xmas lunch

Today we had our annual xmas lunch. We order BBQ from a nearby place, and workers from maintenance and construction bring their own dishes. Last year we had 2.5 tables full of dessert, mostly brownies. This year people toned it down and we didn't have nearly as much as last year, which is good. Because of the snow, not all of maintenance was present. Half are on night shift, and the day shift people came in waves. This lunch is the one thing that construction and maintenance does together. I think I only know the name of one person in maintenance. They do tend to have a high turnover rate so I saw a lot of new people.

We had a raffle for presents. There were presents stacked and I chose one, which felt like an empty box, and it was mostly empty except for $15 in cash. I'll use it to pitch in for the group gift that we're getting for our boss. She was nice enough to get everyone in construction a tin of popcorn. My tin will be saved until our semi-annual lan party.

The big boss didn't make it to lunch, which I was hoping he would. Either last year or the year before he came and filled up, and was in such a good mood that he gave us the rest of the day off. It made sense too, everyone else was full and sluggish. No work would have been done, even if there had been work to do. The office was mostly empty anyways since people either didn't come in, had to plow snow, or just simply left early.

asphalt conference

Last week I went to a Asphalt Conference held at KU. It was rather boring. I feel asleep in almost every talk I sat through, and gained very little knowledge. After the introduction, the first talk was given by the Deputy Secretary of Transportation about future funding. It was somewhat depressing. This speech is usually given by the Secretary, but she had other obligations. He mentioned that it's basically the same speech as hers but at half the speed. That's the one thing I really like about the Secretary's speeches was how fast she talked. I didn't even stay for the whole conference. The point of these conferences is to get continuing education credits. They gave us our certificates at the beginning, so the only thing keeping you there was actual interest. I left about 2 hours before the end since I wasn't getting anything out of it, and went back to the hotel to nap, which is what I would have done at the conference anyways. The conference was Thursday afternoon, but there was a social hour at the hotel on Wednesday and Thursday nights so they paid for us to stay both nights. I skipped both nights to hang out with friends in Lawrence

Since it on a Thursday, I decided to take Friday off and spend the whole spend in KC. I basically just hung out with various friends and played Rock Band 2 that weekend. I felt like 2nd vacation.

Tomorrow I have to go to Nuke gauge safety training. We're require to go every two years. I never got a nuke badge from my first training which is used to measure how much radiation you've been exposed to on the job. We use a nuke gauge to determine the density of the dirt and pavements. The training is in Salina, but I'll have to be ready to leave here at 7am even though the class isn't until 9am. It's the 5 of us that was too busy working on the same project to go to an earlier class. I will probably sleep through this one and still ace the test. It's tempting to drive on my own so I won't have to spend 3 hours in a suburban with those guys, but we're supposed to be trying to conserve gas. Well I'm trying to, the project manager almost never shut his truck off.

flex time

The project is still going on, but they're done with concrete so they don't need me. I get to resume my flex time hours of 8:30-5:00 and get that extra 1-1.5 hours of sleep. I'd really like to have 9-5:30 just so I can avoid the evening traffic, but that's outside our normal hours. People are able to come in at 7am, so maybe if would be ok if I stayed late. Though I would be the only person left, so no one could verify my hours.

I'm back to my old routine of surfing the web and tagging all my mp3s. I'm almost done with the j-pop, so it's a good chance I can finish everything by the end of year, just in time for my annual music backup. Maybe once I finish that I'll read some more. I read all of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, because they had watching stripers for a few in-between concrete pours. Striping is extraordinarily boring and I would take a nap after reading a chapter.

I'm happy to be back in the office, but I am going to miss practicing my Spanish. Like on most project you spend a lot of time with the labors, and when I spoke to one in Spanish, they all knew almost immediately. Many would try to have conversations with me. Most of the conversation were similiar, since they're were a lot of labors. I really should look into taking some advance Spanish classes at WSU, if the state is willing to pay for it.

Paving

I'll have couple days of little until we start concrete paving the south frontage road. We'll have 3000 ft of pavement, 22 ft wide going from 135th St W to the bridge. There's another 2000 ft east of the bridge but that section is no where near ready. As long as the weather cooperates, I should be busy for a while. Though the temperature lately will cut our pouring time down, since we can't pour when it's under 40 degrees F. And if approaches freezing, the contractor will have to use insulated blankets and heaters for the new pavement.

Tomorrow I'll go meet with the builders to finalize the plans for my house. Once I do that, they can start building the house. I still have yet to decide on the color of paint or brick. I think I'll pick some boring safe colors. I'll have to take some time off of work to do it this, so I figure I'll go vote while I'm out. We're actually given up to 2 hours leave to go vote. Depending on how long it takes me, I might not even bother claiming any of that time. This will be my first time voting. I wasn't even registered to vote until I went to a Roots concert, and they were Obama supporters signing people up.

Halloween is coming up and I originally wasn't planning on doing anything, but then a friend invited me to a costume party. Which meant that I'd have to dress up, which is something that I haven't done since elementary school.I was somewhat stressing since it's getting close to Halloween and all the good costumes would be sold out. Plus I didn't want to buy something I'd only wear once. Then it donned on me that I can go as a Shinsengumi member. I already had most of the outfit in my closet. I impulsively bought a Shinsengumi haori when I was Tokyo this summer, and was somewhat regretting it, since I didn't think I'd ever wear it. I have two nice happi that I could wear instead and not look like a fanboy. The only thing I'll need is a tasuki, a white cord that crosses in front and ties in the back, and a long headband. Sadly my hair is slightly too short to all be put into a top knot, so I'll have to make use of some styling gel. I hope I won't have to spend the whole night trying to explain my costume.

Rainy

It's been raining for the past couple days which has given me a chance to catch up. I've actually been enjoying the project more since I actually have a dedicated task. I'm in charge of the concrete tests and entering the data into the system. It's always been my job, but we've been doing more concrete lately, so it's been keeping me busy. I come in early and the pours usually take 5-6 hours, so it's all I have to do. I get to spend some in the office afterwards and I get to go home after my 8 hours. This current rain is delaying 4 straight days of concrete pours, which isn't good since the contractor was supposed to have the road opened by now.

On these rainy days, the only work that can be done is to watch how well the storms drains that we just installed are working, and if the creek is flooding. I personally never go to check, though I should. I recently started having my house built just 1 mile directly south of the project. I don't think flooding is a problem in that neighborhood, but it'd be nice to check it out beforehand.

Boss's day is on the 16th, so everyone in the office chipped in to buy a gift certificate for the baking supply store that our boss frequents. Today she made some delicious fudge with walnuts, I have no idea what the occasion was. A couple weeks ago she made a cafe mocha cheesecake and some cappuccino brownies for my birthday. They were very delicious. Though the cheesecake wasn't as good as last years. It was also super heavy. I had one piece and it kept me full past lunch, which is unusual for me.

Stars

Last week I went to a Jenny Lewis concert in the middle of the work week to see if it's plausible for me to do such things in the future. The ride back sucked because it was cold and I didn't bring warmer clothing since I didn't want to be saddled with it during the concert. I no longer have friends in Lawrence to drop my stuff off at. Tonganoxie is the closest which is 15 miles away. I got home at 1:30am, but couldn't fall asleep for another 40 minutes because my body needed to warm up. I'd consider going to another concert during the work, but it'll have to be someone I really really like. Jenny was good, but her second album just was as good as the first one. I also didn't care for your two openers that much, but it did make me appreciate Jenny Lewis that much more.

The project has been keeping my fairly busy. No more sitting in the office until 3pm. Today was the first time that the project was slow enough that I got to stay in the office in a while. To think that I still have another 3 months of this.

Tonight I'm off to Lawrence again to see Stars. They're the 2nd Broken Social Scene group that I'll see in concert, Feist being the first. I'd really like to see my favorite, Metric, but they seem to be avoiding the midwest. This is my last planned concert for the year, though I am considering going to the Hotel Cafe Tour in November, it's on a Sunday and the following Monday is Veteran's day.

I'll spend the night in Tonganoxie then head to Kansas City for the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival to perform Yosakoi. I've only gone to one practice for the semester, but I think I'm still good enough to perform. This will probably be my only performance for the semester, since I don't want to take too much more time off from the project than I already have. I'm losing out on some useful overtime hours.

Meh

I didn’t get the Construction Engineer position, which kind of sucks because I dislike field work. But I guess it’s ok. It’s a lot more responsibility but it does come with a 10% pay raise. In that position, I don’t think I could take off for two weeks to go Japan, which is something I very much want to do again. And Theoretically I can make more money in my current position because of overtime. I actually made more than the old EAII last year, though I don’t think it’ll happen this year. I also like my current office and boss better.

It makes some sense on why I wasn’t picked. He had some natural advantages. He’s from the North office, so there’ll be no transferring and he has worked with all the techs in that office. Though I’ve worked with all the techs in his office too. He and I start about the same time, so if I were to get the position, I’d be his boss which could be awkward. Not sure if this made a difference, but he’s a Missouri-Rolla graduate, and one of the three interviewers is also from Missouri-Rolla, while the other two were KU.

But now since I know I’m not going anywhere I can focus more on this project. I actually probably wouldn’t hate it as much if I actually felt my presence was necessary. A lot of the time I’m out there with another Tech, and he’s the one that the contractor talks to. I don’t actually do much if I out there during the day, which is why when the opportunity to go work in the asphalt lab came up, I asked to help out. The guy assigned to the lab is taking college classes and has to leave early two days a week. The boss assigned someone who hates the lab to fill in. After he complained to me about I asked the boss if I could go, since I personally prefer lab work to field work. I also want to learn how to do ever part of project, even though it’s very unusual for an engineer to do those things. I talked to my boss and she said she didn’t want to assign me to the lab, because she thought I was going to the EAIII position in the north office. She agreed to let go in the lab one of the days, because she still wants the other Tech to suffer which is fine by me.

Interview

Today I had my interview for the Construction Engineer position in the north shop. It was a nice laid back interview. They asked me a couple technical questions, but most were about management. I messed up on the technical questions, because I don't know the exact minimum densities required for concrete, asphalt or cement treated based. I told them I was guessing and usually got within 1-2% of the correct answer. I asked my boss a couple days ago on what kind of questions they asked her, but other than that, I did very little to prep for the interview. It's easier for me to just respond to the questions right on the spot. The interview itself felt short. There were three interviewers and each asked me 5-6 questions, but when I walked out, 45 minutes had past. My feeling during this interview was the same as when I first interviewed with the State, but back then I didn't have any competition. This time I have a fellow EAII that started a month before I did. I personally don't care if I don't get the position. I like the office I'm in and what I do, but with the way promotions work here, I have to apply when I get a chance, since I never know when the next opening will be. Though if I really wanted the position, there's 4 other EAIII positions open in the eastern half of the state, the two in Topeka and Olathe aren't too bad of prospects either. I'd prefer to stay in Wichita though, since all family and a lot of friends are here. I have a lot of friends in KC too, but the cost of living is higher. The benefit of Topeka is that it's close to Lawrence which would allow me to go to more concerts.

This Sunday, I'm going to Lawrence to see Ratatat. I'm actually going with 5 of my friends which is surprising to me, since I've never managed to get more than two to come to a concert with me. Especially to see a group that most of have never heard of more than a month ago. Maybe it's because of the holiday weekend. I'm sure none will come with me to see Jenny Lewis or Stars in the upcoming weeks.

Bitter:Sweet

Been semi-busy working out on the project. Actually had to go out on some days before 3pm. Though I still didn't do much when I went out since there were at least two other inspectors out there. We got the summer intern from the north shop for the last two weeks. Today was his last day. Guess they ran out of projects for him, so they sent him to us. He got to the watch the boring but important part of construction, dirt work. Since they were trying to load in up on OT, he'd come in in the morning with another inspector and leave at the end of the day with me. He was good company, nice to talk to another young "engineer." Talking him kept me awake on those days where we honestly didn't do anything but simply wait for the contractor to go home.

It's now been 4 weeks since I applied for the construction engineer position. I still haven't heard anything except for the initial email saying that they got my application. I emailed our FEA, and he told me that once the closing date passes, District collects all the apps, sends them to the Area. I'm not sure when the closing date is since none of the EAIII positions have closing dates listed. The FEA seems to be still handing his old EAIII responsibilities, so they don't seem to be in a major hurry to fill the vacancy. They waited 3 weeks to list it and it's been open for 5 weeks after that. I wish they would hurry.

This weekend I am heading to Lawton, OK to visit a friend, and then onto Dallas for the Bitter:Sweet concert, my favorite current band. A local dallas band called Shock of Pleasure is opening for them, and listening to some of their stuff, they don't suck. Much better and appropriate opener than the local band that opened for Bitter:Sweet last summer in Chicago. Coincidental I'll be seeing Bitter:Sweet on the 17th which is the same date that I saw them last year. This will be the 1st of 4 concerts I'll go in the next 6 weeks. Luckily the next 3 are all in Lawrence at the Granada, a venue I've never been to.

Japan Trip Part 11

We woke up for our 8am breakfast. It was just like dinner, very traditional. After breakfast, I decided to get one last soak in the hot springs before we checked out. We gathered in the lobby at 10am, and the Inn took us down to the train station. We still had over an hour before departure, so we did some shopping. The main attraction for just about everyone except me and a couple of others was the Hello Kitty shop with a giant golden Kitty in front of it. I had already bought my Hello Kitty gift in Sapporo, so I had no interest. After about 5 minutes in the shop, I left to explore the rest of the town with Austin and Quixia. We found shop that sold some expensive hand made woodcrafts. I bought a small Hear no, see no, and speak no evil monkey statue, which current sits on my desk at work.

We took the train to Utsunomiya, which is apparently famous for its gyouza. There were at least five gyouza restaurants right by each other in the station. We split into three groups for lunch, since no one restaurant could accomodate us all. I ordered the spicy gyouza with a side of kimchee. From Utsunomiya we took the bullet train to Asakusa, Tokyo. Riding the train made me think of the Chemical Brothers video for Star Guitar. So started playing the song on my zune.

In Asakusa, we went to Kaminari mon. There was just tons of shops, most of it very touristy. I bought a lantern and a Shinsengumi coat. I also bought some tenugui bought they came from shops off the main road. After shopping alone, I finally found the main group. We walked slowly split off as we saw things that interested us, like the arcade for purikura or food. I stuck with Seiji for a while, but after dinner I decided I wanted to head back to the main shopping area to show a Fritzi the out of the way shops that sold tenugui. I was leading Fritzi and Quixia back to the station, when stopped at a Mister Donuts, because Quixia had get something. This stop caused me to get disoriented, or maybe I was already oriented wrong, but I started heading in the opposite direction of the station. After stopping a man for directions we started back and we met up with going to where we came from so we decided to tag along. He was looking for the Golden Kappa statue and the district where they make the realistic looking plastic food. We found the statue but it was fenced off, and we didn't manage to find the plastic food, probably because it was late and most of the stores were closed. We headed back to the station and we still had some time leftover to stop be the tenugui shops. After that, we hopped on a fairly crowded train which we managed to avoid most of the trip, and went back to Minako's house. We packed our things but before we did that I laid out all my goodies and took a picture.

Japan Trip Part 10

We left Minako's house at 6am to catch the train to Shinjuku, which is the busiest station in the world. From Shinjuku we hopped on a train to Nikko. It was a two hour ride, and most of us slept on it. I slept through the first half, but managed to stay awake for the rest to enjoy the scenery. Once we arrived the inn were staying at sent two vans to pick us up. We dropped off our bags since our rooms weren't ready, and we headed out to tour the shrines. Nikko is a relatively quite town, known for its hot springs and the location of the tomb of the Tokugawa shogun.

We walked from the inn to shrine. It was a huge area. The day we went, several schools were there for field trips. I walked a little slower and walked with a group of senior citizens with a tour guide. I did that for a while until I fell far enough behind. We had lunch at shop in the shrine. Most of our day was spent walking around. Sadly halfway through the trip, the battery died on my camera, and I left my charger back in Yokohama.We returned to the inn around 3-4pm. After getting our rooms, I relaxed for a bit, then headed up to the 6th floor to the hotspring bath. Seiji and the supporters were already up there soaking in the outdoor hot tub. There was a beautiful view and the cool mountain air left good in the hot bath. After the bath, the inn provided us with yukata. When I returned to the room, Austin was napping and Micah was gone, so I got bored and went for a walk around town. I felt awesome walking around in the yukata and vest. Only thing that would have been better is if I had a sword. It was very quiet, and none of the stores seemed to be open besides the conbini.

After returning from the walk it was time for dinner. It was a very fancy japanese dinner. It was much better looking than it tasted. I prefer okinawan cooking over japanese. After dinner, a group of us, all of us old enough to drink, went to the conbini for some liquor. It was like a miniature liquor store. They had a decent selection, though the majority was sake. We all went back to Seiji's room to hang out, drink, and look at some of the pictures that people took throughout the trip. I'm not sure about anybody else, but I got to the happy stage of drunk. After a couple hours we all went back to our rooms for bed.

Japan Trip Part 9

We woke up around 8:00am and Minako's family was kind enough to make us breakfast. Our first stop on the way to Tokyo was Shibuya. We split into three group. The guys went to the games, manga, and music store, some of the girls went clothes shopping and I have no clue where the third group went. I looked around the manga section, but didn't want to buy anything, that's too much stuff to carry around and I don't want to just buy one volume of a series. I did buy one used Sakura Taisen game for DS, and four ued music cds; Bonnie Pink, two brilliant green, and Lucky Soul. I was happy to find Lucky Soul, since they're a British band, and the Japanese version of their album has two bonus tracks, but it doesn't have the secret track. We ate lunch at Yoshinoya and had some delicious beef bowls. Sadly there was no room for all of us to eat together, so I ate upstairs by myself.

After lunch, we met up and walked to the Meiji Shrine.
On the way we walked to through a massive bicycle and motorcycle parking area. We was a slightly interesting to me. There wasn't enough actual motorcycle, just a lot of big scooters. Along walk way there were some homeless people's houses too.

The Meiji Shrine was kind of interesting, I'm not really fan of shrines. I did buy some lucky charms though. The shrine is right next to Harajuku which was our next stop.

The main attraction was the "underground", which is basically a street with a ton of clothing stores of varying styles. Walking through, one of the owners stopped me and brought me into his urban clothing store. It's not my style but I had time to kill. The prices were ridiculous, and I was definitely wasn't going to buy urban clothing in Japan. I explained to him that I was hoping I could find a great Engrish shirt. He showed me a couple of shirts, but they all had proper English. In fact, Harajuku disappointed me, because I could find any Engrish shirts. I only found little store, that wasn't even in the underground, that had cool shirts. Being a Tuesday afternoon, we didn't see many of the Harajuku girls or street performers.

After Harajuku, we hopped on the train to end to the main destination of all the men, Akihabara. We went straight into the giant Yodobashi store across from the subway station. I went straight to the 6th floor which has all the games, music, and most importantly toys. There was so many things that I wanted to buy, but I knew I couldn't fit them into my luggage. Coincidently, they sold luggage on that floor. I ended up buying a 1/60 YF-19, which has been something I've wanted for the past 10 years. I also bought a Pinky:St figure of Sakura Shinguji. After spending about an hour in Yodobashi, I finally got out to explore some of the smaller shops. I found one shop with a smaller, YF-19 at the price and it was still transformable. The shop also had a ton of gatchapon figures. I wish I had more time to walk around, but I spent too much time in Yodobashi. Dr. John latched onto me in Yodobashi so I wasn't completely free to roam. After buying some gatchapon, John was getting hungry so we went to a Kaiten sushi place.

Earlier that week in Akihabara, a mad man killed several people. So there was onlookers, and media everywhere. I didn't really notice them at first, but walking back after dinner, I noticed. We all met up at the train station, and had a long and crowded trip back to Yokohama. Once back at Minako's I tore into my new toys, and everyone looked at me as if I was a child, which might been true. I was ecstatic to have have my own variable YF-19, which I played with for a while, because I had trouble transforming it. Before bed we had to neatly pack our things, because we were going to Nikko, and Minako was having other people stay at her house while we were gone.

back to work

Work started on my new project yesterday. Today they’re just clearing and grubbing, so only one person needs to be out there. I’ll have to be out there late in the afternoon after the other inspectors go home, since they don’t want give OT. Which is fine by me and actually works in my favor, because I can come in later. The contractor works from 7am to 5:30pm, so the early birds can cover the morning, while I do the afternoon. At least for now, until we get more things going on. We stopped flex time this week, so people not on project have to work 8am to 4:30pm or 5pm. It’s odd writing this while everyone is still here. I originally started writing this to kill the last 30 minutes of the day after everyone leaves.

I’ve been working semi-hard trying to final out my old project, since I’ll be working on this new one. Copying a couple thousand excel entries into an orange workbook sucks. I also got assigned a new phone today, which is odd. I had to give my phone to the new senior, and I got the old phone of a tech. Why the tech didn't give the phone to the senior, I don't know. Luckily most of us keep the same contacts, so it's not that bad.

Starting next week, we'll have a new tech transferring in from the North office. It makes sense to transfer here, it's a bigger office and we have 4 empty desks. They have tiny cubicles and cram everyone in half the space we have. We also have an awesome boss. I've worked with the new transfer before, and she very friendly and likes to talk a lot. We're not so talkative in our office since we're spread out more.

The Roots

Yesterday, we had a meeting for the project that I was assigned to. There's 5 of us, the project manager and 4 helpers. I'm the only helper without a specified job. I'll just float around and help out when necessary. So I'm probably going to be aimless for quite a bit, answering to people that are technically lower than me on the totem pole. The project starts sometime next week and is expected to finish around xmas time. An interesting aspect of project is that project manager wants try our best to conserve fuel. He wants us to start now before the state mandates it. He wants us to try to carpool and to not leave our trucks running. I personally never leave my truck running or even use air conditioning. I also choose to walk everywhere on a project. I wouldn't mind carpooling, since unlike everyone else, I don't keep my office in my truck. Mine is fairly devoid of personal items. Though if I'm a floater, if there's nothing to do, I'll probably just go home and get very little OT. I don't look forward to being out in the field for 6 months, so hopefully I can get that promotion.

Much like half of the office, I'm taking tomorrow off. I'm going to take my truck into the shop, then head to Kansas City for the Roots Concert. I like the Roots, but I'm not a huge fan, I don't even own any of their many CDs. They're playing at the Harrah's, so I thought I might have some fun at the casino, then catch a show. A couple of my friends are coming along too, so it should be fun. Though I'm going to feel awkward being at a hiphop concert with two very white guys.

Japan Trip Part 8

We got up early to check out, then took the subway to JR Station. We said farewell to one of our members from the Czech Republic, who wasn't touring with us any more last night. We met her again at the station waiting to buy our tickets. We said goodbye again and went our separate ways. Then when we boarded our train for the airport, we saw her again, getting on the train next to us.

The train ride felt oddly longer than the bus ride. We arrived 2 hours before our flight at New Chitose Airport. We split up into groups for lunch, and then went shopping. I figured I needed to buy some something that was Hokkaido specific. I bought several knick knacks which I actually ended up giving away as gifts. In Chitose, we said goodbye to 3 more teammates, who were going back to their homes around Japan. We flew out of Chitose and arrived in Haneda. We took a bus to the bus terminal in Yokohama, where one of our members, Minako greeted us with her family and friends. We all piled into 3 vans, and headed to her family's house.

Minako's father is a priest at the Tenrikyo church, which is attached to their house. It was a surprisingly large house, though it had low doorways. It was funny watching the taller men hit their heads and walking around hunched over. Apparently they normally have visitors and were easily able to accommodate our large group.

After unloading our things, Minako gave us tour of the house and church. Once in the church, her father gave us an intro to their religion. He answered our questions until it was time for dinner. Her family was kind enough to provide us a delicious temaki sushi dinner. There was two kinds of squid, tuna, salmon, and eels. There was a challenge to eat the whole tiny squid they provided. I ate my squid before the challenge was even brought up. It was a bad taste and odd sensation as your bite through the head. Most of them didn't try it.

We finished a little after 6:30pm, which is when the church has their twice daily services. We sat in on it. Following the service, we were asked to give a performance by her family. We did 3 dances. It was slightly odd dancing in the church immediately after they just had services. After our performances, we piled into the vans again and they took us to Yokohama Chinatown.

Chinatown is supposedly famous for its nikuman (pork buns). We just finished a big dinner so most of us weren't interested in trying them. I personally found no interest in Chinatown, so I just walked around, not going in any of the shops. Our destination in Chinatown was the karaoke box. There was 18 of us in one room. It started slow because there was only one song list in english. A former member of the team, worked nearby and hung out with us. He was even kind enough to pay for part of our fee.

Seiji wanted us to pick songs that everyone could song along to. Only about the group were interested in picking songs, so I picked a couple that they might know. I picked the Cardigans - Lovefool, Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody, and Weezer - Buddy Holly. I didn't pick up the mic for lovefool, but I did for the other two. We picked a few disney songs too hoping everyone would know them. We only sang three Japanese songs; Re:Japan - Ashita ga Arusa, a song I somewhat knew because we sang a version of it in Japanese class, the Theme from Totoro, which was a hit, and Minako with Wildcats - We are wildcats, a song that no one knew, but it we felt it needed needed to be sung. My favorite moment was when Ada, our 13 year old member, and Ashley, a fairly quiet person, sang Metallica's Master of Puppets. It came out of nowhere, and they did a great job. After singing, we took cabs home, and prepared for a day of sightseeing in Tokyo.

Japan Trip Part 7

Sunday was another day filled with performances. Before our performances, a member from one of the other teams came and taught us the new Soran Illusion dance at our request. They also gave us t-shirts. We started at the Sapporo Factory Shopping Center, and had lunch there after our performance. Next we went to the Daiei Shopping mall. They had all the teams lined up behind the stage. Much to our glee, Mai Docomo was standing right next to us. We cook a couple more pictures with them and cursed that they didn't go before us, because Seiji said we had to leave immediately after our performance, so we wouldn't be able to watch them. We walked very slowly and once we got far enough, we actually just stop so we could watch them.

Our next stop was Odori Park for our parade. We had to perform our dance 5 times in a row with a water break after the 2nd one. Before our first dance, we saw someone from the team ahead of us being hauled away on a stretcher. Our first couple runs were kinda off. We practiced moving at a much faster pace, and we didn't think to leave space between us and our music van. During our water break, I was still hyped up and kept dancing. It was hot and I was happy to see the end of the block by our 5th performance. After parade, we took some time off and bid farewell to one of our supporters.

We had an hour break, then it was time for Soran Illusion part #2. It was basically the same as last night, but with less teams, because the semi-finals were going on at the same time. This time we started at the fron of the group right behind the Kenyan team. This time the experience was a lot more fun since we actually knew the dance. In fact, it was probably the most fun I've ever had in my life. I purposedly moved at the slower speed so I dance with other people throughout the dance. I want to come back next year just for the experience of dancing in the parade again. I definately had a lot more energy in this than in any other dance.

After the parade it was time for our farewell dinner. We went to the Monja Tanuki restaurant which was an okonomiyaki and monjayaki restaurant. People gave going away speeches, which was surprisingly tearless compared to our end of the semester going away parties. We said goodbye to our Assistant Director, who was flying back to Tokyo that night. After the party we were free to do whatever. Half of the group went to watch the finals. I went with Seiji and the other Japanese members to the onsen (hot springs) for a bath.

Bath house was an experience. They had serveral different pools. They were at various temperatures and had different minerals in it. There was one with lemons and one with a light electric current running through it. I didn't actually see that one, but they talked about it. There a couple of saunas too. A regular and a super sauna. The super sauna was crazy. I began sweating immediately and could barely breath once I got in there. After a couple minutes, I gave up. The best part was the outdoors portion. That's where the pool with the actual spring water was. There was also the foot baths and heated chairs. There was kind of a line for the chairs. The backs of the chairs were heated and warm water runs from the waist down. After the bath we went to the relaxation area. They had full body massage chairs, a mini arcade, a restaurant, and a tatami room for laying down or stretching. The trip to onsen was by far the best bang for your buck in Japan. Just 300 yen for a relaxing finish to a day, and a great last night in Sapporo.

On our way back to the hotel, several of us took the posters for the yosakoi festival since it was officially over. We probably arrive back around 11pm, and had to pack for tomorrow.

Japan Trip Part 6

Saturday, we had a full day of performances. We were constantly on move going from venue to venue. We started at the JR South Station. The ground was still wet from the night before, and our tabi shoes didn't help much on the pavement like they did on the main stage. At the very beginning of our dance, I slipped and fell. I quickly recovered and proceeded with caution. Other members complained about slipping too, but no one else fell. After our performance, we broke for lunch. I grabbed some onigiri from the conbi, and watched the other performances. I even got to see Toppu perform, which was the team of our former assistant director. We learned about 3 of Toppu's dances. Our next dance was back on the big stage at Odori Park. Then it was off to Aka-Renga, (the old red brick government building). We were rushing, but we actually got there early, and got our team picture taken again. This was a smaller venue, so the audience was right in front of us. We had to make sure to shout really loud and to smile really big.

We thought our next dance was at the elevated circle stage back at Odori Park. But it was actually on the street. It was supposed to be a short form parade style, which we didn't rehearse at all. We just basically did a stage style dance, which I felt cheated the audience. The crowd is to the side of the us, but we faced forward the whole time.

After that, we sneaked off to a empty road and practiced our parade style dance. We practiced it quite a bit back at the hostel, but we didn't have the whole there at the time. After a short practice, we were allowed to go explore and watch other performances.

I watched some of the big stage performances on a big screen. I actually saw a team that was smaller than us, they only had 10 people. After watching a couple of those, I watched the parade performances.

The teams will have these ornately decorated trucks, and that's why the hype men will stand. We were lucky, being a special team, we got our truck provided to us for free. We also got our $2000 entry fee waived too.

At around 5:45pm we went to dinner at a viking restaurant, which the Japanese word for buffet. After that, it was time for Soran Illusion Night. Various teams get together to perform a parade dance together. We were in the college group, which was called the Kenya group. They gave us all wraps. We were actually expecting to the Pokey Pokey dance, which they learned last year. Instead we did a whole new African themed dance. It was a fun dance once we went through it several times and learned it. The Kenyan team was at the front of the parade. This was an extraordinarily fun experience. Dancing with 1000's of other people while the crowd cheers us on. The chorus of the dance motioned for the audience to join us, some of more enthusiastic dancer would run right up to the crowd. We danced up the street first, then a different group danced up, then there was some flag battle going on after that, but I couldn't see it. While waiting for turn again, our director Seiji lead us in doing the Pokey Pokey Dance. We thought we could start a wave since we figured these people would know the dance. Only a few actually knew last year's Soran Illuison dance. Some tried to dance it with us anyways. After our little impromtu dance, one of the people that helped make the dance thanked us. He said it made him very happy to see his dance performed again, though it was different. On way back, everyone danced Yocchore, which was a dance we did know. The announcement of Yocchore made everyone happy. People were screaming "yocchore" and cheering. There wasn't enough space to do the dance properly, but it didn't matter, because there was so many of us. It didn't matter if the dance was right anyway, as long as you had enough enthusiasm. Once Illusion Night was over, we went home and prepped for the next day.

mmm, steak

My boss continues to be awesome. We had a cookout today and she provided the steaks. I brought fried rice, while others brought three different pasta salads. There was also strawberry cheesecake, some kickass brownies, and watermelon, which made me happy. It was actually a cookout/staff meeting, so got some business taken care of too.

The north office EAIII got the FEA position, and I still waiting for them to open the position. This recent cookout is reason a why I like this office so much more than the north office. I’ll apply for the EAIII job, but I won’t be upset if I don’t get it. I figure I have to at least try, can’t let myself get too lazy, plus it’s a $6k/yr raise. Though I’m afraid it’s already too late.

Japan Trip Part 5

Friday is the day of our first performance. We had to get up slightly earlier, because were checking out of the hostel and into a hotel downtown. It was unfortunately raining that morning. We first took the subway, then proceeded to walk a kilometer with or luggage through the covered shopping district. The pace we were moving at really upset my knee, but I did my best to keep up.

Our hotel was just a couple blocks from the main venue. The rest of our team met us at the hotel, except one. We now had 24 people, 18 dancers. Most of us were on the 4th floor. The three of us had a double as a triple. It was a tiny room with barely any room for our luggage. It was slightly smaller than the room at the hostel, and the hostel had futons, so we could stuff our bedding in the closet, though I was the only one that actually did that. We didn't spend much time in our rooms anyways. We at least had internet, but it was wired, so we had to share.

As soon as we checked in, we had to change and get ready for rehearsal. It was still raining, and we didn't know how to dress for rehearsal so we came in our uniforms. Every other team there were in costume, but with ponchos. We were out in the rain for hours being thoroughly soaked. Tonight was World in Souran Night, when all the international teams were showcased. There were teams from New Zealand, Kenya, Brazil, and Taiwan. And despite the distance they travel, they still brought a lot more members than us. The Brazilian team was called Sansey, most were descendants of Japanese living in Brazil. The Kenyan was actually mostly Japanese. They wore yellow and black African outfits.

Right after our rehearsal, we were interviewed Sapporo TV, the major local station. They chose three of us, Austin, Michelle, and myself. Michelle did all the talking, while Austin and I just nodded and smiled. Apparently we were interviewed semi-famous model/actress. She asked her questions about yosakoi and global climate change, since the theme tonight was the environment, which was related to the upcoming G8 summit in Sapporo. It was good that Michelle did the talking because she did a great job, and came up with better responses than I could have ever done in short notice. They interviewed the other international teams too. We had stay cheerful, because we never knew when we were going to be on camera. And whenever we noticed the camera, we had to get excited and yell, like the people in the backgroud of the Today show.

The performances started at 5pm. One of the top teams actually opened with a dance, and halfway through it, all the international teams joined them. After the group dance, we were up. There was a decent turn out despite the rain. The dance went great as far as I could tell. The acts were precisely scheduled and we had to run off stage quickly. As soon as we finished, it stopped raining. We got our picture taken, then they handed on Bandai Namco Happi coats for the group dance. We waited until it was time to perform the special dance that we learned for the night. We performed it with Chapi, the extremely cute penguin mascot of this year's festival. It was very fun, but very crowded, really didn't have room to properly do the moves. After that we went back to the hotel to dry off. Our flag waiver, Ryan arrived during our performance, so Dr. John had to wave the flag. It was extra difficult because it was wet. It made me happy that Dr. John got to perform on the big stage with us, and he was ecstatic about it too.

Afterwards we were invited to a dinner with the Taiwanese team and the president of the Yosakoi festival. They had a lot of tasty food. Sadly there wasn't much mingling because of the language barrier. We actually performed for the president. The song we used for our dance the theme of last year's festival and they were playing various yosakoi songs in the background. Most of our team will instantly start dancing whenever they hear a song they know. So the president saw them and was wondering what they were doing. It was explained and had to give performance. It went well considering that it was a small stage and we were in the middle of eating. Most of us were in street clothes, though I was still wearing the pants, which I love very much, and an older version of our shirt. My knee held out even though the painkillers wore off.

Following the dinner we split up, and I followed the director to watch the rest of the performances. Once that finished, we went home to prep for the next day.

Japan Trip Part 4

Next day was more of the same. We went to a family restaurant for lunch which took the while lunch period and then some. It seemed to be some Japanese franchise of Bob's Big Boy called Victoria Station. Our group was too large to sit together, which was often the case here, and I had to sit in the smoking section with other males. It wasn't as bad as expected. The reason our meals took so long was that once we finished the main dish, many of us ordered dessert and those took a long time to come out. I got a flan parfait with coffee jello. That's one of the things I love about Japan, there's melon and coffee flavored everything. Nothing like starting the morning with coffee bread. (this is not what our restaurant had but, a picture I took in Tokyo, but it gives you and idea of what they look like.)
We ended our afternoon practice because we were going to watch a earlier performance. There was a line for the shower, so I decided to try out the public bath down in the basement of the hostel. Luckily it wasn't busy nor were there any Japanese present, because I'm sure broke some etiquette rules. It was refreshing to soak in a hot bath after a workout, but the water was very hot that after a while I was sweating.

We went to another night of performances, which started slow because they featured a lot of kids teams. It picked up with team dressed in hip hop fashion, followed by one of the favorite teams of the festival, Konza Freak. They're a team from a women's college and they started off wearing yellow dresses with fairy wings, then they shed them to reveal a cheerleader outfit with pom poms. Our tickets were for only a certain time slot, so the organizer prepping us to leave. Luckily we stay until the end and got to finish with one of our team's favorites, Mai Docomo. Austin is huge fan of them, and wanted to track them down after their performance. After performing on the main stage, all the teams go to take an official group photo. After they finished with theirs we asked to take some photos with them. Their costumes are so simple. basically dress liked a old fashion Japanese blue collar worker but with happi. Their moves are fairly simple, but they all do it with such precision and to the sounds of the music, that is looks awesome. Any team that has a corporate sponsor has to be good.

Sadly, I guess the combination of the workouts and sitting in those uncomfortable bleachers messed up my left knee. I had to limp my way home after the performances. I went back to the hot bath to soak my knee and it really didn't help that much. I went to Dr. John, who gave me some ibuprofen, a wrap and an ice pack. The pain in my knee really upset me, because I worked out much harder in the weeks before the trip and on the day before our first performance it starts to hurt. I hoped it go away after a night's rest, but it actually plagued me for the rest of the festival.

Japan Trip Part 3

Wednesday June 4 was our first actual day in Japan, since there's a 14 hour time difference and the total flight time including lay overs of 24 hours. I woke up at 4am, because that's when the sun rises and we left our blinds open. Out of laziness I just rolled over and went back to sleep until 7am.
Our practice involved a really short job to the local grocery store, just so we'd know where it was. I opted to run it barefoot, which is probably frowned upon since I'll be bringing in the outside dirt indoor even when I take my shoes off. The hostel had a little gym for us to practice in and we had to take off our shoes before going in.

After practice, we had an extra long break for lunch so we can go shopping and explore a little. Half of us chose to follow Seiji, our director around, and we went to Mos Burger for lunch. I just got a regular Mos burger, which was fairly messy and tasted like a sloppy joe. It was a solid patty though, it was just the sauce. After lunch, most of the group went to the nearby shopping complex which the grocery store was attached to. Seiji, Dr John (the team medic), and myself went to the Geo, the used game, book, and cd store. I bought two Bonnie Pink albums for $2 and $9 which made me really happy, since they usually cost $25-30.

We practiced again in the afternoon, and then we went to downtown Sapporo to watch the other teams. Our first performance wasn't until Friday night, so got two nights to watch the performances. The performances on the main stage weren't judged the first two days. We had to pay to get into the stands. The performances were all excellent, though we were a little distracted by the cold weather. Seiji said none of the top teams were performing tonight, which amazed me, because I was in awe of the performances that night. The size of the teams, the cheographery, costume changes and props, they were definately more than just dances. Every team had what I called a "hype man." They stand in towers on opposite sides of the stage, and yell at parts of the song when the team yells, since the crowd can't hear the team yell on the main stage. Some of the teams have actual singers, which really adds to the performance. I remember one team that had two hype men, one singer, and three rappers. My favorite that night was a group called Las Vegas. They wore glittery tuxedo looking costumes. A lot of my teammates didn't care much for them, because they were far away from traditional yosakoi, but I still think they put on a great stage show. Watching those performances made my anxious to get on the main stage, and made me proud and amazed to be part of such a wonderful festival.

Japan Trip Part 2

There were 12 of us traveling together. 1 bought her tickets separate from the rest of us, so she was on all the same flights, but wasn't seated anyways near us. The 11 of us were split in into 3 groups and I had the pleasure of being in the girls group. The flight from Chicago was around 12-13 hours and it wasn't too bad. I only watched one of the inflight movies, Jumper. I actually watched it in Japanese, because the button on my remote was broke and I couldn't switch it to english. But it was a simple enough movie that I actually understood everything. Japanese dubs always seem to use the same actors, which are a completely different set of actors used in anime. I read my book, "I am America and So Can You" and played some FFIII DS. I took a couple naps early on so when I arrive in Sapporo, I'll be ready for bed.

We arrived in Narita Airport in the afternoon. We immediately exchanged our money went to our gate. There was a gift shop/restaurant/convenience store close by and our group immediately squealed at the Hello Kitty display. Our flight to Chitose was mostly empty, so some of us spread out to lay down to sleep. We arrive in Chitose at 8pm and took a bus into Sapporo to the Youth Hostel. We met up with a few other memebers and increased our number to 17. 8 more were coming once we checked into a hotel in the city. It was a international hostel, so most of the people there were Americans waiting to move in with their host families. There were only 3 male dancers, so we were always together for lodging. There was a total of 7 males, 3 dancers, 2 supporters, the director, and flag waver.

I was part of the two groups that got Japanese style rooms. We were directly above the lobby so we were able to get the wireless signal. I didn't realize that everyone else was without internet. The hostel had what everyone called "space toilets." They were indeed nice and had heat seats. They also had awesome hand dryers. It's bascially a trough with two air jets blowing downward. You slowly pull your hands out and the water is blown off your hands, so much better than the dryers they have here. I took a quick shower and went with a group of girls to the conbini (convenience store) for some snacks and breakfast for tomorrow. We made it back right before midnight when they lock the doors. Finally got to go to bed for some much needed sleep. Our first practice was scheduled for 10am to give us plenty of time to rest.

Japan Trip Part 1

I left Wichita on June 1 at 3pm with another member of the team, Michelle. She drove her van and was very pleasant company, which was good since in addition to riding with her for the next 5 hours, she was also going to be sitting next to me on all of our flights. We first drove to Manhattan to pick up two other members, Holly and Austin. We actually got there ahead of time so we got some coffee, then waited at chipotle for them to arrive. After dinner, we drove to KC to spend the night at another team members house, but he wasn't going on the trip with us. Either he gave bad directions or Michelle wrote down the wrong ones, because we got lost on the way there. We finally arrived around 9:30pm and went to bed around 10pm. I couldn't fall asleep that early since I've been working the night shift the week before, and just laid there until Austin finally got up and started playing his DS around 2am. Which was good for me since I could stop pretending to sleep. The girls were upstairs in the guest rooms, while us two guys just had the couch in the basement. We got up at 4am, because we had to be at the airport byt 5am for our 6:30am flight to Chicago. Made it through security without a problem. In fact throughout the whole trip, I didn't have any problems with the TSA or customs. I even brought back a Marimo from Hokkaido.

Not ready to be back.

Two weeks didn't feel like enough vacation for me. I should have taken an extra day to recover, because as soon as I got back to Wichita, I went to a lan party for the weekend which really mess up my schedule. I did manage to get some work done on Monday and Tuesday morning since I had some stuff piled up. But soon after 11am, I lost any focus I had. With no motivation, I just tried to catch up on everything I missed in the past 2 weeks. Today, I managed to do no work, felt tired the whole day. I even took a short nap during my lunch break outside. A couple engineers from district drove up during it, hope they understood it was my lunch break and that I wasn't blatantly slacking off. I don't think I'm jetlagged because I'm able to go to bed a decent time and still get 7-8 hours of sleep at night.

There were a couple changes at work while I was gone. The Construction Engineer (EAIII) got a new car. They replaced our old Taurus with a new Impala. We actually got that Taurus a couple months ago. We had an old one and they replaced it with an older one. We got our new senior, The tech with 15 years of experience can finally stop bitching. I am happy for him though. They're having interviews for the FEA position in the north office today, and I was sad to hear that our EAIII didn't even apply for it. She didn't want to work in that office. Truthfully, neither do I, but I'll still apply for the engineer position assuming it opens up. The EAIII from the north office and Pratt office recently passed the PE exam, not sure if the Pratt EAIII applied for the position though.

The next several posts will be about my trip to Japan. I didn't really write much while I was there other than some tweats. So they won't be very detailed. I did take quite a few pictures, but not nearly as much as everyone else in my group. I guess Japan doesn't impress me as much as everyone else.

Vacation Time

15 more minutes until I go on vacation to Japan for two weeks. They finally put me on a project this week. It's a night project, which is normally Sun-Thurs. Because of the holiday, they were only able to work Tue-Thurs, so I had to cram 32 hours in three nights. Once concrete is poured, usually around 2am, there's nothing to do. I was worried that I might get so antsy that I'd use my vacation time to leave at 2am, but I actually managed to keep busy.

Working out in the field for the first time in 7 months, I realized I don't want to be out there. The short week and upcoming definitely has role in me not wanting to work outside. Though I think I would rather sit indoors and do paperwork. They just opened up the Field Engineer Administrator (FEA) position, so a EAIII position should be opening up soon after it's filled, assuming one of our EAIII's gets it and not some outsider. So maybe I can get that indoors only job. Granted I'll actually have to work, but the extra pay will make it worth it. I only have one other EAII to compete with. There was another EAII in El Dorado, but he recently took the EAIII position in Hutchinson. He's actually has 1 year less experience than me, and is already in charge of a office. If don't get the position here in Wichita, I might seriously consider taking one fo the other EAIII jobs around the state.

jpop

Today there was another meeting in our office. It was a surprisingly long meeting, 4 hours. Not really sure what it was for since a lot of these meetings don't involve any of us except the construction engineer. Since the Metro Engineer was here, I had to find some work to do. I remembered that I still have a ton mindless copying to do. I worked until the meeting start, and put it off for another day. One nice result of the meeting was that my boss baked cookies.

Speaking of food, we're going to have a cookout tomorrow. The specialist that was taking the day off is coming in just for it, much to some our disappointment. At least he will be bringing a side dish of some sort, which is something I need to think about doing. So far this week has been bad for me diet wise. I've eaten out 3 times already and ate several cookies.

My mp3s that need the most work are my Japanese ones, so I've been listening to them to get rid of duplicates. I had forgotten how much I like jpop. My first several years in college, it's basically all I ever listened too. Now I only keep up with a few select artists, and make no effort to discover new ones. I normally read NPR music and Pitchfork for new western bands. But I don't know of one for Japanese music, and I don't have much faith in the oricon charts
.

pavement marking

Today we had a short class teaching us how to use our new pavement marking database. It's a rather easy program. They had everyone class take turns using the program. We broke it a couple times, which is what they asked us to do. The developer was there taking notes.

Last week, Bitter:Sweet, my favorite band at the moment, released their 2nd album and it is fantastic. It's poppier than the first one, but still excellent. I'm a little disappointed that I still have to wait two more weeks to be able to buy the cd. They released it early on itunes, which I refuse to use because of the DRM. The new Ladytron album came today on itunes, and the physical version will also come out on June 3rd. I'm not a fan of this itunes exclusive early releases. I remember last year, Stars released their latest early on emusic, which is a site I support. This year has been great for me musically. 3/6 of my top favorite bands have released new albums. Portishead being the biggest of them all, first in 11 years. Plus bunch of other bands that I just discovered last year, have stuff like CSS and My Brightest Diamond. And there's been talks of the Brazilian Girls and Camera Obscura working on new albums, and if I'm lucky they'll come out this year. So many great bands, and none of them are coming close to Kansas. Though I'm willing to travel to see Bitter:Sweet again, and Portishead too if they do anymore US shows.

labeling

Today the office is a little emptier. Two more techs were sent to Great Bend. We do have one project resuming next week after Memorial Day, a night patching job. My boss asked if I'd help, and I could, but only for 4 days before I take two weeks for my trip to Japan. The project itself should only last 2-3 weeks. Still haven't heard about any other jobs. My most recent is getting close to its 180 day striping inspection, so it can finally be accepted. I'm actually on the ball with this one, though we're still waiting on the contractor to sign off on 4/6 change orders that's been pending for 4 months.

While I wait for that, I've been filling out the ID3 tags and finding album art for my mp3 collection. Most of the music I've acquire in the past couple years are fine, but my Japanese music from when first online 9 years ago are in bad shape. A lot of them are just singles. Luckily their official sites has the necessary info and art, though the art is thumbnail size. I do enjoy labeling the Japanese stuff, because get to practice my Japanese reading, and I'm pleased with how much I still remember.

Pearls

I do have some work to do, but I'm unmotivated to do it today, so I'll save it for Monday. I've been reading the lately Pearls Before Swine collection, then I'll red the latest Boondocks. Just can't bring myself to start on Galaxy Angel yet. The boss brought some super sweet and dense lemon bars yesterday and today they bought donuts. After a couple months avoiding junk food, they seem to started again. The lemon bars are allowed in my diet since they're homemade, but i failed to resist the Krispy Kreme donut late in the day.

Yesterday, we had a webinar about pedestrian safety and signals in our office. This is more of something for traffic engineering. I'm interested in traffic engineering, but it's not what I do, so it didn't really apply to us. We had some traffic engineers from the City of Wichita attending, so hopefully someone learned something. I, like I do in all lectures, fell asleep. I actually stood through a couple of talk, so I wouldn't pass out.

We got a new technician this week. He transfered from maintenance after 10+ years. He was in a state of limbo for while. He was going to the tech classes but still worked for maintenance. He finally joined us in the back this week. Seems cool, keeps to himself and listens to music like me, so that's good. He also stays past 4pm, so I'm not the only one back here.

mp3's

I'm out of good manga read, since I don't really like the Galaxy Angel or Di Gi Charat manga. I love the anime, which came first, but manga just is uninteresting. With my extra time, I've begun/continuing my massive project of labeling and finding album art for all 120 gigs of my mp3s. I'm sure more than 50% is already complete.

I did manage to find some work to do on my project. Learned some new function for the software we use. Discovered that I can dispose of used oil here. Occasionally around 4pm, my boss wanders back here after everybody is gone and starts rearranging stuff, mainly to tidy up since the older guys amass a ton of crap. I've made it a personal goal to clean out of desk every months. I get a lot of packets and books from all the classes I go to, and most are out of date after a year. I feel bad since we use so much paper here.

Reading

I think I'm getting faster at the sudoku and crossword, because I've had more time to read today. Which wasn't bad since I got the new volumes of Dr. Slump, Hikaru no Go, and Prince of Tennis. PoT upset me a little, because I read it so fast and it stopped in the middle of a match with one of favorite characters, Fujii. Bitter:Sweet, my favorite group currently, released a 4 song preview of thie upcoming album, that I've been listening to constantly on their site. I need to stop, so I won't "wear" those songs out before the album hits, but I can't resist, they're just so damn good.

The office was a quieter today, because the older guys that have too much vacation time have started every Friday off. Our Specialist (the former construction engineer) always seems to be busy. He even did some work for my old project that I wasn't even aware of. He always getting calls too, almost whenever he gets up to leave his desk, someone will call him.

Third

Another rather boring day of work. I wasted some time adjusting the chain on my bike. It makes an annoying sound, and I can't quite figured out if it's too tight or loose. I might just have to lube it again, even though I just lubed it 400 miles ago. After my lunch break I went to Best Buy to pick Portishead's new album, Third, and GTA4. I actually haven't read much about GTA4 since I can't read about games at work, but I figured it'll be great. Plus my friends are getting it so it'll give us something to talk about. Hopefully I'll play it enough to warrant me buying it now instead of waiting to get it used.

Rain

I actually got something to do today. My project that's administered at the north office, so I don't see them very often. I delivered some paperwork to the construction engineer there over a month ago, but he was out of the office and I just put it in his inbox. He finally cleaned his desk and found the paperwork yesterday. So I had some minor corrections to make, 30 minutes work at most. Though I feel I've been doing a good job of occupying my time, since I've been bored a lot less lately.

We were under a severe thunderstorm watch. When I woke up I checked the ambient morning temperature, but didn't look at the forecast. So I rode my bike today. It was nice riding to work, but it's raining pretty hard right now. I didn't pack my rain pants either. At my jacket, helmet, and boots are waterproof.

Recently, the female Senior quit. Now I'm the only person in the back after 4pm. My boss and the office administrator are in the front and still stay until 5pm. Since she's gone, I'll have a greater chance at having to answer the phone. Also because of her departure there is a Senior position open here. We've got 4 Techs in this office and 1 from the north office that will competing for the position. It'll be interesting since two of them have over 14 years experience and have seen 6 other Techs with only the minimum 4 years experience pass them up. In the past two openings I've been around for, there was an obvious candidate, I haven't noticed one this time. Maybe someone from outside of Wichita will come and piss everyone off.

FAIL!!!

On my way from Manhattan I ran out of gas on my bike 0.5 miles from my target gas station. Yosakoi practice ended at 9:20 and I usually speed home so it won’t be midnight by the time I get home. I normally take K-15 between Abilene and Newton, because it’s fairly empty and I can go like 100mph most of the way. The problem with going that fast is that it greatly reduces my gas mileage to about 35 mpg. I can normally get about 45-50 mpg at normal speeds. My gas light turns on when I have 1 gallon left and lit up at 125 miles, so I calculated my mileage to be a little over 35 mpg and that 160 miles is my max. I figured I’d stop at Park City which would have been at 153 miles. I was attempting to pass a semi when the bike finally decided “no mas.” I pulled over and restarted the bike and puttered along for another several feet. I did that two more times before it finally stopped starting. I could see the gas station sign so I wasn’t too bad off. Two concerned drivers actually stopped to help, but I declined, because I figured I was close enough and could push the bike. It was quite a workout. So decided to take off my helmet which I clumsily dropped and the face shield popped off. They’re meant to come off, but still are a pain to get back on. Once I got to the off ramp I hopped on the bike hoping to coast to the station. It amazingly started again and had enough gas to make it to the station. I almost lost control at one point, because I had to throttle it more to get it to go, and all of a sudden it got more gas from somewhere and accelerated unexpectedly. When I filled up, I calculated my mileage to be 34.6 mpg, amazing how 0.4 mpg can screw you. And apparently my bike got less efficient even though I was driving about 15 mph slower once I got past Newton.

This little ordeal added only about 20 minutes to my drive home. So I still got home faster than if I had driven the speed limit. If I was smarter I probably should have slowed down more once my light came on. I always sacrifice efficiency for speed on the bike, and that was my main reason for getting a bike in the first place. The loss of mileage means I have to stop at gas stations more often to refuel, almost offsetting any time gained. Though I don’t mind stopping, it gives me a chance to stretch out, and rest my ass, because my seat is uncomfortable after about an hour.

Improving the ground

I just came back from a 3 course from the National Highway Institute about Ground Improvement techniques in Topeka. I was a fairly interesting class, though I will most likely make no use of any of the techniques. The majority of the class were geologists and soil engineers. We were introduced to 10 different methods and most these were developed by the Swedes and Japanese. One of the instructors was Scottish which made his lecture a little bit more interesting. Also in that class I met the cousin of one of my old friends, that I haven't talked to in years. I discovered that he's in Iraq for his third tour.

I had a fairly busy week. Friday night was a friend's birthday and we played Rock Band until we broke the pedal. Saturday was the KU Japanese festival, which I danced at. Sunday was another performance at the KSU international talent show. Since my class was in Topeka, I commuted to Manhattan for dance practice on Monday and Wednesday.

I got home Wednesday night at 11:30pm and I found two of my packages that I've been waiting for. One was from Amazon, more Street Fighter manga, and the first Cow and Boy book. The second was supposed to be my helmet and riding jacket which I ordered 5 weeks ago. I got the jacket, but no helmet. This order has been a pain for a me. First the helmet I originally ordered was out of stock, and they never bother to notify me. I just happened to check my order status and saw a note on my order. So I called them to change the order. Then I waited 3 weeks and called them again wondering about my order. They immediately shipped it after I called them, but it arrived without the helmet. I'm not in terrible need of these items, since I already have helmet and a KDOT jacket that suffices. Now I have a jacket, but old helmet doesn't match. In addition to that, the flasher relay that I ordered two weeks ago for my bike has yet to come in. I was planning on riding my bike up to Manhattan for the KSU Japanese festival, and it looks like I'll have to do it without turn signals. Hopefully the weather will be nice this weekend.

Finally

I finally got the last set of certs for my first bridge project. I might finally be done with this project that was physically complete almost 10 months ago. I recently discovered that the NY Times puzzles page isn't blocked, so I have 3 more sudoku puzzles to do daily. The crossword is actually premium content, which is fine by me since I don't think I good enough to do it anyways. I like the interface for the Eagle's sudoku and crossword better.

Aside from puzzles I've been reading King of Bandits Jing, which I borrowed from a friend. I'm finally catching up on all my manga. Probably by next month I'll be back to reading actual books. I got a small stack of used Dave Barry books that my friend has been buying for me. Jing's art reminds of something Akira Toriyama would do, but not as clean. I'm halfway through the first series, I'm still indifferent to the story.

Pandora

I mentioned pandora.com to a friend, because he had forgotten his mp3 player, which didn't really help since he didn't have this headphones either. I hadn't listened to pandora in a long time, because I was discovering too many new artists. Last year I acquired 218 albums, over 1 album every other day, and that's without using pandora. I decided to listen my Bitter:Sweet station and when I got home I downloaded 22 new albums. 2 were albums that were released that day, but the rest were from pandora. One was Hotel Costes with was a lounge compilation and there were 10 albums and the other was Quantic who had 10 albums of his own. Those recent acquistitions has put me up to 78 albums for 2008. I do listen to all of them on a regular basis too, anything new I get I take with me to the work and I keep all my music on one playlist.

Today was a very boring day I read some XXXholic and Street Fighter III manga and I tagged and sorted my newly acquired music. Mp3's are almost never labeled the way I like. Most of the office was away at some class this morning so was very unmotivated.

In charge

The boss is away again, this time she actually put me in charge. Last time she was gone, one of the other seniors brought it to her attention that I was neglect, so maybe that's why she put me in charge this time. So far I haven't actually had to do anything. But my main duties are to make sure the gate is closed and that the phones are covered.

The cake is not a lie

I was slightly worried, because no one on the construction side has a birthday day in March, so my boss wouldn't been making a cake. I had forgotten that she often brings us leftover treats. Today she brought in part of a drum kit made out of cake. She made this for her son, who apparently plays the drums. The snare was solid chocolate cake, bass was angel food cake, tom tom was a checkerboard cake, the cymbal was a giant sugar cookie, and there were pretzel drum sticks. the drums had white frosting and nice icing details. She brought us the cymbal and half the tom-tom.

I had a semi busy week. I finally got some certs, but after weeks of doing nothing I'm slow to get to them. Then I had two days of class which slowed me even more, but gave me an excuse for having gotten anything done. I have websites that I like to read daily and it's difficult for me to work until I read them. After two days of class I have a back log of stuff. I actually did some work today but it feels weird, because I'm still not caught up on my readings. Part of my readings including a daily sudoku and crossword in Wichita paper website, that's surprisingly not blocked. I really need to do more of these, because I'm slow, my mind has become dull. If only I had the drive of when I first started two years ago.

The boss is away

The construction engineer and the specialist are away at some concrete conference that I wasn't even invited to. She left one of the seniors in charge which is fine by me. That just means I won't have to answer any questions on the phone. During this time of freedom, not that it would matter if they were still, I've been playing some Sim City 4, trying my hand at city planning, mainly for the transportation planning aspect. I went broke the first time because I was busy building and neglected the budget side. It took a while and lot of proper cost cutting and allowing the dumping of toxic waste, but I was able to get a positive cash flow after going into debt the 2nd time.

Aside from playing games, I've been watching more shows besides my usual Avatar over lunch. I started watching Flight of the Conchords. It's a great show about a New Zealand comedy-folk duo, playing characters of themselves, trying to make in New York. I especially enjoy the songs. I might look into finding their albums, but I doubt it'll be as funny out of context of the show.

Superpave

I had a fairly good time in Manhattan. I got to go to 4 yosakoi practices and even got to perform. Pity messed up on the first dance. On Tuesday there was the engineering career held in the same building as my class. I saw several friends representing their companies and as applicants. We had a nice long break in the class that I was able to wander around for an hour talking to people.

The Superpave class itself wasn't too bad. It was half lab work, half lecture. We never stayed the whole time, usually left 2-3 hours early, and they even gave us lunch 2 of the days. Being half lab work really helped tie-in all the stuff we covered in lecture. That's part of the reason I was able to get through my civil engineering classes in college, because so many had labs. Another bonus from the lab, was that we got a black apron, which I'll probably never use for work. Actually most of the stuff I learned in class I won't use, but I need to be certified to enter asphalt information into our database. Pity this class's certification is once every 5 years. I don't get many opportunities to come up on the state's dime. There's this and the annual KSU transportation conference, which should be in a couple of months. I should look into that and make sure I'm registered to attend. I missed last year's because I had a class in Salina.

Manhattan

Every other Friday, I come in 30 minutes early so I can leave early, so I can make it to Manhattan by 7pm for yosakoi practice. Though today I forgot to come in early, I'm still going to leave though since I got some extra time from the Monday field trip. I'll be in Manhattan for the next week, taking a 4-day Superpave training course. It's taught by the only CE dept teacher I never had. I'm sure it'll be boring and simple, since techs have to be able to pass it. Though I've heard its one of the harder courses. I look forward to my week up there, though I don't look forward to living off fast food for the week. I'll be staying at the hotel across the street from the Union, so I won't have to worry about the parking nightmare.

Yesterday, I went to a couple beauty supply stores to find some special dreadlock shampoo, no place had what I was looking for. The Nubian Beauty Store, which was run by asians, had a conditioner, but the not the matching shampoo. I ended up picking up a "dry" shampoo. It sucks, I'm not supposed to wash my hair for a week to give the dreads time to lock up. My head itches.

New Hair

Today feels like Monday to me. I took yesterday off, and went on a field trip on Monday. I decided to get dreadlocks, which was a 3 hour ordeal, so I decided to take the whole day off. I also went and got fitted for contacts. So came in today looking fairly different, and one of my coworkers felt the need to reintroduce himself to me. He did this to me once before after I came back from rotation and had shaved my head and goatee.

Several employees took a trip to Tulsa, Ok to tour the lab facilities of a major asphalt producer, Sem Materials. They provided two charter buses for a Wichita and Topeka group. I slept for about 2 hours each way. It was a nice tour, it would have been a little more interesting if I worked with asphalt testing, but it was basically a day off. They had a beautiful facility, it's almost tempting to start looking for a job in the private sector. After the tours, they gave us lunch, then some VPs came, gave a presentation basically kissing our collective asses. I guess that's business though. We're one of their biggest customers, and we're usually the first to try out their new and unproven designs.

Last week, he had our annual District Construction and Materials meeting. It wasn't too bad, and our office surprisingly won the District Safety Award. They got their picture in the monthly newsletter, but I missed out since I left quickly. At that meeting, our Metro Engineer asked if I was interested taking over the Hutchinson construction office, since the engineer that they were grooming for the position just quit at the end of last year. It'd be a promotion and a nice pay raise, but I'd have a lot more responsibility that I don't think I'm ready for. Plus I don't want to move or commute to Hutch. I told him no thanks, and he easily gave up.

Profilograph

Yesterday I went to very simple class about reading the results of a profilograph. Basically after a major paving job, they run a profilograph over the surface to test the smoothness. It'll probably be a long time before I ever do one of those, since we're focused on repairs instead of new construction. But the class got me out of the office. I rode with the office admin and on the way back I got to hear some office gossip, which I usually never hear. I usually prefer to mind my own business and just listen to my music. I do talk with my coworkers more often now though. They'll all bored, spending their days playing games and watching DVDs.

Recently our Field Engineer Administrator announced that he's leaving us for a job that pays more and doesn't require a 50 mile commute. He is a fellow KSU alum and very easy too get along with. Yesterday, my boss was making a giant KSU banner for him. His position, FEA, is one step above Construction Engineer, EAIII, and requires a PE license. So if my boss wanted to move up she could, and then I can move up to her position. Though I don't want to move just quite yet, I don't want the responsibility of running an office and conducting meetings with people who clearly know more than me. Plus I like my boss and her cooking. Though there is the possibility that they'll keep the position closed until the EAIII from the north shop passes his PE test, so he could take it. I'm not too crazy about moving to that office either. Though it's not like I'd automatically get the position anyways, I still have to compete with the other EAII from the north shop. Ideally I'd like to stay in this office and take over in 6 months or so to get more experience, but that's not going to happen.

Tomorrow, we have our annual District Construction and Materials meeting. It'll be the end half of Thursday and beginning half of Friday. I'll be napping in the back. I have yet to make it through a conference or class without falling asleep once, though it not like it's a goal of mine to stay awake either.

Bored enough to update

I've been busy the past 5 months with projects. My project took an extra month longer than it should have, which is fine by me, because I can get more overtime that way. Now I have to finish up some paperwork with this project and my first project the finished up back in June. I need to get certifications for every little thing used on the jobs, like the bolts, paint, and plastic wrap used to cover curing concrete. We don't pay for this stuff, but we need to account for it. So I'm basically waiting for the contractors to send me the certs. There is some other busy work to be done, but I would rather read GTO.

Today was chili day, the boss made chili and another co-worker made taco soup. The soup was excellent, though I was a little disappoint with the chili because it wasn't as good as the soup. My boss is an excellent cook, and I generally expect nothing but the best from her. There was also garlic bread and some brownies. This past month has been good and bad, because she's been baking a lot more, so I get tasty treats, but it very bad for my weight. If I was able to so some restraint. I'm constantly walking passed the food table on the way to the restroom or to get something from the printer, and it's hard to not grab something.

Not sure how often I'm going to update, since it's fairly mundane not really worth writing about, but I guess it depends on how bored I get at the end of the day. I didn't bring enough GTO manga today, stopped at a really good part too.