I'm a newbie here, looks like some interesting stuff. Great forum!

I've been involved in site development, residential & comm. excavation, and commercial demolition (on just 2 occasions,) but was intrigued by that from the beginning. I got the opportunity one winter when my own business came to a close, to run an older 245 with a demo grapple, a 235 with a bucket, and a newer PC 200 along with various other pieces on site. It was Jan. & Feb. in Vermont, never went above -10 during the entire job. Had to tarp the 235 & 245 engine compt.'s and run a space heater under them every single morning so they'd fire up. (No block heaters.) Did everything from sorting debris that the previous numbskulls on site mixed together, to sorting and pre-processing scrap, and demo'd a 200'X400' concrete floor of the main plant. The footings were anywhere from 3 feet square to 4 ft. square, for some reason. I would pick them up and drop them on each other to break down into smaller pieces, and then we brought in a jaw crusher, and knocked it all down to 5" minus which I later used as fill in a designated area.
Got pretty used to the old 235, so much so that when loading dump trailers out with debris, I was cleaning their sideboards off with an outside tooth, never broke a board. Not bad for an early 80's, 1/2 worn-out old iron.
The footprint of the plant and parking areas, etc. sat on 11 acres. I had to scarify and rip all the asphalt up and load it out, and at the end I was hired off their payroll with my own equipment to spread 100K C.Y. of screened topsoil over all exposed areas, to a depth of 3-5". Nice ending to a job that I still drive by every day and say to myself, "I did that..."
Stayed in residential excavation for several years as a sole proprietor, until economics became an issue, so switched gears back to trucking, along with part-time dirt work.Hauled gasoline, fuels, chemicals, hazmat for last 10 yrs. or so, and still fit in an occasional excavation project that I can make a quick buck at. Usually small residential jobs, a day or 2, in and out.
Currently I am employed with a company that rents Cat equipment to contractors and homeowners as well. We have a complete line of mini-ex.'s from 301.6's to 320's and bigger. Several D-3 LGP's, a D5NXL, telehandlers, GenieLifts, and sell Challenger and Massey Ferguson tractors, and we service all makes of ag tractors. We have a heavy haul division as well, consisting of several new Peterbilt 379's with triaxle 50-55 ton Fontaine Specialized lowbeds, which I drive quite frequently nowadays. When there is service work to do locally, I'm doing that, when someone calls to move something wide, heavy, tall, etc., I'm all over that as well. Today I head to Colebrook, NH to load an oversize dozer going to Port of Baltimore for export. that will keep me out of trouble (or possibly in it,) for a few days.
Hope that painted a better picture for you, James!!!