Re-Plat

I was recently hired to do a replat on 2 lots in a subdivision.

I did some prelim calc's and went out to do a search and destroy monument search.

I held a brass cap on the section line and the northwest corner of the section which was the corner of the subdivision as my meridian.

The distance checked 2' +/- short of record plat. This kind of irritated me because everything else was checking real nice.

This plat was done in the 80's and all evidence points to the section corner being accurate and in character.

I searched along the subdivision line and found nothing, nada, nill.

Unfortunately in order to reconstruct these lots establishing the subdivision line was completely required.

I pondered on it for a bit. I applied an index to the lots therefore shorting my 2 lots .6'.

I had located a lot of the walls and the index gradually caused some major encroachments so I threw that idea out the window.

I finally decided to calc the lots at record and hold the brass cap that I found on the section line and the walls fell perfect.

I forgot to mention that the brass cap checked great to the west 1/4 corner and the interior brass caps and property corners that I recovered.

So now we have a 30 year old plat with a bad distance. Why?

Some guy from way back made a typo and I will stand behind that statement.

Why? Because I've done it and so has anyone that has ever drawn a survey.

This boys and girls is the reason we check things in the field and use our awesome data base to verify.

I love boundary stuff that makes me think. It's truly the one thing about surveying that I like to sink my teeth into.

Make it a great week surveyors.

Value of Time Off

Last week my kids had fall break. A few years ago when this came around I was skeptical at best and wondered why in the hell do these kids needs so much time off and my wife used to lose it because there were kids around when they should not be.

This year I went about it a lot different. I was waiting on some projects to kick off and had little to do so I packed the family up and went to the ocean for a week. Yup I took an October vacation.

I will tell you right now that it was fantastic and much needed.

Back in the days gone by when I had a lot of employees running around I used to take quite a bit of time off. The reason was I needed to chill out. Running a very busy business is extremely hard on a persons soul. It can ruin your mind and create a major asshole. I would work 4.5 days a week and never on the weekend. Those 4 days might have been 12 hour days but Friday I always left at 9-10am after going over the books, signing checks and addressing any unforeseen issues.

Over the last 4 years of being a skeleton crew has left me with a lot less time to chill out and that has become a major problem. Being an army of one can only go on for so long.

Back when I was a worker bee I used to criticize the owners for taking more time off than anyone else. I never understood how a person could do such a thing and I now believe that deep down I was just jealous.

Worker bees may never understand because they are technicians and only have to hold up their end. The owner on the other hand has to steer the ship, deal with the worker bees and all of the other stuff that can land on a person on any given day. Sometimes it's pretty thick.

Another very important thing that I have learned over the years of being in business is that anything that happens is my fault. Yes the technician can cause the initial damage or a client can do something stupid but at the end of the day it's my fault.

Who does anyone turn to in crisis? Who does anyone remember being the shit heal? Yes that's right the owner.

At the end of the day the owner is the wheel grease, the nuts and bolts and the pilot of a company. The worker bees are very important components but the owner is and always will be in front and have the most pressure.

A lot of people that follow this blog have no idea what it is like to have 200k in receivables and no one wants to pay, have 50k due in payroll the next day and have nothing in the bank to pay them with and then have to get on the phone and hustle of a quick 50k.

That is just an example of a situation. There are so many it's just crazy.

Time off, when it can be taken has just as much if not more value than the job itself. A clear head makes for a better business man.

Peace out surveyors, make it a great week.

Bad Surveying

OK . I do have something to say.

Today I was on a job site.

I tied into a quarter section line and the distance hit within .06 of record plat. I'll buy that all day long and I went about my biz.

I had another survey printed out as reference. I looked at it and noticed that they called the plat distance which I hit reasonable and then they called a measured distance that was much shorter and identical to that of the GDAC Plat and is a grid distance.

This happened to me twice today in adjoining sections.

To this I say what the hell man?

Did you really think your paper survey would go un-noticed until the end of time?

If you're going to use gdac stuff and calc it out at least apply an index so at least seems that you actually surveyed it.

I was not there to do a hard core boundary survey but the fact is that I see this kind of stuff all of the time and it makes it more difficult for people that want to do the right thing.

Do I care enough to call these people up? No, but it is a little frustrating.

In situations like this if I am doing a boundary I find it easier just to set what I think is right and file my own map. Any good surveyor will be able to tell the difference.
In extreme cases the call gets made.

UGH!!!!

Blogging

Ever hit a wall? I have. I got nothing for ya at the moment.

Adios for a very short bit surveyors.

You rock.