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.