Thursday, May 30, 2013

Scorpion

reached around this durablock and almost got stung

Some kind of mutant cricket

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Good Ideas or Maybe Oggy Babbling Again

I've been watching TED Talks instead of chewing my sanity down to the nub by reading CNN. And while most of the people put a spin on old ideas it's still interesting.
So I'm going to give you a few ideas I'd talk about for my TED talk.

1) Hire an all women construction crew. Men aren't dumb but they wantonly destroy their bodies while using construction methods that the ancient Egyptians would laugh at. Maybe some things can't be done easily...or maybe men think it's faster to get arthritis in their hands than brainstorm an easier method. Babies will eventually be raised in tubes like vegetables, thereby relieving women of the pain of labor. But men will continue to shovel dirt for 11 hours or spend two days building the wrong thing in the wrong place. I say hire a crew of all women and give them an unlimited expense account and unlimited time. I don't know what new procedures they would figure out to move hundreds of steel bars but I'll bet it will involve getting the trailer as close as possible to the place they belong. Maybe even designing a truck that will fit in the place they belong rather than shipping them on any old truck. You know, put some thought into it. Women simply have no choice to work smarter and not harder. If men gave birth we'd claw the baby out of our bellies after 7 months ("saving 2 months") and then spend a year in a rehab hospital bragging about it. If I'm ever wheelchair bound I'll start a disabled contracting crew. Stephen Hawking will be our spokesperson. "Smarter, not Harder" will be our motto.

2) Co-ed sports. I've heard all the arguments about men and women not competing against each other and the lamest one is "Women are smaller and aren't as good at sports like football." The easiest rebuttal is that women haven't even been referees in NFL games, let alone players. So why is a referee's weight going to make a difference? Could a woman be a video review ref? Would her tits get in the way of watching a television replay? There's no argument so stop it. It's been traditional to be sexist for so long that I actually think people aren't even sexist anymore. They're simply traditional...and that tradition is sexist...so...they are sort of sexist without knowing why. It's lazy. My feeling is strongly that if a woman wants to box Mike Tyson (and hopefully kick his ass) then why would rules prevent that matchup? Any and all sports should be co-ed. There isn't one sport that a woman wouldn't eventually compete in as well as a man. Hey, did they ever line up Jerry Rice opposite Lawrence Taylor? No. Is it because Jerry Rice was a woman? No. Taylor would break him in half. So, don't line up a woman opposite a hulking free safety. The rules protect quarterbacks more now than ever but Tom Brady folds like a wet napkin under the slightest pressure. I think a woman could do that too, for less money. My feeling is that we can not segregate by rule as it's silly. These are sports...for entertainment. Who cares? 5'7'' 132 lb Spud Webb competed against 6'9'' Magic Johnson. So why are women not given the same opportunity? A sexist tradition that is boring. Like, why is volleyball segregated by sex? Or Golf? It makes no sense.

3) Performance enhancing drugs are a myth. Curt Schilling benefited from a surgery to his ankle that no previous pitcher had ever had...at least not a day before his start in a World Series game. Tommy John surgery is not called "Cy Young surgery" because it wasn't invented when Cy Young was pitching. How many pitchers in 1930 would've had an extra ten years from that surgery? Weight training for Ted Williams in 1941 involved going into the Navy. Was ibuprofen available to Ty Cobb?  Modern athletes benefit so much from modern medicine and modern training that it's unrecognizable to the climate of early ballplayers. I think Yogi Berra sold cars in the off season because he had bills to pay. Someone takes human growth hormone. Ok. They also drink milk enriched with all kinds of vitamins. The 1924 Yankees probably drank cow milk straight from the tit. Unless we are all going to use bats and balls identical to the ones used in 1890 then forget about performance enhancement. Players know the risks and all the records are a sign of the times. They aren't fake. Barry Bonds hit the most home runs of his era. Hank Aaron hit the most home runs of his era. Steroids were one of the causes that Bonds hit more. Aaron had enhancements over Babe Ruth. Heck, Ruth didn't compete against black players! Was his record therefore legitimate? Yes, for his era. These aren't advantages...because they played in different eras. There was a time when teams traveled by train and bus. Do planes give modern players an advantage? Millions of dollars are involved so players will always try to find an edge, such as nice beds at their hotels. They are concerned for their current careers and not re-creationist history in olde timey uniforms and gloves made from canvas bags stuffed with cotton. They should be encouraged to be voluntary guinea pigs because it's part of human adaptation. The problem comes when Lance Armstrong then has to lie about doing something that is actually an incredible advance in medicine. THE DUDE HAD CANCER! GIVE HIM A BREAK! Whatever Armstrong did should be readily available in a bottle for all oil field workers. WE NEED IT. If it works as good for us then Armstrong should get a fucking medal. My only complaint is that they should not waste that kind of treatment on people riding bicycles in circles. I pass a field of migrant spinach pickers everyday who are dying for a blood dope. But no. They get bottled water and a bag lunch. But a guy riding a bicycle from point A to point B gets high tech boost? (I get tons of shit yelled at me when I ride a bike.) This makes no sense. Is spinach not more important?

4) Rambo Prequel: Am I the only person who wants to know what went on during John Rambo's tour in "Nam? (I should write a review of this for kicks.)

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Skype

I put skype on my computer. I don't have a number but I think I'm the only Oggybleacher there. call me sometime and I'll play guitar for you. Or sex chat. whatever

Monday, May 27, 2013

What Will Be

There are multiple key changes in this song....like life.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Every Storm Has A Rainbow...unless you are killed during the storm.
Senor Gumshoe wasn't kidding about the tornado. Serious rains hit today and flooded everything. There is hope for postponing the dustbowlification of Texas. My front yard is awesome, no? The end of this rainbow has to be in Puebla, MX.

PArty in USA

This is how I torture myself. "And a Britney Song was on..." over and over in punishing repetition. As if the song isn't monotonous and redundant the lyrics themselves have to repeat.

new exhaust

here is the new muffler sound. hide your children. because I'm trying to think positive

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Name The Suspect

"...a few people, disturbed or fanatical, radicalized by things they have read or watched, decide to commit evil."

This statement refers to...

A. Boston Terrorists
B. Richard Nixon
C. Adolf Hitler
D. Charlie Manson
E. George W. Bush
F. All of the above


I'm really disturbed by the CNN mind fuck journalists trying to spin every event to a stars and stripes ending. It's repulsive. It's even more repulsive that it's so popular.

Friday, May 24, 2013

View From Oggy's Trailer

Sunset

Western Opera

sergio leone
"Station"
This is one of the final scenes of Once Upon A Time in The West. It's moving as that little backwards sign that hangs on the left says "Station" which is the theme of the whole film.* The long stark segments with two people saying nothing are contrasted by these epic scenes right out of the school of Gone With The Wind. There are some edits in the modern version that make it jump around but Sergio Leone really made a great movie here. It should rank with Dr. Zhivago and Gone With The Wind and to some people it does. Don't call it a "spaghetti western" in my presence.

Even though I am definitely in the middle of a similar burst of growth it's hard to keep perspective when you are the one with the pick axe and the bad back. Like Cheyenne says to Harmonica, " When someone takes you down, make sure they know where to shoot you."

*The train is coming from the east so the sign reads correctly for approaching travelers.

The Worst Job

I was reminiscing on a job I had a few years ago when I was starving in Central NH. I was living at a halfway house where everyone had diabetes and more DUI convictions than teeth. The plan was to get a job at a surgical tool manufacturing factory. Or Gunstock ski slopes where I could help people get on the lift or teach kids to snowplow. These lofty goals all crashed down as I missed the application window for Gunstock and the surgical tool place took me on a tour that was like a visit to a hellish future of wearing all white clean room gowns and fighting with fine surgical tubing whilst my prostate throbbed in wounded indifference. It was bleak but I swallowed my pride and begged for the job...and eventually was discarded in favor of some old women who could knit like river powered sock mills.

I spent my last savings at Funspot Arcade playing Star Castle and Venture in a desperate attempt to go back in time to 1982.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Intracoastal City, Louisiana

I was telling stories of my life to amuse my coworkers at lunch. They asked me about my limp and if I'd ever hurt my back.
"Oh, yeah. I was in the Merchant Marines and I was throwing a line to another vessel and this was a thick, 2.5'' line, probably weighed 65 pounds, and at the last second the guy turned away and so I held onto the line and all the weight transferred awkwardly to my back muscles and went beyond their limit."
"What happened?"
"I was hurt so bad that I got a fever and curled up on the floor. There's still a bulge in my muscles from that."
"Wait, you were in the Merchant Marines?"

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Hammerhead

Bosch Hammer Drill Dis-assembly

Here's a test...that little copper coated item is the ass end of a Lightning Grounding Rod. These are planted 10 ft deep and a Lightning Grounding Cable is attached with an acorn nut. It grounds the frame of generators and cabinets the same way a water clamp grounds the electrical system of a house. In case a bolt of lightning hits the $10,000 cabinet the theory is that the electricity might disperse into the LGC instead of frying everything. I think it will all fry because really how often is something like this tested?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Dragons or Princesses


“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” Rainer Marie Rilke

I'm not jaded enough to read this quote without feeling some tug from the wounded depths of my shattered pride. It's almost a little too close to the truth. If Rilke was alive I'd have to go punch his face for exposing me in my skid marked underwear in 7th grade picking my bookbag up off the ground as the pretty girls laughed in knee socks and Rick Springfield T-shirts, knowing that if I didn't make friends with the dragons I'd be alone forever and now after decades of feeding these dragons I've begun to pretend to myself they are princesses...to whisper lies to myself to sleep in my masturbatory wet dreams...alone and wasting away, broken, cultivating a damn private SPCA exclusively for dragons.

But who am I to cry with a belly full of half cooked raw meat and day old crumb cake from the mass produced dungeons in Walmart?

Monday, May 20, 2013

Moving

I've moved but not to Guatemala or Puebla but to the absolute heart of an inferno where only the strong survive. This past week would've broken almost everyone I know. 5000 lbs of concrete mixed by hand in 112 degree heat. Three people passed out in the 107 degree furnace. Roadrunners wept. Lizards cried. I Felt ultimately that the world must have the oil and gas and that my life has been risked for less fruitful reasons so I would either perish or grow stronger. I didn't care either way even as my heart throbbed in diseased abuse and I collapsed in a lump at the end of the day. Sweat poured from my face like someone was dumping water on me. What's strange is that I've spent so much $ on my stupid van that I haven't saved anything in the realm of what punishment my body has taken.
Not pictured are the one-into-two flare stacks I welded on as tailpipes
But Uvalde is a place in my past now. I'm living full time at the man camp near my material warehouse.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Roadrunner in The Lone Star State

Everything is bigger in Texas. This was shade for port-o-potties

This roadrunner was looking for shade but we had work to do. I chased him around the truck like Coyote and finally crushed him with a grand piano. Not pictured is the 120 degree heat index that made me feel like a rotisserie chicken.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Milk Cow Less Blue

Transcript from cell phone conversation with Milk Cow:

Milk Cow (slurred, drunk): Oggy? [Milk Cow actually calls me Oggy since I tooled it onto my belt. He thinks Oggy Bleacher is the greatest name ever and eventually his curiosity will bring him here. Sorry, Milk Cow, but I'm a writer and you are my material] Hey. Hahah Guess what?
Oggy: Your fingers grew back.
Milk Cow: hahaha. Oggy, you kill me. No. They're gone for good. The social security came in. I got two grand coming..[sound of chickens in background] (shut the fuck up fucking rooster.)
Oggy: Two grand! You buying a luxury tent?
Milk Cow: Hahaha. No, the child support got taken out, the lawyers...the fines from that thing in Austin I told you about..."
Oggy: That shit at the police station...
Milk Cow: All of it.
Oggy: So the check was originally like $10,000?
Milk Cow: (get out of here rooster. Hey, could you call your rooster? He's eating my beans. Fuck! I spilled my beer. unintelligible)
Oggy: So your check...
Milk Cow: What? Oggy? Are you there?
Oggy: I said your check was...
Milk Cow: Two Grand. That's like a million dollars to me.
Oggy: Get your guitar out of hawk. Get a hooker.
Milk Cow: No. I'm getting a van. I have to move out of here. You want to know what happened today?
Oggy: What?
Milk Cow: I said you wanna know what happened today.
Oggy: Yeah. Yes. What happened?
Milk Cow: So, Raymond [owner of property where Milk Cow's tent is set] comes by. Pissed as a sailor on vacation. Drunk. Drinking. And you know I love animals...
Oggy: Oh, shit.
Milk Cow: I love animals. And this motherfucker is talking to me and he sees this kitten...
Oggy: Man.
Milk Cow: And he goes, 'Here kitty kitty kitty...'
Oggy: Lord...
Milk Cow: And you know how much I love cats and animals. I mean, I try not to fuck with an ant hill...
Oggy: Right.
Milk Cow: So, I'm sitting there watching and he says, 'Here kitty kitty.' And this sweet little starving kitten that I've been feeding scraps since I moved into the tent...right, the kitten is living on scraps from a homeless man with 7 fingers...hahahaha...
Oggy: Jesus. Where's the justice?
Milk Cow: So the kitten, a sweet kitten I named Sir Grenfell...
Oggy: No, you named him after that guy in Labrador I told you about?
Milk Cow: Yes! Because I'd never heard of him before and you told me about a Canadian named Grenfell and how he changed everything and I thought I'd name the kitten that so I could remember to read a book about him later when I had some money.
Oggy: And what happened?
Milk Cow: So Grenfell comes up mewing and sweet and innocent and I was looking around for a scrap to give him and I heard this 'WHAP WHAP WHAP' and I turned around....and Oggy, Raymond was beating that kitten to death WITH HIS BOOT. SMASHING HIS HEAD IN.
Oggy: (laughing, but silently, rubbing aching neck) Awful. How awful.
Milk Cow: [Roosters crowing] screaming at him to stop. And Raymond, who is poisonous and evil, looks through me, like a GODDAMN PSYCHOPATH. And he says, 'That's how I feel about everyone. Everybody."
Oggy: It's a hard world.
Milk Cow: So I buried that kitten.
Oggy: Sir Grenfell.
Milk Cow: Yes. I've got a tombstone made of cardboard.[coughs terribly] I have to quit smoking because I know I have lung cancer.
Oggy: You sound like it. My lungs feel like they've been heat blasted every morning from the gases in the air...
Milk Cow: What?
Oggy: Nothing. I hauled 5000 lbs of concrete this week and mixed it by hand.
Milk Cow: At least you're getting good money.
Oggy: Yeah. I thought it would be cheaper for the company to pay some homeless guys to mix the concrete instead of three electricians.
Milk Cow: [unintelligible] is work.
Oggy: I'll be back this weekend. I gotta get my muffler fixed. And the U Joints. I saw a bass guitar in San Antonio, maybe we'll go spend that two grand on some strippers.
Milk Cow: Oggy, I had my day in the sun with hookers. No more. I need food. And I need rest. I'm old and hurt. I gotta keep all these other kittens away from the property. I throw rocks at them now and apologize. But there's nothing I can do. [voice trails off]
Oggy: Alright, get some rest.
Milk Cow: Hey, Oggy....

I hang up quickly but one hour later Milk Cow calls me back and attempts to have the exact same conversation again.

Worst Thing I Can Confess Today

I'm old and aching this week. How did I get involved in Oil Field hydro fracturing? HOW? I prayed to God to send me some sign that I could improve my life and the sign I got was a job in the Eagle Ford Shale area as an industrial electrician/I&E tech/Automation Tech/ etc. So, that set me up for the reality which is any kind of electrical installation will have to be prepped in a carpenter/masonry way. So, I can not raise my arms above my shoulders because in order for our installation of a large Variable Speed Drive cabinet to move forward we had to pour a 5'x5' concrete pad 6 inches deep. I think that's like 12.5 sq ft...which amounts to twenty one (21) 80lb bags of just add water concrete. That 1680 pounds of concrete personally hauled into the plains of Texas. Guess how much water that involved? 40 gallons. Oh, and there are three cabinets so multiply everything by 3. 5040 lbs of concrete. How much electricity is involved? None. I just wiped sweat from my encrusted face and grimaced in pain.

Oh, I know I should be thankful for the work. Sure. You Steinbeck fuck. God gives all things to industry. Yep. Feed me another line of Bullshit. Temperature in the 101 range. The van thermometer read 119 and reminded me of bleeding sweat in Austin last year while everyone laughed at my misery.

That's all I want to talk about regarding work. Am I buying a $3000 guitar with this money? You bet your ass because I can't think of anything else that is worth this kind of agony.

Anyway, the worst thing that I can confess this week....( I want this to be a weekly theme column) is that the hair on my ass has grown shaggy and when I take a shit I can not wipe all the shit off as it gets caught up in the hair because of the decrepitude and arthritis in my shoulder...so I must scoot my ass to the bathtub and wash my ass off, which reminds me of the scar tissue from THE FUCKING STAPLES THEY USED ON MY ANUS WHEN THEY SLICED THE HEMORRHOIDS OFF. That's the worst thing I can confess.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Old Man Probably Buying Last Car Battery

84 year old Dwayne Richards figures that this is the last car battery he will ever buy, Richards reported on Sunday.
"Yeah, I got about 5 years out of the last battery and I've been getting treatment for heart disease and prostate cancer, so, yeah, this will probably be the last car battery I buy."
Doing some math in his head he concluded, "I'll never make it to 89. I don't even want to make it to 87. My grand kid graduates college next year. I figure that will be it. They don't need me around."

Sources reported Richards had a massive cardiac arrest while carrying the car battery to the car.

President Declares May 13 "Visit Your Neighbor's Basement" Day

"It's come to this," says President



Citing the chilling discovery of a basement dungeon in urban Cleveland, a veritable torture chamber and sex prison maintained for a decade under the noses of an entire city, President Obama has declared May 13th 2013 "Visit Your Neighbor's Basement" Day.

With one swipe of his pen the President hopes to encourage neighbors to actually knock on the doors of their neighbors and visit one another...you know, like a real neighborhood.

Milk Cow

texas storm
storm on the plains

Obama Care Works: Milk Cow Blues at his new luxury apartment

I'm laughing to think of the documentary that I'd make of Milk Cow and his spiral towards death. The Puerto Rican fags. The Vicodin, the crippled feet, the spine problems, falling down in the street and having a car full of kids run his new glasses over...his beer spilling like tears. Now the ragged tent near the abandoned chicken coop. The challenge would be to make the audience laugh with him and not at him. But humanity has become so ironic and self absorbed that nothing is sacred. "It'll never happen again," they said of the Holocaust. So, 50 years later it's happening again and people are even more in denial now than before.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Once Upon Oggy's Dream

I rarely resort to a youtube movie clip repost but the news has been beyond bleak lately. I'm drinking long island iced tea with orange juice and I deal with 480 volts most of the day in 110 degree heat. I'm laughing because inches separate me from death and the loss of my fantasy Mexican lover has left me with the stark reality of heat and electricity and the constant growth and throwing money at custom guitar manufacturers. What is the point? Then I see a clip of Once Upon A Time in The West, my favorite Sergio Leone western...and I remember that amid the destruction and terror there is art and beauty and maybe the human experience is forced to encompass all of it for any of it to have meaning. If this movie doesn't give me hope and perspective then nothing will.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Dirty News

Please someone scrub my brain clean from what I just read on CNN. They find horror stories like a junkie finds crack.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Taste Test of Big Red Soda

Here I thought I'd be clever and make a review of this shit but it looks like I'm only the first one today. There's probably a sock puppet review or an animation one. I'm so lame.



Before you accuse me of being a food nazi let me say that I lived in California and it's understood that something as horrific and unhealthy as Big Red should be denounced like a child pornographer. This stuff is poison.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Where Your Energy Comes From


The only thing missing from this cartoon are the hundreds of animated men and women who are the human element to this process...and the deafening roar of dozens of trucks...and the dust...and the lightning storms...and bewildered hogs and deer and illegal immigrants hustling crank across the borders. Oggy is also not pictured in his bell bottom pants installing automation devices. This narration is a little slanted but that's what Chesapeake paid for so I can't blame them. I think this issue will reach a conclusion with the demise/decline of humanity. Energy has allowed our species to propagate beyond the capacity of the planet. That has driven wages down as the labor pool exploded.

A funny story that should make you laugh your swollen belly with jiggling Taco fat is the guys I work with who came back from Afghanistan and Iraq where the blood for oil program is working perfectly. The elites of Oil-stan all agreed to the invasion basically to get rich but partially to provide work for the poor of their countries. Go ask them how that worked out. Hahahaha. All the labor jobs went to Kenyans and Napalese immigrants trucked/trafficked into the Middle East with women to breed future prostitutes. So, they got bombed, fucked, invaded and then their jobs were given to the poorest people on the planet, whom they probably already hated for historic reasons. Hahahaaa. I get resentful when someone honks at me at a red light. You probably do too. So how do you think you would feel if your grandmother was bombed, your country invaded, and then you lost your job to a starving tibet monk? Oh, I forgot you can't think outside the shame box that you built for your filtered ego. Go back to your cheerios and keep scratching your ass about the state of the world.

Ruined

I'll give you $1000 if you see someone actually riding this monstrosity on the street. Fucking trophy piece for gear heads who disrespect Senor Honda's vision. WHY DON'T YOU PUT MAG WHEELS ON IT AND STICKERS THAT SAY WHAT AN ASSHOLE YOU ARE?



I don't have my guitar with me or I'd sing a song that expresses my disdain for this kind of abuse of vintage bikes. 1973 CB 450 turned inside out. The worst part is they left the Honda badge on. Why? It's like a whore using her married name to pimp herself out. Like assholes who tell me what kind of accessories to put on my van. WHY DON'T YOU BUY A 1969 VAN AND PIMP IT OUT YOURSELF? Keep your neon and computer systems in your cell phone where they belong and I'll pass your sorry ass up after the apocalypse hits in a few years.

It reminds me of the Harley Davidson rally they have in Texas where they get some 1981 CX Honda Silverwing or Twinstar or Goldwing and start it up and then charge $1 for a few wacks with a sledge hammer. "For a charity" The guy who told me the story (because I traitorously declared my allegiance to Jap bikes) was a bit embarrassed when he told me all those tough Harley guys couldn't kill the Honda with hundreds of sledge hammer hits.
"It kept running. Finally, we set it on fire."
The fuckwad who ruined this CB 450 did worse than any hammer. And it's fucking unrideable. WHY WHY WHY?

Coppertop

Lightning Grounding Cable provides light poles a path for lightning to go to earth and not into Oggy's skull should the worst case scenario be realized. LGC doesn't magically appear on those poles so some sad bastard has to get up a 5am and drive into the middle of a ranch with the braided copper and some split bolts and water clamps to instal it. And that copper will remain a bright gold color for one day. The next day it will appear coated with a black film...the result of hydrogen sulfide that wasn't sucked into Oggy's lungs lingering in the atmosphere and attacking the copper. That is only 24 hours. I thought someone had painted it but I was being naive.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Never Ending Maintenance

Gabriel Pro rear Shocks
 New shocks provided almost no difference in ride since the front coil springs and the rear leaf springs do the bulk of the suspension work. But it was on my 5 year old check list of things to do if I ever won the lottery and looking at my latest direct deposit I feel like I won the lottery . Some previous owner really cut corners with the shocks I took off. They looked like the $17 variety suitable for a light duty car.
Monroe Front Shocks

Sasquatch Exposed

Hippie in The Woods
 Rescued a few pictures from my failed wolf quest.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Bending It Like Bleacher

If there is someone out there who could explain the procedure for bending conduit like rigid or emt then I need some help. It isn't the measuring or the dozens of fittings and seals and offsets and struts and concrete anchors and compressors running in my ear that give me problems but the order of operations.
you plot a route, then measure, then plot a route based off your measurement, then visualize all the fittings that will add additional length, then subtract radius take ups. Conduit is a one shot deal...you don't get a second try.
170 × 113 - fotosearch.com

It's hard to tell what is a pipe for fluid or gas and what is a pipe for wires. I think the best way is to look at the fittings.

http://sr.photos1.fotosearch.com/bthumb/CRT/CRT018/78646-23mv.jpg

Today was kind of a nightmare as 99 degree hell fire broke loose and two injured workers seemed to suffer through their injuries but it was a cluster fuck of wrong measurements. And when you measure wrong with conduit and you have already gone through the effort of cutting and threading the pipe (involving an electric threader that threw me head over ass with torque like a tractor) and you see that it would be better to take off a half inch or maybe 3/4 of an inch, well, you've basically moved at least an inch (multiply by 2) closer to being fired because this is not wood and that .5 inch will cost everyone and the whole project 5-10 minutes if everything goes smoothly.
So, if there's anyone who has spent 70 hours a week bending conduit for class 1 division 1 hazardous atmospheres then please get in touch with me and explain how you learned without getting fired. What's a good METHOD...step 1. step 2. step 3? I need to get this right the first time and not be the asshole who is .5 inches off every time.
I hear a lot of people say about a cut, "We'll make it work." at noon and by 3pm what they really meant was "We'll do it all over again."
I'm too lowly to be making cuts and bends right now so trust me that of 5 people I can only ask my boss any questions and expect to get a good answer. And if all the veterans are still fucking up then I'm afraid it's harder than it looks. That's where you come in with good advice.

I have to say that after a few days of looking for tutorials on the internet I realize anyone who knows how to use a camera and upload shit HAS NO IDEA HOW TO BEND CONDUIT. The only skilled folks had nothing to do with the video or else have no idea how to explain themselves. It's really pitiful. I work in the remote plains of Texas and one video says I should use a blow dryer to heat pvc pipe to bend it. Yeah, FYI, we use the exhaust fumes from the trencher. I haven't seen a single real life example of how to run conduit. Not one trench. Not one pipe strap. Not one angry boss. Not one heat stroke coworker. Not one rattlesnake. Not one oil truck. Not one dust storm. Not one disconnect box. Nothing to make me think there are people with cameras doing real work in the real world.
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.