I'm a construction claims analyst specializing in delays, cost overruns, and default terminations; a/k/a Disputes - an economic sidecar on the construction industry and related litigation. Because my work sometimes involves sworn testimony and because it's common practice in lawsuits to Google the names of opposing experts, I told Kurt that I wouldn't disclose my occupation because if I were discovered hanging around here goofing off, anything I'd written could be used to discredit me - a risk that my clients might needlessly be forced to bear.
More or less in order, I've been: a roofer's helper, shoe salesman, library assistant, deckhand on an oil tanker, Army Medic, carpenter, trade association field representative, and in construction, a contracts administrator, consultant, Project Manager, and finally a claims analyst. Somewhere along the line, I managed to finish a BA in History, a minor in English, and earn an MBA.
In the 80s, I worked for the old Dynalectric Company, a mechanical / electrical contractor that also did substantial work in the Canadian auto plants (as State Electric), Gilbane Building Company, a 130-year old general contractor / construction manger that is one of the 10 largest contractors in the country and one of the largest privately-owned companies in the US, Coopers & Lybrand later d/b/a PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and since, as a self-employed consultant. I've testified in furtherance or defense of construction delays and damages in Arbitration, most of the larger FL circuit courts, and in Federal Court and put on presentations in dozens of Mediations.
I'm 59 and starting playing guitar when I was 11; my first 'gig' was my 6th grade class Talent Show...I played my brother's cast-off Stella, I think it was the NoTone ViceGrip model...I sanded the paint off, oiled it, and a few years later it was Hootenannies; Kingston Trio, Limelighters, Highwaymen, the Weavers, Pete Seeger and, later, Ledbelly, the Carter Family, John Hurt, Dave van Ronk. My first real guitar was a Harmony 1260 Jumbo Sovereign that somehow got away from me between the time I dropped out of college, got drafted, and came home.
In the early 70s, I lived in Charlottesville VA with my first wife, 12-string Framus, 1955 Jeep 1/2-ton pickup, and worked as a carpenter on spec houses, townhouse developments, country estates, and barns. I had a license, was bonded, and had a Workmens Comp policy but the 1974/1975 recession cost me everything including my marriage. I went back to school, got a 'real' job, married again, and moved home to Arlington VA where I bought my 1st Guild, an F412 that I yacked about in another thread. We moved here to Florida in 1993, played a lot of golf, and, when our interest petered out, moved to a house on a deep-water canal and owned a series of boats pictured here somewhere in a shamelessly hi-jacked thread.
I'm posting here now because my oncologist has advised that it's time to take the chemo. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer; make that metastatic prostate cancer....Elvis had already left the building. I've enjoyed two years of pain-free, if not necessarily anxiety-free, remission however like all things good and bad, nothing lasts forever. Since I'm self-employed, I am not protected by ADA and between a reasonably foreseeable reduction in energy and likely client reactions to someone wearing a ballcap indoors at meetings and depositions...it's more likely than not that my career will end in the near future with a wimper, not a bang; that is, I no longer see any professional reason to hide any of this.
I'd love more than anything to join you Boyz in Texas; you know, walking in with a serape, paste-on Pancho Villa moustache, dookey white yachtsman's hat, and a guitar neck for a sword - capnjuan in person ..... but it's not going to happen. I've been ramping down my LTG posts; gotta find BBs for people with my kind of problems, not just my kind of people with my kind of guitar.
I gotta go now...
John
