Office Time

Last week was one of those times that an overly active person such as myself dreads.

It was the week where there is a bunch on contracts out, the work is boiling and of course you know it will hit all at once and there was not much to do except admin.

Admin as mundane as is it is happens to be a huge part of business. Back in the days of many employees my office manager took care of all of that and I never had to deal with it. However today things are a lot different especially since I am an army of 1 now.

The whole admin thing consists of filing, catching up on doc's such as waivers, stuff for the cpa, field folders, bills etc. and the most important part, Quick Books.

I had failed to reconcile anything in over a month so Thursday was bank day.

I have to tell you that over the last 5 years my accounting skills have sky rocketed to a level it never would have if things had remained steady and we avoided falling into a sucking vortex from hell.

I have always thought that the most important thing about a business is the cash flow because it is truly the life blood. I also have always wondered how these guys get by having someone else do all of their books and never looking at a thing. I often think they are most likely getting ripped off because they fail to pay attention. It actually kind of scares me.

Even when I did not do all the other stuff I always paid attention to the books by requesting daily balances, monthly P&L's, weekly out going and receivables. By doing so I ensured that I was always ahead of the game and could make split second decisions if I had to. Another thing I have always done is have the bank statements sent straight to me and always be the first to review even though the office manager would do the reconciliations.

So as a business man I have adapted to all of it, boring or not it must be done in order to be effective.

I had an excellent teacher who was a surveyor but also a business man that made a fortune in other areas. He always told me that no matter what anyone tells you most small business are 3 months from going under and the second I take my finger off of the life blood pulse it will kill me.

He was right. There where times early on that I failed to pay close enough attention and almost wiped myself out. Fortunately he was still with us and I was able to ask for advice.

I was taught early that people who are older by virtue know more and I should listen especially if they have had the same type of things happen. Sometimes that statement is false but for the most part it is right.

Because of that, I have been successful and will continue to be in every venture I step into.

Oh and the lack of trial and error fear helps a lot and the occasional get your own ass handed to you really helps to

It takes balls to run a business and anyone that speaks to the contrary is obviously very naive.

Here's to all of the Cowboys and Oldsters that spent time schooling us Youngsters.

Make it a great week surveyors.

GDAC

The GDAC program. As I have said many times it is the greatest tool we as surveyors have ever been given and it will continue to be for as long as I will be doing this job. That can be said for certain.

Since most of the published work was done several years ago there have been significant changes to the existing monuments due to varies conditions of construction, goofy people etc.

GDAC still remains the greatest tool for positional research and recovery but since things have changed so much especially in the city areas extreme caution needs to be upheld.

I have been noticing a change in the monuments in character also horizontally and especially vertically.

I use to jump all over them but now I have backed off and always check into another, especially when establishing elevation.

There have been instances when I have found monuments to still be in character but have changed vertically, once again due to construction or goofy people.

I have gotten into the habit of hitting those NGS points in the can before I go any further as a start point. Those have a tendency to stay accurate.

A program such as GDAC no matter how awesome it is can not survive accuracy with humans. Consistent updating would need to occur and the cost would be astronomical.

So the question is how does the inventory stay current? I am sure that there is a plan in place and I would like to know what it is.

Do we as the private surveyor need to report a change?

I am curious to see how well the maintenance will go in the future. I am hopeful that it will continue to be updated and remain current.

Make it a great week surveyors.

?

You ever have one of those weeks that when it is done you wish you would have followed your childhood dream of playing guitar for Ozzy or becoming a Jedi Knight or a Dragon Slayer or a Nascar driver or anything instead of becoming a surveyor?

Welcome to my world boys and girls.

Aggghhhhhhh!!!!!! Here we go, here we go, here we go again.

Make it a great week surveyors.

I will have something much more interesting as soon as I get my brain back.

Field Stuff

There must be something in the air or I am in attract weird shit mode.

I was working on a job a while back and I approached a patio area. Going along the patio was this strap stuff that looks like Mule Tape.
I needed to locate the patio corner and it was under a tree so I whipped out old Mr. Pocket tape to pull 2 swing ties. I flipped the tape across the strap and got hit with a massive Zot of electricity, I dropped everything including the gps that got tangled in the tape.
I backed up blurted several swear words and then grabbed the rod by the carbon fiber part and got the gps out of the tape as I was hearing "zap, zap,zap".

What the hell man? Who puts electric fence around their patio? I was dazed and felt like my heart stopped. Luckily I did not have to check my pants.

I immediately set 2 traverse point and came back and detailed the area with the reflectorless TS.


Next I mentioned in my last post about doing a job in one of the more colorful parts of town. Well I returned last week to set the property corners and guess what I found that was not there before?
A brand new constructed Hobo Village under a tree right where I needed to set a corner.

I approached the lean to and was stopped by the sound of a gravely voiced female and a male with like voice arguing, about what I have no idea.
I have to admit that listening to it was majorly entertaining, however I did feel less than inclined to knock on the door and tell them that I have to set an iron pin in their living room.

I set all the rest, called the client and told him that when he serves an eviction notice and chops down the tree I'll run back and set the last pin.

I packed it up and was sitting in the truck, I looked over and the female came out of the village. She looked like Slash the guitar player, she was wearing headphones and then proceeded to do an amazing little dance that lasted for a couple of minutes while she was lighting and smoking what appeared to be half cigarettes. I was amazed and mesmerized all at the same time. If I was shameless I would have taken a video and posted it here, however I decided to keep this one for my own memory and not exploit the lady.

I do love an early morning survey in the ghetto.

Make it a great week surveyors.

Troubleshooting

I did an ALTA the other day down in a very old part of town.

The monuments I recovered reflected a change in right of ways and things were just wrong.

I contacted the City of Phoenix and they quickly sent me some quarter section maps that cleared a lot of things up. My measured monument distances were close to them and the block broke down great with a surplus and the interior monuments came in nice as well.

I finally got the title report and that confirmed everything.

There is an underground tunnel easement running through the area. I have the description of it from the title report and I plotted it but it looked extremely wrong.

I contacted the city again and they sent me some ADOT maps that assured me that I had it plotted incorrectly.

I beat my brain out looking at this thing every which way and could not figure it out. It had a POB that started 34' +/- from the south quarter corner and was certain that I was starting there.

I got so frustrated that I walked away and left the office.

About 8pm I was still thinking about it and kicked me like a donkey.

I had this thing starting in the right place according to my field points, however I was tied into the monument line of Central Avenue and not the mid section line.

The next morning ran to the office, moved everything to the correct position and what do you know that easement was spot on according to all of the info I have.

I think the moral of this story is sometimes you just gotta choke the pooch before the light comes on.