Message board woes

Over the holiday, the message board that I setup rolled into a ditch. Maintenance was nice enough to put it back on the shoulder. It was apparently still working, but when my helper raised it back up, it died. Apparently something on the board burned out, like a capacitor or resistor.

I had the joy of taking the board back to the north shop. I made several mistakes when moving it. Since the board was dead, I couldn't lower the board. It stood about 15 feet, lowered its about 8-9 feet. First I forgot to rotate the sign. I was wondering why I couldn't get any speed, then I realize I basically had a giant wall behind me. I pulled over and fixed it. I thought I had locked it, but as soon as I got to about 50 mph, the sign swung open, jerking my truck back. It felt like back end of my truck was lifted up. I was worried that the raised message board wouldn't make it under the bridges and overhead signs. Hopefully the board can be fixed soon, because we really need it out, since we'll be closing off a major junction.

new engineer, kind of

Surprisingly two people interviewed for the Construction Engineer (EAIII) position in our office. It naturally went the engineer that has been working here for the past year. But the other engineer did get the same position but at the district office. Except he won't jump right into the new job, he'll be a EAII learning how KDOT works for a year before he can take over. Though for some reason he is actually being put to work under our EAIII, and he has a desk in our office, despite working in the office an hour away. I guess he's somehow supposed to learn from our new EAIII, who is actually still learning from our Specialist.

Days

I spent the past week watching pile driving. I wasn't too bad. The senior on the project was surprisingly helpful, and gave me good advice for my upcoming project. This is the same senior that was in charge of my first project last summer, that never talked to me. I got some reading done, bridge work is very slow and only requires supervision only for certain parts.

While on the bridge, my helper came out because they thought they would need extra workers for the concrete pour. We set a schedule for the project. I'll unfortunately be working from 5:45am to 6:15pm. Since I'm the coordinator it would be best if I was around during the day so I could consult my superiors. Plus any concrete and asphalt would be done during the day. I could just be my way of thinking, but as the project coordinator, I feel I should have the most responsibility and work on this job. My helper plans on coming in at 5pm, even though he doesn't need to be out on the road until 6pm. I personally think 5:30pm is early enough for him to come in, but I guess I'll be nice and not take his 5 hours of OT away, since I almost make double his pay.

I'm slowly getting all the paperwork ready for this job. I need to get certification for every little thing, including the nuts and bolts used. My helper and I went out and looked at the bridge. He asked a lot of questions, that I really didn't care about. Probably because I assume the contractor knows a lot more than me, and can take care of it. Though thanks to him we did notice something extra that might need replacing. I'll go out tomorrow to take pictures, which will be reviewed Topeka.

New Regime

Today is the first day under the construction engineer. Rather than vacate the office, the old acting construction engineer, the Specialist, he setup a small desk in the front office. He also setup some of his stuff at my old desk. That was the purpose of me moving so he could have my old one. He spends most of his time in the front office, and only comes to the back to use the internet, since the front is only wired for one computer right now.

They've been stealing my truck for the past couple work days, because it has a tow hitch. There's a truck with a tow hitch that belongs to a senior that hasn't shown up for work in about a month. My truck was being driven by our accident prone trouble-making transfer from maintenance. Immediately after bringing back my truck this afternoon, he got in accident in his own state truck. There was apparently something in the road, and drove over it. It got stuck under the suburban, I have no idea how much damage if any was cause to it.

I didn't do anything all day except add more music to my state cell phone. Starting tomorrow I'll be working on the bridge I was originally assigned to long ago. Since the previous project coordinator has become the big boss, she can't be out on the road as much. I'll have the joy of watching pile driving.

Moving

Today I'm move my desk to the other side. I already like it better, there's people to talk to. The only problem is that it's next to the designated food table. I can smell the doughnuts right now it very tempting. They're trying really hard to fatten me up. Our office administrator went to Braum's for some reason, so she decided to bring back some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with cones.

Luckily yesterday I got quite a bit of walking in helping out with the asphalt paving west of here. I even managed to get some overtime which is nice. I have an opportunity for more overtime this weekend, but I going out of town for several friends' graduation at K-State.

Aside from moving desk, I went out and took some more pictures of my bridge. There's some utilities connected the bridge which may cause some problems to the contractor. I am pleased to say that my bridge still currently bum free. Though there is evidence that someone used to live there

Milling

Last week I helped with a milling job. The project coordinator went on vacation so I was called in to help out. I am currently the only person the office not working on a project. Starting tomorrow I'll be sent out to help out on another project out of town, because the workers from that office are busy since there were several tornadoes out west.

My own project will start in 25 days. I was finally assigned a helper, though I'm not too fond of the person. I figure we will work 12.5 or 13 hour shifts. I'm not sure how much recapping of information will be necessary, and the project is 1.5 miles from the office so drive time isn't an issue. since it is a consecutive day project, if I go with 12.5 hour/day, I'll work 87.5 hours in a week. I'll almost get more overtime on my 10-day project than I did all last year.

Screwed

My emergency bridge repair project is schedule to start on June 1 at 6pm, which is the worst time for me. The project will be day and night for 10 straight days, so no weekends for me. The contractor couldn't start until they have all the materials and the piece isn't supposed to arrive until May 18th. And they didn't want to close the ramp on the Memorial Day weekend, so June 1 the earliest date. This really screws me, because I had a wedding rehearsal on the evening of the 1st, and a wedding on the 2nd, then a trip to Japan on the 4th. I'll take day off for the actual wedding, but I'll miss everything else. We're currently shorthanded, so I can't take more days off, plus I want to do this job, because it's my first. I am currently the only person scheduled to work on this project which is impossible, since I can't be out there for 24 hours a day. Though I will get to work at night like I wanted. Slowly I've been getting the paperwork for this job. We've already had to make a change to it, because there was some extra damage that wasn't accounted for in the original estimate.

Lately our office has been going crazy with doughnuts. For the past two weeks, some one has brought two dozen doughnuts. Last Friday, there were five dozen doughnuts from 3 different places. This was the only day I actually ate the doughnuts, because it was day the schedule for my project was decided and I was feeling down. I told myself no sweets at work unless they were homemade.

catching up

Last week, I finished the last of my training classes in Salina, Aggregate Field Testing. The class was taught by this old 70 year old civil engineer. I feel asleep during most of the lecture parts, which luckily there wasn’t much of. There were a lot of hands on tests that had to practice of the course of 4 days.

When I got back I had a shiny new laptop. It’s a widescreen one with a full number pad on the keyboard. This is definitely good enough to play FFXI, but I don’t have any reason to travel anymore. Maybe if I’m able to go to Japan, I’ll take it with me. 3 others in the office got new laptops too.

Yesterday, my boss put me in charge of doing a 402 (estimates) for a striping job. I went out with another ET and measured the lengths of the lines on a 6 mile stretch. Did the easy stuff in the morning and after lunch we decided to count the skip marks. That was a bad idea, because it was putting us to sleep. Eventually I had to count out loud to keep us both awake. At around 2:30pm, we had to quit because we got a flat tire. We were driving on the shoulders and medians so at some point we drove over a metal spike. Coincidently it was the same tire that I just replaced the day earlier. I was actually the first time I’ve ever changed a tire, and I got to do it twice in two days.

Today I didn’t do anything since the car needs a new tire, and I don’t know what other vehicle is equipped to use the DMI (Digital Measuring Instrument). Plus my boss lent out my truck to be used on another project. I’ll try to finish it up tomorrow. I felt a little bad, not doing anything today when I actually had an assignment to complete.

In my boredom I was looking at the State civil service job openings. I noticed that they opening another EA1 position in Wichita, and the EAIII position which they closed when our engineer arrived. Looks it’s time for a regime change in this office. I should probably move my desk to the other side so my boss will have a spot on this side.

Early morning

This Saturday I will be batching 1200 cu yds of concrete. Not sure what the regular batch guy is doing, but they asked me. I'm fine with it, because it'll be a full day of overtime. Unfortunately, the concrete has to be on the job by 5am, so I have to arrive at the office at 4am. And to do get out 1200 cu yds, there would be a constant stream of trucks. So I won't have time to nap in-between trucks. I may not even have time to play FFIII, (I finally beat FFTA the last week.) I figure if we're starting at 5am, we'll probably go for at least 10 hours. I honestly don't know how many tons of concrete the plant can produce in an hour.

Tomorrow is the office cook out, too bad our resident BBQ expert quit last month. The office assistant has spent the past couple of days shopping and cleaning the grill. It was quite rusty, I hope it'll be safe to eat off of.

Respecting others

So my Respecting others in the workplaces was yesterday. Luckily there was another today in Hutchinson. I just thought they moved to Hutchinson class to Wichita, but they made an additional class a day earlier. The class was good and he showed a different video from last year. I talked with a instructor a little since it was my 2nd time in a row. It's normally required once every 3 years. He was looking for a minority engineer to help out with a seminar he gives. When he asked our metro engineer, if he knew anyone, he suggested our female engineer. Which is fine by me, I'm not sure I'd want to participate, nor give the typical answers he was expecting. Though it would get me out of the office.

My boss sent out the project staffing for this years projects. I will have a Senior, the Filipino chemical engineer, helping me out. Which is good a thing, I probably get along with him best after the other engineer. Tomorrow is the letting day for my emergency bridge repair project. I'll finally get more information regarding start times. Hopefully it won't interfere with my trip to Japan.

calculations

Another boring day at work. I actually started reading the construction manual. This document has some useful information, unfortunately I don't learn well from books. I have about 1.5 months to prepare for my first project. My boss actually took me off as a helper on another project so I can focus on this. He finally told me to calculate the concrete quantities at the end of the day, so I'll save it for something to do tomorrow after my "Respecting others in the workplace" class. There'll be 3 of us from our office. Myself, the other engineer, and the new technician. The new technician seems to have done more work in his first week, than I did in my first two months. It really feel like I'm the only person in the office not working.

FEMA

Got an email from our KDOT safety officer wanting everyone to complete this FEMA NIMS (National Incident Management System) online course. Had to take two very boring and easy courses. Both were basically introductions to the system. The first course took me about 4 hours, because I kept getting distracted every 10 minutes. The second covered a lot of the same material, and I was able to focus, so it only took me like 1 hour.

The game filter didn't originally catch my main site for FFXI information ffxiclopedia.org, but it finally got blocked today. I was actually reading something on the site, then I click on linked and got the dreaded messaged. Normally when you get that message you're supposed to email your boss to explain your actions. Since I wasn't supposed to be at the site in the first place, I'll just hope I don't get flagged.

We apparently have a new employee. I know we had several people leave, but I don't remember a position ever being opened up. I check the State employment site regularly out of boredom and to find a job for my friend. This new guy seems late 20's, early 30's. I noticed the skoal in his back pocket, so I'm expecting him to be like the average KDOT employee. I wonder if he'll become the new concrete batch guy, since that's reserved for the bottom of the totem pole. The last three employees that left, that didn't retire, were the current batch guys. They just spent the past two weeks our new one, so I wonder if they'll go through the trouble again.

gradations

Whether we use asphalt or concrete, the aggregate has to be tested. For asphalt is has to be test every 1000 tons, for concrete it's every 250 tons. You have to run moisture tests and sieve analysis. Technically the material is to be tested before it goes on the job. Since in Wichita, we normally only do concrete, gradations is the responsiblilty of the concrete guy. Appareently the last concrete guys didn't run enough tests, so now we have to run tests after the fact. They had me in the lab running tests along with another ET. Eventually they left me alone running tests, which is simple enough, but I'm not certified to run them. I don't go to the aggregate testing class until April.

Back pay

Back after a week in Salina. Had 5 different classes with a painfully simple 10 question quiz after each of them. All but one of the tests took me less than 5 minutes to complete. Except for the 1st day, the classes started at 1pm and ended at noon the next day. The tests were scheduled for 11:30am, but luckily most started them early, so I was able to take off to lunch early, and take a much needed nap. I had a hard time staying awake in the morning classes. They made all the people taking the class for the first time sit in the first two rows, so I was front row center, since I arrived right on time.

Today had a class on traffic control. It mostly went over specs, which is a good thing, since I probably wouldn't have read the specs on my own. Then we watched a cheesy KDOT made video on how to flag traffic. Then we all received cards that certify us as flaggers. Luckily I will never have to flag traffic.

My boss told me that I have some back pay owed to me. Apparently I was in fact promoted back in November, like I was supposed to, so I'm getting that money. It's a nice chunk of changed that I can use on my upcoming trip to Japan this summer, if work doesn't interfere. I will actually be the project coordinator for two projects this summer. One is a 10-day emergency bridge repair in May. As long as it starts on time, I'll be able to go to Japan. The 2nd one will be let in May, so it'll probably start in July. It's actually two separate projects tied together, because they're right by each other and the same contractor is doing the work. It'll be a bridge overlay. Surprisingly there's 3 nights jobs, and I'm not none of them. I think I'm the only person in the office that likes night jobs.

I won't have any class in March, so it'll give me time to read the contractor for this bridge project that I'll be helping out on until my starts. I need to quickly finish/catch up on my tv shows, because I won't have lunch breaks in the office soon.

hurray

Yatta! I finally got my keys back. It almost caused me a problem after my class on Tuesday, because I'm supposed to put my state truck back in a fenced yard. For some reason the gate was closed, but the lock wasn't latched so I was able to return my truck. The asphalt class wasn't too bad, learned quite a bit and was able to relate almost all of it to my past experiences. I was the first person to finish test, but I didn't get 100% like usual. Felt a little stupid because of the questions I missed. Though a couple of them I just didn't feel like looking up the answers, it was open book. That's a lazy attitude and I shouldn't be way when dealing with specs. Currently I'm answering the phones, and immediately I get 4 calls. I hate answering the phones, because most of the people are gone, and I'm not really capable of answering their questions.

Level up

I finally got promoted today. I'm now an Engineering Associate II. Good thing I didn't have them put EAI on my business cards. I had my evaluation this morning, same results as the other ones. My boss finally gave me an idea of what I'll be doing spring. He'll put me on a bridge project with the other engineer initially. It's unknown if I'll stay on the project the whole time or not. It'll depend on what comes up. I think there's some nights jobs this year, so he might put me on those, since he knows I like those.

The concrete class wasn't too bad, had a good teacher. A lot of repetition so the all specs are drilled into my head. I passed all 7 parts of the lab exam on my first try, and I have to wait a couple week to get the results of the written portion of the test. I was actually 1.5 hours late to the first day of class. I had my alarm set for PM instead of AM, and work up 10 minutes before the class started, which was 100 miles away. That's the 2nd time I've been late for a class, and it's only the 4th class I've take so far. My next class is tomorrow, QC/QA asphalt. It's a two day course, but it's in Hutchinson, just 50 miles, so I have to drive home afterwards. I'll be sure to get there on time. I try to be on time, but never early.

Field Trip

We had a field trip a cement manufacturer in Humbolt, KS yesterday. It wasn't too bad of a trip. It's a little over a 2 hour drive, and I slept for 3/4 of it. Half of the plant was shut down for maintenance since we are having a surprisingly cold winter this year. The plant actually runs 24/7, 365. In case you didn't know, cement is what's combined with water, sand, and gravel to make concrete. Sadly I lost my keys there, and didn't notice until I was back in Wichita. I had to get a spare from my dad. I called our tour guide today, and luckily were able to find the keys. They were exactly where I thought they would be. They fell out of my pocket while sitting the van. I had a brochure rolled up in my pocket, which gave it a tunnel to slip out of. The other half of the office is going on a tour next week, so Ms. Engineer will pick them up for me.

Tomorrow is the concrete field tester course, three days of boring classwork. Hopefully we have good teacher. The teachers I've had so far have been good. I've actually tested concrete before, and I really don't like it. Dries my hands out terribly. Oh well, it gets me out of the office, and I get per diem.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

KDOT has added gaming sites to it's list of blocked sites. PennyArcade and Kotaku are blocked. Reading Kotaku usually can occupy at least an hour of my day. Luckily FFXIclopedia isn't blocked. I haven't tried any other sites, mostly out of fear. Usually if you look at a blocked site, you get flagged and eventually your supervisor will talk to you about it. Since it would be my second offense, it's possible that my internet privileges could be taken away. Luckily not all the incidents have been logged in the past. Though today I did try to go to three blocked sites. It's bad enough that the sites are blocked, they should have to punish you more for not looking at them. My spirit was temporarily crushed, but now maybe I can focus more and read more books. Got 4 books and 80 volumes of manga to read

Today was apparently the birthday of our soon to be retiring ET. So our engineer baked him a cake. She really enjoys baking, generally bringing in cookies and other treats. The barrels are made from gumdrops, the silt fence appears to be fruit-by-foot with pretzel posts, there's rock candy and m&m for the rocks, and coconut shaving on the parts that required heavier snow. Luckily the whole cake didn't have coconut shaving, because I don't like it. I like coconut flavor, just don't like the shavings.

In-between classes

Had two classes last week and one two-day this week. In between them I do nothing. Only new thing is that brought a pair of slippers to wear around the office.

The classes themselves were very simple. Usually 6 hours of material with a 10 minute break every hour with a 2 hour set at the end. The longest it has taken me to complete a test was 40 minutes. Since this is my first year, they have me in all the basic classes. The strange thing is that me and the other engineer has only take one of the same class. You'd figure we'd be taking all the same classes. Well I still got 16 more days of classes until April, so I'll see how similar our schooling will be.

Brains...

Decided to update, because I'm bored and these last 2 hours have been dragging on. I originally brought some work from Topeka to do, but I actually had some paperwork to do here. So after a couple days, Topeka called and asked if I had gotten around to working on it. I told them no, and I probably wouldn't have time either. Which was ok, because it wasn't really my responsibility and they had someone else up there that could do it. That afternoon, I ran out of work to do. Been keeping myself occupied the normal way. I started watching Eureka and reading The Color of Magic. I'm enjoying both quite a bit.

Our Administrative assistant has been on vacation since xmas. Hope she comes back next week, because I need to setup lodging for my classes in Salina. My first class is Statistics on Jan 17th. Followed on the next day with QC/QA (Quality Control/Quality Assurance). I'm looking forward to these classes because it gets me out of the city. I get a per diem, and it's closer to K-State so I can go to practice.