Oops I skipped this step!

I've already been posting questions and pictures and all sorts of stuff and realized I didn't find this thread in a timely manner. Union guy here 30 years in and just a few more to go. Typical farm boy gone equipment operator. Like more than a few of you I'm also a pilot. It seems to go hand in hand, the hand eye thing. My dad was in the laborers and he worked with a grader operator on interstate 90 who would fly his cub out and land on the subgrade every day. I got in kind of late after exploring other trades and owning my own dozer and things like that. I did 27 years of mostly slogging around in the mud with excavators and dozers and the like, but I did run boom truck before they required certification. I put up a lot of traffic signals and street lights, and a few truss jobs and the like. Once you needed a certification I kept on keeping on I was busy in the dirt. About 4 years back I got tired of it and went to the Union School and got every crane certification they could give me. I did a couple stints on the water and working in commercial construction downtown Seattle with the boom truck. Came back around full circle and I'm back in the dirt with an excavator or two. I work for a little family company that I worked for last 12 years ago, and it's just really hard to beat being part of a small outfit. The commute's short, they got me a new mini and are not afraid of throwing some money at the old iron. The last guy retired with 40 years with the company. I think that's saying something. You try and stay out of the news in this business, but it's okay to get your picture in the international magazine. Go to page 16 I'm that dumbass with his head out the window so he can see what he's doing. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/26721757/operating-engineer-summer-2014