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Happy Birthday Conarb

Thanks Mountain Man, I'll be 77 tomorrow the 26th, it's been 62 years since I walked across the street where a carpenter was building his own home with the help of his carpenter buddies, he said: "Don't just stand their kid, do something useful." He threw me a hammer and told me to start pulling the nails from form boards, he also started paying me 50¢ a week (a real four bit piece). When I got home and told my father he said good, this is a way you can earn the money to put yourself through college, you sure as Hell aren't going to a state supported school and I'm not paying since "If you don't earn it you don't deserve it." After the carpenter finished his house he got me a job with his contractor, I got $1 an hour, every time the business agent showed up the other carpenters gave him a six-pack of beer (they always kept one in one of their trucks) telling him I was just a college kid working his way through. After graduating I went back to work as a carpenter to support a pregnant wife, soon became friends with an Oakland building Inspector, he encouraged me to buy a code book and start memorizing it, we'd go out for a beer together and he'd test me on my code knowledge, and here I am, still working.

BTW, for those interested here is a home I build in 1983 that just went on the market, in fact another one that I built in 1976 that just sold, many of my customers are selling to get out of California and the taxes here. Over all these years I've built everything from hospitals, to schools, to apartment buildings, the main control building at the Chevron Refinery in Richmond. and probably my proudest were two cyclotrons at the Lawrence radiation Laboratory in Berkeley.

Here is a picture of a home I'm building now in Silicon Valley, this is $36,000 Finnish fireplace that supposedly emits no smoke so the owner can burn on no-burn days, the openings are awaiting delivery of German triple pane windows being fabricated in Canada. When the red iron went up I was walking the beams directing the crane. BTW, Chapter 17 Special Inspections have come in under the $100,000 budget I estimated, the owner wants to know why he has to pay for both county inspectors and special inspectors, the structural engineer is from Poland, it didn't help when he told the owner that in Europe all building inspectors are certified welding inspectors and do all inspections, of course he's real happy that I beat the fascist Green and fire sprinkler codes. I've got a $50 million dollar home on hold until after the election
 
Thanks everyone.

Francis Vineyard said:
Happy Birthday Conarb! Hope you got everything you wanted without memorizing the new codes
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That first code book was a UBC back in 1957, it was about ¾" thick as I recall, sure wish I'd kept it. the preface said the purpose of the code was to protect the health and safety of the public and to increase the tax base, it has now replaced the increase the tax base part with "the general welfare", too bad it didn't stick with taxes, it's now the vehicle of social engineering.
 
happy birthday conarb. let's all chip in a buck of our conarb dollars and get the old boy some code books with enlarged print and lots of pictures!
 
Happy Birthday ConArb. Your work is beautiful, and the details are worth study.

You've done well!
 
Happy birthday CONARB!!! Make sure you're not in a sprinklered building when they light all those candles on your cake!!
 
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