Empty

Back from bridge design. I left on a Thursday, because I had to be back for the office Xmas dinner on Friday. It was a fattening week. Wednesday, bridge design had a potluck, where we just grazed from squad to squad sampling food. Then on Thursday, our squad leader took everyone out to lunch. Had some delicious BBQ. Then Xmas dinner was more BBQ, but it was tastier, because it was homemade. Our engineer made the best baked beans I've ever had. After a filling meal, everyone was feeling sluggish, The Area Engineer was kind enough to give us the rest of the day off. I promptly went home and took a nap.

Today, Half the office is taking vacation. Only 5 people showed up, and two of them left at lunch. The other left at 3:30pm, their normal quitting time. Being the only one left, I have to stay until 5pm. Guess it's good that stayed, because someone just came in to check their mail box. I am actually in charge today and tomorrow. Funny, because I always think of myself as the bottom, in fact there's only two people above me in this office. I actually have some work left over from bridge design, but I'm completely unmotivated to do anything. I spent the playing FFTA and watching TV shows. The people that showed up are ones I get along with, except for one snitch. If he wasn't here, I would have dismissed everyone at noon, because there's no point for all of us to be here. Our construction engineer won't be back until Jan 3, so I think I'll marathon my TV shows.

Bridge

This is day 3 in bridge design. The guys here are very lively and entertaining. There's a giant purple monkey sitting on my cube wall. There was a picture of a design leader's face tape to it's butt. Thankfully the face is gone, a little disturbing having it watch me. The guys here seam to be more computer literate, and they play Black Hawk Down. It's not a very fun game in my opinion. They only play flag ball, and they like to snipe a lot. It's slower paced and half the time I don't know where I'm being shot from. This computer has Call of Duty and Unreal Tournament installed on it, but I haven't seen any games up on the network. They gave me temp login so I'll have access to the bridge files and admin rights, but it doesn't have
internet access. Luckily I've haven't need access to the bridge files so my normal login has suuficed.

They're apparently pretty busy right now. On the first day the design leader gave me an assignment to check over some false work designs. I stared at it for the first two days trying to figure it out, because it's structures. Structures was my worst subject. In fact this check looks like some homework that I did in my structural analysis and Concrete structures class. It's even having the same effect of putting me to sleep. It took me an hour to write like 10 lines, because I'd close my eyes after writing one line and fall asleep. The squad finally wasn't busy, and he offered me some help. I found out I was missing some information to complete this check.

The cubicle arrangement is a little annoying. My back is to the entrance, while the squad leader's oriented facing instead my cube. So he can see my desktop clearly, and watch me pass out several times a day. Overall the group here is nicer, but I don't care so much about the work. I always like transportation and traffic better.

Productive

I've spent the past couple days working the finalization of a project. I'd spend a lot time on one line item, only to discover that I had to make up a conversion factor to balance the equation. It doesn't make sense at all, but it's acceptable. I'd go looking through all the supporting documents to make sense of it all, but it was pointless. My partner take care of the majority of the work.

Since my partner is taking the next two days off, I figured I should try to get as much work done as possible. But it's snowing hard, so all the technician were put on snow plow duty along with maintenance. There isn't that many people left in the office, so I'm severely lacking in motivation. I've basically been renaming and organizing my mp3 collection. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, but haven't been able to without admin access to rewrite files on my external HD. I would use wikipedia for track listing, then I'll go on tangents to fill my head with trivia.

Besides labeling, I helped decorate the office xmas tree. Our administrative assistant and senior was decorating the whole office. I'm personally not a fan of decorations, mainly because I'm lazy. This is probably the first time I've decorated a xmas tree in 10 years

Admin

I finally got admin rights on my own computer. I finally found a problem that required me to have access. It took forever for our computer to realize what the problem. I knew immediately what it was, but he always ignores what I say. It took several calls to the district office for them to finally tell them that I need to be added to the admin list. I'm guessing that my explanations were all gibberish to him. There's a java-based database program that we use, and it requires write access to a text file. The program won't run if it can't log the time and date to this text file. I actually found a way around it by making a copy of the whole folder, but I didn't tell them that because I wanted access. Because of my limited access, I couldn't even write to my external drive. Now I can start installing things and I can bring this laptop with me instead of my desktop when I go to rotation.

Early

I thought there was another 7:30am pour this morning, so I came in early. I actually came in 10 minutes early, because I needed to fill my truck up with gas. I actually got to the plant before the batchman did. When he arrived he asked what was I doing there, and that there wasn't a pour until 9am. So returned back to the office, and the regular plant guy was back from vacation, so he took care of the pours.

I didn't do anything until 1pm, when we had an office meeting. Basically laid out the plans for the winter. He paired us up to final out some projects. Usually some senior employee that has worked on the project and someone to assist him. I get paired up with the other engineer on a LPA (local planning administration)project, which is something that no one in office work on, except for the previous LPA coordinator who retired several months ago. Plus neither one of us has ever finaled out a project. I have no idea where to even start. So we confronted our boss about this, because we will need help. He said that he thought it might be a problem since both of us are inexperienced, but he still paired us up. He thought it would work out somehow. The other engineer said that we're not a team like the others, we're two people stuck in a hell hole.

Something else that came from the meeting was the start of flex time. Everyone seems to prefer to start earlier and get off earlier. I opted for the 8:30am-5:00pm with a 30 minute lunch. I'm used to getting off at 5pm, and its what time my friends get off. Plus I would rather get an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning.

We also got a new employee today. He just transfered over from the north shop. Been working here for about 3 years. He's actually my age, but he already married and I think has a child. I met him on a prject once, and talked for a while, he's an alright guy. He even has the same headphones as I do.

napping

I'm enjoying coming into work at 6:30am to work in the concrete plant. There are long breaks in-between trucks, so for the first 2 hours, I nap there. Then when I'm good and rested, I play FFTA until about noon which is when they're done. I go home for lunch, then come back to the office at 1pm and kill 2.5 hours until it's quitting time.

Mistake

Today I had to come in at 6:30am to batch some concrete. There was supposed to be 3 pours, 7:30am, 9:30am, and 12:30pm. Right after we batched the 7:30am one, the batch man said it appeared that the other two pours were canceled. I waiting about 15 minutes then I called the inspector out on the job to confirm it. So by 8am, I was already done with work, and the office wouldn’t expect me back until after 1pm. I decided that I would go home to take a nap and play some Guitar Hero II. On the way home I had a lapse in judgment and decided to head back to the office. I was still mulling over my decision, and by the time I decided to go home again, I was too close to the office to turn around. I thought about the consequences, and there were none, plus in the office I just ended up sitting there. The only person that could have found out about the cancellation was boss. When I got back to the office, I found out that he had taken the day off. I almost turned around right there to go home. I sat in the office for 4 hours wishing I had gone home.

Since the batch plant is halfway between the office and my home, I was planning on going home for lunch, so I didn’t bring my lunch with me. I decided to go out and eat with a couple of friends. I took a nice long 2 hour lunch to make up for my missed opportunity to nap. The only benefit of coming into work at 6:30am is that I can leave at 3:30pm. I have to come in at 6:30am tomorrow too, but that all overtime. So as soon they’re done pouring concrete, I’m gone.

I'm back

I'm back from HQ in capitol to do my normal job, nothing. Other than my employee evaluation that I get every 3 months for some reason, I didn't do anything. Actually I got my schedule for my Certified Inspection Training. I'll be taking 9 different classes for 14 days over the course of 6 week starting mid-January. So I were to go back to HQ for the rest of my rotation it'll be in March, which is getting close to construction season. If Wichita was such a better place to live than Topeka, and if I had some more friends there, I would definitely transfer to HQ. Though if I stay with KDOT long enough I will eventually have to move there if I want to move up in the ranks. Something I'll have to consider once I get my professional license.

We're supposed to get the 10th off for Veteran's Day, but the county is still working, so they need someone to batch concrete. Since our normal batch guy is going on vacation starting on the 9th, I get to work. I don't mind working it, because it'll be overtime, and I'll be spending the whole time playing FFTA. I'll be the main batch guy until he returns on the 17th. So hopefully I can finally beat FFTA and get start on FFIII that comes out next week.

Accident reports

My current task is look at the accident reports for this 1 mile stretch. We are planning working on a bridge, and we need to determine if there is anything we can do to decrease the amount of accidents. In 5 years, there were 185 accidents on that stretch. Majority were rear-enders and caused by inattentive drivers. Surprisingly, only 5 of the accidents were alcohol related.

I got a new state phone. It's a nice little Nokia flip-phone, which I prefer over that candy bar of the old one. I have it's pretty fancy for a state phone. It has a lot more features than the old one, most I'll never use because it probably costs money.

Security

This week they released a new policy that disallows the use of any IM client other MS office communicator. They are overly concerned about IT security. Which doesn't make sense why we are not allowed to use Firefox or Opera. Can't even install Firefox, the publisher is blocked, but Opera works. I was using that until someone gave me a warning that I should get rid of it along with Google Talk. I uninstalled both, so now I'm using the g-talk embedded in gmail and Firefox portable. Not being able to chat with friends would make work suck and feel extraordinarily long. Although here there's a lot more people here, people that I don't mind talking to.

I didn't do a damn thing today. Both my bosses took the day off. Since it's Friday I get to take off early at 3pm. My 2 hours of driving time is factored into my 40 hours for the week same reason why I can come in late on Monday. My boss said that I can leave even earlier if I wanted, so I will.

Office Check

I got to the office at 1:30pm on Tuesday. Finished the nuke safety at 12:30pm, got lunch and submitted my application for a KDOT ID card. Still didn't get an explanation on what I'm supposed to do, but got more useful information.

Wednesday, my boss's boss finally gave me the instructions for my part of the office check. I'm just checking plans, making sure the numbers are right. Not terribly hard. I worked on that off and on throughout the day. Those CoD breaks, cost me another 30 minutes of work, because I'll sit and talk about the game with my co-workers, and by co-workers I mean my bosses. I'm getting better, not getting last place anymore. There's often 10 people playing every break. This last break, we actually played teams, which I enjoyed more.

Field Trip

Last Thursday, our squad went on a field check. 9 of us piled in a 12 passenger van and drove around Southeast Kansas. We were looking at the finished projects that our squad members worked on. There was 8 from our squad, and one former member who is now in-charge of his own squad. I was supposed to be in his squad, but they didn't have enough work. There was quite a bit of talking at first, which I didn't contribute much to. In-between visiting the projects, I just played FFTA. It was a nice 10 hour trip. I got know other squad members a little better. I usually only converse with the Squad Engineer and Squad Leader.

Friday I finally finished up my right-of-way release. The next task for me is to look over a set of plans for an Office Check. We were going to start it, but we decided to save it for Monday, because a lot of us were leaving early because it's Friday.

Monday, I arrived in the office at 11:10am. I had to take care of some business in Wichita first. My squad leader was busy, so we didn't get started until 11:50am, then we interrupted by lunch at noon. Sadly there was no Call of Duty game up. After lunch, he continued explaining the project to me, and I asked one question, which sidetracked us. Went off on a tangent of a lot of various useful information regarding the design process. My squad is very knowledgeable regarding every aspect of work. I guess I'm just very impressed compared to the people that I met in my office in Wichita. After about 30 minutes on this tangent, it was interrupted by a potty break.
We then decided to go upstairs to greet all the people that I didn't meet last week. That took another hour. This guy can really talk and it's not boring either. Once we returned to his cubicle he concluded the tangent that we were on and decided that we would continue this tomorrow. Except that I won't be in the office tomorrow, because I have a new employee nuclear safety orientation to go to. I'll also need to go get a State ID card after that. I'm debating if I should even come into the office tomorrow.

Day 2

First thing morning I got an assignment. I guess it's simple and a little mundane, but it has taken me the whole day to complete. I have to do a Right of Way release. KDOT buys land for our projects, and some times we buy excess land. I have create a cross-section of the current road and plot one for future development. Any extra is sold to the person making the request. A lot of these plans already have a line for the construction limits, but I have to double check them. Sounds simple enough, except that I have to use Microstation. I know how to use AutoCAD fairly well, but Microstation is a different thing. Looks similar and does the same thing, but it seems less intuitive and user friendly. It's been pissing me off all morning. I'm sure it's a better tool for what they do here, but I could done it in 10 minutes in AutoCAD, even without knowing what I know.

To get more exercise, I've been taking the stairs. Our office is on the 10th floor. I'm winded by the 4th floor, and my legs start cramping by the 6th. Got to go up it down it twice a day, since I go out of lunch. I'm hoping that climbing those stairs will be nothing to me in a couple weeks. I also have a decent walk from the parking space, because I have to park in a free slot. Though tomorrow I'll be picking up my parking permit so I can park a little closer. I'll probably still try to park far away within our lots. Looking around, I found out that my next hotel stay will be within walking distance. Though I heard from our office coordinator in Wichita that it's not that great.

HQ

Last week I went to Great Bend for a 2 day Operations meeting. Basically all the management in KDOT get together to listen to speeches by other KDOT people and some salesmen. The topic were generally entertaining or educational. After the presentations, people got drunk. There was a "happy hour" sponsored by all the district engineers. Following that, we all moved to the hotel lounge where all our drinks were paid for by a very successful and generous asphalt salesman. I think I heard his tab ended up being $1400.

Starting today until Nov 3rd, I'll be working Road Design in headquarters in the capitol. I spent most of morning meeting various people in the squads. Saw a few of my former classmates, though one them was on their own rotation in construction. There's 10 squads with 3-7 people each; 2-3 engineers and 3-4 technicians. I saw 3 guys getting ready to play spades so I joined in as their 4th. We won on the last hand. I heard that some of the squads play Call of Duty at the operations meeting. I luckily got into one of those. I was originally in a different squad, but they changed it up on me when I arrived this morning. I've enjoyed my first day. Look forward to the rest of my rotation. Only bad thing I have to say is that I can't use firefox here. I'll have to look into trying opera tomorrow.

I am currently staying in a Comfort Inn, not my first choice. There's no microwave or mini-fridge in the rooms. There's wireless internet that was good enough to play FFXI for a while, but it died after 1.5 hours. The connection got worse over the night. My connections died one by one, first FFXI, then Google Talk, mIRC, and eventually basic web browsing. AIM was the only thing that survived. I checked this morning and mIRC was back, so hopefully it will last tonight.

Finally

I'm finally scheduled for my first rotation. It starts October 9, and I'll be working with a squad in road design for 4 weeks. Our Office Administrator has already booked the motels for my stay. I'll be staying in 3 different motels. There's apparently some race going on the first couple weeks and I wasn't able to get my first choice of motels. So I'll finally get my choice for weeks 3 and 4. I looked online and all three motels says they have high speed internet. Hopefully it's good enough for me to play FFXI. If not, I'll bring up the PS2 and try to finish FFX-2. Got so many things to do before FFXII and Guitar Hero 2 comes out.

My second rotation is supposed to be in December for 2 weeks in bridge design, but that has yet to be confirmed. I'm also supposed to take classes for concrete and basic inspection sometime but my boss doesn't know when those are going to be.

Low tech

The asphalt part of the project didn't last long and I didn't get as many hours as I was hoping for. Only got 12 hours when I was expecting like 25. I wasn't too bad though. Had to be out on the project by 8am, very relaxed and warm mid 70's degree weather. When there was nothing left except the asphalting, the project manager would take over an send me home, which was usually around 5pm. This manager was really nice, if there was something interesting going on somewhere else on the project, he'd send me out to observe. He would tell me about the decisions he made regarding the project and made sure that I knew what was going on. The contractor had to go pave somewhere else, so they left after placing 6 miles on shoulders on the inside of the highway. They dirt crew will come in now and do the grading and other work for the outside shoulders. The paving should start up again in 2-3 weeks.

The project was 40 miles west of the office. Just 2 miles outside the town of Kingman. I rarely went into town, because I had everything with me in the truck. One day the pavers quit early, so the manager took me into town to show me the mini concrete plant that there. I was amazed how small the operation was. All the plants that worked in in-town was totally automated with computers. To fill a truck it has to batch twice. There's only two people working. The batch man and the driver. The batch man's father actually owns the company. When there's multiple loads, the batchman will drive a truck and meet the driver halfway, trade trucks and return to the mini-plant where he'll load the truck up again. The weighing of material is done manually and all the tickets are hand written. It was interesting to see how everything actually worked. There was laid back fun feeling being at that plant. Probably helped that both the workers were young.

Asphalt

Starting next week I'll be sent to another project outside out our office. It's an asphalt paving job 30 miles west of my office. They asked for help, they need someone to run gradations and a ticket taker. The Russian engineer will run the gradation while I'll have the joy of taking tickets. This is what I did last summer as an intern. I'll even be working with the same contractor, and it might even be the same crew. It's really simple, something, you have the bottom of the totem pole do. You just walk beside the paving machine, taking tickets when the dump trucks arrive and calculate the yield. Not sure if this project will have the same hours as last summer which was 6am-8pm. I will be a very expensive ticket taker. They want me on the job by 8am Monday, but that's for preproduction.

I finally finished playing Final Fantasy II: Soul of Rebirth and watching Justice League. Good timing since I won't have time to watch anything on this project. I might have time to play games and read though. I managed to read 17 books last summer as a ticket taker, but I had some help though.

I have more back up batching to do today. I enjoy batching because it gets me out of the office and allows me to play games. I can play games at any time, but I don't feel right playing my DS in th office. I prefer to read books, it looks better.

Back up

Yesterday, I had to come in early to batch some concrete. We have a new batch man, and apparently he's the only one. So he has to work several different projects. Yesterday there were multiple pours at the same, so I was called in to help out. The first pour was t 7:30am, and the second and last pour was at 4:00. There was some difficulties with the pour and I actually managed to get some overtime. I have absolutely no idea what project I was working on. I just know how to fill out the ticket books. Other than this, I only did 20 minutes of work, had to check same numbers.

I've been discussing the rotation with my boss, since he finally got some information on it. He's still trying to gather more information and said he'll get back to me on Tuesday. After discussing it with his boss, the Metro Engineer, the Metro Engineer said that he doesn't want us gone for 4 weeks at a time. And that only 2-3 days is required for each section, claiming that it's mostly a waste of time. The black guy told me that the previous engineers, said rotation is all about meeting people, and that they had fun, but actually did not learn much technically. This sounds fine for me and I would like to work in Topeka for a while, because it's close to Manhattan. I want to attend some Japanese dance practices.

I recently added two Tachikoma to my desk decoration. They stand next to my HWT from Gunparade March and bobble-head shisaa. I felt kind of funny sitting at my desk building toy robots. I got several more GITS SAC figures, because they came with DVDs, but I think I'll just stick with decorating with robotic looking toys.

Back to nothing

I am back on days. I was told that I would be working on a 402, so far I have done nothing work related. I looked up my choices for hotels that I could stay in while I'm on my rotation. I started reading Snow Crash, and I watch 3 episodes of Justice League Unlimited during my lunch break. Periodically I have to step outside to warm up. After working in 90-100 degree heat, 70 degrees feels a little cold. I found a nice clean spot beneath our radio antenna, where I can sit, read, and even lay down. If I remember I'll stop by the bookstore and pick up a GRE study guide. My goal is to take it 3 months, and be enrolled n grad school for the spring semester.

Yesterday when I was out warming up, the other engineer was out there also warming up. We had a nice long talk regarding our office and its future. She generally as the same opinion that I do, there's bad leadership and we engineers are being under-utilized. She is slated to take over, but there is no concrete date, and the current acting construction engineer, who isn't actually an engineer, is trying to delay the inevitable. He has assigned her to lead a project next year, that I'll be working on along with the project manager of my first project. He is supposed to be training us to lead projects. Though he is an idiot, and didn't want anything to do with me when I was working on his project. In my opinion he's the worst person to be training us. He's good buddies with the acting construction engineer, which is why he was assigned to us. Since I'll be on this project, I'll still not get to manage projects. The other engineer in the north office is already managing projects, and he's been around for a month longer than me. This project has an early start date in March and is 120 working days. They expect to tie us up for a while.

Oh, I'm proud to say, that I have yet to fall asleep at work.

Flame on

Back on another equipment related break. They started an hour late and 10 minutes into working, they had problems which caused a 15 minute delay, then they worked for another hour, before they had to head back to their shop. I was slowly falling asleep waiting for them to repair the shot blaster. So I started playing Soul Rebirth. I decided the next game will be Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, because I want to get it out of the way before FFIII and FFV come out this November.

Last night, they laying down the markings for the stop bars. The basically put down plastic sheets and melt them onto the pavement with mini-flamethrowers. Then they sprinkle glass beads to add to the reflectivity. It was rather entertaining, because the workers seemed to enjoy playing with fire. Plus seeing the public reaction was fun too, since they were stopped in the next lane waiting for the light. Since we were working on the stop bars, we were setting off the sensors for the traffic signal, and exiting traffic has priority on these lights. So people were getting annoyed with extra long red lights. Late in the night, people would start running them. One guy on a motorcycle did it right in front of a police officer, and we all had a good laugh. I'm not sure what was going on last night, but there were police everywhere. Saw about 4-5 pass by every hour. It good to see them out.

Faulty equipment

Since there is only one crew working, if something goes wrong, we get a break. We also get breaks whenever they need to dump the trucks. There's breaks usually take 30 minutes. I generally take that time to return to the office and charge my phone and mp3 player. Today they seem to have a lot of problems, so I took that time to finally beat Final Fantasy II, and now I'm starting on the Soul of Rebirth. After that I'm debating playing Golden Sun or Advanced Wars. I have a lot of other games to play, but I need to something that I can play with one hand easily.

Last night, the contractor did come out. I was just sitting around watching Justice League Unlimited until 10pm, because that would keep me on track to get 40 hours for the week. On my way out, I notice that the office was empty. I thought maybe the other guys were out doing something else. I lock up and head home. I drive through the project on my way home, and I see the contractors and my two co-workers. I, of course, continue on home, because they don't need me out there anyways.

They're actually finding stuff for me to do now, so it looks like I'm going to stay on this project. Mainly they leave me out there alone, while they catch up on paperwork, which is fine by me.

Switching projects

The project manager of the striping job is back, so they don't need me anymore. I assumed I would be put back on the old concrete patching project, but I've received no instructions. I was going to go back to that project anyways, but striping manager told me that I should stay, since they're not working tonight. The striping must not like working or something, because they didn't work last Thursday. I was brought to this project, because the manager was on vacation and the other guy was talking time off. So I was going to be left alone on this job, and the one night that I'm in charge, the contractor takes the day off.

I like this striping job almost as much as I like working in the batch plant. In the plant I just sit around in an air conditioned room, listening to mp3s and playing games. On the striping job, I just sit in my air conditioned truck, listen to mp3s, occasionally play games, chat on IRC, and the best part, I don't have to wear shoes. I just slowly follow a grinding truck, driving under 1 mph. Since this is a one person job, the other guy records where they grinded, and I do nothing.

I'm still trying to figure out my schedule. There was talks of me going back to days, but I don't know when. The FEA is trying to get me in the rotation as soon as possible. Since I'll be staying Topeka, I'll probably make frequent trips to Manhattan and Lawrence to visit friends.

rotation

They temporarily put me on the striping job that I originally was supposed to be on because the project manager went on vacation. Striping is very boring but it's a small crew and there's quite a bit of downtime. The other guy I'm working with goes out early, and just calls me when I need o be out there. He also sleeps quite a bit on the job, which I don't mind, since this is really a one man job.

I finally got some information regarding my engineering rotation. There are 6 sections; construction, road design, bridge design, materials and testing, transportation planning, and traffic engineering. Construction is mandatory and we have a choice of 3 sections. Each section is 4 weeks and is conducted at KDOT HQ in Topeka. Though based on the letter from our FEA (Field Engineer Administrator) you can take more courses but for a shorter period of time. He wants us to do road and bridge design for 4 weeks each, and a week each for materials and traffic. I personally want to spend more time on traffic and take transportation planning. I need to talk to my boss to find out when I'll be free from projects so I can start my rotation.

On a sad note for me, the token black guy is leaving and starting a job in Lawrence. Now there is no one in the office that I can really talk to. We have a new Senior in our office, kind of. She transferred to our office a month before I started, because there were promotion opportunities. Then in June, she transferred to North shop to get closer to the Metro Engineer, and now she's back.

Rained Out

It's been a while since I last updated. This current project doesn't give me much free time, since it's being run by the north office, and I refuse to update on my own time. I never got to work on he striping project. They put me on full time on the patching project that I was assisting on. I started as four 10-hour days, but switched to 5 days for two week, then they were ahead on schedule so they switched back to mon-thurs again. We got rained out tonight, so I'm stuck doing nothing for 10 hours. Kinda annoying because the guys from the other project stayed until midnight. They usually work until 6am, and get to work before 5:30p, they probably could have left by 7:30pm. My project starts at 6pm, but I have to be in the office by 5:30pm. Their project starts at 7pm, but are in the office before 5:30pm. I'm too honest to get any overtime here.

I usually inspect the preparation of the patches, but periodically fill in for the plant guy when he has to take a gradation. I normally work until the project manager "dismisses me". He basically gives me the option of staying for overtime or going. As much as I would like overtime, I can't justify staying. I don't see the point of two people doing the work of one. Starting tomorrow, I'll be watching the grinders. This project has been much better than the previous one. I'm working with people from the north office, which are much better than the people we have here. There's actually communication, and I actually feel somewhat useful out on the road. It's strange how the west office gets all the perks, even though all the higher up engineers work out of the north office.

Well everyone else is finally gone and the rain is really noisy here. So I'm going to go home early. I really wonder if the cameras here are even on. Oh yeah, my mom is finally back so I get delicious homemade bento to bring to work now. Life is good.

Watched

There wasn't much training to be done. This guy has been in the plant, but he was just unsure of himself. I left him on his own today, and went to check out this project. Met some people from the other office. We discussed some of the differences between the offices. The north office is more disciplined/strict. They don't have people milking the overtime clock. I'd figure it would be more strict since the metro engineer is in that office and they have an actual construction engineer. It sounds like a place where I would want to work, but I'm going to tough it out here.

I was given a heads up that I'm being watched, and should be truthful with my hours. Of course I should naturally assume I'm being watched, I'm a new employee. I've always been truthful with my hours, except yesterday when I left an hour early. We finished an hour early today too, but I figured I will actually be in the office for that hour, that's why I'm writing this post right now. Gotta kill some time. I wonder if they're just watching me, or are they watching everyone else, because they need to be. It's 1am and no one should know that I left early, but people from the other project wander into the office at random times to waste time and gas, so they would notice, and most likely tell on me. This office has no sense of unity.

Training

I was supposed to start on a striping project yesterday, but they put me on different project from the north office. Since I've spent a little over a month working in the concrete plant, and because I like the night, I get to train someone. I will be training a Russian engineer, but since his degree came from an non-accredited university, he's just an ET. He apparently took the FE test, but it wasn't graded, because he tore out one of the blank pages in the back for scratch paper. Odd that they can't find someone else with more experience.

Since this really isn't my project, I don't have to be out on the road. Just be at the plant when needed, which is usually around 9-10pm. So I've been sitting in the office since 4pm reading stuff online and watching TV shows. This project is also running Mon-Thurs, so I'll probably have to come in everyday at 4pm, and kill time for 5 hours. I'll probably be the only person in the office after 7pm, so I'll probably start watching some anime, which I avoided because I felt it might be inappropriate. Too bad this training is only temporary. Working four 10 hour days seems great.

Night shifted

I spent the last week on a bridge on the dayshift. It was very informative. The person running the project is very intent on teaching me everything that goes on. There wasn't much that went on besides watching the contractor work. Once or twice a day they'll be a concrete pour, then I'll help with the testing. There were 3-4 of us on the job, and only one has be on the job watching them. I'd go out sit on the bridge and watch them for an hour, then I'll go back to my truck, and nap or read some manga.

I was supposed to work on this project for two weeks until the striping projected started, but they needed me back on the old project for some reason. So I kinda get screwed hours-wise. As far as i know, we're only working two days this but I need 24 hours to get a full 40 hours for the week. We don't work Friday's and Sunday doesn't count as a holiday. Maybe I'll try to get some hours working on the bridge project on Friday

Dayshift

I'm back temporarily back on the day shift. Came in this afternoon and asked the boss where he needed me. He put me on a bridge repair project that requires me to be in the office by 5am. I start tomorrow, and hopefully I can get some of that overtime that I've been wanting. I'll be working on this project for 2 week, then I'll be put back on nights to work on a striping job. I'd rather work nights anyways. I enjoyed going to bed and getting up whenever I wanted. Now I have to be in bed by 9pm and up by 4am.

Mileage

I finally get my truck back today. I decided to be a good person and clean out the inside of the Taurus, since it was filled with sand. There was a storm last week and I left the windows down, which is bad thing at a concrete plant, where there's piles of sand everywhere. We have to log our mileage. The sheet they gives breaks it up by days, which is how I record it, but everyone else just does it weekly. We usually turn in our sheets at the end or the beginning of week. Since I finally got my truck back I had to record the mileage for the other guy. He put 563 miles on my truck in one week. My truck also records the engine time, and he put over 50 hours on it, which doubled it. The truck only had 1483 at the beginning of the week. He put a third of the mileage in one week, which took me 2 months to do. I personally have probably only put 1000 miles on it. All kinds of people drive it during the day shift.

Today is the last day of concrete patching. They would have finished it last week if it didn't rain. They spent all of last week doing the ramp for a major interchange. I enjoyed that, because they had to close the ramps and I got to walk all round on them. Wichita is a horribly flat place, so the land these ramps are on are some of the highest elevations in the city. I like standing on them and watching the traffic below me, occasionally waving back at the public.

Grinding

The contractor just cut patches, but didn't pull them. My job for most of the night was to mark patches and write station numbers. Finding the stations should have been easy, because I was in the car, which normally has a DMI (distance measuring instrument). For some reason, it was taken out of this car. Finding the stations still wasn't too difficult, because some had stakes to mark them. But was a pain getting in and out of the car every 500 feet, especially on an incline.

We got an email yesterday from the Governor. It said that we're all getting a cost of living raise this month, and to thank us for our hard work, this July 3rd will be a state holiday. Since I don't work on Fridays, I should be getting a 5 day weekend.

Got a little more information regarding the laptops. One of the guys in office bought one. It's done in a silent auction. He said there's been 3 auctions in the past 5 years. He bought his for $160, but bid $200 on another one and didn't get it. He said $250 would be a safe bid.

No Truck

Got another email from my boss telling me to continue to drive the Taurus, while this other guy gets to drive my truck. His truck is in the shop, so they give him my truck so two people can be displaced instead of just one. The car sucks too, because the whoever drove it last smoked, so it stinks in there. There's two Taurus's so I'll try the other one and hope it doesn't stink. Normally I wouldn't mind letting someone else drive my truck, but I've developed an unfortunate dislike for this person. They call him Supercop, because he used to be a police officer. He's not in a position of power, but he wants to be, and tries to take charge whenever possible. My other co-workers are always complaining about him. It was funny listening to the Black Guy tell him off. He tried to tell him what to do, but the Black Guy responded, "you're not my boss", and if he wanted something done go through his boss.

Last Friday, we had a retirement party for one of our ET Seniors. This man worked for 38 years at KDOT. I've never really got to talk to him, but he seemed nice. He's one of the few people here that I haven't heard anything bad about. He is the third ET to leave this office since I've been here, though we've gained two engineers counting myself. With this Senior retiring, there will be an opening for his position. Which means there will be more ass-kissing and showing off from now on. Sadly people aren't promoted based on merit, just who they know and how well they brown-nose. This explains why the most competent person in this office is still just a regular ET.

Tonight will be a slow night. There will be no concrete, so I'll be out on the road the whole time. It's going to be extraordinarily boring. The contractor says they'll be done with patching this week. I don't believe it, I think they still have 5-6 more working days.

I did managed to learn something useful at the orientation. KDOT buys new laptops every three years and they sell off their old ones within the organization. They didn't have any further details beyond that, but hopefully in the next couple years, I can finally get that laptop that I never needed, but thought it would be fun to have.

4 months ago

Orientation was yesterday and it was fairly useless. This information could have been more useful when I first started. It was general welcome to KDOT thing. Most of the people there where Equipment Operators (EO) (maintenance), the people who actually work. There were 2 Engineering Technicians (ET), and 3 Engineering Associates (EA). If they talked about anything specific it was targeted to the ETs or EOs. Only good that came from it was the overtime.

Tonight I get to drive one of the cars instead of my truck. One of the ETs is driving it just in case he needs to move a message board. I don't think it's right since, there's two other trucks on the job with a hitch. The ET driving it is quite the kiss-ass, and probably wanted my truck because it's new. Oh well, it's only for one night, and I'm not the type of person to derive self-worth from what I drive.

I finally beat Final Fantasy I, the other night. I've been neglecting my other GBA games for sudoku on Brain Age. I'm getting close to completing all the puzzle, so I'm trying to slow down a little. Good old work allowing me to play the games and read the books that I would do at home if I didn't play FFXI so much

Orientation

I will finally get my new employee orientation this Wednesday, only 4 months late. It's done during the regular working hours, so I have the option of taking one of my work nights off. I think I'll just work, and just get a little less sleep, and start work a little later. I figure this orientation is one of the few chances for me to get some overtime this summer.

I'll be going to this orientation with our new engineer. I finally got to see her last Friday, since they didn't get done their work until after 6pm. She wasn't what I was hoping, but exactly what the black guy said we'd get. I was mainly just hoping for someone young like me. Instead we got someone probably in her 50's, she has long grey hair, tall, and a little heavy. She looks like the no nonsense type, that would good for managing. Though she seems like she would frown on how I use my freetime. Hopefully if she's been working for the state a long, she would understand how much freetime we have, and isn't too strict. Though this is only speculation, and I've been almost always wrong when I assume things about the state. Logic be damned.

The office is oddly empty today. Normally on Sundays we come in at 4pm to get our full 8 hours, but it's 5:20pm and only me and the project manager are here. Though by coming in at 4pm, we ruined the cleaners' plan to wax our floors. Now they have to come in next Saturday to do them.

Tonight will finally be my first night alone in the batch plant. It was supposed to be last week, but the black guy decided that he wanted to stay on nights for another week, since they didn't need concrete on the day project yet.

More work

Since I'll be in charge of batching, I have the added responsibility of taking moisture reading on the sand and rock. Last Friday proved our point of not working on that day. There were two accidents, one including 7 cars. People just don't know how to slow down in a construction. I was told by the end of the night cars were driving through the area at 20 mph, because traffic was so backed up.

Last night was a bad night for the contractor. We put Calcium chloride in the concrete so it sets faster. Well the calcium truck sprung a leak, and instead of stopping where it was, it kept driving back to the plant. So left a nice trail of calcium chloride on for th road for 4 miles. This attracted the highway patrol, who called our maintenance supervisor. Eventually for some reason HAZMAT was called out. In the end KDOT maintenance cleaned it up, and the contractor will be getting a nice big bill from us.

Northbound

No concrete today. I get the joy of marking patching on the northbound side. It stormed last night, so only poured 13 yards of concrete vs the normal 60 yards. We quit early and I was going home by 12:30am. And since we're not pouring today, it's seems like a wasted week.

We're now one person short. He has been suspended with pay. He apparently ran into a Type 3 barrier the night before in his personal vehicles. This person also doesn't not have a valid driver's license and yet he's been driving a state vehicle this whole time. This is the same person that got hit by a drunk on the job a few weeks back. He made a big fuss because he wasn't allowed to drive his truck after the accident. He was eventually allowed to drive again after two days of bitching. Amazingly how he could do such a thing without a driver's license. Luckily this person isn't from our office, he's helping from the north office. He should be fired or reassigned, he doesn't meet the minimum requirements for the job. I wonder how much of a difference I can make once I'm in charge.

Noisy rain

No work due to weather. It was really bad too, thunder storms and hail. We have an opaque sun room thing on our office, and I'm right under it. It really amplifies the sound of rain. So when it rains hard it's almost deafening in the office. Since there's no work, we're all stuck in the office. And someone behind me needs some headphones. They've be listening to music for a while.

So they added Friday night to make for missing two days. And now we're not working tonight with more storms expected for tomorrow. The contractor should just cancel the whole week and stay in Missouri. That way I won't have to use my vacation time this Friday.

Woohoo! It's Thursday

This Sunday-Thursday schedule is nice. Since next Monday is Memorial Day, we get Sunday and Monday night off. So it's a four day weekend for me. To make up for the short work week, we agreed to let the contractor work on Friday night of that week, so that makes next weekend only a one day weekend. I'm actually taking that Friday off to attend a friend's wedding.

The project manager finally came back after taking 2 weeks off sick. The second project of our office is supposed to start in June, so they'll pull the Black guy off this one, and leave me in charge of the batch plant. At this point, they made my job easier. We've been having problems with the amount of air in our mix, so now the guys out on the field will make the adjustments. I'm not sure how well that will work, since the guys out there don't know anything. We started the with the B mix, which sucked so we switched to the A mix, which was working. The contractor was happy, but the State wasn't happy with the results of the air test, so we switched back to the B mix yesterday. After 3 truck loads, we made the decision to switch back to the A, because it looked like crap, and they still weren't getting good air results. Hopefully we'll stick with the A mix, and the rest of the project will run smoothly. And yes that is what we called them A and B mix.

More accidents

One of mixer drivers told me that two nights ago there was another accident on the project. Someone driving a Grand-Am/Prix went through traffic control and ran into some slabs on concrete in the middle of the road. We do partial and full-depth patching. On full depth patches, they cut all the way down to the base and lift out the slabs with a backhoe used as a crane. These slabs are around 8-10 inches thick and are usually 6X3 feet. They're pretty easy to spot even in at night. So the driver must have been drunk. This is our third accident in under 4 weeks.

Message boards

Last night, one of the messages board that we use to inform the public stopped working. Since my truck is one of the few trucks with a hitch, I got the privilege to haul it back, and pick up another one. I must say it is difficult to back a message board into a space. Luckily someone else was there to do it for me after a few minutes of failing. There was one message board at our office, but it was locked and had the wrong type of trailer. Then we went to the north office, but the board there was broken. Hopefully one of them got fixed and is back on the road.

Nothing

As far as I know my only job is to work in the batch plant. So I decided that one day I'll stay in the office until it's to batch concrete. The next day I get an email from my boss telling me not to do that anymore. I wasn't planning on doing at anymore anyways. I was planning on sitting in the office until 8pm, drive out to the project, see what was accomplished, then head the plant at 9pm. But since I got this email, I guess I'll go out at 7pm. My co-worker seem to think I don't do anything, because when I'm out on the road, I just walk up and down the project. For the most part, I'm not doing anything, except getting exercise. I only do what I am told to do, which has been nothing.

There are no lines of communication between me and my co-workers, except the black guy who's in the plant with me. It's nice because he tells me what the others think about me, which is good because I need the feedback. Though from the way he explains it, it seems that they resent me. I was originally put in the plant to be out of the way of the project manager, but the others think I should be out there with them. I personally prefer the plant, because there are things to do there. Plus there is communication there, and it lets me see how negligent and incompetent my fellow workers are. Though the more I listen to the black guy the more I'll begin to despise my boss and co-workers on this project. Oh well, I don't really need to care what they think, because I'll become their superior soon enough.

Locked out

I got locked out of my laptop yesterday. Apparently I typed my password incorrectly three times, which locked me out. I had to come during the day today and get my password changed.
I found out that despite having a DVD drive, my laptop won't play DVD's. That spoils my plans to watch Wonderfalls and Buffy. At least I can still watch Firefly.

I finally got my Personal Protection Equipment yesterday. It just sitting on my desk in a giant plastic sack. So now I have a closet full of bright orange shirts. Oddly enough only three people in this office wears orange. Unlike the office where I interned last summer where everyone wore orange, and I was only people that wore the vest. But I guess working nights, you have to wear the vest anyways because of the reflectors so wearing orange makes no difference.

I'm no longer working out on the road, I'm in the concrete plant full-time now. I get less hours, because the plant shuts down at 2am, but I'm actually doing work, so I don't mind it. I'm learning more in there than out there, since the black guy explains a lot of things to me. This also gives me time to sit down and read. I finally finished Ender's Game, and have started on Metaplanetary. After one chapter, I put it down, because I hate reading Sci-Fi with made up words. Idoru was hard enough for me to read, this seems like it'll be more annoying. I recently received a large shipment of manga, so I'll read those.

Last week, we had another accident. One of our guys was sitting in his suburban and was hit by a drunk driver. He seems to be alright, but he's not allowed to drive at the moment, so he's causing a stinking about not being able to do his job and that he should be sent home. It's not like his job is that difficult. I don't really care since I'm not out there with them anymore.

Fish

Finally got to work again after three rain days. There isn't much for me to do until after 10pm when we start pouring concrete. Until then I just walk around watching various parts of the projects. Often I'll sit on the barrier wall and look at the canal. Today I finally realized that there's fish swimming in there. I could see a bunch of them swimming upstream close to the surface. I didn't think fish lived in there, because it's a filthy body of water. All the run-off from the highway goes in there. And now all the slurry water is running in there.

There was a bit of excitement on the job. Apparently a drunk teenage girl took out one of the light poles on the job. This was around 8pm too, this is exactly why we don't work on Friday nights. The girl didn't seem to be hurt because she was taken away in a police car. I was about half a mile from the site, all I could see were the lights.

I actually stayed to about 5am this morning, since there's less people working now, I don't feel so bad staying on the job late.

Seven Samurai

Another day without working. I got the call at 2:30pm, so I came in at 3:30pm, and I brought Seven Samurai with me. It's a nice long 3.5 hour movie. I've been trying to watch more TV shows and avoiding reading books. I figure I should save them for when I'm out on the field.

I had my 3 month evaluation today. It was satisfactory, because there wasn't much to base it on. The last page of the evaluation had a list of goals for me. It's nice to finally have a purpose. The goals were to learn pay quantities, become familiar with the database program we use, and levels of acceptance which means deciding if a product is good enough for us to pay for. After this project, I'm apparently going to put on more 402's (estimates).

During this evaluation, I found out that were finally getting another engineer in this office. It's a woman from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and she's coming June 5th. She's EA2, and apparently already has her PE. I think my boss might have the PE mixed up with the FE, because someone with a PE wouldn't be a EA2, they'd be something higher. I heard about a woman coming into our office a month ago, and she was be our EA3, Construction Engineer. I'm an EA1, and I automatically become an EA2 after one year of work.

Not working

Thursday night, I was put in the concrete plant to observe our batch man. We don't start batching concrete until after 10pm, with is when we close off the second lane. So before that I was on site walking around just to get some exercise. I walked to the beginning of the project, stood there talking to some co-workers watched work be done. The workers moved on, but we stayed put for another 30 minutes. I decided I would at least pretend to watch the work, and figured the others would follow, but nope. So i continued to walk about 3 miles to the other end of the project, stopping to watch a little work. Then 10pm rolled around and I was whisked away to the plant.

Being at the plant actually feel a little like work. You only work when a truck is needed, and that's like 7-8 times in 4 hours. The batch man actually makes decision, making adjustments to mix. After the truck is loaded, a ticket is written, then the batch man goes out and looks into mixer to see how wet or dry the mix is. The batch man for this project is the token black guy, so it wasn't too bad working there. I left work at 3am that night, since I didn't feel like looking for pretend work to do.

Friday night, work was canceled. I came in at 4pm, because I felt it would be canceled. So I sat in the office for about an hour, decided to take 4 hours of vacation and left. Despite working 10 hours some days, still only ended up with 40 hours for the week. I still made more money because of the night differential pay.

One of the sub-contractors got the work changed to the way we wanted. We originally wanted to Sun-Thurs, since Friday night would have too much traffic and drunks. The main contractor decided Mon-Fri, and sadly at KDOT, the first rule is to not make the contractor angry. Luckily the sub-contractor in charge of concrete saw things our way, and got the schedule changed. So my weekend was only Saturday this week.

So I'm here at work on Sunday, and surprise surprise it was canceled, but I'm still required to put in 8 hours, so I'm stuck here until midnight. Thankfully, I was called beforehand and was able to plan for the night of doing nothing. When my boss called, he asked if I wanted to come in or take more vacation time. I've only been here for less 3 months, so I don't have much vacation time to use. When I came in today, I was planning on doing nothing, so I forgot to change into my boots. I'm still wearing my flip flops, and I don't really have any intentions on changing.

I hate the cold

So we didn't work yesterday because of expected thunderstorms, which never happened. So we worked today and it did rain, very hard at some points. I brought my jacket and stocking cap, but I was still very cold. Working on rainy highway, next to a river with the wind constantly blowing made for a crappy time. Luckily I was under a bridge for the wetter parts of the night.

The first night, they just sawed patches. Tonight, they pulled out the full depths patches, and jack hammered the partial ones. After that, the full depth patches had dowel bars inserted. Finally they were filled with concrete and finished. They moved like an assembly line. So that's what the contractor did. So what did I do? I watched them work. At one point we ran a concrete test and I wrote down the results. I did a maximum of 5 minutes of work in 12 hours, 4pm to 4am. There were seven people out there doing the work of four. I spent most of my time talking with my coworkers, which is nice since I finally get to know them better.

I doubt I'll ever work until 6am. Since the road has to be opened by 6am, the latest the contractor can pour concrete is 2am. So after 2am, it's just waiting around on the contractor. They may continue to saw some more patches for the next day, or they might just pack up and call it a night. We basically have to stick around and make sure they clean everything up, but that doesn't require everyone, so a couple guys "volunteer" to stay, and the rest of us go home. I actually just sat in my truck from 2am to 3:30am, doing sudoku and trying to sleep.

well, damn

Due to expected nightly thunderstorms, the contractor doesn't plan on working tonight. Which means there's nothing for us to do, but we're still required to put in 8 hours of "work." I worked 4 hours earlier, and since I decided to come in at 6pm, I gotta stay until 10pm. I thought about maybe coming in at 4pm like yesterday, but laziness and FFXI won over. Hmm, had I stay until 6am, and arrived at 4pm, I could have been off of work by now. I didn't bring my HD, but I at least have my book and DS.

I just blue myself

We finished early this morning, I so decided to update. After sitting in the office until a little after 7pm, I decided to walk around the office. I noticed that it was completely empty. You'd think they would let me know when they were leaving for the job site. So I turned off the lights, then locked the doors and headed out to the job site.

When I got there at 7:20pm, the contractor had just started setting up the traffic control to close off the left lane. So I wasted about 20 minutes talking, then drove back to the office to grab a measuring wheel, pencil, and my lunch box. Tonight, we just marked off patches. Orange paint for full depth and blue paint for partial depth patches. There was seven of us out there which was more than enough. It was highly unorganized. We each took a section of the southbound 4 mile stretch, but we weren't told how to label patches. I think we started marking then at 8:30pm and finished left lane by 10pm. The center lane was supposed to be closed off by 10pm, but that wasn't done until 11:30pm. We went through and marked the center lane patches and relabeled the left lanes patches to a uniform standard. Center lane was probably done by 2am, but since there is little communication better the workers, we overlapped on sections that were already covered. But that was okay, because some sections needed to be checked twice. While we were marking patches, the contractor was sawing them so they could be pulled out in the future.

At 3:00am, everyone was gathered at the end of project. I just sat in the truck talking, until the project manager dismissed us. He said we were free to leave now or stick around until 6am. I figured I've already been working for 12 hours, I don't want two more. So after 30 more minutes of chatting, people started heading back to the office. A couple guys stayed behind to make sure traffic control was taken down. On the way back, I saw a bunch of police cars, a fire truck, and a couple radio station news vans, but I didn't see any accident. Even though I was just driving down a 4 mile stretch, drove up and down it a lot looking for things to do, I think I put over 50 miles on my truck tonight. I forgot to ask what time I need to come in this afternoon, but I'm going to assume 6pm, since I already got 4 hours today.

Begin

I had to come in at 4pm today. We grabbed supplies for concrete testing, and that's all that I have done in the past 1.5 hours. There's about four of us in the office waiting, while the others do something with signs. Because of this project, I probably won't be spending much time in the office. Haven't decided if I will continue to update this blog as often. It was one thing to update it on company time, but to use my own time to write this. Maybe I'll just do it on Monday's, I'm assuming they'll make us come in early on Mondays to get the 8 hours. But every time I make an assumption with KDOT, I've been wrong.

It has been difficult to adjust my schedule to nights. I've been going to bed at 5am, but I still wake up at 9:30-10am, and force myself to sleep until noon. I think my body craves the sun. There is one benefit of working nights, I get paid an extra $1/hr, so that'll probably be at least an extra $240 month.

Rain

Same as yesterday, except with rain, which made spotting some of the patches difficult. It was also annoying rolling the wheel. I guess I didn't have the option of coming in 6pm Monday, the project manager just told me to show up at 4pm.

After coming back to the office, I decided to finally place my order for manga on rightstuf.com, but sadly I missed the sale deadline. Usually their sales last for 2 weeks, but for some reason this one was only 2 days. Which really sucks, because I was planning on buying a bunch of manga, that I've been holding off on buying until such a sale came along.

Terrorizing the Public

More reclassification of patches. Today we were doing the on-ramps. The on-ramps are annoying because most of them don't have station stamps. So there was a lot of guessing and backtracking. And by backtracking, I mean driving in reverse on the on-ramp next to traffic. We did quite a bit of "off-roading" too, to find reference points. This would have been a lot easy if better notes were taken the first time, but I guess inefficiency is the way of the state. It gives us something to do.

From what it sounds like, I'll have to come into work at 4pm on Monday to get my 8 hours for the day. Though I can come in at 6pm, which is when they'll actually need me around. I'll probably come in at 4pm, because I like money.

CPR

The internet was down for most of the morning. I read my book until about 9:30, when I left for CPR/First Aid training. The class was good, and old guys cracking jokes weren't so bad this around. I wasn't even sleepy during the after lunch portion of the class. The class was over at 3pm, and I came back for more numbers to check. I finally found out that these papers that I've been checking are change orders. Change orders are basically revisions to the original contract regarding the amount of materials and time used on a project. At least that's what I think it is. I've checked so many of these, that I barely use a calculator. I have memorized a lot of it, and playing Brain Age has helped with some of the arithmetic.

re-do

We had to go back out and redo the patches that we labeled. We got better classification, and we went back the checked everything single patch. I think there's something wrong with the truck, because as soon as I got in, I was sleepy. We worked for 1.5 hours, before going to the North office to ask the Metro engineer some questions. Unfortunately, he was gone for a CPR class, which I will be going to tomorrow. So we returned to the office for lunch, and went back out at noon. We worked until 2pm, because the driver was getting sleepy. I managed to stay awake most of time today. We only managed to cover maybe 2.5 miles of road out of 6, and just one lane. I won't get to finish this, because next week I'll be working nights.

Sleepy

I stayed up late playing FFXI unlocking the new jobs. So I came into work about 5 minutes late, and was out of it most of the day. I barely spent anytime reading Ender's Game despite all the freetime I had. I didn't think anything was going to happen today, since it has was raining and hailing. I stopped around lunch time, and we went out to classify the patches we marked for the 402. We had to determine if they were Full Joint Patching, Partial Joint and Crack Patching, Partial Edge Joint Patching or Special Edge Joint Patching. There's probably over 500 patches both ways. So we just assumed most of them were Partial Patches, except for the exceptionally large ones. We finished mainline westbound in about two hours. I had trouble staying awake during this. I felt bad, because I didn't do anything all morning, and when it's time to work, I can barely function. I'll try to do better tomorrow.

Puawa

I forgot the bring the AC adapter for my HD today. It was a good day to catch up on shows too. I only had like 20 minutes of actual work today. Just spent the day reading Ender's Game and planning my budget through the end 2007. After work, it's off to Manhattan for the Central Kansas Japanese Festival, which is tomorrow. I don't care much for the actual festival, just the performance by the Yosakoi Dance group.

Hitched

Yesterday, I had to come in 30 minutes early so I could take my truck to main and office and get a hitch put on my new truck. I get there and told to come back 2 hours later, because they didn't have the parts to finish the job. So I come back and sat for 2 hours. I finished Idoru, I didn't really care much for it. I'd check on the mechanics every half hour, and they seemed to be done after the first hour, except for one piece. I seems like they took their lunch break in the middle, because no one was in the shop when I checked twice. When I came back to the office, the shop called to let me know that my truck was ready. Apparently no one was aware or remembered that I was waiting up there the whole time and had already picked my truck up. Since I came in early I left early, at 4pm like everyone else, which is why I didn't update yesterday. I usually update after everyone leaves.

Today, outside of the normal number checking, they had me chauffeur the black co-worker, because he didn't have a drivers license. I didn't mind, because I like talking with him. I consider him the most intelligent and cultured person in this office. I had to take him the concrete plant to run some gradation tests. The testing lab is semi-depressing. It has the bare essentials plus a air conditioner. There no color and a bikini calendar from 1996 set on February. After splitting the samples, you put then in a oven to burn off the moisture. Usually this means a heavy duty oven, but when he opened the door, I just saw a regular kitchen stove.

I spent about 4 hours there, which gave me some time to read Ender's Game, which I'm really enjoying. It also gave me plenty of time to talk. I discovered that he grew up catholic, and is older than I expected. He's as cynical if not more than an engineer. Definitely nice to talk to someone that see things the way I do. Too bad we can't talk like this in the office.

When we came back, it was back to checking numbers. It's the one thing that actually feels like work. Because I'm satisfied with the numbers, I have to sign off on them. I still got another set to check, but I'll save it for tomorrow. I beginning to think I won't reach my TV show viewing goal before the project starts. Oh well, I guess technically it's a good thing that I don't reach it.

ID check

Today everyone in the office had to get their keys inventory'd and a copy of their drivers licensed had to be made. The minimum requirement for a KDOT position is a valid drivers license. Apparently someone had an invalid driver's license, so they're doing checks. Then I got to hear a bunch of stories of past incidents where state employees lost their licenses. A DUI is one of the worst things that can happen to a KDOT employee. I get to hear a lot of stories working with someone that's worked here 13 years. It's very informative.

The 402 is complete so I have freetime again. The project is supposed to start on May 1, so I have eight days to finish two books and 2-3 TV series. The FFXI expansion comes out today, but the content won't be unlocked until Wednesday night. They want a simultaneous worldwide launch.

Ramps

Another day of working on the 402. The mainline is done, so today we just did the ramps. We got almost all the ramps done, except the ones at the highway interchange. I spent most of the day sticking my arm out of the car window, working on my tan. I actually got my first and second phone calls on my state phone. Both were for the previous owner of the phone. Looks like work is finally going to slow down, which is good, it'll give me time to read up on all the things in the upcoming FFXI expansion.

Talking

Today was another busy day. As soon as I got in, I start checking some numbers. Then 30 minutes later, I was out working on the 402 to about 3pm, with a break for lunch. I didn't even get enough time to finish watching my episode of Dead Like Me at lunch. The guy was working with actually only took 30 minutes for lunch. When I came back, I finish the episode, then finished the checking the figures.

Since I'm actually working, I'm spending a lot of time in the truck, which means interacting. The guy I've been working with is really helpful. He's been working for KDOT for 13 years, but isn't nearly as old as everyone else, probably mid-thirties. He's always explaining things to me, and telling about how KDOT works. He's the guy that's always playing Age of Empires II, so I consider him cooler than most of my co-workers, even though he listens to conservative talk radio in the truck.

88th Annual Transportation Engineering Conference

I was in Manhattan, KS for the past three days. Four of us rode up together, my boss who isn't an engineer but is the acting Construction Engineer for this office, the Construction Engineer from the other office and another EA1 like myself. It was nice to talk with young engineers like myself, but they were like the typical Civil Engineer, lovers of the outdoors, hunting, and drinking. I still got along with them better than I do with my co-workers. The first night was just checking in, so I went to the dorms to hang out, as soon as I got the opportunity.

Tuesday, the conference went from 9am-4:30. Followed by a Social hour from 6:30-7:00pm, then a dinner. Some of the sessions were interesting, some just bored me to sleep. Luckily I wasn't the only one sleeping. I think my favorite speaker was the Secretary of Transportation. She started the conference by correcting a slip up she made last year. She accidentally said, "We have been having great sex with our partners." Then she tried to cover it up, and dug herself deeper. She meant to say "great success." So this year, she announced that KDOT will no longer be having success. We will have victories. I enjoyed the rest of her speech too, even though she shouldn't be qualified for her position. She has a degree in sociology, while the assistant secretary is required to have an engineering degree. The fact that she's not an engineer is probably why KDOT switched back to the english system, after switching to metric several years earlier.

The social hour, or happy hour as everyone else called it was interesting. They had an open bar in the student union. I thought alcohol was not allowed on campus, except in the bowling alley. So the whole second floor was filed with drinking engineers. And it's not like it was closed off, we were all out in the open, and anyone could have joined us and gotten free drinks. There was varying levels of dress too, a couple of people did look like students. Walking around the union with my drink, I finally felt like a professional. The dinner wasn't too bad either. I left in the middle to watch the Japanese Yosakoi Dance Club practice, since they were just downstairs. After that, I just went back to the dorms. Apparently everyone else went to the bars or to the motel room of a very popular salesman, who supplies them with all alcohol they can drink.

Wednesday was a boring day of sessions. I don't really care to learn about thermo reflective painting for striping. I actually skipped two sessions, and slept through another. Luckily the conference was over by 3:30pm.

Today, I finally got my new truck. It's a dark green Chevy pick-up. We got three new truck, I wanted the silver one, because the license tag was 11337. But since I'm the lowest, I got last pick, so I got 11335. Oh well, it's still a very nice truck, smooth and quiet ride, and cruise controller, I can't really ask for more than that.

I was surprisingly busy today. I never even finished checking up on my daily sites or finished my episode of Dead Like Me. First, I had to go get my truck, then lunch got cut short, because I have to work on the 402 (estimations), then when I came back from that, I had to check some numbers. Kinda nice to be busy.

Cracking

I went out again to work on the other team's project. We went out after lunch, started the west end of the highway. I rode in the bed of the truck rolling the measuring wheel, while making notes on the parts of the highway that need repair. It was somewhat enjoyable. It was a nice day, and I got to ride in the back of the truck. The only bad thing was that I was resting on my arm so it eventually got numb. It was difficult to sit in the position that allowed me to be safe while pushing the wheel and to be able to take notes. We covered about 3500 feet, before traffic got too busy. This is probably what I'll be doing for the next several days, which is nice.

I personally enjoy driving, but in these state vehicles I'd rather someone else drive. I drove the truck a short distance along the sloped side of the highway by myself. I was just delivering the truck to my co-worker. When I arrived, he told me that I should have driven the truck to the top of the slope where it's flatter, because someone in the office once rolled their truck. He then proceeded to tell me another story of an accident. I have a clear driving record, not even a ticket, but I'm afraid I am eventually going to get into one with as much driving that I will be doing in this job. I'm slightly paranoid driving these trucks, and it'll get even worse once they give me a brand new one.

The guy I'm working with is nice and is trying to teach about how things work around here. He often talks about the other employees too. I generally ignore the negative things until I can confirm them myself, but accept the positive ones. I found that one of co-workers, who really appeared to be on the ball, is actually has a chemical engineering degree. This is the same guy that I talked with about the Da Vinci Code. The only reason he's not an EA1 like me is because he got his degree from a non-accredited school in the Philippines. I always thought was he mexican, because he could speak spanish and had an accent, though it wasn't a spanish accent. It all makes sense now.

Playing in traffic

My boss recently got on me for watching TV shows at work. I don't think he really cares, but his boss, so he conveyed the message. So I'll cut my TV watching down to one hour instead of two hours. He also had me go marking stations with the other crew to give me something to do, which I appreciated. It gave me a chance to talk with my co-workers some more. Apparently is a law in Kansas, that if you see a highway worker on the side of the road with their lights flashing, you have to change lanes. It's not amazing how many people don't obey. I'm sure they see me standing on the side of the road, they need to give me some space.

County originally built the highway that was working on today. They did a horrible job. Stations are to be placed every 500 feet. Most were within 10 feet, but some were off as much as 20 feet. A lot of the stamps were upside down. At first all the stamps were in the outside driving lane. Requiring me to run out in the middle of the road at exits. Eventually towards the end of the highway, the stamps were on the shoulder or the merging lane, which was nice, but inconsistent. Also the driving lanes were made with 30 foot panels, while the shoulders were done with 15 foot panels. 30 feet is too long, so naturally there's cracks in the middle of every panel. Oh well shoddy construction like this keeps us busy.

Staking

Today we actually went out and did some work. We drove out the site and planted stakes with the station number every 500 feet. There were 4 of us, 2 north-bound, 2 south bound. Nothing like walking/driving on the should of the highway, periodically running out into traffic to spray paint the station number. Parts of the highway have the station stamped on the surface, which we just highlighted with orange paint. Other parts we had to measure out the distance, and write new markers to go along with the stakes. Driving along the highway at 5 mph, you start to notice all the failures, which explains why we're out there. We took our time, went from 9am-11am, broke for lunch and finished the 2 mile stretch from 1pm-2pm.

I actually like going out to work, because it forces me to talk with my co-workers. In the office, the talkative people are on the other side, though it's very quiet most of the time. People just doing their own things. I'm extroverted, but I can't just walk up to people and start up a conversation without knowing something about them.

Phone

Today they gave me cell phone. I currently have no use with it. Maybe next year when I start managin projects, contractors will have to get ahold of me, until then I have a worthless candy bar phone.

I finished The Penultimate Peril today, with like 40 minutes left in the day so I decided to watch some Scrubs. They were having a pre-construction meeting for the other project so some of the higher up people were around, including the Metro Engineer. The Metro Engineer is the main guy for the city, and he told me that I shouldn't be watcing TV shows, because it's KDOT time. I should have known better, but if I had something to better to do I would. I tried asking for things to do in the beginning, and there simply isn't anything to do. The bulletin board with important dates is now empty.

Visiting the Site

Today, I actually left the office for a project related thing. Four of us just drove out to the two mile stretch of highway, looked the road, and visually marked the boundaries. Not much to it, I still have no clue what exactly I'll be doing the project.

I finished The Da Vinci Code today, and started on The Penultimate Peril, which I'm halfway through already. It's an interesting change to switch to a children's book. It's nice to know that the final book in the series will be released October 2006. I've complete 11 books so far. I've actually started watching more TV shows to slow down my reading. I can read out on the job site, but I can't watch TV shows. Though I guess I do have a laptop, so it's possible, but inconvenient.

Super Scout

Today was the pre-construction meeting with the contractors and sub-contractors. It was somewhat interesting to watch. I paid close attention to my boss, since he was conducting the meeting, and that I'll be doing this in a few years. The purpose of the meeting was to see who was doing what, and to set some ground rules. The contractor unfortunately wants to work Monday night through Friday, which takes away my Friday night. We in the office originally planned on Sunday-Thursday. Apparently it costs the contractor more to run the concrete plant on Sundays. So we'll see what happens when the project starts, but it'll most likely be the Mon-Fri schedule.

The boss gave a lecture on appropriate internet usage today. We have a program called Super Scout that watches over us. Three people got flagged for going to inappropriate site, two were repeat offenders and will mostly get their internet shut off. I got off with just a warning since it's my first offence, kinda. I got flagged three times in a month. When you go to an inappropriate site, it tells you that you're in violation of the policy and gives the reason, then bring up SOM 1.9.8. The reasons are remote proxy, sexual content, hacking, and some some 4th reason. I've seen this page several times, but ignored them since nothing has happened until today. But of all the times, I only have three occasions. I know better on how to surf at work, but I occasionally forget or don't expect certain things to be flagged.

I had to meet with my boss and explain my actions, and made sure that I knew the rules. My first offence was going to a site called musicwhore.org. This is just a simple music news site, but the word "whore" set off the sensors. My other offences were for going to bittorrent sites. The first time, I just didn't know. The second time, someone in the office was wondering about where I got my TV shows from, and I tried to show him, forgetting that I can't look at such things. People were complaining about Super Scout, about how it's too sensitive, and unfairly flags people for seemingly appropriate things, like breast cancer. Being here for 6 weeks, I think I've found my daily sites, and will not stray from them anymore.

clothes

Today was another quiet day at work. Every year we're given $250 for PPE (Personal Protection Equipment). Which is basically OSHA orange shirts, jackets, and coveralls. Despite the color it's still free clothes. There really isn't a dress code here, just long pants (preferably jeans) and ankle covering boots. If you're out in the field, you have to wear an orange safety vest, unless you're already wearing an orange shirt. So I ordered two t-shirts, two polos, a hoodie, and a jacket, which still hasn't used up half of the money, but I don't need to fill my closet with orange clothes.

I recently got the Rip Slyme Orchestra album. It's an interesting/funny concept. One disc has orchestral vocal-less versions of the songs and the second disc has different people reading the lyrics like it's poetry over the orchestral versions. One on of them, the poet completely over-acts, and it ends up sounding like a drama track. What makes it more entertaining is that Rip Slyme is a hip hop group, and like most Japanese groups intersperse English in their songs.

Detectable Warnings

Today we went to a presentation by this companies that makes Detectable Warning Panels. Those panels are basically the textured off-colored panels at sidewalk ramps. They're required by the American Disabilities Act. The presenter was very good, I didn't get bored in the one hour he spoke about these panels. Even though I don't imagine KDOT using them, because we mostly do highways. There was free food provided so all the upper level employees attended this, six of us total. Took two suburbans, it was a relatively quiet drive, not much talking. The bad thing about it though was, the driver smoked, which he didn't do until the drive back. Me, being the new guy, I didn't want to stir anything up. Plus the other passenger, the boss, chews tobacco, so obviously he didn't care. Another thing that annoyed me was his choice of radio stations, country. Country seems to be the preferred choice for most of the people here, that or talk radio. I personally hate the radio, but if forced to, I listen to NPR or oldies. I figured the guys would listen to oldies, being as they're old.

It official that the new truck isn't mine. So currently I have no state vehicle. Luckily I don't need one for while. I don't have any classes or meetings to attend on my own. The only thing I have to look forward to is the pre-construction meeting next week, and the Transportation conference at K-State in April.

It snowed here, third bloody day of Spring and it snows. I hate the snow, it's always been an enemy of mine in college. Making my feet cold and ground slippery. I shake my foot curled into a fist at thee snow.

New truck

Today, they took in my Ford extended cab truck and traded it in for shiny new Chevy Truck. Even though it was my truck, they didn't have me do it. I thought the new truck was going to be mine, since they traded mine in, but the way people talk about it, it's unknown who gets it. Apparently, engineers and Seniors get extended cabs, so the new truck probably won't be mine. There's apparently more trucks coming in.

The first aid class was canceled for tomorrow, so I'll have more time to read tomorrow. I finally finished the final book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It only took me 12 days to read it, when I assumed it would only take me 5 days. I attribute my slowness to the fact that I fall asleep reading it everyday. It's not like the books are boring, it's just something that happens to me, and I refuse to drink coffee, that's kindly provided in the office. Next is The Davinci Code, and ASoUE: The Penultimate Peril, which I finally found my copy of.

The Kojima Mayumi album was awesome as expected, but not as good as her previous one, Pablo no Koibito. The John Lennon tribute album was a disappointment, including the Bonnie Pink song. Two more months until the new Bonnie Pink single comes out.

Meeting

We had a meeting this morning regarding the project. It was brief, mainly talking about things to expect. Like just because the early start date is mid-April, the actual project won't start until late May or even June. I was totally wrong about the temperature thing. We need a minimum nighttime temperature of 60 degrees F, so it won't be as cold as I thought, but still colder than I would like. We'll on the road from 7pm-6am, that doesn't include the setup time, so I'll be getting more hours than expected. We're planning on working Sunday nights to Thursday, so I still have my weekends. There was very little discussion on the actual work. We'll probably go into more details when we have the meeting with the contractors.

I finally raided the office supply closet for some folders. I had no idea, I was free to take whatever I needed. They really need to develop some sort of orientation. Or maybe they did explain this me and I just forgot, since they told me so much crap on the first day.

Today, I should be getting the new Kojima Mayumi album, titled Swingin Caravan, and based on that name I know it's going to be awesome , and I got a Japanese John Lennon tribute album, mainly because it features Bonnie Pink, Shiina Ringo, and Puffy. Now I'll have more music to listen to. I spend 7 hours at work listening music, so I'm constantly trying to get new stuff. Lately I got the Dresden Dolls, Beth Orton, Metric, Ok Go, and Saint Etienne.

Prepping

Today the project manager sent out an email telling us get all of our "Ducks in a Row." There'll be a meeting next Monday, and you should review the plans. I was planning on finishing my book, but I should maybe try to work. Reading the plans, there isn't much to it, but that email makes me think there's more to it. So I'm reading the contract with all its special provisions, and I have no clue on what I should memorize. Plus once you start the project, everyone gets assigned a specific task, and you basically do that the whole time. I'm not sure what they're going to do with me. I'd like to work on every part of the project, like I did last summer. I'll still read the contract, because I don't want to seem like a overpaid know-nothing.

I overheard the others talking about when the project is going to start. The early start date is based on the average nighttime temperature. I'd forgotten that concrete has to be done in cool temperatures. Which is going to suck for me since I hate the cold. I'm used to asphalt which has a working temperature of over 80 degree Celsius. So I get to work on a cold dark highway that still has traffic running on it. But at least I'll be making more money because of it.

Today the office spent their time watching college basketball. I normally don't care about sports, but I joined the pool. So I care about the results, but not the actual game. I'm the same way with Fantasy Baseball. Though fantasy baseball will be a nice way to waste time at work, I can't wait until the season starts.

Worthless

I manage to accomplish very little today. I have nothing planned for the entire week. I figured it would a good week to finish my book and further review the contract. So today I didn't even touch the contract and only read 50 pages of the Hitchhiker's Guide. I feel rather worthless since I spent most of my time reading up on FFXI. Well I guess I did manage to finish season 1 of Scrubs. I'm amazed how my episodes that I've missed. I got paid last week, so maybe I'll buy a new calendar for my desk. I've just been looking last year's calendar and shifting the days to make it useful.

SUPAA Pave

Today was the Superpave lab workshop. I had to get to work 30 minutes early, just so I can grab my truck and drive an hour to the lab. It was a very good lab, one instructor for each student. I've never had any formal Superpave training, but I watched the lab procedures last summer, so today was kinda review. I also wrote a 12 page research paper about Superpave, but didn't understand any of the technical information that I provided. Maybe now some of that stuff will make sense. I planned on the workshop to take the whole day, so I didn't bring my HD with me. The class ended at 1:30. I returned to the office at 2:30pm, and I had to find something to fill the silence for 2 hours. So I went to google and msn video for some music videos. MSN surprised me with their selection. They even had a Hikaru Utada video, You Make Me Want To Be A Man. What a horrible song title, and a horrible song in fact. I think it was a bad choice for a single if she's trying to make it in the US again. Though I stopped listening to R&B music years ago, so what do I know

Erosion control

Today I went to an erosion control class. There was useful information present, though I was nodding off in the first part. It was three parts, and third part was presented by this young lady. She spoke really well and obviously knew what she was talking about, but she kept saying "um." It was fairly distracting. Throughout all the presentations I've sat through in college, I've only noticed females that have this problem. I really wonder how that happens, and if they even hear themselves say "um." I felt slightly out of place there. Gray hairs everywhere. If I saw a young person, I automatically assumed they were an engineer, but I'm probably wrong.

Once again class ended quickly. It was scheduled for 10am-2pm with a break for lunch, but we skipped the lunch break, and finished at 12:30pm. There were five of us from the office. It's interesting listening to their conversations. They mostly talk about work, like projects, contractors, and a lot about other employees. It's very educational, but sadly with my lack of experience, I can't really participate. I don't think I will ever really fit in, because when the topic isn't about work, it's about old people stuff. KDOT needs to get on the ball and recruit more young engineers. They are so many job openings for engineers, it's a little sad.

After we returned, I started on the book again. I finished the first story. It sounds like they're going to make me do some grunt work tomorrow, so I question my goal to finish the next 2 stories. We'll see.

Contract

We finally got the contracts for the patching project. The contract is a big thick manual. The first 300 or so pages are amendments to the policies outlined in the spec book. Only about 20 pages have actual information about the project. It's amazing that 2.1 miles of patching, grinding, and marking costs about $1.5 million. I feel the need to read the contract since it pertains to my job, but at this point I'd prefer to read my own books. I didn't get The Davinci Code, but I did get the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it has all five books, plus a short story. I figured I'd read one per day, but I forgot that I actually have class twice this week. So I don't think I'll finish the book this week, which makes me kinda sad, because I want to see how many books can I read before the project starts. Granted a normal person could finish the book in three working days, but I don't have the attention span to read for that long. I'm actually enjoying Hitchhiker's Guide quite a bit, I actually laughed out loud when I read this part about the non-existence of God.

"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
"'But,' says Man 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"'Oh dear,' says God 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in puff of logic.

Looking around my desk, I really need to do something about it. It's pretty much left unchanged from when the previous engineering sat here. I still have the 2005 calendars on the wall. The only decorations I can think about bringing in are anime toys, but that seems kinda out of place in an office like this. Most people have pictures of their families, cars, construction, and wildfire paraphernalia. I'm pretty sure none of have any idea of what anime is, and if they do it's either pokemon or hentai. And now I have to end this, because it's quitting time.

Okinawan cooking

Finished Angels and Demons, now I'm ready for The Da Vinci Code. Since I finished the book, I spent the second half of the day watching Everybody Hates Chris and Scrubs season 1. I'm getting use to this place and feeling less of a need to make this place feel like work.

Today my mother left for Okinawa, so today's lunch is the last decently cooked meal I'll have in four months. It a dish made with papaya and kamoboko, but sure what else is in there, but I'm sure it has dashi no moto. I was supposed to be studying her cooking technique, but work coupled with laziness and FFXI kept me from it.

a job

I just checked my email, and my boss sent out the tenative field staffing for our upcoming projects. There seems to be four projects, and the staff has been decided for the first two. I will be working on a night project, 7pm-6am. The early start date for the project is April 10th. We'll be patching, grinding, and marking. It's expected to be a 50 day job. So it'll be 10 weeks of night work, not sure how much I like that, but a job is a job. Actually, looking at the other projects, 3 out of the 4 projects are night jobs.

change orders

Today I attended a little refresher course on how to do change orders, of course being here for only 2 weeks I never learned to do change orders. My boss had me drive him and the "computer guy" to the district office. The other guys gave them shit because they made the new guy drive them. On the way, they decided that we should stop the Amish restaurant for some coffee and pastries. It was good stuff, and the waitress was surprisingly cute, I attribute it to the dress. The class was scheduled from 10am to 3pm, but we were done by 11am. Since this was a district wide course for all the engineers, specialists and PSA's (Public Service Administrator, that's what the computer guy is), I finally got to meet some of my peers. I met an engineer that graduated a year before me. I didn't really know him, but I was friends with his brother. It was nice to talk to someone like me, a fellow KSU CE graduate that did poorly in school. After spending 45 minutes chatting, everybody finally went home. Got back just in time for lunch where I watched last night's episode of Scrubs. This job is great for giving me time to catch up on all the shows that I've been neglecting. Maybe I'll finally get around to watching Dead Like Me, Firefy, and Wonderfalls. Nothing like watching shows that were canceled before there time. I really hope that Arrested Development comes back.

updates

Today was another do nothing day. I alternated between reading Demons and Angels and playing spider. Regardless of how good the book is, I still don't have the attention span to sit there and read for hours on end. Tomorrow I have a change order class, so I probably won't finish the book until Thurday, but I'll try to drag it out, since I don't have new book yet. I'll probably borrow The DaVinci Code and whatever other book that my friend recommend.

Today, an update for the java program that we used was released. It was a simple update, just over-write two old files and copy one new one. They of course wrote a full page of instructions. The office "computer guy" followed these instructions exactly and went around updating everyone's computer. I would have done it myself but I have limit privileges. I can add new files, but I can't delete the old ones. So I waited until the computer guy tried to update mine, and he didn't quite understand the write error it was giving him. I explained it to him, but he didn't completely believe me at first. He thought my external hard drive was causing the problem. So we rebooted without the drive, and lo and behold same thing. I finally convinced him to log in with his account, and we finished updating. Now that I had access, I uninstalled a bunch of the problems that I installed two weeks ago. Free up a good 7 gigs (thanks to FFXI) I think that since I’m still on probation, that I don't have access, because everyone else can do whatever they want with their computers. In fact, the former token black guy, I say former because I increased that number by 0.5, takes his laptop home with him. I haven't gotten to know a lot of the people here, but Token seems to be the most intelligent amongst them. I only say that, because I'm actually able to have an interesting conversation with him.