Walking in the Swale

I have been saying since Ms. Mistro’s third grade class at St. Francis that I am going to be a writer. So this is the beginning. And every good blog has to have a catchy title. It’s what the reader assumes the blog is about. Not this blog. This title came to me in a parking lot one evening while I was walking with a friend to a restaurant, in hopes of a bar. I was wearing my usual four-inch heels with a business suit. Just two chicks headed to a restaurant, hoping for a bar.

Yeah, I know. I said that already. The key here is actually not the “hoping for a bar” part. I know you want it to be, because I want it to be about the bar, too. I love a good bar. And I did end up in a good bar later that night. But that’s another story.

We were walking through the parking lot. But I was walking in the swale. Yep. In four-inch heels and a business suit, I was walking in the swale. Some of you (my non-construction friends) may be asking, “What the heck is a swale?” A few might be asking. “How does a chick in four- inch heels know what the heck a swale is?”

Walking in the swale sounded good to me on many levels. First and foremost, this particular swale was constructed well enough for a five foot, eleven-inch woman in four-inch heels to walk solidly in the swale. The mix ratio and installation of the concrete of this particular swale were sufficient enough to carry my “heavier than average” female weight in four-inch heels.

My heels did not puncture through, leaving three-millimeter sized pock marks in the complexion of the swale. Nor did it leave me sprawling on all fours as a result of trying to pull my heel out of said pock mark, leaving me with some creative explaining to do in said future bar (and requiring the true trust a husband has for his wife as I try to explain the skid marks on my knees after a three-day business trip). Yeah, been there, done that.

I’m an “in-the-trenches” kind of gal. But that phrase seems, well, cliche. I prefer Walking in the Swale. Rolling up my sleeves, diving into a few hundred thousand construction documents, re-constructing the story of what happened on the construction site and where things went wrong (or not), and delivering it squarely to my clients without “flooding the parking lot” – that’s what I do. Walking In the Swale will be about construction defect litigation management and support and the other passions in my life like family, surfing, cycling, food, and grog. Yes, I used “passion” and “construction defect litigation” in the same sentence. I’ve got it. I don’t know why, but I do.

So this is the beginning…. Join me!

Heidi Kübler is the owner of Kübler Consulting in Oceanside, CA, providing complex litigation management and support to attorneys, expert witnesses and insurance carriers in construction litigation. Heidi has three kids, is married to Swiss cyclist, and loves to ride bikes and surf. Heidi has lived in North County her whole life, and loves everything about it. On any given weekend, Heidi will be surfing at the Oceanside Harbor with her kids or riding on the San Luis Rey bike trail. Motto: Living the dream.