Michael F Simon Builders

Blog Post #2002   937,617 page views

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Yesterday the final piece of the puzzle was installed.  Wind and snow were no issue for these guys.

It started February 20th in zero degrees and a wind chill of -8 and snow

and ended 43 days later in 31 degrees and a wind chill in the 20s . . . .  and snow.

Paul Simon of Michael F Simon Builders  was just here for a final look to see what his builders created and everybody is happy.  It was funny as last week as the carpenters and a few other workers were cleaning up they were all taking selfies.  Group selfies, and so forth and Paul said there was one that had 2 guys taking a selfie and in the background are two more guys taking selfies.   Always a good sign.

Proud of their work I believe. We have never had someone who REALLY cared about their craft working on our house.  It was like watching Amish builders work on our deck. We have had a few houses built by Amish builders in our area and it was like they would bless each piece of wood before they nailed in. Very meticulous and not just slapping things up to save time.

Almost a 360 image from the corner of the deck (iPhone). 

And the odd thing is everybody was named John.  In fact at one point we had two Johns at the same time (that's what she said).  So if you are named John and are looking for work AND care about your craft, check these guys out.

All we gotta do now is pay them LOL.  If you are wondering how much this cost. Take your largest estimate you can think of and then add 50% more  . . . and then you will be only few grand short.  It's basically a new room.

No builders were killed in this project.

I mention this as we saw a show last night about the Empire State Building.  Only 4 workers were killed building the skyscraper.  It took just over 1 year to build, was finished 2 weeks ahead of schedule and only cost $25 million. The estimate was $50 million (about what the deck cost). 

In fact in the 1930s there were very very few deaths constructing skyscrapers with zero safety regulations.  Rockefeller Center there were like 3 deaths and The Chrysler Building had zero deaths.

WITH ZERO SAFETY REGULATIONS.

Like in football and hockey - if you want less violence, take away the helmets.

Another fact - if you throw a penny off the Empire State Building hoping secretly kill somebody below  . . . FAIL.  The penny will only get to a speed about about 25mph.  You might bruise somebody but your attempt for a secret homicide will make you the laughing stock of the mass murderer facebook page. 

And don't even think about going to Grand Central Station. There is no such place.  It's Grand Central Terminal.  A station is where trains go to let people off and then continue.  A terminal comes from the word terminus which means ending.  It's the end of the line.  COME ON PEOPLE!

And what about the color of the Golden Gate Bridge (not in New York).  The plan was to paint it black or gray.  SWEET, great choices!!   But since the Navy owned both pieces of land where the bridge is connected they said  NYET! (Sorry, we're not totally Russian yet, just practicing).

The Navy said since one of the pillars is smack dab in the middle of the bay they said "we will painting it yellow and black striped". 

Seriously - that was the plan.  HOWEVER - during construction all the metal had an orange-ish hue from rust and a primer to keep it from rusting.  So as the bridge kept getting bigger and bigger more and more of the orange was being seen and by the time it came to painting . . . people just felt orange should be the color.

So they went back to the drawing board and created a color that was about the same shade of the rusty primer/rust.  International Orange.  The color of the Blogger icon.

OH - how many people died?  The estimate was for every $1,000,000 in a project one person would die.  The bridge cost 35 million but only 11 workers lost their life.  It was the first project where the  engineers had a rule where ALL workers must wear specially made hard hats and a net was installed below the bridge to catch workers that might fall.

The net saved 19 workers (the total would have been 30 then).

and that is my construction story.

In baseball . . . . .

We all know I made a crap load of money playing poker, and I have done well with NFL and NBA wagering (for pretzels and pennies for fun)  but my one true love is baseball and that is literally impossible to wager on.

If you have watched the Brewers the last few nights you can understand why.  They lost the last 2 nights where the Angels offense was pretty pathetic AND every one of their hits was a dribbler JUSt out of reach.  I mean COME ON - a bases loaded broken bat Texas Leager wins the game? COME ON.   In the game where Peralta gave up 6 runs in the first inning, except for the home run every hit was a weak ass dribbler.

Its why they play 162 games.  So many tiny random things can determine a game its crazy.

I mention this because my Strat-o-matic team, which uses last years stats is really floundering with hitting.

Freddie Freeman had a slash line (Avg/OB/SLG) last year of .309/.388/.505  WELL after 14 games his slash line for ME is .125/.219/.125.  He had 108 RBIs last year and has 1 for me this year. He is bating 2nd and has Yelich and Trout behind him - 3 runs scored.

Last night my team was 0-19 with runners in scoring position.  7 singles, 5 walks, 4 stolen bases and I lose 1-0.  As a team I am batting LESS then .200 against right handed pitchers.  I have four regular players hitting less then .200

DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING!

OH - Wednesday night - NY Mets beat the Twins 9-6  The fifth inning rally

Single, Walk, Walk, Base Running blunder, Walk, Hit By Pitch, Walk, Walk, Walk, Single.

Nine guys in a row reached base with the middle 7 not getting a hit.

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Weather in Wisconsin

https://youtu.be/cG0ghNBb_xo



Have a great weekend