scottythepinetree

What rates do you pay for all this over-time? Time and a half or double bubble?

Could be wrong but was told on a slinger/signaller course that oil and petrol products can react with nylon which will weaken it. This could be a good reason not to use it to clean anything that will be in contact with your rope.

Love climbing small oaks... just enough room to swing around and no disco legs. Pure fun.

I've worked for companies that would've made me pay for stupidity like that. 100 quid a week out of your wages. Not strictly legal but if you want to continue in your job you keep your mouth shut and your eyes open next time. Turned out to be quite an expensive day for him. Reckon as he said he'd pay without any arguments I'd consider using him again (providing he's been good in the past of course). Doubt he'll be so cocky next time.

Cracked two ribs about 6 years ago. Got myself into an awkward position swinging out onto a limb on a big oak. Thought I had my lanyard clipped in properly and took a pretty big swing back into the main stem. Lanyard spun me backwards before it let go. Luckily had a pretty understanding boss at the time and was put on light duty for 3-4 weeks back at the yard cleaning and maintainence. Was back to full strength long before I went back to work. Pain completely gone in 6 weeks. Last I ever felt of it. Was given cocodamol. Wicked stuff, high as a kite and couldn't feel a thing, but decided would be better to just suffer through it as thought it would be better if I knew when I was doing myself damage. Point being, we give ourselves horrid abuse in this job. If you want to last at it, best to take care of yourself. Right now you might be thinking "how can I afford to take a week off?" In 10 years time when you're just not able anymore you might be thinking "how am I going to pay the last 10 years of the mortgage?"

Really like the idea. Definitely worth keeping an eye on the result. Know where arbclimber is coming from though. Friend organises festivals over here and had a go at making his own website for one of the festivals which was fine (some free flash based build your own website thing). Another friend who studies computer science came along, scrapped the whole thing and restarted from scratch (keeping the content of course). You can see the result here: Temple House Not a plug or spam, just an illustration of some possibilities. If some people take it upon themselves to go they won't be disappointed though. The grounds are amazing, really old trees everywhere, and unusually for this part of the country quite a variety. One other point (and I could be wrong here), just think there's a slight hint of negativity in your intro. This view could be a bit tinted from having read some of your "lifelong learning.." thread. Just get the feeling from it that you are making excuses for your lack of "credentials", when from what I've seen you could write what you don't know about ancient woodlands on a stamp. If the site is only for arbtalk members, by all means leave it in, but if it is for the general public, then there is certainly no need for you to make any excuses. Also, do you at any stage envision some commercial potential for this site?

Poor bloke and family... not been on here all that long, has it always been this frequent or am I just hearing about more of them now that there is a medium through which to hear about it? Another fatality over here last wednesday. Was reluctant to post it. Utility arborist 27 years old in Clare was climbing with a pole saw and contacted the 20kv line. Shouldn't have had it up there with him. HSA and the ESB pulled us all off the tools for a week.

Have done a bit years ago... few emergency jobs (horrible as its usually wind damage, and still howling when you get there), and a big council contract doing street trees in the city center. Flood lights are more a hinderance than a help IME always right in your eyes and focus my concentration on the few bits they do light up, distracting attention from the bits they don't. Also find they make seeing through a mesh visor really difficult, so a pair of clear safety goggles is highly recommended. Never got around to getting a headlamp, found I did alright by getting a good look at the tree before going up under flood lights then having them dipped or turned so that they are not directly on the tree and letting your eyes adjust. Getting used to not getting dazzled by other lights (similar to when you're driving at night) saves a lot of time.

Thinned quite a few birches in the past as they are a pretty forgiving tree to prune. Plenty of growth points to work with and usually quite an even distribution of branches. Always to let more light in. Our work is about making trees easier to live with. If someone has a tree that close to their house and don't want to lose the tree then surely a reduction or thin or mixture of both is the only option?

Lets twice as much light in, less prone to wind damage, still a lovely looking tree. Don't get how it's pointless?

Originally from Dublin, living in Strandhill. Worked for a lad from the village for a bit, but turned out to be a bit of a cowboy so working for a bloke from Roscommon now. Seems decent enough, actually gives a toss about trees even though most of our work is for the ESB he still expects the work to be done properly. Would love to get away from the utility work but bills to pay etc. The previous fella had my heart broke with unnecessary felling, poor pricing, and backwards ways of doing jobs. Basically, daddy bought him the company before he had a chance to learn what he's at. Reckon he's too far gone now to ever learn. Ballygawley.... you know Steve Brennan by any chance?

Savage. Felled one similar on the Bundoran road just before Christmas. Massive sycamore blew a few limbs out on to 2 brand new unsold Ford Focuses. Awful mess, and worst of all the client owned the tree so had to take it on the chin. Where abouts in NW Ireland are you?

Late to this thread but I'd stay well clear of Transits between '02 and '05. Had 2 in my last company and literally nothing but trouble. Was dropping one off to get fixed for the 4th time in less than a year and was chatting to the mechanic about them. He pointed out the 9 other transits in his yard in the queue to be fixed and said that if it wasn't for transits he'd be out of business.

Surfed that beach last summer, beautiful spot, friendly locals, awesome place. Good to see someone is getting waves.

Definitely got a talent for it mate, pretty gobsmacked myself at the quality. As long as she doesn't come back covered in tattoos though eh?

Don't like either of them, as the bridge is a bit low on both of them feel like they both want you to lie back the whole time. Know a few people who have Petzls and doubt you'll get 10 years out of them. All seem to say they are quite fragile. You looked at the Treemagic yet? Been climbing in one for a couple of years and love it. Very simple design, and seems to have a loop to carry stuff anywhere you look. Just to throw another one in the mix.

Actually bought that a few months ago on amazon, only comes in region 1. You can however download a program called DVDdecoder that will lift the DVD content to be played in any region (can only play it on a PC though). Seems like a lot to go through but I had recently read a book called "The Wild Trees" about Steve Sillett's journey to becoming an old growth forest canopy researcher. Brilliant read, couldn't put it down. Loved how he started free climbing up Redwoods before he was taught how to climb properly. Really wish they ad gone into a bit more detail in the video about his climbing set up. Hard to picture from the descriptions in the book but he probably wants to keep it that way. Would really recommend reading the book first though, as the guy is only a brief segment in the video and if seen alone won't give the guy enough credit.

I make all the chains up for our guys in work mainly because it's just one of those jobs noone else wants to do, been doing it for years. Never had any training other than an old boy show me how years ago (and he showed me to use a bench grinder to cut off a length, use a chain break these days). Never had one break on a link that I made, and if a chain snaps, I always check. Hand on heart, I can say for a fact that I've Never with a capital N, seen one snap on a made up link. Law of averages say that one day I will but that will be one out of thousands. Not even 0.1%. The HSE can shove it up their (insert your own expletive)!

Reckon he's lucky he didn't get shot!

Thoughts to family and friends! Know what you mean about not having anymore, be safe lads and lasses. Just the other day in work one of the lads made a comment about how this job isn't as dangerous as people make out. I suggested he have a look through some of the threads on this site. As much as I don't like to hear of fatalities amongst fellow arbs, the regularity of these threads definitely keep the complacency at work to a minimum.

Spent 3 months solid at them a few years ago, doubt anything will keep that dust down. Lovely trees, horrible to work on when in leaf.

CCleaner doesn't make your connection faster, that's down to your service provider. A number of things can affect this like how many people are on a given server at any one time etc. What it does is free up memory that isn't being used making your computer process the info it does receive faster. Every time you view a Youtube video it is stored somewhere as a temporary internet file. You can remove all of these manually but you may miss some. CCleaner is GUI (graphic user interface) basically a program that makes remove unwanted files idiot-proof.

no noticable difference between the standard hc and the rapide as far as I can tell.

Here you go mate... not a big file either. Can use it to optimize your registry and a few other bits like start up etc. Download CCleaner 2.31.1153 - FileHippo.com Just click on "download latest version" in the top right of the screen. They ask for a donation but F-that if they giving it away for free.

Could he have done it with a 441??? Sorry wrong forum......