Strength of Zeus, magick of Ra!

Jay is so much fun, both as my foreman and as my toolie. It's hard to explain it logically; I guess our personalities mesh well together or something. I don't really care, I'm just happy about it.

We were running pipe, and since it was being added years after the original Venetian opened, our options as to where to run it and how to do that were extremely limited. Both of us in a scissorlift, trying to maneuver around with 4' EMT...and of course, other conduit were in the way so we couldn't raise the lift as much as was necessary for me and I had to (illegally, haha) straddle the bars above the main platform in order to get it positioned. It was difficult for me, trying to keep my balance while over-reaching, to hoist the pipe into the existing coupling. I stuggled, failed. Struggled, failed. Finally, Jay screamed out, "Strength of Zeus! Magick of Ra!", growled deeply, and hoisted it in for me. I was laughing too hard to really be of much help, but it worked, and for the rest of the day we called upon Zeus and Ra, and it lightened things up considerably. I have a feeling it'll be especially helpful in running the 6" rigid conduit.

Speaking of that...I don't think I mentioned my port-a-pony accident. A port-a-pony is a huge threader for larger rigid conduit. It weighs more than I do and it has to be lifted up and secured onto the end of the pipe (which is, in turn, secured onto a tri-stand and counter-weighted). Once there, the conduit can be copiously oiled and mechanically threaded, but this process needs two people, because the torque is immense. Jay was helping me, but he had to take care of some kind of foreman duty and told me to hang tight; I thought I'd be a good apprentice and try to get the pipe threaded before he came back. Needless to say, one needs more than two hand to oil and to thread, so the dies caught on a burr in the threads and I lost control of the handle: it ripped out of my hands, spun around, and before I could dive out of the way it caught me in the center of my chest.

Bruising. Owy. Lesson learned. I could have used Zeus and Ra then.