stroke. Then I realized that I had just been looking at the sky, checking for clouds and possible rain, and had looked right at the sun which was probably the cause of my blurred vision, so I called off the stroke and we finished the pour. We started at 7 and didn’t finish until 4:30 and it really came out looking good [only by the grace of God]. Here I am 63 years old, one hundred pounds overweight, hurting shoulder and ribs [ibuprofen wore off], totally exhausted and now putting tools away. Something jumped out at me, in the shop, and down I went and then as I was putting a large chain away, I dropped a section of it and it rapped my knee hard enough I almost cried. Took a shower and as I was drying my foot off, it slipped inside the tub and I went face first into the sink. Somehow I managed to bring up an arm and kept from smashing my teeth onto the faucet handles. I then went downstairs and smashed my good knee into the coffee table. My wife and I were headed out to eat and she just looked down at me wreathing in pain on the floor and said, “I’ll drive!”
Concrete isn’t a stranger to me as I have poured 1,000’s and 1,000’s of yards in my career as a general contractor. Problem is that I have not poured any in the past 10 years and that was about 100#’s ago. There was only 2 of us and in the past I would have had 4 guys on the job but I figured we could handle it. We did but not without pain. The driver was a jerk and made a lot of extra work out of it. It put me to the point of total exhaustion about three times. The last time I noticed my sight had gone blurry and I thought I was having a stroke. Then I realized that I had just been looking at the sky, checking for clouds and possible rain, and had looked right at the sun which was probably the cause of my blurred vision, so I called off the stroke and we finished the pour. We started at 7 and didn’t finish until 4:30 and it really came out looking good [only by the grace of God]. Here I am 63 years old, one hundred pounds overweight, hurting shoulder and ribs [ibuprofen wore off], totally exhausted and now putting tools away. Something jumped out at me, in the shop, and down I went and then as I was putting a large chain away, I dropped a section of it and it rapped my knee hard enough I almost cried. Took a shower and as I was drying my foot off, it slipped inside the tub and I went face first into the sink. Somehow I managed to bring up an arm and kept from smashing my teeth onto the faucet handles. I then went downstairs and smashed my good knee into the coffee table. My wife and I were headed out to eat and she just looked down at me wreathing in pain on the floor and said, “I’ll drive!”
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1 comment:
A day from "you know where!!!"
hope your day goes without mishap today
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