Lee Loader

i just wanted you to know us northerner types feel for ya...
situation normal for us north folks...

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rest well, it will be over soon enough for ya, and you will have stories to tell..

AG

Swap the pines for live oaks and pecans and that's what my neighborhood looked like for almost a week.

I lived in Canada for 12 years. Snow days of a foot or more were often. It was expected and they prepared for it. I never had a single snow day off in 12 years. I have experienced a bunch of them down here in South Louisiana. Time to prepare for the rapidly approaching ice age.

The coldest weather I've ever experienced was in Dallas. Reported to be -1 degree. The fellow I rode to school with had a '33 Ford sedan with the soft top gone (a 4x6 ft hole in the roof). I decided I was too sick to go to school that day...

The coldest I have had to play in was -26f headed out of Casper to the oil fields. Here in Utah I have experienced -10 on more than one occasion.

The official record in Dallas was -1 in about 1943? 1949? The new DFW record is -2. It's always hotter in the summer and colder in the winter up here an hour north.

We spent 9 weeks 1 winter between 78'& 86'of -14 to +7 , fog , no sun , and chain link fences that were solid walls of white . There was no wind chill because outside of chimney turn and car draft there wasn't a breath moving .

This was an inconvenience . 50° to -13 to 60° over 8 days just isn't a bother .

Couple of years ago I had to dig up a frost free hydrant out by my pump house, it was -8 degrees that morning. Had to shut the well off for a few hours to get that done. Four feet deep and all very cold mud. Used "hot" pipe glue and it still was a bear to get it sealed together. Coldest I've ever worked in was in 1971 in Seneca, Oregon (about 6,000 ft elevation) when I worked for the Forest Service. We were a survey crew trying to close a 7 mile traverse in -30 to -35 degrees (depending on where you were standing at the time). We were using a modern transit (at the time) and had to keep the crummy running because about every 30 minutes or so we would have to remove it from the tripod and set under the heater so it would turn. Those things use a very light machine oil but would still "freeze" up. There was four of us and we took turns running the instrument. There was about two feet of snow on the ground, no wind, with a clear sky and sunny bright. You could see ice crystals floating in the air. It was beautiful, cold as sin, but beautiful none the less. I ended up with a bit of frostbite on my forehead and ears. Skin turned brown and peeled, kinda like a sunburn. But not. I loved working for the Forest Service, only job I ever had that I was always happy to go to work. To bad it paid starvation wages....

I'm always glad to hear war stories from other surveyors. It kinda' makes the last 4+ decades come to life.

jd

mr surveyor wrote:I'm always glad to hear war stories from other surveyors. It kinda' makes the last 4+ decades come to life.

jd

Oh my, old four post mountain transits and Dumpy levels. The ones you had to "spin" four times to get them right. The little magnifying glass you hung on your survey vest to read the vernier on the transit with. (mine had a leather cover it slid into). Hanging a plumb bob over a "point" from the center of the tripod. Steel chains and staff compasses the size of a Pizza pan. And a lot of other things I don't remember. I quit doing that stuff in 1975. Four decades, I'm sure you've seen and used them as well. The tomes of books for sine, co-sine, secants co-secants and such to 5 decimal places... Do you happen to recall the Wang "computer". We used one for figuring timber sale area. (at least that's what I used it for) It's a bit fuzzy in my memory. I do remember the first scientific calculator I ever saw, same year of 71', it was a Hewlitt Packard the Engineering Dept. at the National forest I worked for bought, it was over 600 bucks at that time and was not allowed out of the office. Probably had to be at least a GS 11 to even touch it. We were all in amazement of that thing. Today, 20 bucks at Wal-mart . Made all those huge old books pretty obsolete... Thinking about all that "old" equipment compared to what they use today it's pretty amazing what was done with them and how accurate the men that used them were. If folks actually knew how all this country was surveyed and how it was done and how well it was done, they'd build a couple statues.