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I just caught the latest episode after losing interest in the series a while back. Man, they are really making the logging biz look bad! "Reality TV" seems to poison each profession it takes on. Could it be the unreality of it all?
 
hi everybody,

thanks for the info about Aspirantus..

"Capetrees" thanks for the useful links...

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After watching this series for some time, I think that Dwayne should get his own show. He is a pisser!
 
Any of you guys see the episode where the one guy (i forget his name now) left 3000 ft of rope on the side of the road?

then later in the show you see him saying "its not my fault! How could i know that people would steal the rope?"

That guy would be fired so quick, no idea why they kept him on. The show makes him look very .....(trying to be nice here) inexperienced.
 
Allright, I wasnt gonna subscribe to this thread...but, Melvin is the man, "run or die boys, run or die", lol. What a phycho that fat $#@# is, goota love it. He reminds me of a buddy I had, we used to call him "Booze-akula", or"Booze-illa", lol. Same look Melvins got going on.
 
Allright, I wasnt gonna subscribe to this thread...but, Melvin is the man, "run or die boys, run or die", lol. What a phycho that fat $#@# is, goota love it. He reminds me of a buddy I had, we used to call him "Booze-akula", or"Booze-illa", lol. Same look Melvins got going on.

That's a look you get stuck with, not one you want to cultivate.
 
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You wanna stand close to some of those spring loaded logs go ahead use a 20"bar and stand close.

I suspect that it not fear of the trees. It's probably less trouble to tote one big saw up and down a hill to each cut than it is to drag big saw, middle saw, and baby saw with you all day long.

I don't see those guys working too close to the service truck.
 
Anyone notice the idiocy...well, it seems like idiocy to me...of that crew trying to yard a huge log up the slope? They kept going on about how heavy it was, overloading the car, might pull the highline loose,...Oh, well, we'll put it in low gear....Say what!! How does shifing gear change the loading on the highline.

Then with all of them standing around, assuming at least one saw for every two people, why didn't at least one of them go:

"saaayyyy...how about we cut that log in half?".

After finally getting it up there, what do they do? Why they cut it in half and then find it is hollow and rotten. What, an experienced crew couldn't recognize that down slope?

Final comment made "45 minutes lost..."
Harry K
 
I was thinking the exact same thing, the log was hollow on both ends, they had to have seen it as they were cutting it. Why choke and send it up?!
 
Anyone notice the idiocy...well, it seems like idiocy to me...of that crew trying to yard a huge log up the slope? They kept going on about how heavy it was, overloading the car, might pull the highline loose,...Oh, well, we'll put it in low gear....Say what!! How does shifing gear change the loading on the highline.

Then with all of them standing around, assuming at least one saw for every two people, why didn't at least one of them go:

"saaayyyy...how about we cut that log in half?".

After finally getting it up there, what do they do? Why they cut it in half and then find it is hollow and rotten. What, an experienced crew couldn't recognize that down slope?

Final comment made "45 minutes lost..."
Harry K
I guess I'm a rube; I got caught up in the drama.
 
Caught another episode just now. Man! These guys are dumber than a bag of rocks! I watched 'em try to buck logs, and I am positive that 90% of us, in here, would do a far, far better job than any of them. How these imbeciles make any money at all, in the tree biz, is beyond me. So much profanity, so little work, so little brains! I am certain that many of the scenes being shown are played up for dramatic effect, yet I am also certain that professional logging companies out there are probably just as horrified at what they see on this show, if they even watch it, as I am. I hope this show does not get renewed for another year. There is no way I would ever want to be even remotely identified with any of those morons. I was really looking forward to this show. Too bad it is just another "reality show," with all of the nonsense that goes with that territory.
 
Caught another episode just now. Man! These guys are dumber than a bag of rocks! I watched 'em try to buck logs, and I am positive that 90% of us, in here, would do a far, far better job than any of them. How these imbeciles make any money at all, in the tree biz, is beyond me. So much profanity, so little work, so little brains! I am certain that many of the scenes being shown are played up for dramatic effect, yet I am also certain that professional logging companies out there are probably just as horrified at what they see on this show, if they even watch it, as I am. I hope this show does not get renewed for another year. There is no way I would ever want to be even remotely identified with any of those morons. I was really looking forward to this show. Too bad it is just another "reality show," with all of the nonsense that goes with that territory.

So true, but the show caters to people unlike us.
 
I know quite a few loggers up around there and down here, and most of them are a tad smarter than average, but some are as dumb as stumps. Keep in mind that the editors can pretty much make anyone look however they want to, but cutting and leaving in what they want. They can make you look smart or dumb, and funny or stupid. Like the series Survivorman, where they make people look more extreme one way or the other. Lots of footage to go through, you can take one person and just show-him being pissed off all the time, and another guy being a suck-up all the time, and another being bossy all the time.

Also they seem to be pushing the envelope for the cameras, and dropping trees in weird ways, and tossing yarding equipment in weird ways. The producers want to make it a more exciting show. Also they were working in weather that no one else was working in up there (especially after the hurricane). And under fake pressure for a non-existant 'end of the logging season' (no one keeps a tally of competitor loads hauled in some kind of competition like they post at the end of the show). 60% of that area was laid off half way through the show. Most loggers I know up there were out of work before October, and so were all the mill guys (around Banks). They also make it look like they are in some remote region of Oregon, way out in the boonies, when in fact many of those cutting sites are less than an hour from Portland. Some sites were 10 minutes from where Highway 26 becomes a freeway (just past Banks) and suburbia in Hillsboro.

They shold call it the Yarding Show though. Not much cruising, falling or trucking or milling. Just yarding. And more yarding. Some falling. And more yarding.
 
I know quite a few loggers up around there and down here, and most of them are a tad smarter than average, but some are as dumb as stumps. Keep in mind that the editors can pretty much make anyone look however they want to, but cutting and leaving in what they want. They can make you look smart or dumb, and funny or stupid. Like the series Survivorman, where they make people look more extreme one way or the other. Lots of footage to go through, you can take one person and just show-him being pissed off all the time, and another guy being a suck-up all the time, and another being bossy all the time.

Also they seem to be pushing the envelope for the cameras, and dropping trees in weird ways, and tossing yarding equipment in weird ways. The producers want to make it a more exciting show. Also they were working in weather that no one else was working in up there (especially after the hurricane). And under fake pressure for a non-existant 'end of the logging season' (no one keeps a tally of competitor loads hauled in some kind of competition like they post at the end of the show). 60% of that area was laid off half way through the show. Most loggers I know up there were out of work before October, and so were all the mill guys (around Banks). They also make it look like they are in some remote region of Oregon, way out in the boonies, when in fact many of those cutting sites are less than an hour from Portland. Some sites were 10 minutes from where Highway 26 becomes a freeway (just past Banks) and suburbia in Hillsboro.

They shold call it the Yarding Show though. Not much cruising, falling or trucking or milling. Just yarding. And more yarding. Some falling. And more yarding.

Good post, man, thanks! I had a feeling that they were not that far from towns and/or highways as judged by what I could see during the road-trip sequences. Your post puts an end to any doubts I had along those lines. I do agree that editors can make a given situation "slant" any way they want it to, with a few snips here, and a few snips there. Still, most of the guys seen on the show seem to be not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, biased editing, notwithstanding.
 
I still think Melvin is the man, at least those guys work, thats hard to find these days. Too bad that one guy from his crew is MIA, semed like a good worker, maybe he got caught up in all that fame, lol.
 
Good post, man, thanks! I had a feeling that they were not that far from towns and/or highways as judged by what I could see during the road-trip sequences. Your post puts an end to any doubts I had along those lines. I do agree that editors can make a given situation "slant" any way they want it to, with a few snips here, and a few snips there. Still, most of the guys seen on the show seem to be not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, biased editing, notwithstanding.

Well, the map is a joke. They only have Vernonia and Astoria, making it look like a woodland fronteer. Missing are a lot of towns, like Seaside and Cannon Beach at the end of Highway 26 on the Ocean, and the towns along the Columbia River like Longview, Washington, and Portland, the largest city in Oregon. Portland should be a big blob there at the bottom left corner of the map. They also clip the map just above the Hillsboro and Forest Grove. They also do not show the other highways up there, particularly Highway 6 and Highway 53. A lot of the logging on the show was done off of highway 6, and that is closer to Forest Grove and Hillsboro (Portland suburb cities) than Vernonia.

As for loggers not being the sharpest tools in the drawers, that is probably true. They are mostly HS grads at best, many have dropped out of school before graduating from HS. The mills are about the same; not the smartest of people around the ones I have been to, except the managers. The smart people move to the city and make money using their brains. I have met some fallers and yarding guys, and even mill workers that are dumb as stumps. But I have also met some really bright people out there in the woods. It is an interesting contrast, especially since the second largest city in the PNW is so close to where they are filming the show. Up there it is more cosmopolitan. Now, get out of town farther, like down into this area of Orygun, or up into the Cascades, the characters get more interesting. The average IQ drops significantly. I think around here the average education is the 8th grade. Seriously, I looked up the demographics when I moved here. North Douglas County (what used to be Umpqua County) is pretty low in the IQ department.
 
I still think Melvin is the man, at least those guys work, thats hard to find these days. Too bad that one guy from his crew is MIA, semed like a good worker, maybe he got caught up in all that fame, lol.

That guy knocked up his girlfriend and is living in a town along the Columbia (probably St. Helens from the looks of it). They did a short interview with him on the last show of the year. He said he was done with 'working in the woods' (the term they use here for logging). He is hardly caught up in the fame. He is caught up in the oldest trap of man; he got the GF pregnant! (oops!).
 
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