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.