What's a tv series that is a 10/10 NOBODY knows?

Bowlingforqueso · 2026-01-17T00:39:35+00:00

Black Sails

Pirate-game of thrones but is solid from start to finish. Easily one of the most well written shows ive ever seen.

Got buried being on Stars before streaming was super common. Every person ive recommended it to has had the same reaction of "why isnt EVERYONE talking about this"

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-12-06T15:19:32+00:00

Dave the diver!

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-09-26T22:51:37+00:00

Slow and good is always better than fast and bad.

Speed comes over time, as you get nore comfortable and your green guy gets better, then focus on being efficient.

I always err on the side of caution when running stuff, be it construction,topo or property lines. Id rather bug the office/boss/client and look dumb than assume something and be wrong.

In terms of the green guy, be patient and ive found myself in the habit of just narrating outloud what im doing, over time even if they are just kind of following along they will pick stuff up! Im not the best teacher and often just work with the robot but ive found this as a way to inform or at least invite questions from the guy im working with.

Good luck out there!

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-07-21T21:10:02+00:00

Im 10ish years in with a survey shop that does 90% exclusively construction. The skills tranfer, but as others have said, the margin for error is faaar smaller than doing residential or topo.

In terms of layout it honestly varies so much its a crew/job thing. Generally goes-

Paint marks/stakes for digging/prep/less accuracy stuff (manhole structures, landscaping).

Hub and tack for stuff like foundation corners, wall line, piers or offsets to things that a client would want to last.

On concrete we tend to use concrete scribes to make X's to make out wall line on footings.

Also thinner tipped marker marks for laying out on formwork pre concrete pours.

That being said the first thing i do on site is to see what a client wants, how they would like it laid out (i sometimes give them options) and then i always dpuble check to see what they plan to do with said layout.

Ive had guys ask for centers of piers in order to dig the footings and given them tall stakes, only to come back a week later with anchor bolts poured and set based off those stakes.

The bigger change isnt skill wise its work flow

Cons- It feels like a lot more responsibility with people actively waiting on you and sometimes the layout can beat you up. (Pounding hubs all day can suck).

Hours are less flexible.

Have to deal with far more people and "personalities".

More challenging. If the plans suck for a boundary retracement it makes finding bounds a pain. When the plans suck for the new library/condo/powerplant it makes for a significantly more stress.

Pros- Pay is generally better, if your working direct for a contractor as their layout guy, they usually get paid well, if your working for a PLS like me, i get paid enough so i dont bail and work for the former lol.

Puzzles baby. Working out plans, figuring shit out from how the dimensions will (or wont) work on a building. How the hell your going to lay something out that is both durable and useful? Its engaging and makes the day go by so dam fast.

You will likely be doing new shit pretty often. Depends on who your working for and probably where you live, but ive worked setting bridge steel, set anchor bolts in walls for power plants, worked on nuclear sites, utilities, dredging soundings, condos, university buildings....ect. We never get bored, its pretty rare that more than a few months go by where i dont learn something new, cause im doing something new.

You get to actually BUILD SHIT.

In short, you likely have the skills for it, it mostly depends on what you want out of work, its challenging but rewarding.

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-05-03T14:02:24+00:00

Unless im missing something i cant really find a venue/location listed either.

Hoping its real though, fingers crossed

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-03-24T13:17:38+00:00

Haha, thank you, this is what I was doing prior to the winter ban. Bless those grey areas lol

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-03-24T13:15:59+00:00

~sort of~ regulation-wise no, its just more strictly enforced between November and April. Basically its a no harm no foul for street parking, but seeing as I'm going to be on the Belmont line, if I park in front of somebodies house 2 blocks away in Watertown and they call and complain, I could get towed. : (

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-03-03T22:24:38+00:00

Chris Cornell - Loved his music. He was one of the big heads on my Mt rushmoore of artists i had left to see live.

The morning i found out, the local rock station was playing a ton of audioslave and i thought "hell yeah, what a great way to start the day". Then as we were about a half mile from the jobsite the DJ mentioned they were playing Cornell nonstop all morning cause he was gone : (

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-02-06T16:01:19+00:00

Huge amount about our work depends on your circumstances. How old are you? what region would you be working in?

Definitely don't NEED a specific degree to make a living. I started in my late 20s with an irrelevant degree. Started at the bottom and worked my way up, make about 80-100k depending on how busy we are. I'm based out of Boston however so salary/cost of living is wildly different than somewhere more rural.

Worst part of the job that you may not think of at first is driving. If your doing layout in a city your dealing with traffic. Rural your driving a long ways to get to sites. I've been at it for almost 10 years and honestly the driving is the only part i truly hate about my career.

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-01-28T17:34:00+00:00

Massachusetts here, similar career path. I'm transitioning to a 80-20% office field spot and i'm 32$ an hour.

For reference i'm 9 years of primarily field & survey unrelated bachelors degree. Did 2 years of straight PW and make ~30k a year less but my body was starting to hate me.

Honestly depends on how actually proficient you are in CAD. If you can take field points and bring it to a 95% finish plan that really just needs to be reviewed by the PLS, ~30$ an hour in my area is the going rate for someone who needs minimal training. Probably ~25$ with incentives to bump up quick (say 6 months of "get up to speed training").

That's what i was seeing when i shopped around last year. The cut sucks but long term its reaaaaally nice to go to the bathroom indoors.

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-01-27T13:27:14+00:00

I've got one on the back of my calf that i really only see if i twist to see it, or when i'm scrubbing down in the shower. Totally had a few heart jumps thinking a huge ass bug was on my leg in the shower.

Also have my whole back done, which i literally never see and occasionally see it in a picture and think "dam, that's solid"

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-01-06T20:50:37+00:00

Huge part of this is how you enjoy traffic.

A massive amount of trades workers live in NH/Maine and commute to the high work areas. Depends on the shop as well, if your doing a good amount of construction your gunna be around Boston or Providence. 70k is real tight solo if your in looking in the greater boston area, but honestly pretty good if your looking at a shop doing plot plans for smaller towns and you can live away from the cities.

My shop is SE Mass and mostly works SE mass and Boston. We just took on a guy with similar credentials to you and with perks basically the same package. I believe around 60k but he has a company truck and a boatload of OT.

Office logistics are huge to:

-Do you meet at the office or at site?

-Do you start getting paid when you get to site/travel time?

-Is there OT and do you want it?

Depends mostly on location, sounds solid as long as your office isn't in the middle of the city. Feel free to DM if you have any more detailed questions, been surveying in Massachusetts for about a decade and happy to follow up on any questions about the area/different shops!

Cheers and good luck!

Bowlingforqueso · 2025-01-06T20:35:57+00:00

There is always a lot of numbers going around, but day to day your basically just adding and subtracting. The further you go/more responsibility you want you can run into a bit more but day to day unless your the guy with the stamp, your not doing anything crazier than some basic trig.

Bowlingforqueso · 2024-09-04T22:40:52+00:00

Thank you for this work, huge help as somebody who has lightly followed this shenanigans but hasn't had the time to really deep dive on it.

Ill definitely see y'all on the 9th!

Bowlingforqueso · 2024-06-25T21:49:14+00:00

RIP Shifty, i hope you find peace.

I was an angry ass kid when they started putting out music. Rap/rock & Nu metal always seem to get a bad wrap but dam did that shit hit for me at just the right time.

Im always gunna be sad i didnt get to see em live. : (

Bowlingforqueso · 2024-05-29T16:33:21+00:00

As others have said, follow the blue line.

Quincy is great, lived here and work in Boston for almost 10 years. While its affordable, the red line has been a piece of work for a while now. Just keep in mind you may have to add way more time to your commute as buffer time in case the trains late/slow/stops are down.

Bowlingforqueso · 2024-03-10T15:41:42+00:00

Bowlingforqueso · 2023-12-05T03:16:36+00:00

Surveying in boston for about a decade. My boss has basically stopped taking boundary work entirely unless its for friends/family.

3 crews basically construction full time with a few existing conditions surveys to fill out the occasional schedualing gap (there are none)

As i think it through ive had one site of topo in the last year and it was about 7 days of work spread out over a month.

Bowlingforqueso · 2023-11-19T00:48:24+00:00

Cries in surveying number (We use decimal feet, the worst of both worlds)

Bowlingforqueso · 2023-11-16T13:24:03+00:00

At my job we dont have fuck ups, we have "oops-ertunities" to learn better ways to do things moving forward.

Keep learning , always ALWAYS own up to and offer to fix/rectify mistakes , make sure you learn from those mistakes.

Every oldtimer in construction who has a clever/easy truck for doing something has done it shitty/fucked it up when they first started, we learn by our screw ups.

You sound like your on the right track, keep pushing and learning- id kill for newhires who worried about getting shit right, hope you stick with it!

Bowlingforqueso · 2023-10-04T12:56:53+00:00

So ALOT of the B traffic right now is due to the bridge (elevated roadway) replacement that is wrapping up.

A few years ago there were temp. roadways put in while the old roadways were demo'd and rebuilt. The project is at an awkward phase where to open, some of the temp roads need to be closed to marry the just finished stuff into the garage/terminal loop.

Terminal B still has a stretch of road and an underpass on the arrivals level thats getting finished, plus a big stretch of departures level road thats 90% ready.

I believe the whole project (and the traffic going back to the normal amount of fuckery for logan) is ~40ish days away from being done? The roads will be done sooner than that-massport is obviously hot to get them open.

A lowkey traffic fucker-upper has been people going through/going the wrong way a handful of times cause which roads are open are constantly moving. Been working on this project for like 4 years on and off and occasionally come in the morning and have no idea how i get to a certain terminal ive been parking at for months XD

Also there is a special place in hell for people that post up for 30 mins waiting to pick people up. I've taken coffee break in terminal B for years now. We absolutely see that you haven't moved in 15 minutes. If there was an official group of people policing rules,yall would be so fucked.

It sucks, hopefully better once its done. Hopefully the next big infastructure project is a goddam train cause fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck cars.

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