What do I do?

One thing I forgot to add to my first post about myself is the answer to the question: what do I do? Well I do a lot of things, but if you're asking me what pays the bills I work for a painting company here in Victoria. I've been with my company for only about a year and a half now, but I can already look at a map of the city, point to almost any given location, and truthfully say I've painted there - or at the very least I helped out by doing prep work such as power-washing or basic carpentry.

I've actually only been a painter for 2 years (I painted in Edmonton for a while before moving to Victoria), and I may not do it for the rest of my working life, but I must admit it feels kind of cool knowing that I've had a hand in making so many different projects around the city "look pretty", for lack of a better phrase.

I'd like to share a few photos of one of my favorite projects, the Ogden Point Cruise Ship Terminal here in Victoria. I've added little explanations under each one.

I took this shot in 2007 from the end of the breakwater looking back towards the warehouse on the right and Pier B. I believe the ship docked there is the Mercury.

And this shot from 2008 (I think my wife took it) shows what the warehouse looks like today. The ship there is the Radiance Of The Seas. Can you see why I enjoyed working here?

During the time that my colleagues and I were working around the site, a group of carpenters came in and built this new structure. I was asked to paint the entire thing, except the roof which was fabricated on site from coloured sheet metal.

It was actually back-breaking work standing up on a ladder and looking up all day, but I had to make sure that I got into every nook and cranny. I put one coat of oil based wood primer and 2 top coats of weather resistant paint on this thing.

I took a lot of pride in this little side project so I signed my initials (and the year in Roman numerals) way up on the top edge of one of the rafters where nobody would ever see it, but I know it's there.

There are no less than 16 of these hydrants scattered around the Ogden Point terminal and each one of them is surrounded by those concrete filled steel bollards. I don't have a before picture, but believe me they were badly beaten from the weather and required a considerable amount of effort to prep and prime them before adding 2 coats of safety red and yellow paint.

The painting company I work for was actually commissioned to repaint nearly the entire facility from the giant warehouse you see there (with the Westerdam tied up behind it) to the maintenence buildings accross the parking lot. We did all of the lamp posts, fences, bollards, and of course my bright red hydrants.

And for no reason at all, here's a photo of our company's scissor lift. They're just fun to drive.

So there you go, a look into what I'm doing when I'm not writing or playing my guitar. And if my boss should happen to see this, I didn't take these pictures during work hours.

Quercus