I also got to go on a long bike ride with my cousin Mike, proprietor of Suzy’s Soups in that Tower City Mall. When Pinera’s moved out and left all their equipment, Mike seized the opportunity and expanded his business. He employs 14 people, some from jail or treatment programs, that would struggle to find other jobs. His business is his ministry.

As Mike and I biked the city parks at sunrise, he proudly showed the city’s beauty. Being an engineer, though, I was fascinated by this view under some old bridges.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTxsIv5D28

The sign below describes our nation’s policy on infrastructure repair.

Not to be too pessimistic, though, I should also show the cool bridge construction project that was happening a couple miles away. I love to see the spans reaching out from the columns.

To give a sense of the girder size, check this photo and Mike and the Beam.

In another happy surprise, I noticed the red trucks with yellow wheels of High Steel Structures, Lancaster, PA that fabricated and delivered this steel. I worked for their sister company as a young project manager. It’s always nice to be away on vacation and see someone from home.

I spent the weekend in Cleveland and saw lots of windmill out there. From a solitary turbine at the Science Museum (that seemed more show than function) to various wind farms visible along the drive. Having never worked on any wind energy projects, I wonder about the true economics.

Is it like photo-voltaic solar, not remotely close to being economical without big government incentives? Or does the almost constant wind in some locations allow the installations to actually make energy sense?

It’s so difficult to get a straight answer to that type question. Seems everyone writes from their predetermined perspective. Do any of my readers have any insights into this?

Then Griffen Cambell hired Sean Benschop to operate a hydraulic excavator. Apparently Benschop tested positive for cannabis and Percocet after the accident and now sits in jail with no bail. He faces 6 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Griffen Campbell and the building owner were both on site at the time of the collapse, but their attorney says they didn’t know that Benschop was performing demo work. They thought he was only cleaning up debris. Of course, that’s a ludicrous statement.

They also stated that the building was to be torn down by hand, brick by brick. But there was no scaffolding on the job…just a hydraulic excavator pulling down the walls.

The workers in the adjacent Salvation Army retail store apparently complained about bricks falling on the roof for the past few days. It’s also reported that OSHA and the City building officials were on site previously and didn’t stop the demolition.

Seems to me that lots of folks had the opportunity and responsibility to say “No”, but none had the strength of convictions or the courage. Take the time now to think about this type situation. Prepare yourself to make that hard call if you find yourself in that position.

Somebody will lose some money, people will be mad at you, and you won’t know for sure if you are right or just being too cautious. But don’t be a coward and walk away from the hard decision, just hoping everything will fall right. When it doesn’t, it’s a big deal.

Then I considered the pile of bricks we clean up after the masonry work is done. Could he really have designed the building so not one brick had to be cut? Wasn’t there any bricks made wrong? None got taken home for a patio project?

At 55, I’m finally getting just a wee bit skeptical. TBW would say that it’s long overdue. She wonders how long my Pollyanna world view can continue.

Oh what the heck, maybe that architect really did get it just right. It’s worth believing just to continue to annoy TBW.

As I read G.K. Chesterton in my prayer time this morning (check out that hair),

I came across his definition of cramming. In The Universe According to K.K. Chesterton, he wrote:

Cramming: the tendency of a man to give everything to what he is studying except time, patience and reverence. It is a great mistake to suppose that people only cram for examinations; they cram for culture, they cram for success in life, they cram for Imperial wars, and morally and spiritually speaking, they cram for the Day of Judgment.

I’ll leave the Day of Judgment to you, but let’s talk about cramming for success in life and work. Do you give time, patience and reverence for the most important things? Do you even know the most important things?

I challenge you (and me) to invest time to live an examined life. Think about what things will help you move from where you are to where you want to be. Make a plan, then devise some strategies for the various ways your plan will likely fail.

Remember, failure doesn’t really matter. Your response to failure does.

If you want some worksheets to help you devise a plan, download this free copy of  Joyful Living: Build Yourself a Great Life!

“You felt it shake,” Jordan McLaughlin told CNN affiliate KYW. “There was people that actually fell over. People started screaming, they ran across the street. There was people inside the building, you heard them scream.”

He said he helped two people out of the building. Other bystanders, including construction workers, helped four or five others out in the moments after the collapse.

This first photo from Google Maps shows the street view before the building collapse.

While the next photo shows the rubble. Imagine shopping in that Thrift Store at the time of the collapse?

The crews demolishing the 4 story building certainly felt they were proceeding in a safe manner. But then the unexpected happened.

The day before, I got called to look at a wood frame renovation project we’re doing, because the structure wasn’t normal. As we stood there looking at what we saw vs what we had assumed, I kept asking the opinion of Andy Hess, the project superintendent. Andy looks like a big old biker (which he is), but knows more about how wood structures actually work than I ever will. His practical knowledge trumps my theoretical knowledge.

I’m glad I learned, early in my career, to ask lots of questions of the folks doing the work and to listen intently and respectfully to their answers. They don’t always say it in the clearest manner, but the best insights and solutions often come from these guys.

Arrogance on the jobsite is always the wrong approach.

The Freak Collapse idea, though, comes from another sort of design problem. Many bridges were designed to work only if each of the components works. In other words, they don’t have a redundancy in their design, allowing one component to fail but still keeping the bridge from falling.

For example, the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River north of Seattle recently collapsed because an oversized truck clipped one of the trusses. The photo below shows the dropped span. A redundant design would prevent the complete failure if one component fails.

Of course, redundant design costs more to construct. So many efficient engineers designed and constructed the lowest cost structures that met the design code. They call these “Fracture Critical Bridges” and many states still allow this type of design.

The fascinating question, “How cautious do we want to be?” needs to be answered again and again. We need to address it as a society and as individuals.

I’m designing a 90′ high building right now and contemplating how much redundancy to put into the steel beam hanging grid just below the roof. I want to keep the cost low, but what if one of those welds fails in a few years. 90′ drops don’t end well.

We all need to consider how we live our lives. How much do we move to security and how much to efficiency/freedom? Where do you tend to land?

Here’s a list of green energy projects Google has undertaken.

GOOGLE’s $1 billion in clean energy investments

1. $12 million in the Jasper Power Project, a solar power plant to be built in South Africa

2. $200 million in the Spinning Spur Wind Farm, a 161-megawatt wind farm in West Texas

3. $75 million in the Rippey Wind Farm, a 50-megawatt wind farm in Iowa

4. $94 million in four solar photovoltaic projects being built by Recurrent Energy near Sacramento

5. $75 million to create a fund with Clean Power Finance to help up to 3,000 homeowners go solar

6. $280 million in a SolarCity fund to help 8,000 customers go solar

7. $168 million in BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah project, a solar thermal plant currently being built in California’s Mojave Desert

8. Investment in the Atlantic Wind Connection, critical transmission infrastructure for offshore wind power

9. $157 million into Alta Wind, a wind farm in the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California

10. $100 million in the Shepherd’s Flat wind farm in Oregon

11. $38.8 million into two wind farms in North Dakota

12. $5 million in a solar power plant in Brandenburg, Germany

It seems to me most of these investments make no economic sense without huge government subsidies. I wonder why so much gets spent on technologies, from what I can find, aren’t even close to being economically viable.

I hope Google can prove me wrong. I’d love to see some published numbers that show all the lifecycle costs and the true energy rate delivered.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxplhW7tzhU

As you do your work this week, remember that the guy running the crane that day was not planning to have an accident. He just wasn’t paying proper attention. Don’t let this week be your last, from something you can prevent.

By the way, that crane accident tore the balconies off the apartment building and damaged a few cars, but no humans were injured.

I can justify shooting groundhogs in the meadow just to help avoid holes that could break the donkeys leg. But this was his first varmit kill. He said a prayer over the carcass. Then we moved into the gutting and butchering stage.

As we gutted, he got a bit rammy with the intestines, tore them and got a terrible wiff. That led him to deposit his recently eaten supper on the grass next to us. But he got right back to work. We eventually got the guts out and started trying to carve chunks of meat off the carcass. He worked at this for quite a while and got a decent little pile of meat.

When I told TBW and his parents that we were going to make groundhog stew tomorrow, the response wasn’t favorable. TBW was positive it would be dangerous and we’d get sick (where does she get this stuff?). Clay’s father, though, looked up recipes online and agreed to do the cooking.

We ended up with an excellent meal of groundhog, carrots, broccoli and onions, with lots of spices. It tasted like a Chinese stir fry. Why do I tell this story? A hunter’s first kill shouldn’t just be discarded. The rite of passage of killing, cleaning, cooking and eating produces a permanent lesson.

One of my past customers and friends recently taught me how to shoot archery. As I practice, I’m impressed how well the basics work. I’ll continue to make mistakes, but move toward competence by always coming back to the basics.

As you look at your construction skills and projects, consider the rites of passage that you’ve endured. Think about how you should be helping others with theirs. What are the basics that you should be coming back to in order to improve?

Today, you are right here. To journey to where you want to go requires a first step, then another, then another. As you take that step and contemplate the next, remember rites of passage and the importance of the basics. And please pass me more groundhog stew.