What's the Most Complicated Thing You Ever Did?

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These folks built a 99 foot section to specs, brought a ship into drydock, cut the ship in half, pulled the pieces apart, slid in the new section, welded it up and, I guess, hooked up all the interior guts (plumbing, electrical, wallboard, paint).

I once built a doghouse without a plan.

What about yourselves? What the most complex project you've led or been involved in?

This isn't about bragging (okay, part of it can be) I'm really interested to the kinds of things others have done in the lives.

Joe(I have led a far more simple life than those people at that drydock)Nation

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@Joe Nation,

Written and published cohesive technical manuals out of the bleatings of software engineers and some technical specifications. Oh yes ,,,and coupled with playing around and some tinkering with GUI (prototype) interfaces. the miracle was doing it within a set timeline.

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@Joe Nation,

What amazes me in addition to the totality of the shipping project is how they guided the ship into port and backed it up into the berth.

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The most complex project for me was and is book writing. One involved time travel and had three separate incidents of temporal changes, three possible endings and a good two dozen or so people whose fates all had to be plotted. I had notes, little charts, all sorts of stuff, regarding who lived, who died, who was exiled, etc. Lots of fun but very complicated.

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@Joe Nation,

I'm not mechanical, so I would have to go with getting my husband approved for disability, and/or conducting a job search.

With the former, it was keeping up with having every i dotted and every t crossed, not missing deadlines, collecting and organizing paperwork. Along with that was the rising anger at knowing many people probably didn't get approved for disability they deserve. People don't realize you'll get denied 2 or 3 times, and only then can you get a lawyer who gets his cut to push it through. I wondered how many people gave up after the first denial.

The good thing was that when we applied for VA compensation payments for him, I was already steeled for what was to come, and he got approved for 100%, which is significant.

When I left a job I had been at for 13 years back in 2011, it was a whole new world out there as far as applying for, networking etc for work. Something I did not enjoy.

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@jespah,

jespah wrote:

The most complex project for me was and is book writing. One involved time travel and had three separate incidents of temporal changes, three possible endings and a good two dozen or so people whose fates all had to be plotted. I had notes, little charts, all sorts of stuff, regarding who lived, who died, who was exiled, etc. Lots of fun but very complicated.

That's a good one.

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@chai2,

I applied for an rcvd SS disability a few yrs ago. The first time in 2003-4 was a nightmare and was very frustrating. The emotional turmoil in my life that the rejection contributed mightily to the demise of my relationship. I waited the pre-requisite time reapplied in 2005 and hired a lawyer. It went through the 2nd time with nothing new as proof.

And the lawyer got his slice of the retro-active bennies from the date of disability. Pretty sad...but now SS Admin has/have more of a legal backlog so they're stricter about granting that first time approval.

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@Ragman,

Yes, it really does an emotional trip on you too. One that is coming at a time that is already emotional.

I'm glad the SS Admin is stricter about granting 1st time approval.

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<Head Smack~Dope Slap>

Of course I should have mentioned that the things/projects you've done shouldn't be limited to feats of engineering. I love the ones so far. Creating stories/books is something I have done in the past. I can just see Jespah's desk/table/file cabinet covered with notes (mine always were).

And, having a read a few Manuals ~~who hasn't~~ Ragman's feat of creating them deserves applause.....or should we wait until we hear that that the pages were fully of coherency??? (heh)

Chai does the heavy lifting thus far, so far as I'm concerned, I went through (with the immense assistance of my sister) the whole process of dealing with my parents' end of life starting with the volumes of Insurance documents, Medical Bills and Statements, Financial Statements (and they really had nothing but a condo and a bit of savings).
I don't know how people do it. I would start a business to do the paperwork for people but I think I would find myself at the edge of my sanity (or closer to it than now) in a matter of weeks.

Well done all.

I once had to arrange a Federal Express shipment of an eight ton boring machine.

Joe(It wasn't boring)Nation

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In my own small firm's office, in off times, I did a set of plans with details and specs for our house remodel, taking the drawings home for going over with my husband, making changes based on those talks, and so on. Took me six months. Had a structural engineer review them (one small change), and my building inspector bro in law. Then we did the work, with one helper, a barrister from England (good help) making his way around the U.S.

I still had no studio (house remained small, being a cottage and staying a cottage and we even removed a small amt of sq footage), so redid the garage myself (husband working more then), it being built around 1913 and needing some beams and some whole wall replacement, put in windows, changed where the door was. Hard to put up a big beam by yourself, involved two ladders across the space..
I didn't do the electrical (eeeek) and I didn't drill into the concrete (bro in law did).
I remember crying a couple of times over little stuff.

Other big thing was coordinating a museum show under the aegis of two semi insane directors, one who just disappeared the last week. Got the show up with a fellow worker in a 72 hour stint. It had been all I could do not to quit, but there was an end point, so hung in. That was about a year's worth of research and planning and doing.
Not proud of that show, but we got it to happen.

Regular design work life was like an breeze on a sunny day after those two episodes.

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I once worked out how to undo Elizabeth Coleman's bra clip.

'Twas worth it.

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@jespah,

jespah wrote:

The most complex project for me was and is book writing. One involved time travel and had three separate incidents of temporal changes, three possible endings and a good two dozen or so people whose fates all had to be plotted. I had notes, little charts, all sorts of stuff, regarding who lived, who died, who was exiled, etc. Lots of fun but very complicated.

A few years back I went onto the site for Pitcairn Island, and was facinated by how small the population was (50), and the intricate geneology of the people. After a few visits to the site I decided to see if there was any (or how much) inbreeding had occured, and started making a chart tracing the marriages and birth from present day back to the original 9 Anglo men, 6 Tahitian men and 12 Tahitian women.
It was fun, but became really complex. I think my attention was needed elsewhere, so I abandoned the project.

I think I'll go back and start it over....thanks for the inspiration.

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@chai2,

Oh, cool. I have fictional family trees, too. They run (with gaps) from 500 BC to 3100 AD, no lie. A lot of people ended up being only children because the complexity level was driving me nuts (one plot point is a significant genetic difference that only this one extended family has).

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@Ragman,

Ragman wrote:

What amazes me in addition to the totality of the shipping project is how they guided the ship into port and backed it up into the berth.

Not only that but somebody had to design the 99 foot section, it had to be made somewhere, maybe brought to the dry dock in sections and completed on that site, but, before that, someone had to figure out how they were going to maneuver the section into the ship after the cutting in half part. ,,,
And what about the cutting in half part? Did someone go through the ship's level with a can of red spray paint saying "Okay, Gus, cut here, all the way from the ceiling to the floor."

And who thought about doing the first one? I know wooden sailing ships were often re-fitted with different configurations of masts and ballasts. I think there's a whole section of Moby Dick where Melville describes the process. But a cruise liner?
How did that meeting go?
"Boss, we're going to have buy bigger ships."
"We can't afford to buy bigger ships. And what are we going to do with the smaller ones we've got, who's going to buy them from us?"
"Yeah, we're stuck with them."
Voice at the back of the room "You know, Dad, I was in a stretch limo last night. If someone could stretch a limo, maybe they could stretch a ship."
"Shut up, God I hate your mother."
"Now wait a minute, boss, let me make some calls."

Joe(Ya, ya, ve kan do dat.)Nation

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@chai2,

Quote:

I'm glad the SS Admin is stricter about granting 1st time approval

You are? How come?

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@Ragman,

Ragman wrote:

Quote:
I'm glad the SS Admin is stricter about granting 1st time approval

You are? How come?

Oh sorry, I misread that as they more often grant approval the first go 'round.

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@chai2,

No, the exact opposite - their workload has increased over the last 6 years..and they're understaffed so they drag it out further...figuring on attrition.

FYI, see the following link to see about the House's SS disability investigative probe:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-probe-cries-foul-on-social-security-disability-claims/

"President Barack Obama's proposed budget for next year includes $1.5 billion to address the backlog, a nearly 50 percent increase over present funding. With the increase, the agency says it would be able to conduct slightly more than 1 million reviews."

{Edit: sorry for hijacking. pls continue}

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@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

,,,
And what about the cutting in half part? Did someone go through the ship's level with a can of red spray paint saying "Okay, Gus, cut here, all the way from the ceiling to the floor."

In other words, the front fell off. Wink

Chai(sorry didn't mean to hijack, just couldn't resist)Tea

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I really do not know if I have done anything very complicated, but I have had several challences and I just closed my eyes and jumped into the deep water.
I was going to teach Swedish in an evening class - turned out it was a group of hunters. Had to teach myself all kind of expressions a hunter needs. It worked out well.
Had to teach a doctor who was going to work in Sweden and who , refused to learn about food and the body parts, how to greet people, the list is endless. And it turned out refused to learn Swedish.
I got a group a farmer´s wifes who were going to visit farmer´s wifes in UK. In 15 hours teach them how to converse in English. Impossible. Suggested to make a book as a gift. Page 1 lady and family with pictures and text. Page 2 houseplan, page 3 plan of garden and what is growing there. Favourite food incl. recepie, hobbies, work, dislikes, allergies. So we got about 15 pages with text and pictures. They told me afterwards they had a feeling they had really conversed.

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