"Have you experienced shortness of breath in the last month?"

Two of the decisions that I have to make as a blogger are to decide how much information that I share and how "heroic" I make myself look.

I tend to "under-share" the first. On the second point I am fully aware that people whose narrative always paints them as the hero are guilty of two sins. The first sin is that they are liars. That sin is (usually) forgivable if the lie is highly entertaining and they aren't doing it for personal gain. Sadly, most of those kinds of liars are insufferable boors. And that is the second sin, to be a boor.

How my day went

The contractor showed up at 10:00 a.m. on-the-dot. 

He performed a meticulous site inspection. Things started going sideways when he was attempting to ascertain the size, depth and location of a certain underground feature. He was stymied by the dry clay fill on the site and the abundance of rock. The chore was further complicated by the object not being close to the surface.

His visit was complicated by the fact that he had another job-site to visit at 1:00 p.m. in another part of the state. After two hours of unsuccessfully attempting to locate the underground object, he punted. He authorized me to look for it.

It was like a game of Battleship.

I had it wrapped up by 5:00 p.m. And frankly, I was whipped. I am not used to that kind of heavy digging. Several times I found myself out-of-breath, usually after loosening up a layer of soil with a mattock prior to shoveling it out of the hole.

The rest of the story

I dug a row of deep divots on a 2' grid  across the region the contractor had determined was the most likely place for the object.

I filled the holes with water and then went to eat lunch and take a nap.

I woke up at 3:00 p.m. and started driving a 4' piece of sharpened rebar into the muddy bottom of the divots. The top of the object proved to be 36" below grade!

Once I had determined 0-0-x-x-x-x-0-0, I dug a trench between the 0-x on each end and filled the trench with water. I goofed around for about a half-hour (OK, I caught my breath and drank Gatorade, that that doesn't sound as cool). 

I walked the rebar along the length of the trench on 3" increments until I found, approximately, the outline of the object.

I took some photos. Then I took a shower. Then I emailed the information to the contractor so he can write an intelligent quote. Boom! 5:00 p.m.

But if you knew this would cost you money...

You might ask, "If you knew that this information might increase the price of the quote, why didn't you fudge the info in your favor?"

Good question, Smedley.

Suppose that I told him that the object's dimensions were smaller than it actually is. He shows up with a crew and equipment and they cannot knock it out in one day. Furthermore, suppose the equipment he hauled in from halfway across the state is not adequate to the task.

As a businessman, the the contractor will include contingencies in the quote. For example, he might quote based on the assumption of one day, in-and-out. He will quote based on standard hourly rates for different types of equipment. 

So it is entirely possible that fudging the numbers could more than double my final cost of this part of the project. If he cannot get it done in one day. If he has to come back the second day with more capable equipment with higher standard hourly rates.

For what it is worth, the contractor offered me a job. I think he was half-kidding. And I think he was half serious. He spends 20% of his time in a vehicle driving around the state, gathering info and making quotes. I could save him a butt-load of time driving (which is not productive) and gathering the site information.

Shortness of breath

That question has to be one of the dumbest question in a medical intake. It is absolutely devoid of context. 

There is a world of difference between being short-of-breath if it happens walking down the driveway to pick up your mail or if it happens because you are dragging a deer out of the woods or burying the body of somebody's ex-boyfriend in heavy, rocky soil.