WOW!! I met RAMBO!!!!!

[Shawn R. L.]

:curse::curse: Bit of a vent here.
On a bit of a walk today. I walk by a section of sidewalk that had cement that was 95% cured. Just on a whim I take a toothpick I had, bent down and in letters about 1/2 inch tall I write S + J (Shawn + Jan). Awwwwww how cute!! A thunderous voice explodes to my left and scare's the pee-pee out of me - "HEY!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!" I look at Rambo with a construction get up on.....25ish to 30ish and chock FULL of testosterone and authority.

Yes, I'll say Jock-o was young enough that I could have been dad. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY HUNDERED'S OF DOLLARS IT TAKES TO MAKE THIS THAT YOU JUST WRECKED?!!":rotfl: Totally blindsided by his approach from behind and his in your face attitude kind of blew me back but when asked what I was doing I said "you know what I was doing." And to the cost of the radioactive smoldering pile of hideous wreckage I almost laughed and just said with a wry smile that "OH YEAH, that's ABSOLUTELY WRECKED!!" Then he starts threatening to call the police............ Oye vey! This guy looked like one of those tough guys who are a torpedo looking for a ship. Total domination seemed to be the only thing this dude was interested in..................I walked away.The guy goes back, get's in his big ol pick-em-up-truck, drives about 50 feet up, jam's into a drive way, stands guard in front of a patch of very fresh cement and gives me the "Forrest Gump Evil Eye"

.............and as I walked by I noticed that for the next hundered yards or so had intermittent three foot patches in the side walk...........what nice spaces to stop, kneel down and pull up my sox...............and lookie here, gotta stop a little further up, nearly set up cement, and tie my shoes. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

 

[Wyrmypops]

Cheers for that, genuine LOL. :claply:

 

[Niall]

Isn't it criminal damage to write in cement that the council has paid for and expects to be clean and flat? Added to this I bet it was the foreman's job to keep it that way and by people writing words in it then he could get into trouble. I'm no builder so those are just my thoughts.

I do know that if the concrete was outside my home I wouldn't be pleased to see footmarks and love messages there as it just seems messy!

 

[Infidel Castro]

Shawn, you're a very naughty man! I can understand the peevishness of the feller given that you vandalised his work . Naughty, naughty man.

 

[wiccanpony]

too many real issues in the world then to get worked up over a bit of cement ..... patch it with a little cement slurry, that’s we do here

 

[Evil Dave]

I'd just smooth it out, however....

Imagine you had just worked long and hard at painting a mini, then some guy comes along and adds his signature or ruins your paint job, then when you confront him, snarkily does it again on another mini.

You'd be pissed off is all I'm saying.
Some people take pride in their work even if it isn't "art".

Sorry, Shawn, you were in the wrong.

 

[evil tendencies]

You're a Cali guy, so you should know that what you did was technically in violation of Section 594 of the California Penal Code (Vandalism). They could cite you on that if they wanted; I've seen more than a few tickets for that to taggers who thought fresh cement was better than spray paint.

On the other hand...

Seriously, people, there are worse things than a man leaving a small reminder of love in his neighborhood. Shawn's not a gang tagger, and he wrote nothing vulgar, obscene or threatening. In my neighborhood growing up, our sidewalks were covered with personal stuff like this, and it felt...I don't know, lived in. There were messages written by grandparents when they first got married fro forty years prior; my first girlfriend's initial and mine is still there, I think.

I object to communities becoming so sterile that people living there can't make it theirs - that the neighborhood defines the people, not the other way around. I know some lines have to be drawn (obviously), or this would get out of hand, but that is what wisdom and personal judgment is for. Who would it have killed for Shawn to have left something there that his grandkids might see when they start courting the love of THEIR life?

 

[airhead]

I'd just smooth it out, however....

Imagine you had just worked long and hard at painting a mini, then some guy comes along and adds his signature or ruins your paint job, then when you confront him, snarkily does it again on another mini.

You'd be pissed off is all I'm saying.
Some people take pride in their work even if it isn't "art".

Sorry, Shawn, you were in the wrong.

+1

I've worked with too many concrete finishers. Those guys are artists. And some of them have the temperment to go with it.

 

[Evil Dave]

@Evil Tendencies
I see your point, and had he carved his name in a tree( although this would probably get you arrested in Cali) on his property or put his initials in concrete on his own property I would have backed him all the way.
This is not his exclusive property.

 

[IdofEntity]

Agreeing with the others, though

Interesting...

What does everyone think of the Guerilla Gardeners that alter highway medians and the like? Are they just as wrong for altering property that is not exclusively owned by them, or are they justified because they are beautifying the property without damaging it's functionality?

Talk amongst yourselves.

 

[Evil Dave]

As I understand it, the Guerrilla Gardeners are a different matter altogether as the police, the neighbors and the mayor support this. This seems to be a couple people doing something that has the consent of the town/neighborhood.
Nor are they actively destroying/marking up someone else's work.

http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I imagine it would be far easier to get a neighborhood behind Gardening space that is basically just space, than it would be to get a neighborhood to agree that graffiti in their concrete is a good thing.

 

[evil tendencies]

This is not his exclusive property.

Very true! And, like I said, there needs to be some common sense limits put on writing in sidewalks or it would get out of hand. And I'm not saying that people should break the law - but it can be modified, and I think it should.

I'm arguing that there is cause (and space) for a bit of change here: that the residents ARE the owners of these public spaces, and that there is room for allowing such things if given common consent and proper limits. If it was already a community tradition, and the construction workers were asked for permission, I don't see the harm.

Like I said, it was really nice to see all those names on the sidewalk on my childhood streets; it gave a sense of historical continuity to the place that is so desperately lacking in modern cities and neighborhoods. It made it feel like home. I firmly believe also that it contributed to the sense of community that kept the property values in our little patch higher than surrounding areas.

I also think that the guy who confronted Shawn should have been a little more respectful - and I think that may be Shawn's biggest beef. Not everyone understands the rules regarding concrete, and a quick explanation of what the city expects from the contractor, and what the workers have to do to make it so clean, might have been a lot more useful. Going to his angry place so quickly and with no sense of respect was, in my mind, a worse sin than simply writing a loving note in concrete.

 

[Evil Dave]

Very true! And, like I said, there needs to
I also think that the guy who confronted Shawn should have been a little more respectful - and I think that may be Shawn's biggest beef. Not everyone understands the rules regarding concrete, and a quick explanation of what the city expects from the contractor, and what the workers have to do to make it so clean, might have been a lot more useful. Going to his angry place so quickly and with no sense of respect was, in my mind, a worse sin than simply writing a loving note in concrete.

Honestly, I can understand the worker's beef. To be frightfully honest, I'm somewhat aghast that I have to explain this or that it even needs to be explained.

 

[DrEvilmonki]

Honestly, I can understand the worker's beef. To be frightfully honest, I'm somewhat aghast that I have to explain this or that it even needs to be explained.

Not everyday that I agree with EvilDave but this is one of them.

 

[Ocelot]

I don't know why you think the builder is in the wrong here. Why should the builder keep redoing his work because someone wants to write names in it? It's vandalism and it is antisocial.

You wouldn't like it if you had just painted the outside of your house and people came over and painted their names on the wall. They could easily say "you can just repaint it!" just like you can argue that the builder can re-smooth the cement after all. I don't think you'd be very pleased!

 

[cassar]

i think you were lucky he didnt plant you in the concrete shawn, think how you'd feel if some one came along and defaced a model you'd been working on, "bob the builder was here" along the side of a land raider, lol. still im glad you didnt end up with concrete slippers mate. are you sure you dont have a bit of a death wish? next time try this enter a barracks full of paratroopers and say "i thought only fairy's had wings" or alternatively " there's only two things that fall from the sky bird shit n paratroopers".... live long and prosper mush.

 

[evil tendencies]

Honestly, I can understand the worker's beef. To be frightfully honest, I'm somewhat aghast that I have to explain this or that it even needs to be explained.

You're assuming everyone is lucky enough to have the same experience with this as you do. Not everyone grew up with this being a bad thing; this isn't a painted miniature, or a building - this is a sidewalk, and some people write in them all the time as a local tradition. Similarly, not everyone knows this is considered vandalism, I think mainly because not everyone knows what kind of work goes into making sidewalks.

Reasonable people might be in error here with no intention of being anti-social or criminal, but, being reasonable, can easily be dealt with with a short explanation. What is better - losing your temper at the drop of a hat, or explaining something to someone their error in case it was an honest mistake?

 

[Evil Dave]

You're assuming everyone is lucky enough to have the same experience with this as you do. Not everyone grew up with this being a bad thing; this isn't a painted miniature, or a building - this is a sidewalk, and some people write in them all the time as a local tradition. Similarly, not everyone knows this is considered vandalism, I think mainly because not everyone knows what kind of work goes into making sidewalks.

Really, seriously, you're going to use ignorance as an excuse?
Sorry, won't fly in court either.

Reasonable people might be in error here with no intention of being anti-social or criminal, but, being reasonable, can easily be dealt with with a short explanation. What is better - losing your temper at the drop of a hat, or explaining something to someone their error in case it was an honest mistake?

I find it hard to believe, nay, nearly impossible to believe that a 30 something year old man did not know immediately that this was wrong. That he "mistakenly" defaced property that did not belong to himself. (Which by the way is not the public's until it is signed for by the city, until then it belongs to the contractor.)

I'm not saying, You are a lawbreaker and should be thrown under the jail.
As far as I'm concerned there's far more important crap to worry about.
All I'm saying is that Shawn is in the wrong. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's no big deal, just that he shouldn't get all huffy at this guy's behavior when his behavior was far from exemplary.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Hold your thumb up. Now, point it sideways....That's bigger than what I scratched on the edge of about 24 sq. ft. of cement. Barely 1/16 of an inch deep, if even.
What really got me was this guy's instant FEROCIOUS (seriously, this guy looked ready to KILL), domineering, put-down way of dealing with it. And no, 'what if everyone did it?' is baloney..............everyone's not going to do it.
I went to a concert many moons ago. I found a frisbee, picked it up and thought it would be fun, in the spirit of the concert vibe, to fly it. A concert personell guy asked me to give it to him, not in a hostile way. I asked why and he said that if I were to throw it someone's going to get whacked in the face with the hard edge of it - had'nt thought of that, many many moons ago. I told him that made such sense, gave him the frisbee and went away not feeling assaulted. I respected the guy for taking a situation where he could have dominated and instead he treated me with dignity.....did I break the law? Yes. Is the law such that it's going to strangle a little savor out of everyday life. SPIRIT of the law, not the letter.

In my neighborhood growing up, our sidewalks were covered with personal stuff like this, and it felt...I don't know, lived in. There were messages written by grandparents when they first got married fro forty years prior; my first girlfriend's initial and mine is still there, I think. I was saying that exact thing to my girlfriend.


BULLS'EYE
I object to communities becoming so sterile that people living there can't make it theirs exactly- that the neighborhood defines the people, not the other way around. I know some lines have to be drawn (obviously), or this would get out of hand, but that is what wisdom and personal judgment is for. Who would it have killed for Shawn to have left something there that his grandkids might see when they start courting the love of THEIR life? yes, yes, yes

 

[Infidel Castro]

Sorry Shawn, you're a vandal! And where does it end, eh? At what point do we draw the line? What if everyone else decided that they wanted to do the same having seen yours? I tells yer, this world is going to hell on a handcart, and it's folk like you we'll be blaming when we get there .