Oh Yeah, Tobin is actually working here...

Well, everyone seems to be wondering about work. To be honest it has taken this long to blog about it because it has taken this long to know even where to begin…

So I (Tobin) have taken over the blog for a piece to try and give everyone a feel for what we are doing. First, I have to say that I am enjoying going to work, so that is great. It is in a different role than I am used to on a daily basis, so that too is good because variety is the spice of life. Our (Cobalt Construction Company – my uncle’s company) role is that of Designer & Project Engineer, managing and making sure that the work is being done according to spec and in the contract time schedule. Not pounding nails on a daily basis but walking a lot. The job is 638 hectares (~260 acres) and my only mode of transport from one side of the job to the other is my feet; look out guys who go elk hunting with me in the fall – I will be in the best shape of my life!!

The PROJECT
The job we are working on is a 45MW Solar Power “Farm”, or solar power plant. When complete it will be the largest solar plant in Europe. Just down the road is a 24MW plant finished just recently by the same companies we are working with and a 9MW currently underway by the same companies. These pictures are of “the 24” (completed) and “the 9” (under construction still).

The panels are mounted to “tracker bars” which sit on top of piers and then computers allow the panels to “track” the sun for the best efficiency. This “tracker system” requires certain tolerances in pier movement and slope. To achieve these tolerances the “fields” (think rolling hills like home) have to be prepared to have piers driven in them. The ground has to be compacted to be strong enough to hold the piers (as well as be “mud hole free” so the pier driving equipment doesn’t sink during construction), drain water in the final completed form so as not to have puddles everywhere, service roads be constructed, and the high spots cut off and the low spots filled to bring the site slopes into tolerance for the tracking system. This is the scope of our portion of the work. Prepare a “farmscape” to drive piers. Once pier driving begins on a section, our job in that section is complete. We have been brought in because the standards realized on “the 9” & “the 24” have been sub-par as far as the client is concerned.

Seems simple enough. With our usual American construction machinery, techniques, understanding, and technical know how it would be by our standards a “walk in the park”. However, if the last five weeks have taught me anything, it is that these things are as foreign here as a polar bear walking the Sahara. Not that it is bad… or wrong… just TOTALLY FOREIGN!!! We have learned that even when we think we are communicating ideas and everyone is saying ‘Si, Si!!!’ that 75% of the time we are all agreeing to different things. This has caused much confusion and misunderstanding.

The CHALLENGE
Think of it this way. You have been asked to design and then monitor/manage the making of a wedding cake for the Prince in a foreign land. You investigate the local baking instruments and ingredients and then devise a plan. Now it is time to get the job done. The wedding is coming and the schedule is fixed. You are brought onto a team consisting of the overall wedding planners plus the royal bakers plus the local baker who will actually be making the cake per your design. Each group has representatives with different understanding levels and backgrounds. Meetings abound and much paper is generated, questioned, interpreted, misunderstood, and argued about. Great sums of money are involved which only further muddies the water. Meanwhile the work has started and as 15+ “managers” are meeting trying to get the job sped up, one lowly baker’s helper is beating eggs with a butter knife. Now, your plan needs eggs beat, but the egg beater is the best tool for the job, there is one in the bakery but they are beating eggs with a butter knife… and not near fast enough to meet the schedule. So this is argued at great length by managers in meetings. Pretty soon, the arguing works and more baker’s helpers start beating eggs and so more eggs get beat(still with butter knives) and you start to see signs that egg beaters in this foreign land are the same as in your land but here they use them for frosting cakes and butter knives for beating eggs….? Hmm… Not really wrong… Just different. Then you finally communicate your point about the time too many eggs are beaten and other things need to be done but since egg beating has been “SO IMPORTANT” in continues while the adding of sugar etc. becomes the topic of misunderstanding and the beaten eggs go bad…

This goes on over each step of baking the cake while the schedule falls behind by the day because of misunderstandings and misperceptions, which leads to mistrust. After several weeks of this and much consternation on your part, you begin to realize the problem is that where you come from you make cakes from boxed mixes and these foreign people make cakes from scratch. So it becomes obvious that your plans and procedures don’t include the same info that your bakers are used to. They have been trying desperately to understand your design/plan and comply with your request but you have assumed a bunch of things (i.e. that your foreign baker bakes things the same way you do) that is not the case. They are trying but it makes NO SENSE to them so they “mess” up and you chastise them but the whole time they “thought” they were doing what you asked. Meanwhile the “wedding of the century” marches ever closer and “managers” jobs are on the line. Tensions rise. Misunderstandings abound. Futures are in jeopardy. Quality suffers. And all you care about is that the quality of the cake is better than the last wedding disasters (knowing it will never get to the quality you are used to), cost close to your budget, and get finished in time for the wedding most of all, feeling pretty sure the wedding WILL happen, WITH a cake, even if the quality is not what you have been hired to achieve and care greatly about.

And to top it all off, the normal weather patterns that should have been providing dry enough weather to dry muddy ground and allow for compaction, have been altered by a volcano in Iceland and unseasonably high rain has fallen actually making more mud instead of less. For those of you familiar with dirt work in the mud… well let’s just say that working mud is futile. And this dirt has a very high clay content so we are talking MUD/PLAYDOUGH. Sinkholes abound and many a machine has been stuck, and I mean buried stuck!!
Capito? (Understand?)

The GOOD NEWS
However, if you are about to despair, don’t. We are beginning to develop mutual respect with the head baker in the bakery and his individual bakers. Drier weather has presented itself, dirt is moving in productive ways, and we are finding ways to improve efficiency as well as reduce the size of the cake to help reduce the time frame to bake it. Understanding is getting through as well through interpreters (head baker speaks no English) and the operators (the idea of a foreman seems to be foreign here) are starting to understand soil mechanics and how to make a “strong” fill and protect each day’s work from possible rain overnight. I can’t tell you how many lago di Montalto’s (lake of Montalto) have been created and when it comes to moving dirt, lakes are the enemy!!!! Keep praying for us because only God can make this a success, know that I am learning lots, and that the experience is definitely worth the price of admission!!!

The SIDE OBSERVATION
So, it dawned on dad and I just this week. Think of the Tower of Babel and God confusing men’s speech. After the past five weeks, I totally understand God’s method of separating peoples. When the language thing doesn’t work… nothing works. And they didn’t even have an interpreter!!! I know now that in one fell swoop, God divided peoples. Just like that! I imagine it would even divide a family. Communication is SO vital to our existence as human beings and without it… well… let’s just say the “tower” project came to a SCREACHING HALT in one instant. Problem solved!!! ‘Nuff said.

Confused? So are we but God is Great, the sun is shining today, and we are making Italian friends!

Ciao a tutti!


Machines moving dirt and some brush being burned...

One of many problem water spots, cursed Lago di Montalto...

Moving some dirt...

Part of “the fleet”! Our equipment spread is probably one of the largest in Italy right now. (We maxed out the Rome rental yard!!!)...

A compactor rolling some “finish grade”...

FINALLY!!! The first piers on the 45MW. (These are still the only ones… 13 of over 40,000!)...

I'm lovin' it...

Along came Saturday and the pouring rain...and I mean pouring...ALL day! The Asparigus Festival was rained out in Montalto :( So we go exploring...Tobin was in the mood for some REAL breakfast pastry (well, real as in what we are used to)...off we go. Pescia Romana was kind enough to supply pastries to us (for a fee of course ;) but they were close enough for goverment work! We went north to the city of Grosseto...it poured...so we decided to park and take a walk through the old town. Here me with my new umbrella (isn't it so me! Green and with green polka dots...I really thought that this was a splurge when I bought it 2 weeks ago...I thought it would immediately stop raining...just because I bought it...who knew it was a necessity)...

Inside the walls of the old town/city center/centro, there is very little car traffic (I am afraid we might be getting a ticket for accidentally driving into the centro sent home to us...Yikes). There is a lovely church...San Lorenzo Cathedral...

Here is the inside...I love the stripes...all marble of course...

A little wet, we happened upon a sign pointing the way to a McDonalds...what a sight for sore eyes! We haven't been particularly homesick for much (besides of course our family and friends...and maybe my craft room)...but seeing those golden arches...well, we NEEDED to go there for lunch. After a little touring of the city...we found it...the golden arches never looked so good...

It was quite the experience ordering our food...I thought I would be in trouble (I am such an expert in Italian, you know) but it went rather smoothly, it almost seemed like I was really talking with someone...until she asked if I wanted a Coke...I asked for a Diet...blank stare until I remembered...Coca Cola Light! So I wasn't really speaking English...I was speaking McDonalds! I have to be honest...a Big Mac may have never tasted so good! It tastes just like home...even the fries were the same! Amazing! The kids really enjoyed their Happy Meals...

The rest of the afternoon, we drove through the Tuscan countryside. We were on some serious hilltops and could imagine that there were amazing views to be seen...if we weren't in a cloud! Here is a pic of some rainy Tuscan country...

We happened upon a really neat city...Pitigliano...we will be returning, since it was raining we just did a drive by...but what a town and view...

Even in the rain, we are enjoying this crazy adventure. We have offically been here an entire month...crazy! I am starting to at least hear words when people are talking to me...I just don't know what the words mean! It is a bit frustrating not being able to have the simplest conversation with someone...hopefully, it gets better. I just keep trying, no matter how dumb I sound or how intimidating it seems...

It is seriously unseasonably rainy here. Not that I can tell what the news or newspapers would say about it, but we have heard that this rain is being caused by that volcano in Iceland. I am not complaining (aside from not being able to actually dry ones laundry) it is actually pleasant weather...at least for me! I am enjoying the rain and my Mary Poppins umbrella!

I hope that you are having a wonderful day!

Ciao a tutti!

This and that...

Another post of random things...

The weather here is unusual to me...well, I am used to MT weather and apparently it has been snowing like crazy there! The actual temperature is what one would say is pleasant, but it is unusual to me. The sun (when it is out) is VERY intense! Clothes on the line take 2 hours MAX to dry in the direct intense sun...I can get 4 loads washed and dried on the line in one day when the sun is out. But (and that is a BIG but), when it is overcast...it is SO humid! Now I am from NJ and have experienced significant humidity (think August on the Jersey shore)...this is completely different. It is most humid (at least at this time) on cloudy days...so humid that your clothes just feel damp all day long. Clothes hanging to dry inside just DO NOT dry out! They could sit there for days and never get completely dry! When you get into bed, your sheets feel wet! Coming from the arid west...this is something to get used to! So, is it MORE humid than NJ? My answer is that it is different humid, but it certainly feels like it on those cloudy days!

Here is a pic of water fountains in Rome...they are all over the city and run constantly. They are actually quite refreshing in that intense sun!

We are loving the new and different playground equipment here. They just do things differently and the newness is certainly fun for the kids. Again, most of this stuff is probably illegal in the States...must be why it is fun! Gwen certainly didn't even flinch at this rope ladder...

Italian coffee! It is seriously STRONG stuff...high octane, if you will. I am enjoying my espresso each morning...although italians might think I am ruining it by adding at least a cup of hot water to it (besides with enough cream and sugar, anything would taste better)! But it sure wakes a person up! So here is my italian coffee maker...note the pot of water in the background...

I did manage to bring some toys for the kids...some were a hit, some were a waste of space! I certainly should have brought more books...I forgot that everything would be in italian! So we only have a couple with us (my thoughts were that they were heavy and we wouldn't need them)...I broke out Gwen's few books and she really wants me to read them to her (the same three over, and over, and over, and over, well you get the point). One success was the legos! They keep Case busy for hours...

The days are getting more routine for me (which is a good thing for the kids) but I keep forgetting to take pictures...there is plenty to chat about, but it is much nicer to have pics to look at. Tomorrow I will try to get pictures of the local market and my favorite bread store!

Ciao a tutti!