Super Bowl Monday

Got up early to watch the super bowl, what an ending. It could only have been better if Arizona had won. We had to root for Arizona with Kurt Warner and the Iowa connection, also I'm with a team out of St. Louis and they still have a connection to Warner from his days with the Rams. Also, another person on our team is from Arizona, so he had us all pulling for the underdog. The game was over in time for us to go to work, 7:30 am. It was a long day after getting up so early.

I've included a couple more pictures from the paving crew. The top picture is another example of how OSHA is not part of the Afghan culture. The one guy walks in front of the roller spraying a liquid on the roller drum to keep the asphalt from sticking to it. The driver is looking the other way, one slip/trip and the guy with the sprayer becomes part of the pavement. I included the second picture as this is something you would not see on a job in Iowa. The lady in the traditional Indian dress is the contractor's project manager, she is talking to the local Afghan engineer that works in our office and sometimes as an interpretor for us. The tall guy in the darker brown outfit is the paving crew supervisor.

The contractor's manager has fired 8 laborers this week. I'm not sure why the first 6 were let go, but the two that were fired today were the result of a fist fight on the job. I did not see it, only heard about it, sounds like they went at it pretty good. As a result, no paving was accomplished today, they got the paving machine all ready this morning by 10 am and the contractor's workers stood around, until 2:30 when they must have decided there was no asphalt coming from the plant and they packed up and went home for the day. Just when you think they have it together and they had a good day yesterday, it goes back the other way to make wonder how long this project will go on.