As of last Friday, I've been working for KDOT for 3 years. I really doesn't feel like it at all considering how little I know or do. I probably know a lot more than I think, but it doesn't feel like it. I still don't answer the phone unless I really have to because I'm afraid of them asking some simple question that I don't know the answer to. Last year was pretty slow, but this year seems to have some big project, including the I-135 and Kellogg interchange, which is a $21 million project. I wonder which office will get and who will be in charge of it. Hopefully I'll learn a lot more this year.
I've been somewhat busy lately, not necessarily with actual work, but with classes. Took some surprisingly interesting asphalt and concrete courses. Going to another one this Friday, which will probably not be as interesting to me since it's an internal course and I might be burned out on those topics.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Disappointed
I recently joined the YMCA, because me friend said he was going to join and I wanted to support. Plus this is the time of the year when I try to get back into shape for Yosakoi. Not that I really need to, but I take it more seriously than the other members who seem to be there to socialize. Nothing wrong with that since it keeps the members coming back. I'm personally not close to any of the members since I only come in the Spring semester and only make 20% of the practices.
Last Tuesday, I hurt my right foot jogging. I prefer to run barefoot because it's lighter and my feet get hot. I think I was landing flat footed or something. I didn't notice any pain immediately. I went to yoga after my run and felt fine, not until after I look my shower did I start limping around. Nothing is swollen and my muscles don't ache so I wonder if I fractured something. I was upset because I was planning on going to Manhattan this weekend for Yosakoi practice, but no point in going up unless I can dance. Then I got an email last night saying that there's no practice this Friday night, so I didn't feel so bad. Then I read on and it said that they changed the schedule from Mon, Wed, Fri to just Mon and Thu, which essentially eliminates almost all the practices I can go to. There's still a couple that I can go to because I have some training classes in Salina, but it's not worth going only 3 time the whole semester. It only takes me one practice to learn a dance if they're teaching it, but it takes me 3-5 practices to learn it from trying to follow along.
Last Tuesday, I hurt my right foot jogging. I prefer to run barefoot because it's lighter and my feet get hot. I think I was landing flat footed or something. I didn't notice any pain immediately. I went to yoga after my run and felt fine, not until after I look my shower did I start limping around. Nothing is swollen and my muscles don't ache so I wonder if I fractured something. I was upset because I was planning on going to Manhattan this weekend for Yosakoi practice, but no point in going up unless I can dance. Then I got an email last night saying that there's no practice this Friday night, so I didn't feel so bad. Then I read on and it said that they changed the schedule from Mon, Wed, Fri to just Mon and Thu, which essentially eliminates almost all the practices I can go to. There's still a couple that I can go to because I have some training classes in Salina, but it's not worth going only 3 time the whole semester. It only takes me one practice to learn a dance if they're teaching it, but it takes me 3-5 practices to learn it from trying to follow along.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Last week, one of our techs quit, the main batchman. Now we have on less person under 30 years old. He left us to become a county inspector. Not sure if it pays more, but he won't be stuck in the concrete plant which he hated. Now the batchman position was passed onto the back up. Normally it's passed onto the low person on the totem pole, but since it we actually had a back up trained for once, he got it. I wonder how long he'll last there. The last 4 batchmen we've had since I've been here have quit. They all stayed with the goverment though. One went to KDOT in Iola, one to WSU, one to KU, and the last to county public works. The new batchman is currently taking college classes, so he's definitely planning on leaving KDOT in the future.
KDOT has recently started ktoc.net a KS transportation online community. I wonder wonder how many kdot employees outside of Topeka will use it. Feels weird to have a KDOT social network. Hopefully it'll be a somewhat educational way of killing time at work, not that I need help.
KDOT has recently started ktoc.net a KS transportation online community. I wonder wonder how many kdot employees outside of Topeka will use it. Feels weird to have a KDOT social network. Hopefully it'll be a somewhat educational way of killing time at work, not that I need help.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Happy Belated New Year
Work has been extraordinarily slow. I've only done one bit of work in the past two weeks. 2/3 of the office took the last two weeks off. The people in the front office were gone, so we in the back had to take turns answering the phones. I hate answering the phone because I have to concentrate to say Kansas Department of Transportation slowly, which causes me to stutter. I can say it without stuttering with my normal speech, but then they wouldn't understand what I'm saying.
During this break I managed to tag and find album art for most of my music. All that is left are my old video game and anime soundtracks, which I rarely listen to and are horribly labeled. My friends used to make fun of my music preferences saying all I listen to are female singers and Swedish bands. In my boredom, I began tracking all the music I've acquired in the past 3 years to prove them right or wrong. The making of the list was also somewhat influenced by the end of the year top music lists. I'd think of what albums would be on my list, so first I had to identify all those albums. Currently all this data is in an excel spreadsheet, but I'm trying to learn access to better track my listening treads.
For 2008, I acquired 294 albums from 148 unique artists not counting the various artists featured on compilations. 81 of those albums were relased in 2008. Of the 148 artists: 54.1% feature only female vocals, 28.4% feature only male vocals, and 17.6% feature both or are instrumentals. 50% are from the US, 19.9% UK, 6.1% Scandinavia, 5.4% Japan, 4.1% France, 2.7% Canada, 2.7 Australia, and 9.1% from various others including Brazil, Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Nigeria, and Argentina. From previous years, the amount of female singers have decreased. US and UK artists are increasing while Japan and Canada dropped by half. Eventually I'll go through add genres.
While on the topic music, I'll list my 10 favorite albums of 2008. My tastes vary a lot from most year end lists since those are dominated by male lead bands. With the except of Santogold, Portishead, and maybe Goldfrapp most probably don't appear an any lists. Beyond the first 3, the list is mostly albms that I remembering listen to the most or ones that stuck out. I haven't taken the time to relisten to them to properly rate them.
1. Bitter:Sweet - Drama
2. Portishead - Third
3. Santogold - Santogold
4. Cansei de Ser Sexy - Donkey
5. Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
6. Rosey - Luckiest Girl
7. Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer
8. Brazilian Girls - New York City
9. Stereolab - Chemical Chords
10. Deerhoof - Offend Maggie
During this break I managed to tag and find album art for most of my music. All that is left are my old video game and anime soundtracks, which I rarely listen to and are horribly labeled. My friends used to make fun of my music preferences saying all I listen to are female singers and Swedish bands. In my boredom, I began tracking all the music I've acquired in the past 3 years to prove them right or wrong. The making of the list was also somewhat influenced by the end of the year top music lists. I'd think of what albums would be on my list, so first I had to identify all those albums. Currently all this data is in an excel spreadsheet, but I'm trying to learn access to better track my listening treads.
For 2008, I acquired 294 albums from 148 unique artists not counting the various artists featured on compilations. 81 of those albums were relased in 2008. Of the 148 artists: 54.1% feature only female vocals, 28.4% feature only male vocals, and 17.6% feature both or are instrumentals. 50% are from the US, 19.9% UK, 6.1% Scandinavia, 5.4% Japan, 4.1% France, 2.7% Canada, 2.7 Australia, and 9.1% from various others including Brazil, Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Nigeria, and Argentina. From previous years, the amount of female singers have decreased. US and UK artists are increasing while Japan and Canada dropped by half. Eventually I'll go through add genres.
While on the topic music, I'll list my 10 favorite albums of 2008. My tastes vary a lot from most year end lists since those are dominated by male lead bands. With the except of Santogold, Portishead, and maybe Goldfrapp most probably don't appear an any lists. Beyond the first 3, the list is mostly albms that I remembering listen to the most or ones that stuck out. I haven't taken the time to relisten to them to properly rate them.
1. Bitter:Sweet - Drama
2. Portishead - Third
3. Santogold - Santogold
4. Cansei de Ser Sexy - Donkey
5. Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
6. Rosey - Luckiest Girl
7. Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer
8. Brazilian Girls - New York City
9. Stereolab - Chemical Chords
10. Deerhoof - Offend Maggie
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
xmas lunch
Today we had our annual xmas lunch. We order BBQ from a nearby place, and workers from maintenance and construction bring their own dishes. Last year we had 2.5 tables full of dessert, mostly brownies. This year people toned it down and we didn't have nearly as much as last year, which is good. Because of the snow, not all of maintenance was present. Half are on night shift, and the day shift people came in waves. This lunch is the one thing that construction and maintenance does together. I think I only know the name of one person in maintenance. They do tend to have a high turnover rate so I saw a lot of new people.
We had a raffle for presents. There were presents stacked and I chose one, which felt like an empty box, and it was mostly empty except for $15 in cash. I'll use it to pitch in for the group gift that we're getting for our boss. She was nice enough to get everyone in construction a tin of popcorn. My tin will be saved until our semi-annual lan party.
The big boss didn't make it to lunch, which I was hoping he would. Either last year or the year before he came and filled up, and was in such a good mood that he gave us the rest of the day off. It made sense too, everyone else was full and sluggish. No work would have been done, even if there had been work to do. The office was mostly empty anyways since people either didn't come in, had to plow snow, or just simply left early.
We had a raffle for presents. There were presents stacked and I chose one, which felt like an empty box, and it was mostly empty except for $15 in cash. I'll use it to pitch in for the group gift that we're getting for our boss. She was nice enough to get everyone in construction a tin of popcorn. My tin will be saved until our semi-annual lan party.
The big boss didn't make it to lunch, which I was hoping he would. Either last year or the year before he came and filled up, and was in such a good mood that he gave us the rest of the day off. It made sense too, everyone else was full and sluggish. No work would have been done, even if there had been work to do. The office was mostly empty anyways since people either didn't come in, had to plow snow, or just simply left early.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
asphalt conference
Last week I went to a Asphalt Conference held at KU. It was rather boring. I feel asleep in almost every talk I sat through, and gained very little knowledge. After the introduction, the first talk was given by the Deputy Secretary of Transportation about future funding. It was somewhat depressing. This speech is usually given by the Secretary, but she had other obligations. He mentioned that it's basically the same speech as hers but at half the speed. That's the one thing I really like about the Secretary's speeches was how fast she talked. I didn't even stay for the whole conference. The point of these conferences is to get continuing education credits. They gave us our certificates at the beginning, so the only thing keeping you there was actual interest. I left about 2 hours before the end since I wasn't getting anything out of it, and went back to the hotel to nap, which is what I would have done at the conference anyways. The conference was Thursday afternoon, but there was a social hour at the hotel on Wednesday and Thursday nights so they paid for us to stay both nights. I skipped both nights to hang out with friends in Lawrence
Since it on a Thursday, I decided to take Friday off and spend the whole spend in KC. I basically just hung out with various friends and played Rock Band 2 that weekend. I felt like 2nd vacation.
Tomorrow I have to go to Nuke gauge safety training. We're require to go every two years. I never got a nuke badge from my first training which is used to measure how much radiation you've been exposed to on the job. We use a nuke gauge to determine the density of the dirt and pavements. The training is in Salina, but I'll have to be ready to leave here at 7am even though the class isn't until 9am. It's the 5 of us that was too busy working on the same project to go to an earlier class. I will probably sleep through this one and still ace the test. It's tempting to drive on my own so I won't have to spend 3 hours in a suburban with those guys, but we're supposed to be trying to conserve gas. Well I'm trying to, the project manager almost never shut his truck off.
Since it on a Thursday, I decided to take Friday off and spend the whole spend in KC. I basically just hung out with various friends and played Rock Band 2 that weekend. I felt like 2nd vacation.
Tomorrow I have to go to Nuke gauge safety training. We're require to go every two years. I never got a nuke badge from my first training which is used to measure how much radiation you've been exposed to on the job. We use a nuke gauge to determine the density of the dirt and pavements. The training is in Salina, but I'll have to be ready to leave here at 7am even though the class isn't until 9am. It's the 5 of us that was too busy working on the same project to go to an earlier class. I will probably sleep through this one and still ace the test. It's tempting to drive on my own so I won't have to spend 3 hours in a suburban with those guys, but we're supposed to be trying to conserve gas. Well I'm trying to, the project manager almost never shut his truck off.
Monday, November 24, 2008
flex time
The project is still going on, but they're done with concrete so they don't need me. I get to resume my flex time hours of 8:30-5:00 and get that extra 1-1.5 hours of sleep. I'd really like to have 9-5:30 just so I can avoid the evening traffic, but that's outside our normal hours. People are able to come in at 7am, so maybe if would be ok if I stayed late. Though I would be the only person left, so no one could verify my hours.
I'm back to my old routine of surfing the web and tagging all my mp3s. I'm almost done with the j-pop, so it's a good chance I can finish everything by the end of year, just in time for my annual music backup. Maybe once I finish that I'll read some more. I read all of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, because they had watching stripers for a few in-between concrete pours. Striping is extraordinarily boring and I would take a nap after reading a chapter.
I'm happy to be back in the office, but I am going to miss practicing my Spanish. Like on most project you spend a lot of time with the labors, and when I spoke to one in Spanish, they all knew almost immediately. Many would try to have conversations with me. Most of the conversation were similiar, since they're were a lot of labors. I really should look into taking some advance Spanish classes at WSU, if the state is willing to pay for it.
I'm back to my old routine of surfing the web and tagging all my mp3s. I'm almost done with the j-pop, so it's a good chance I can finish everything by the end of year, just in time for my annual music backup. Maybe once I finish that I'll read some more. I read all of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, because they had watching stripers for a few in-between concrete pours. Striping is extraordinarily boring and I would take a nap after reading a chapter.
I'm happy to be back in the office, but I am going to miss practicing my Spanish. Like on most project you spend a lot of time with the labors, and when I spoke to one in Spanish, they all knew almost immediately. Many would try to have conversations with me. Most of the conversation were similiar, since they're were a lot of labors. I really should look into taking some advance Spanish classes at WSU, if the state is willing to pay for it.
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