The Professional Choice Daily Cap(s) (270)

One fun part of my job lets me best-pick material for various projects. This one needed a letter color picked. Which one did I choose? Classy Brass? Coffee Brown? Brilliantly Black?

The tree hugger in me says “let’s reuse this”…..

I have a niece who, for the longest time, thought I (a landscape architect) did nothing more than design sidewalks. I hope she doesn’t see this and think I had anything to do with it!

River rock in a roadway median? Does that make sense? In the flat lands of Texas? But yes, it does have a nice variety of colors….

Sometimes even the best-conceived site plans simply do not work right….

The All In A Day’s Work Daily Cap(s) (207)

 

Who remembers that dag-gum baseball complex from a couple months ago? Well looky here….grass is growing!

But grass still isn’t in all places….

In Texas summers, irrigation is a definite must-have for ball fields….

And repairs seem to be never-ending (love this guy’s hat!)

And how I appreciate these guys’ ingenuity when it comes to labor efficiency and just plain ol’ common sense in getting the job done right (I’ve seen one guy do this with 3 wheelbarrows – how many steps did this save the man…in 104° temps?)….

 

 

 

 

The Ingenuity Daily Cap(s) (184)

Remember the ball field post from several weeks ago? Look what’s getting redone this week…with much better results! And these laborers are quite the clever bunch when it comes to using what they have to get their work done right…

OK, call be old school or even old fashion, but know this: there are only a few tools that rarely lie, ones where you needn’t worry about losing a battery charge or a satellite link, and were used to build the Egyptian pyramids a few years back. I love string lines!

And ingenuity doesn’t alway stop when you leave the ball field. Here this kid figured out how to befriend an inanimate object to help get his job done….

…now if he could only figure out how to cool the late-afternoon Texas July temperatures (where’s the umbrella?) and silence the smart-alec drivers that honk at him (hey kid, toss a stale pizza pie at them passing by).

This has to be an infomercial idea…or perhaps something for one of those slick sales guy peddling the best home improvement tool at the State Fair. Let’s start a list of the varied uses for the common, everyday toilet plunger (besides it’s primary purpose)

The Can’t Play Ball Daily Cap(s) (119)

Yesterday, 2 baseball fields received sod. By noon I rejected 1 1/2 of the those fields...because of the workmanship and lack of playability...I was not a popular person amongst the contractors. So today, I brought a soccer ball to the field....

I hoped the laborers would play a quick game of soccer with me on their break. My intention was to prove a point to them on taking pride and ownership in their craft, and what they were doing was not right. None of them took me up on a quick game BTW

So I kicked the ball around by myself, in front of them. Once they saw the ball "bounce" across their newly laid sod, I seized the teaching moment. I rubbed my shaved face and said "smooth for soccer", then rubbed my chin whiskers and said "no good for soccer" - and pointed to sod shaking my head. They all looked at me rather odd (imagine that), but their workmanship improved a little bit. I say it was all my Spanish Hand Talking...we'll see when I'm back out on Wednesday whether the other 2 fields get rejected....

The Today-Yesterday’s Concrete Daily Cap(s) (60)

Today: must have been break time...or they needed more concrete

Yesterday: the guy in charge of keeping kids off and out of the new concrete must have taken a break before the concrete hardened....

The Daily Cap(s) (58)

Now what these bridge-building guys were doing with a ladder leaning against the crazy thing, I have no clue. But they did have brightly-colored, fashionable safety vests...And just what, you ask, was I doing taking a picture of guys under a bridge? Well don't cha know I'm on the look out for grumpy trolls of course.

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Just the facts, ma’am

In reading a work-related on-line article about effective presentations, one forwarded from our marketing department with professional development intent I’m sure, I found myself nodding in agreement and chuckling with one particular exerpt…

“Never Let Facts Speak for Themselves

Facts need interpretation. According to Mark Twain, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” If you don’t believe this, tune in to the next political campaign. People can make facts and numbers mean almost anything. Interpret yours so that your listeners draw the same conclusions you intend.” Continue reading