Project #3:done

I finished my third project last week, 4 days ahead of schedule. Though I wasn't around for the last day, because I had a wedding to attend. It was just some striping that my helper was able to take care of. Simple stuff, just go out and measure what is put down. The project in general was easy. The contractor knew what they needed to do and often did things without me asking them. They were also very prompt in getting me certifications which is usually the hardest part and can often take months after the project is finished. I personally think the contractor did a job with the overlay, a rather smooth ride. Too bad the approaches are faulted about an inch on both ends, so anyone driving will feel a noticeable bump.

So technically I have 6 months to finish up all the paperwork, because the job is only partially accepted. We have to wait 180 days to make sure the striping remains adequate. Since I have all the certs, I'm going to try to finish as much as possible in the first week. If I was really motivated I could have probably done it all in a day, but my attention span doesn't allow me to keep working. I've been lucky all the project I've been in charge of have been fairly short. I don't think I could stand doing a project that lasts more than 1 construction season.

I do have one unfortunate reason for trying to get this project finaled out as soon as possible. Last week, the person that beat me out for the EAIII (Construction Engineer) position at the north office last year died in a motorcycle accident. So that position is now vacant. I really don't want it because I like it here and recently bought a house near here. Technically you have to apply for promotion so I don't have to apply if I don't want to, but it would look bad if I didn't. My boss knows this and has started slowly training me for the new job. It'll probably be a couple months before I get the promotion. Considering it took them 3 months to fill the position last time it was vacated. I'll admit I'm a little nervous about the position, because I'll actually be in charge of a construction office and the Metro engineer is just down the hall so he can watch over me.

Long Night

My patch and overlay project on the Seneca, Meridian, and Edwards bridges on WB Kellogg started on Tuesday night. First we have to setup the traffic control which could only be done from 9am to 6am. They had to put up signs, close the inside lanes first, because they had to remove stripe and place temporary tape. This wasn't too bad except that it started to rain at 3AM, so we basically called it a night since they couldn't stripe anymore. This supposedly pushed everything back a whole day, but in retrospect with as slow as the traffic control guys were moving, they needed the extra day.

Wednesday night, they were working like normal and getting ready to switch traffic over to the inside lane, because we'll be working on the outside lanes first. The contractor wanted change the placement of some of the channelizers, basically shortening the work zone. I made sense, but it wasn't on the plans and I didn't want to outright tell him no without looking at the standards to explain my reason, plus I don't really have the authority. So head back to the office, because I still had a couple hours before they switch traffic over.

Back at the office at around 10pm, I settle down by emptying my pockets and switched from boots to slippers like I usually do. Looking at the standards and doing some calculations, I decide it'll be easier to look at the plans that aren't printed front and back, so I go to my work truck to grab a different set. When tried to get back in the office, the door was locked. I remember purposely locking the door behind when I entered, so I wouldn't have to bother taking my keys out when I leave the office. So I'm locked out of the office, both my phones are on my desk and so are the keys to the office, work truck, and my bike. I'm also still in my slippers. I had no choice to by walk around to find a phone so I can call one of coworkers. The nearest business was McDonalds, half a mile away, but their lobby was closed, and since this wasn't really an emergency, I didn't bother them in the drive-thru. So next I go to the adult video store and they were no help there. So decide to walk to the nearest gas station which was a mile north. Sadly Valero was closed. I was close enough that I decided to walk back to the project. I was able to see the flashing lights of the workers from Kellogg and West. Half a mile later, I reach the truck and it was unmanned. They just the truck there to mark the end of the project. So ended up walking another 2 miles on Kellogg before seeing one of the workers. I probably walked 5-6 miles total by this point. It's now 11:45pm, and I call my coworker, who apparently had just gotten into bed. He unhappily picked me up from the project and let me in the office.

After this fun ordeal, the night went on like normal, except that it kept going. They switch over traffic at 4am, but they still had a lot more work to go. They had to switch over all the temporary side specific sign and place a lot more tape. I didn't leave the project until almost 9am, when I had my helpers come and relieve me. I haven't had a 15 hour work day since my days as an intern.

Tonight, we have to place the concrete safety barriers, a few more signs, and hopefully that's it. Maybe I can get to home around 1am, and maybe fall asleep, which could be hard since I woke up at 4:30pm today. Then tomorrow I'll be back on the day shift doing actual work to the bridges. Depending on how bad these bridges are, I might have to say goodbye to my weekends.

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.

3 years

As of last Friday, I've been working for KDOT for 3 years. I really doesn't feel like it at all considering how little I know or do. I probably know a lot more than I think, but it doesn't feel like it. I still don't answer the phone unless I really have to because I'm afraid of them asking some simple question that I don't know the answer to. Last year was pretty slow, but this year seems to have some big project, including the I-135 and Kellogg interchange, which is a $21 million project. I wonder which office will get and who will be in charge of it. Hopefully I'll learn a lot more this year.

I've been somewhat busy lately, not necessarily with actual work, but with classes. Took some surprisingly interesting asphalt and concrete courses. Going to another one this Friday, which will probably not be as interesting to me since it's an internal course and I might be burned out on those topics.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.