defensive driving

Yesterday I had the joy of driving to Hutchinson for a defensive driving course. There were a couple classes here in Wichita but I was off in Salina for a Soils field tester class. Even though none of the contents of the defensive driving class was of use to me, since I actually regularly drive that way, I enjoyed the class. I gets me out of the office and I get a discount on my insurance for taking it. When signing for the class, we were required to give our license number, which I wasn't able to do since I had left my wallet at home. Of all the days to do it. I even decided that morning to not bring my lunch and to get some BBQ at a nearby restaurant. I did bring some fruit so I wasn't starving, but it was the first time I've skipped lunch in a long time and amazingly I didn't suffer any headaches. Which means I can cut back on my daily fruit intake.

The class was taught by a state trooper and he's generally entertaining. He was the same guy I had last time. He showed a lot of funny videos last time but yesterday he went straight by the workbook. He streamlined much of the class for KDOT since many of us have gone through this before. We actually used the first 1 hour of class asking him various questions regarding the legality of certain actions. We took a lot of breaks and still finished 2 hours early. This is my last scheduled class for the year. Now I have a whole month to prep for my project, though honestly I don't know what I need to do to prepare.

new project

Last week the boss gave me a proposal for a new project. Today I found out who it was awarded to and some more details. PCI, which is the contractor that was working on the bridge in Minnesota when it collapsed. My boss told me to be a dick and to bring up Minnesota anytime they're being difficult. The project is a patching, mill and overlay of the three WB Kellogg bridges at Seneca, Meridian, and Edwards. It's supposed to start after Memorial Day and is 40 calendar days. The early start date in late April, but they wanted to wait until after Riverfest. We'll be reducing Kellogg to two lanes starting at the CBD. My last project was a patching, mill and overlay so this isn't anything new, though we will be resetting the bearings on one of the bridges which is something completely new to me.

I am actually looking forward to this project, but I hope it won't interfere with a couple concerts that I plan on going to in June. The first is A Camp, which is Nina Persson's side project. A Camp is probably the closest I'll get to seeing the Cardigans live. The second is Metric, one of my favorite groups. They'll be the 3rd Broken Social Scene group I see in concert. I just got Metric's new album on Tuesday and have been enjoying it, though it's no Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? A Camp is in KC, and Metric is Lawrence, and both are on a Friday, so I'll have to be able to take off early on those two days. Though it is a calendar day project so they might work Saturdays and possibly even nights.