Low tech

The asphalt part of the project didn't last long and I didn't get as many hours as I was hoping for. Only got 12 hours when I was expecting like 25. I wasn't too bad though. Had to be out on the project by 8am, very relaxed and warm mid 70's degree weather. When there was nothing left except the asphalting, the project manager would take over an send me home, which was usually around 5pm. This manager was really nice, if there was something interesting going on somewhere else on the project, he'd send me out to observe. He would tell me about the decisions he made regarding the project and made sure that I knew what was going on. The contractor had to go pave somewhere else, so they left after placing 6 miles on shoulders on the inside of the highway. They dirt crew will come in now and do the grading and other work for the outside shoulders. The paving should start up again in 2-3 weeks.

The project was 40 miles west of the office. Just 2 miles outside the town of Kingman. I rarely went into town, because I had everything with me in the truck. One day the pavers quit early, so the manager took me into town to show me the mini concrete plant that there. I was amazed how small the operation was. All the plants that worked in in-town was totally automated with computers. To fill a truck it has to batch twice. There's only two people working. The batch man and the driver. The batch man's father actually owns the company. When there's multiple loads, the batchman will drive a truck and meet the driver halfway, trade trucks and return to the mini-plant where he'll load the truck up again. The weighing of material is done manually and all the tickets are hand written. It was interesting to see how everything actually worked. There was laid back fun feeling being at that plant. Probably helped that both the workers were young.