Rave: A Fortuitous Chance Encounter (baseball related!)

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Rave: A Fortuitous Chance Encounter (baseball related!)

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

The 'Botniks are building a house. Ground was broken in July, the house is closed in with wallboard and paint going in as I type.

But the last two weeks have been 'interesting'. The builder we used does not do excavation but had a recommended excavator which we put under contract because his quote was best. He excavated the foundation, put in the septic system and started on our driveway. All that done by the beginning of September when the builder came out to inspect the property for readiness to begin construction.

The land we bought was a 15-20% slope and at the time of this inspection we pointed out that the driveway was just excavated dirt and still needed rock. Our excavator said he had another job to start but would be back in October to rock the driveway. Our builder's project manager ok'ed the arrangement and started building.

Over the next two months, the project manager was replaced and my excavator kept begging off - too busy he said with the same builder's other jobs. When I called the new project manager the answer was always the same - no, we need that excavator on other jobs right now. When I pointed out the weather was indicating two weeks of rain around Thanksgiving, nothing changed. In fact, the excavator had told me after the septic installation that from then on, they would coordinate their activities through the builder.

The rains came, the drywalls and other contractors could not make it up the driveway and the neighbors were pissed at the state of the road with all the trucks having to turn around and creating ruts.

What was our builder's response? "Where is YOUR excavator? Why wasn't this done - you said at the inspection it was ready!" Boy was I pissed. A couple of phone calls found an excavator that worked with our watewr well pump provider and he came out the next day to have a look.

Long story short, this guy was a godsend. Ends up he had worked with the neighbors when they were building their houses so the neighbors got along right away - something that never happened with the first guy. In three days he got done what took my first guy weeks. And the quality was first rate. Even the framer who had been there to see both excavators told me how impressed he was.

On the second day he was there I acme out at lunchtime to see how it was going and his wife and son were there. The wife had a Cardinals hat so I had to ask "How about them Cardinals?". She pointed at her husband and said "He's the fan." I left it there because there was work to do.

The next day he calls me to come out to the house. He was going to connect the septic system but when he uncovered the tank, there was a big crack in it! Called the first excavator. "What are you doing in my tank?" I told him I was getting the work done that he didn't have time for. "We have a contract" he says. I read the contract and it doesn't have anything to say about work not done in a timely fashion. He's coming out next week to have a look. The new excavator saved my ass on that for sure. I would have never known because the first guy got it to pass inspection with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. I'm going to have to follow up there to see what the story is.

So yesterday I was out as the new excavator was leaving to tell him how much I appreciated all his hard work and I mentioned the Goldschmidt trade. That got us into a discussion of the Cardinals and baseball in general.

Ends up he is the nephew of Mark Parent, journeyman catcher from the 80's and 90's. Played with the Cubs and Pirates among several others. The excavator and his cousin Nick Parent also played professionally but never above the low minors. Now he and his wife are active in the local Little League. I told him I umpired last year in the neighboring little league and he was all over that. Looks like I'll be umpiring there in the spring.

So crisis with the builder / excavator ended up working out with an unexpected brush with MLB. I still have a loose end to work through with the septic system but do I feel lucky. Pretty awesome if you ask me.
Last edited by Joe Shlabotnik on December 7 18, 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Gashouse
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Re: Rave: A Fortuitous Chance Encounter (baseball related!)

Post by Gashouse »

Cool.

15-20% slope? I do some development reviews for cities and watersheds, and slopes like that start to flirt with development restrictions. Did you run into any of that? Do you have stormwater management criteria you need to meet?

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: Rave: A Fortuitous Chance Encounter (baseball related!)

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Gashouse wrote:Cool.

15-20% slope? I do some development reviews for cities and watersheds, and slopes like that start to flirt with development restrictions. Did you run into any of that? Do you have stormwater management criteria you need to meet?
We had to pay for a geotechnical engineer to sign off on our plans which covered all that.

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Radbird
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Re: Rave: A Fortuitous Chance Encounter (baseball related!)

Post by Radbird »

So how does he feel about Goldy?

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: Rave: A Fortuitous Chance Encounter (baseball related!)

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Radbird wrote:So how does he feel about Goldy?
He said "Really? That's awesome." And then he wanted to talk about his work!

Dumbass.

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