A New Project

So after working with my grandfather and my father this past weekend i must have done something good because my grandpa asked me to help him this next weekend with somethings and a little extra cash in my pocket. He said this would be a good way to start the construction job this summer and i could get a little head start before taking classes at kirkwood next fall. He called me yesterday and asked me if i would want to pick up the site after they were done. He said i would get to watch them do like the finishing touches on the project. I will be like picking up the loose nails and i will be getting use to measuring boards and finding studs in the house and stuff. I got to thinking that this might be actually pretty fun. He taught me a lot on Sunday and
hopeefully i will learn a lot the next weekend. I also drove by some of the houses he just finishe building and they were pretty nice. I got to thinking when i start to work i can help build some of these big houses and maybe build my own house like that. My grandpa has done a lot of projects in his days he told me about some of them and how he loves his job. He has remodled the Best Western Longbranch hotel in Cedar RApids, the Hacienda Las Glorias in Cedar Rapids and he has built about four houses in my family alone... including mine. These are just some of the jobs he talked about but, I look back to when i was little and i remember going to see him at a job site and running around wanting to help. Now look at me i want to do this as my career. And i want my kids to come help me and want to help and then they can pursue this as a career. i am very excited to finallly get started in this and hopefully I will have a job working with my grandpa by the start of next week. IT is all just coming so fast and im getting excited. ....

My First Project

This past weekend my grandpa and my dad were working on the house. They were residing the house and they also tore down the deck and we built a new one.. So i called my dad on Sunday since i didn't have to work and he told me he was doing this with my grandfather... So i got dressed and figured this would be a good opurtunity to work with my grandpa and maybe learn some things. First he taught me how to put up siding. It was actually pretty easy to do. I don't remember what kind of siding it was but it just like almost popped right in. I remember i asked my grandpa if this was a big project he did with his business and he told me this was one of the most popular project he did.

So we finished the siding and it was probably one of the easiest things i've done. It was not hard at all. After we finished that we started on the deck. My grandpa had me pull the old boards off of the deck and measured how long and wide they were. They had already gotten all o the new wood but my grandpa wanted me to measure all of it just so i could learn how to actually measure them the correct way. He then taught me how to us an electric saw. it was pretty easy but then i had thought about the blog i wrote not to long ago about the accidents. I told my grandpa about it and he told me the number one thing not to do is think about hirting yourself because that is when you are going to actually hurt yourself. so i tried not to think about it but after i was finished i had all of limbs and my fingers so that was pretty good.

When we had got done with cutting all of the boards we assembled all of the boards back to where the old ones used to be. we didn't do to bad. THere were a couple boards i had cut wrong but for the most part i did good.

The worst part of the day was when i had to pick everything up and load all of the old boards into the truck to take down to my grandpa's house and then we hd to unload it.But the best part of the day i think was just getting to be hands on with the tools and the work itself. I was talking with someone at my job i have now when i first started and they told me when i was training to be hands on not to just stand back and watch. So i did and i think it helped. So when i worked with my grandpa and with my dad this weekend i took that into consideration and i thought it helped me and hopefully it will help me in the long run.