Life of an Intern

Event: Govenors visit, Landscaping out front completed

2007-06-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

The landscaping out front recently just got done, just in time for our VIP visit.

Event: weather

2007-06-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

The large windows here at the Sunset building provide an excellent view of coming storms.

Project: MS4 Analysis - Field trip(s)

2007-06-01T13:00:00.000-05:00

For a project I'm working on right now, I had the chance to go out and look around the Nelson Complex and Mill Creek Plants.

Pump station at Mill Creek

Trickling Filter at the Nelson Complex

Event: Intern blog (along with everything at ravenengineering.net) is back!

2007-05-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

For reasons unbeknown to me, the ravenengineering.net (A/E) and eravens.net (E-comm) sites have been unavailable/offline for several weeks now, only to mysteriously come back to life. To make up for the long absence in blogging, I'll be going back and writing post-dated blog posts, so watch for the months of April & May to fill in some!

Info: The work space update

2007-03-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

Time for that un-periodic (very random) update of what my work space looks like. Same cubicle as last time, just a few more maps and decorations, such as my orange BBIQ badge, hanging from the overhead bin.

(my desk, clean and tidy?)

You can see my previous two posts
here ("MySpace @ JCW")
and
here ("Phone#, E-mail, and where I work")

or test out the 'labels' system blogger has, as all of the above posts have been labeled 'workspace.'

Project: Imagery Analysis

2007-03-20T15:46:00.000-05:00

I am currently working on a project to analyze changes in a set of digital aerial photographs, in order to assess how much building & parking lot footprints have changed over different time periods. I was directed by Jim to try the demo of Leica ImageAnalysis (found here), and am still figuring out the finer details of how it works.

Event: ArcGIS upgrade

2007-02-06T14:00:00.000-06:00

Today, Jim came by and upgraded my computer with ArcGIS 9.2, which is the newest ArcGIS product from ESRI. I haven't had much of an opportunity to look around yet, but there doesn't seem to be a lot, if any, visually different about the application.

Event: There's dye in the water!

2007-01-10T11:00:00.000-06:00

Part of the system in the area had been subject to the Dykes Branch sewer rehab and as a result we weren't sure whether or not the lines connected in this particular area (see map below). Today we went out and checked connectivity between the lines using leak detection dye.

The dye was used was "Bright Dyes" branded dye that came in the form of drop in tablets.

Some dyed water flowing through one of the sewers.

Project: return to GPS east Olathe (near 127th & Pflumm)

2007-01-04T10:30:00.000-06:00

Today, I went back out to the area around 127th and Pflumm to locate some of the previously unfound manholes with the assistance of Ron, Troy, and Celeste.

Celeste opening a manhole to verify the map accurately reflects the number of merging pipes and direction of flow.

Troy opening a manhole, note the damaged base

Info: Spring 2007 college schedule

2007-01-03T13:00:00.000-06:00

Spring 2007 Semester Schedule:

	Monday:	Tuesday:	Wednesday:	Thursday:	Friday:
8:00	Calc II (JCCC)	Calc II (JCCC)	Calc II (JCCC)	Calc II (JCCC)	Calc II (JCCC)
9:00	Engineering Physics (JCCC)	Engineering Physics (JCCC)	Engineering Physics (JCCC)	Engineering Physics (JCCC)	Engineering Physics (JCCC)
10:00	Intermediate Spanish I (JCCC)	Driving Time	Intermediate Spanish I (JCCC)	Driving Time	Intermediate Spanish I (JCCC)
11:00		Digital Logic & Design (KU)		Digital Logic & Design (KU)
12:00		Digital Logic & Design (KU)

Event: Happy New Year

2007-01-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

Happy 2007!

Project: GPS east Olathe (near 127th & Pflumm)

2006-12-19T11:00:00.000-06:00

Kyle Purdon and I were sent out to investigate ownership and location of some manholes out near 127th and Pflumm. Two lines run alongside each other in this area, one belonging to the City of Olathe and the other belonging to Johnson County Wastewater (JCW). The city is currently planning a bridge to the west of the area outlined in the map below, which will cross the creek and go directly up to 127th. It is of interest because the bridge site comes very close to both sewer lines, which run near the creek itself.

Event: Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-26T13:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Turkey Day everyone!

Event: JCW Halloween Party & DST and the building at night

2006-10-31T18:00:00.000-06:00

Today was the annual Halloween party at JCW!

Since we reverted back to 'normal' time from DST, the sun now sets while I am at work, giving me a chance to snap some pictures of the sunset building at night.

Glow in the JCW office as the sun sets:

Main hallway:

The fountain out front:

Happy Halloween!

Project: Document Conversion - Scanning and PDF

2006-10-27T15:00:00.000-05:00

Continuing on the project to scan in a file cabinet of documents and make them a searchable archive with Adobe PDF, today I was given a DVD-Burner so I can make copies of the archive data to store off of the network because of document sensitivity. I also produced a couple of new how-to guides (old ones) to describe the operation of our newer scanner and using Adobe instead of flip album. The new scanner can do front and back sides of documents, scans much faster, and is able to produce smaller JPG images instead of TIFF images.

New DVD burner:

'New scanner:'

Event: New schedule at JCW

2006-08-22T11:00:00.000-05:00

My schedule at JCW has changed an I will for now only be in on Tuesdays and Fridays from approxamitely 11:00 am until 6:00 pm. Although I have an early morning calc class every day at KU, I set up the rest of my schedule to allow me to come back to Olathe and work.

Event: O&M Open house

2006-08-17T11:00:00.000-05:00

Today was the O&M open house/BBQ at the DLS Middle Basin plant to celebrate the completion of the new truck building & office. Though I helped plan the event I was unable to attend because of the first day of classes at KU. As soon as I can get my hands on some pictures, I'll come back and edit this post and put them here.

Update: Thanks to Karen Sorensen of JCW, I know have event photos!

Info: KU class schedule

2006-08-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8:00-8:50	MATH 121	MATH 121	MATH 121	MATH 121	MATH 121
9:00-9:50			ECON 142
10:00-10:50
11:00-11:50	EECS 168		EECS 168	EECS 168
12:00-12:50	EECS 168		EECS 168	EECS 168
1:00-1:50
2:00-2:50
3:00-3:50	ECON 142		ECON 142

Once I get used to to the KU schedule, I am going to figure out when to fit hours at JCW in. Tuesday and Friday definitely appear to be the most accommodating.

Meeting: Planning for New O&M Building Open House

2006-08-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

Today I met with Dan Ott to go over the details of the open house for the new vehicle and O&M building at the Doug Smith Middle Basin Waste Water Treatment Plant (DLS Middle Basin WWTP). The building houses some of the JCW jet cleaner and line tv truck fleet.

Some of the TV and Line cleaning equipment out at the other plants:

Line Cleaner:

The TV inspection robot:

Project: leawood GPS and the "Hot Week"

2006-07-20T11:30:00.000-05:00

This week being out in the field has been hot. Really hot. Today it is supposed to be around 100 (deg F). Lately, I've been out in the area immediately to the east of 88th and Nall ave.

This area is much easier to GPS than it has been, because every manhole is located in a front yard or in the street.

Project: GPS Leawood

2006-07-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

After returning from vacation on the 10th, I have gotten back to GPS locating in the Leawood area. Today, Brandon and I were working around the 83rd and State Line area. Had quite a success locating manholes, although a few remain unknown, either hiding in flower beds, under sheds, or unexistent. Talked with a City of Leawood Public Works guy who was out doing some utility locating as well and he said there were a couple of JCW manholes they tried to find to spray mark for construction in a couple of areas to the South where I have not reached yet. Hopefully I will be able to resume editing the GIS database again once the database switch and what not is completed.

Project: Blog Presentation

2006-06-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

After going to the Blog Presentation (see: The Intern: Day 11: MARC Blog conference) by Keith Kreiger, the interns at JCW were challenged to make their own presentation to the web committee here at JCW. Right now, it is still under construction. I’ll post the web exported version once we (the interns) have completed it.

Event: MARC Blog Conference

2006-06-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

Today, I attended a Blog Conference at MARC (the Mid-America Regional Council) put on by Keith Kreiger of lab188.com. He explained the value of blogs in government and showed several examples of working government blogs. He also covered different blogging tools and trend tracking tools such as Technorati and BlogPulse. You can see the outline of his presentation and also a large page of valuable links on his site.

Opening of Second Blog

2006-06-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

Recently, I've opened up a new blog called "ArcGIS Methods and Madness" where I post questions/problems and solutions to things I come across in ArcGIS.

Project: More Prairie Village GIS & GPS

2006-06-15T17:00:00.000-05:00

-Today, went out to the Prairie Village area to take some more GPS data near 79th and Mission. Decided it was time to leave around 1:30pm, because the Satellite lock for the Trimble XH was beginning to fade, following the usual phenomenon (every afternoon is a poor signal compared to before noon) Jim and I noticed.
-Got back to the office and post processed (using Trimble's Pathfinder Office 3.10) the data collected and imported it into ArcGIS. Picked up on where I had left after yesterdays data loss snapping the sewer lines over to their corrected positions, including some of my data that had been collected & imported previously in the week.

A shot showing some of the Peridian GPS data along with my GPS data
-Also, thanks to some schedule switching, I will no longer be in on Fridays, how sad. The benefits of doing ten hours for the first four days of the week.
-Another note, today was Kyle Purdon's birthday, Happy Birthday