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A big change order
I just finished analyzing a major change order for the my building. I’ve handled smaller ones, but this is the first time I’ve stared down a quarter million bucks in bite. Before sending out comments to my contractor, I thought I’d type up how it went, since this week-long push has been a good distillation of various tactics that I have found useful for tackling an unfamiliar, scary project.
- Jump in and thrash around.
When confronted with a new and difficult task, the first danger is analysis paralysis. The best antidote is to start by assuming the initial efforts will be wasted. Knowing the first few hours are inevitably suboptimal, I am mentally free to just jump in. The sooner I jump in, the sooner I’ll to cobble together a better strategy for completing the project.
Unless there is an obviously better first step, a good default is to categorize a project into smaller pieces, so I started last Wednesday evening by sorting out the subcontractor bids. But I wasn’t done thrashing around yet. Thursday morning, I started analyzing the first couple bids. Only by jumping into the deep end did I realize that I was missing a critical item. It is hard to analyze changes without the original. I needed to get an older set of plans from the office.
- Make room to breathe.
I didn’t have an opportunity to go to the office till Sunday, but intervening these days weren’t wasted. I spent Thursday afternoon and Friday clearing out a bunch of little tasks and emails. I spent Saturday doing absolutely nothing, we often underestimate the important of rest! On Sunday I picked up the plans. Even though I did not do anything on this project, these days were critical days that set me up for the big push. It was important to recharge my energy and have the confidence that there weren’t any urgent work fires while I spent the next few days offline.
- Eat the biggest frog first.
Monday morning was got chewed up with random work detritus, and I finally started in earnest during the afternoon. I quickly realized I needed to step back. I couldn’t analyze numbers until I had a better grasp of the basis for these prices. I needed to grind through every line on the architect’s change narrative as well as every cloud and delta on their drawings sheets.
So that’s what I did on Tuesday. Being nitpicky has negative connotations, but it was the necessary tactic for this effort. I highlighted every item on the sheets and compiled any thoughts and comments into a detailed list. I had hoped this would take half a day, but took the entire day. However, I now had a thorough grasp of what had changed. Just as important, I was now confident in my grasp of this knowledge.
- Tackle the easy ones first.
On Wednesday (a week after I started) I finally started on the main task – crunching the numbers. Unlike the previous day, I took the opposite approach and started with the easy bids first. Since I am new to being an owner’s rep, I don’t have a deep well of experience. Heck, I was still designing the spreadsheet for compiling the numbers! It made more sense to slowly tiptoe into the deep end, better to make my mistakes on little items before tackling the really complex bids. By the end of the day I had gone through analyzed all fifteen bids and plugged their numbers into my now-refined spreadsheet.
- Tidy up your mess.
The last 5% of the project always takes an inordinate amount of energy to finish well, but these last steps will separate a mediocre product from a good delivery. In this case, I needed to clean up the spreadsheet. The analysis was the hard work, but it won’t do much good for the contractor if it isn’t readable. Plus, I won’t be looking at these numbers for a couple weeks before the revised pricing comes back. If I quit before getting thoroughly organized, I will waste a lot more time getting back into the numbers after my short term memory has faded. As always, suck it up, finish strong.
This effort involved quite a bit of tedious grunt work, but life is rarely glamorous. I had been architecting long enough to jump in without much fear, but I’m new enough as an owner’s rep to be pleasantly surprised at how smoothly this effort went. The opening and closing steps are consistently critical for any endeavor. The art is found in aptly playing the middle three tactics during the meat of the project. It’s a game of mixing and matching different approaches to keep progress moving effectively.
All in all, it went fairly well this time, which must be why I’m bragging about it on this blog.
Thanks to the cadre at Akimbo who accompanied me during this effort as well as the fine folks at wecoffee.io who letting me hang out in their virtual workspace while I typed this up this post.
Have fun on your own projects!
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Thoughts after making a Video
I spent all Sunday editing a video on making sourdough bread.
Here are some thoughts from that experience.
Time
- It took about 4~6 hours to do put together the initial cut, adding annotations, doing some initial splices, and learning the macOS program, iMovie.
- The initial cut of the video was 36 minutes long, the final cut was 17 minutes long.
- The rest of the 14~12 hours was grinding away those 19 minutes out of the duration. I think this is an example of Abe’s quip, “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
- I suspect that the process would have taken about 10~12 hours of editing if I knew the software and wasn’t learning its capabilities as I went. However, I might get much more finicky and thus still spend a lot of time. I vaguely remember hearing some rule of thumb of an hour per minute, which feels about right.
- Much of it is run at 1.3x speed because I felt that I was talking too slowly. I really hope the video is comprehensible to people who haven’t been listening to me say the same thing again and again for an entire day.
Equipment
- My basic tools were extremely basic – my Macbook Air (from 2012), an iphone 6s (from 2017), Quicktime, and the native macOS app, iMovie.
- Of course some better equipment would not have hurt, but I think the most impactful extra piece would have been a microphone. After that would have been a couple directional lights.
- However, I suspect that the 80-20 rule applies here. Yes the major expenditures of an actual camera and mount would have been nice, but I doubt it would have made nearly the difference as having a basic bluetooth wireless headset and a decent intentional lighting.
- I’m certain that there are better video editing software, but iMovie was perfectly adequate. It is a simple, easy to use program which still gave the user a good amount of control. My guess is that the next level programs give the user a lot more fine tune control, but most likely with an incredible amount of complexity.
- I remember the first video my sister and I made using a friend’s apple digital camera. I wish I had a copy of the file. But yes, we’ve gone a long way in a quarter century.
Execution
- The biggest mistake was not preparing enough. Every single item must be on the counter, ready to go. Every door must be closed. Every line must be mentally rehearsed. Every thing should be ready before you press record.
- Otherwise you’ll be wasting time on film and wasting a lot more time editing out every little item later.
- This lack of preparation is a classic first timer mistake, and exactly why attempt a project like this. It is a glimpse behind the curtain of real professionals.
- Obviously real cooking shows have crews, etc. But I suspect it is really all about combining the skills and experiences of all these pros, not so much their equipment. Decent lighting and a microphone was sorely needed in my video, but what was really needed with the experience and knowledge on how to use my tools well — and the required prep work before pressing record.
Postmortem Template. I have a standard template I use after a project.
- Was the directive clear? Not when I first began, but once I really started yes. Put together a video documenting my breadmaking process in April 2020. It wasn’t going to be amazing, but I wanted it to be decent.
- What went wrong, and how to fix? As noted above, I did not prepare properly before each shoot. Given the experimental nature of this project, I don’t mind too much about the final product, but not having mise en place before hitting record is not really excusable. I knew better.
- What went well, how to do better? This was a glorious one off experiment, and I think I got the peak behind the curtain that i was hoping for. I should more try odd projects like this in the future, maybe with the kids next time.
- What opportunities were missed? The three things I would want before doing another video, and once procedural tweak:
- A microphone. I think the sound quality would be vastly improved for a minimal expense.
- An outline. I’ve been making the bread a lot, so this video had an instinctive flow. I’m not sure I would have known what to write this first time around, but now I have a feel for what needs to be thought through before jumping into record.
- Better lights. This is the most involved of the three additions, and I may jettison it, but if a video is to look good it needs to be decently lit…so if I’m not willing to put effort into lighting, it may just not be worth the effort at all.
- Next time I would edit as I go. This was shot over Saturday and Sunday morning, and then I spent all day editing. If I had started editing on Saturday, I would have a learned things which would have improved my footage on Sunday.
Next Steps
- Well there isn’t much of a next step. I’ve posted the video to youtube, sprayed it all over social media, and I think I’m pretty much done. This project was a confluence of a very odd set of circumstances which I doubt will be repeated anytime soon.
- iMovie is a nice little program. I can’t imagine having much use for it in the foreseeable future, but it was good to learn what it can do.
- Indeed if I have any use for this project, it would be for work. I suspect that using iMovie is the best (free) way for editing and annotating video tutorials for the various work processes I may need to present.
- I will however watch youtube videos (food and otherwise) with even more respect. I’ve always rationally known that a considerable amount of effort goes into making even the most basic youtube video, but it’s another thing to actually experience it.
It is worth taking a moment to marvel at our interconnected world. Without discounting the myriad of problems around us, those of us who are fortunate enough to be reading this post are truly living in a magical age.
One morning, a person decided to make an instructional video and two days later, it was shared to the entire world, without spending a penny.
If that isn’t magic. What is?
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Sourdough Bread Video
I spent all day Sunday editing a video on making sourdough bread.
It would be a little faster to read my blog posts on sourdough bread, but hopefully this is a good “snapshot” of how I currently make my bread and there are things that video conveys that cannot be described adequately with the 26 symbols of the alphabet.
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Processing Papers
When I first joined the division twenty months ago, all agreements and invoices were still paper transmissions.
At the time the process for filling an invoice was:
- Consultant sends invoice up to Carson City for accounting.
- Accounting processes the invoice and sends it back down to my office in Vegas.
- The project manager reviews and signs invoice and sends it back up to Carson City.
- The deputy administrator signs the form and sends it across the street back to accounting for final processing and payment.
- Check is mailed down to the consultant.
In short, paying an invoice would involve moving one piece of paper 3 times (430 miles each) just to get processed, not including the check.
Let’s not even get into signing actual contracts, which require eight signatures and eleven steps.
If this virus had hit six months earlier (the official rollout for digital invoice processing happened in October), we would have been forced to go to the office just to perform the most basic task of paying our vendors and executing contracts.
I shudder to think about trying to develop these new processes without being able to meet in person, and while still learning how to work remotely!
Of all the unfortunate inconveniences of this pandemic, we were extremely lucky that we had just entered the 21st century with our document management.
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Privilege
A couple weeks ago, it was disconcerting to hear that school meals were one of the reasons why local administrators were hesitant to shut down schools, as the virus headed our way. With the wide reach of local charities, I was aware of the issue of food security, but good lord we are staring down a pandemic here!
Yesterday afternoon, the governor mentioned that half a million meals had been handed out by the school districts over the past two weeks. Nevada isn’t that large, so this is truly a big number.
At that moment, a definition of privilege crystalized in my mind. It is a difficult concept to convey because it is a layered idea, several steps removed from the primary problem.
Privilege is not about avoiding a problem.
It is not about avoiding the need to worry about that problem.
Rather, privilege is not realizing the problem exists. Privilege is being happily oblivious.
Privilege is never ever having to think about worrying about if there is a next meal.
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Five legs, Five Snapshots
After years of being properly frightened by scary stories of salmonella, I finally got around to cooking chicken. I’ve never really cooked chicken before. I’ve roasted a couple of birds, but never actually handled uncooked chicken meat in any earnest way.
Four weeks ago, I moved out of my in-laws house out of an abundance of COVID-19 caution. Among the few items I brought along with me was a pack of five frozen chicken legs.
This past weekend I finally thawed them out and started messing with them. The last leg (and a couple bones) are stewing on the stove as I write this up. And it made me think of a few things that have accrued over the my past life that led to this moment.
When I was in high school, I got really into listening to world music and Seamus Egan’s album A Week in January was in heavy rotation. I recently picked up his newest album, Early Bright, and it has been playing in repeat in the background this whole month. As with his earlier album from the 90’s, it is a lively work, terse and tight, but somehow mellowed with passing of two decades.
My map in this experiment was the poultry chapter in Mark Bittman’s classic, How to Cook Everything, a book that I’ve purchased twice. The first time, I had accidentally purchased it as a soft cover book, which I salvaged by selling it to the used book store when we left Houston. The second time, was at the friends of the library bookstore; I made sure this one was a hard cover. Even though we work in an internet age, it is good to have a curated tome that you can trust implicitly. It may not have the best recipes for everything, but if you were searching for that, you wouldn’t need a cookbook. This book is properly a primer for those (like me) who have spent decades scared of touching dead birds.
The friend who introduced me to Mark Bittman was Chris Leong. He was a couple years ahead of me at Berkeley while we were never close I still look up to him. He was (and is) a great cook along with being a great architect. I remember going to his place with a few guys while he cooked up an amazing meal of some meat wrapped in something else. It was both gorgeous and delicious. More than the meal itself, I remember watching him that night in the tiny apartment kitchen enraptured in the task, while the rest of us fools were dicking around in the living room. It was a quietly brilliant display of concentration and craft that has stuck with me over the past two decades.
The table upon all these meals have been consumed was picked up by my wife while she was was in college. Ikea still makes the Ingo table, if you want one for yourself. We used it as our dining table during the years in Houston, the legs have been chewed up when we had bunnies running wild in the house. It bears the marks and scars from that time with its burn rings and oil stains as a record of our lives together. It spent a while in the garage while we stayed with the in-laws, but hopefully it is now back in use, for good.
When we had moved into our Hassett house for a brief moment a couple years ago, I decided to get a wok. One morning I popped into Resco to pick up some other items and saw one selling for $10. What the heck, I bought it. It sat there unseasoned for a year and a half. Last summer, I finally seasoned it, only to not use it for another six months. However, I’m happy to say this fellow has now been pressed into service, obliterating napa cabbage to go with a little chicken.
And yes, I’m happy to report that I am no longer scared of poultry. It took forty years of eatin’ other people’s birds, but I’m finally here to try my hand at this game.
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Finding Balance with Tech
I finally got off my duff and found an interval timer for the iphone.
Amelia Timer is so simple that it is free .
I didn’t expect it would make a big difference with doing my morning exercises, but wow! It suddenly made doing the 8 Brocades exercises quite enjoyable.
Unlike kung fu or tai chi forms which are extended series of differing movements, these exercises are closer to calisthenics. Without a timer my mind would end up focusing on when was the right time to move on to the next exercise.
Letting a computer do that cognitive load allowed me to concentrate on my body and feel my way through these movements.
On the other hand, I listened to music yesterday. As I exercised in silence this morning, I realized the music had distracted me from myself.
So there is always a balance to be made. But for me, the balance is not at zero tech.
Chinese qigong is not generally associated with modern tech, but even here, it looks like an iphone will come in handy.
Now let’s just see how long I will keep exercising going.
