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.