Friday, April 20, 2007

Here's Mud in your Pie! Getting paid to make Mud Pies!





7 comments:

Uncivil said...

I actually get paid to make "Mud Pies" on a daily basis. Remember making mud pies as a kid? I think I made my first one when I was about 5 years old.

I work in a lab testing asphalt, and I've always wondered what a child would think of me getting paid to make a mud pie. I know I never dreamed as a kid that I would one day be getting paid to make them.

The sample in the picture is a 1200 gram sample of hot asphalt surface mix already heated near 300 degrees.

It's weighed and put into a 1000 degree furnace to burn the liquid asphalt off the sample to check the actual percentage of liquid asphalt in the mix. This particular sample has about a 6.5% asphalt content.
This leaves us with the coarse and fine aggregates to be run through a series of seives to check the percentages per sieve.

But before I do that, I have to wash the sample to remove a portion of the dust (that passes the 75 micrometer No. 200 sieve) from the mix. I put the washed matrial (Mud) in a frying pan when I'm done

Now it's time to cook my mud pie. I put my frying pan on a burner and cook all the moisture out of the mix, and let it cool.

Then I pour the sample into my stack of seives and put it in a sieve shaker for 10 minutes.

Now I'm ready to weigh each portion of the sample from each seive.

Then I get out my calculator and the number crunching begins. Now I can determine the percentage of each size coarse and fine aggregate in the mix.

Isn't this boring. It's just one of the many different kinds of tests I do daily.

Anonymous said...

Cool! I remember making mud pies. I love making mud pies (or the memories of making them.) I can even remember what the mud would begin to smell like (kind of bad) after a few days sitting around in cans and jars in the sun - just hanging out, waiting for us to make ANOTHER "leaf sandwich" or mud pie to serve to our friends or our pets :) Where did those fun days go? I know I know - don't rub it in -- YOU STILL HAVE THEM at WORK! LOL! Happy Weekend!

Uncivil said...

Hey Julie

A "leaf sandwich"? I don't remember making any of them? Ingenious!....Which reminds me....

I'll never forget when I was a teenager. A good friend and I were supposed to go on an early morning trail ride with our horses and my little sister and her friend were going along with us.
To my surprize Kathy had made sandwiches for all of us to take on the trail.

I had woke up starving and decided to eat mine early. Kathy reached in her saddle bag and pulled out one just for me.

I was just about to bite into it when I noticed her and her friend with that nervous look of anticipation.

So I got my hunger pangs under control, and lifted the top slice to see what kind of sandwich it was?
Well Kathy and her friend gooched their horses and hauled ass!

Cause I almost bit into a "Horse Shit Sandwich"!!!!!

It's funny as hell now, but I was ready to kill her back then. I don't know what would have happened if I had bit into that thing?

Damn...this would be a good post. "Horse Shit Sandwich"

My little sister had a hell of an imagination! Gotta Love Her!!!!!

Unknown said...

Wow! I actually think that's very fascinating! Very cool, Jimmy! Oh, and to think that you get paid to do all this!!! Awesome!

Uncivil said...

Hi Chrissy

I'm not getting rich, but it's a decent living for a redneck.LOL!

Ms. Mamma said...

Do you have to wear a gas mask? Are you a smoker? This could be the kitchen of a crazy anal crack cook too. Fascinating post, Jimmy! I was wondering what you did. Must be kind of fun. Cool photo essay!

Uncivil said...

Ms.mamma

LOL!........You've done this before? How did you know that it smelled when you put the water to it?
It has that rotten egg smell? Must be the sulphur in the aggregate?

I have actually had co-workers walk up and ask me if I broke wind? I just point to the wash pot and they say "Damn I forgot how bad that smelled?"

I started and quit smoking when I was 11.LOL!
I'm not a smoker or drug user (except for occasional prescription valium). It keeps me from being so anal!LOL

I hope I can do this until I retire in 10 years!