The Joys of Working for the state

Failure #2

2009-08-10T16:32:00.003-05:00

Last Monday I interviewed for the Construction Engineer (EAIII) position in the north office. The interview started 10 minutes, because they were interviewing someone else and it ran long. My interview was only 20 minutes. I blanked on one technical question about asphalt, but I think I question all the management question fine. All my answers were short and precise. At the end of the interview they asked if I'd like to add anything, which I didn't feel the need to sell myself. I've been working there for 3.5 years and I've showed them what I can do. I prefer to show than tell, plus I felt I was a shoe-in for the position. I have more experience than most Construction Engineer did when they started and I had the home-court advantage.

Annoyingly I didn't get the job. I lost to another Construction Engineer out of the Emporia office, which I was told was a bigger factor on why she got the job. But from I know, she's a chemical engineer and has only been working in construction for 6 months. It was actually surprising because she started off as a EAIII, which we don't do in Wichita. My boss was brought in to become our new EAIII, but she had to work 1 year as an EAII in the field to get a better understanding of what we do. So my 3.5 years of field work doesn't compare to her 6 months of office work. Though she probably interviewed really well, and being a chemical engineer is quite impressive, since that's one of the hardest engineering majors. It also made some sense hiring her, because Wichita would gain an engineer, instead of my office losing me.

I was fairly disappointed with not getting the job, since it's the 2nd time I've interviewed for it. Originally I didn't want the job, because it'd be more responsibility, a longer commute, and it'd mess up my work out schedule. But after a month of thinking about how the promotion would have changed my life, I got used to the idea and I actually wanted the job. I felt I was ready to be the boss. Now I will just continue to be the overpaid tech. I thinking had I gotten the job I'd be starting in my new position as the boss today, but instead I went out to the concrete plant to write tickets, which is considered to be the least desirable tech job. The metro engineer actually came by on Friday afternoon to talk to me, told me not to be discouraged that I didn't get the job. The talk really didn't help or hurt. I guess I got some face time with the big boss, but that doesn't really matter much when there's little chance for advancement here in Wichita.

Today, the new construction engineer stared work at the north office along with two new techs, one for each office. The new tech for the north office is actually one of my good friends. Apparently he dropped my name quite a few times during the interview. I figured him having a degree in Computer Science would make him more capable than the other 8 applicants. The metro engineer told me that he came off a little cocky, because he that he could pass the FE without a problem, and I believe that he could too. But Metro Engineer said it was a good kind of cocky so it worked out for him.

Project #3:done

2009-07-08T16:13:00.002-05:00

I finished my third project last week, 4 days ahead of schedule. Though I wasn't around for the last day, because I had a wedding to attend. It was just some striping that my helper was able to take care of. Simple stuff, just go out and measure what is put down. The project in general was easy. The contractor knew what they needed to do and often did things without me asking them. They were also very prompt in getting me certifications which is usually the hardest part and can often take months after the project is finished. I personally think the contractor did a job with the overlay, a rather smooth ride. Too bad the approaches are faulted about an inch on both ends, so anyone driving will feel a noticeable bump.

So technically I have 6 months to finish up all the paperwork, because the job is only partially accepted. We have to wait 180 days to make sure the striping remains adequate. Since I have all the certs, I'm going to try to finish as much as possible in the first week. If I was really motivated I could have probably done it all in a day, but my attention span doesn't allow me to keep working. I've been lucky all the project I've been in charge of have been fairly short. I don't think I could stand doing a project that lasts more than 1 construction season.

I do have one unfortunate reason for trying to get this project finaled out as soon as possible. Last week, the person that beat me out for the EAIII (Construction Engineer) position at the north office last year died in a motorcycle accident. So that position is now vacant. I really don't want it because I like it here and recently bought a house near here. Technically you have to apply for promotion so I don't have to apply if I don't want to, but it would look bad if I didn't. My boss knows this and has started slowly training me for the new job. It'll probably be a couple months before I get the promotion. Considering it took them 3 months to fill the position last time it was vacated. I'll admit I'm a little nervous about the position, because I'll actually be in charge of a construction office and the Metro engineer is just down the hall so he can watch over me.

Long Night

2009-05-28T18:42:00.003-05:00

My patch and overlay project on the Seneca, Meridian, and Edwards bridges on WB Kellogg started on Tuesday night. First we have to setup the traffic control which could only be done from 9am to 6am. They had to put up signs, close the inside lanes first, because they had to remove stripe and place temporary tape. This wasn't too bad except that it started to rain at 3AM, so we basically called it a night since they couldn't stripe anymore. This supposedly pushed everything back a whole day, but in retrospect with as slow as the traffic control guys were moving, they needed the extra day.

Wednesday night, they were working like normal and getting ready to switch traffic over to the inside lane, because we'll be working on the outside lanes first. The contractor wanted change the placement of some of the channelizers, basically shortening the work zone. I made sense, but it wasn't on the plans and I didn't want to outright tell him no without looking at the standards to explain my reason, plus I don't really have the authority. So head back to the office, because I still had a couple hours before they switch traffic over.

Back at the office at around 10pm, I settle down by emptying my pockets and switched from boots to slippers like I usually do. Looking at the standards and doing some calculations, I decide it'll be easier to look at the plans that aren't printed front and back, so I go to my work truck to grab a different set. When tried to get back in the office, the door was locked. I remember purposely locking the door behind when I entered, so I wouldn't have to bother taking my keys out when I leave the office. So I'm locked out of the office, both my phones are on my desk and so are the keys to the office, work truck, and my bike. I'm also still in my slippers. I had no choice to by walk around to find a phone so I can call one of coworkers. The nearest business was McDonalds, half a mile away, but their lobby was closed, and since this wasn't really an emergency, I didn't bother them in the drive-thru. So next I go to the adult video store and they were no help there. So decide to walk to the nearest gas station which was a mile north. Sadly Valero was closed. I was close enough that I decided to walk back to the project. I was able to see the flashing lights of the workers from Kellogg and West. Half a mile later, I reach the truck and it was unmanned. They just the truck there to mark the end of the project. So ended up walking another 2 miles on Kellogg before seeing one of the workers. I probably walked 5-6 miles total by this point. It's now 11:45pm, and I call my coworker, who apparently had just gotten into bed. He unhappily picked me up from the project and let me in the office.

After this fun ordeal, the night went on like normal, except that it kept going. They switch over traffic at 4am, but they still had a lot more work to go. They had to switch over all the temporary side specific sign and place a lot more tape. I didn't leave the project until almost 9am, when I had my helpers come and relieve me. I haven't had a 15 hour work day since my days as an intern.

Tonight, we have to place the concrete safety barriers, a few more signs, and hopefully that's it. Maybe I can get to home around 1am, and maybe fall asleep, which could be hard since I woke up at 4:30pm today. Then tomorrow I'll be back on the day shift doing actual work to the bridges. Depending on how bad these bridges are, I might have to say goodbye to my weekends.

Asobi Seksu part 2

2009-05-11T16:06:00.003-05:00

Last Friday I went to Kansas City so see Asobi Seksu again. This stop wasn't originally announced when I saw them in Denton. I glad it wasn't, because I probably would not have driven down there and gotten lots of nice furniture from Ikea. Asobi Seksu was playing at The Record Bar, a venue that I've never been to. It was really nice. Plenty of seating and decently priced drinks. I look forward to seeing A Camp play there next month. I went a couple of my friends and since The Record Bar website has approximate times of when all the acts start, we completely skipped the first two acts and got their just in time for Asobi Seksu. We stood closer to the bar in the back. I personally didn't want to be close the speakers. They played practically the same playlist except with the addition of Me and Mary which made me happy. I just realized that neither times did they play anything from their first album. The audience in KC was much better than in Denton. Maybe because Denton is close to Dallas and they get all kinds of great bands coming through and KC fans just hungry for someone good. I was disappointed at the lack of encore. There was decent cheering afterward, but they just walked off stage to the side where we could still see them and just ignored our pleas. I was going to buy another shirt, but they were out of all sizes except small, so I just bought Citrus, their 2nd album, since despite being a fan, I have yet to own their first two albums.

Tomorrow in Lawrence, the Sounds will be playing a show. I kind of want to go because they're Swedish and the likelihood of seeing them again is lower than US bands. But it's in the middle of the week and I'm not that big of a fan. Though it could be my last concert for a while. There's 3 concerts that I want to go to in June, but I'm unsure of my ability to attend because of my project starting then. If the project isn't too demanding. I plan on going to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, A Camp, and Metric. I'll actually find a sub a for me so I can go see Metric. I'm not a huge A Camp fan, but it's Nina Persson and probably the closest thing to the Cardigans I can get in the US. Part of me wants the project to be busy so I can make a lot of OT, but other part wants to go to these concerts.

defensive driving

2009-04-29T16:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I had the joy of driving to Hutchinson for a defensive driving course. There were a couple classes here in Wichita but I was off in Salina for a Soils field tester class. Even though none of the contents of the defensive driving class was of use to me, since I actually regularly drive that way, I enjoyed the class. I gets me out of the office and I get a discount on my insurance for taking it. When signing for the class, we were required to give our license number, which I wasn't able to do since I had left my wallet at home. Of all the days to do it. I even decided that morning to not bring my lunch and to get some BBQ at a nearby restaurant. I did bring some fruit so I wasn't starving, but it was the first time I've skipped lunch in a long time and amazingly I didn't suffer any headaches. Which means I can cut back on my daily fruit intake.

The class was taught by a state trooper and he's generally entertaining. He was the same guy I had last time. He showed a lot of funny videos last time but yesterday he went straight by the workbook. He streamlined much of the class for KDOT since many of us have gone through this before. We actually used the first 1 hour of class asking him various questions regarding the legality of certain actions. We took a lot of breaks and still finished 2 hours early. This is my last scheduled class for the year. Now I have a whole month to prep for my project, though honestly I don't know what I need to do to prepare.

new project

2009-04-02T16:17:00.003-05:00

Last week the boss gave me a proposal for a new project. Today I found out who it was awarded to and some more details. PCI, which is the contractor that was working on the bridge in Minnesota when it collapsed. My boss told me to be a dick and to bring up Minnesota anytime they're being difficult. The project is a patching, mill and overlay of the three WB Kellogg bridges at Seneca, Meridian, and Edwards. It's supposed to start after Memorial Day and is 40 calendar days. The early start date in late April, but they wanted to wait until after Riverfest. We'll be reducing Kellogg to two lanes starting at the CBD. My last project was a patching, mill and overlay so this isn't anything new, though we will be resetting the bearings on one of the bridges which is something completely new to me.

I am actually looking forward to this project, but I hope it won't interfere with a couple concerts that I plan on going to in June. The first is A Camp, which is Nina Persson's side project. A Camp is probably the closest I'll get to seeing the Cardigans live. The second is Metric, one of my favorite groups. They'll be the 3rd Broken Social Scene group I see in concert. I just got Metric's new album on Tuesday and have been enjoying it, though it's no Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? A Camp is in KC, and Metric is Lawrence, and both are on a Friday, so I'll have to be able to take off early on those two days. Though it is a calendar day project so they might work Saturdays and possibly even nights.

Asobi Seksu

2009-03-25T16:21:00.005-05:00

I've pretty busy for the past several days. I just closed on my house last Thursday so I've been moving out of my parents house one truckload at a time. My new house is on the opposite end of town but it's all highway so it's just 22 minutes. I actually don't have whole lot of furniture, but I do have a lot of books, dvds, and games. I bought a sofa set, dining set, and a coffee table in town, and then drove to Dallas to do some shopping at Ikea.

My main reason for going to Dallas was the Asobi Seksu concert in Denton. I was a little wary since tickets were only $8 and you can only get them at the door. I left Wichita at 3:30pm Sunday and arrive in Denton at 8:30pm and checked-in at the Motel 6 which was the first hotel that I saw off the highway. I was starving so I only had Chipotle on my mind. There was no wi-fi, but I still had access to google maps on my phone. Google maps would get in the vicinity, but then I'd have to wonder around lost to finally find Chipotle. The Dallas area breaks g.maps with all it's multiple names for streets. Trying to find the venue was even harder since it wasn't so close to the highway. I had to stop at an auto parts store to get pointed in the right direction. The venue, Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio, was across the street from a concrete plant and it only had its initials for its sign.

The doors opened at 9pm and I arrived at 9:40 and the placed seemed dead. Only music heard was Gogol Bordello on the stereo system. Half of the place was a bar and next door was the stage. It was an ok size, could maybe pack in 80 people. I generally prefer smaller venues anyways, because you have a better chance of meeting the band. I got a long island, my normal drink and sat down. I finish half my drink before I had to get up because I heard the doorman asking if someone had a green Mazda truck, because their lights were on. I actually have a black Mazda, but I figured it was mine, since I had my dome lights on trying to reading the directions to the venue. I left my drink on the table. When I returned, another group had just sat down at my table, I invited them to stay since there was plenty of space. They ended up being really cool people. In fact one of the was the one that told the doorman about my lights. We talked for a couple hours, and I found out that I had some common Kansas and Tacoma roots with them. We stayed at our table and talked through the first act, The Antlers, which didn't go on until 10:45pm. They were actually pretty decent sounding. I decided to actually watch the 2nd act, Tyvek and one of my new acquaintances joined me for half of it. I did not like Tyvek, they were very loud pink rock. The singer basically yelled into the mic and I couldn't understand anything he said. He basically would have had the same effect if he was using a megaphone, though that could have been the fault of the sound guy and/or equpment. One interesting thing about Tyvek was that their drummer played the whole show standing up.

Asobi Seksu was finally up at 12:40am. They had several issues getting started. One of the first things I noticed about Asobi is how small their lead singer, Yuki Chikudate is. She couldn't have been taller than 4'10". Asobi was even louder than Tyvek, but they were still great. Yuki was a little too quiet on some songs. They alternated between old and new songs. I was little sad that didn't play Me and Mary or Walk on the Moon, but they did do Thursday and ended with Red Sea as expected. The last couple minutes of that song is just the band going crazy, towards the end Yuki gets on the drum and starts rocking out. They walked off the stage and left a guitar on with some loud reverb. I assume we were supposed to applaud during that noise to get them to do an encore, but I don't think there were enough people to make enough noise to be heard. That disappointed me, mainly because their set was only 40 minutes long. The headliner needs to play for at least an hour. Afterward I got them to sign an LP of Hush that I picked up there. I also got an acoustic album that I didn't even know was made, a t-shirt, and a hoodie.

The next day, I drove to 30 minutes away to Frisco, TX to go shopping at Ikea. Google maps didn't fail me this time, though with as huge as Ikea is, it's hard to miss. I had lunch there and I actually enjoyed furniture shopping for once. They had so many cool things there. I was only planning on getting a tv stand, coffee tables, and end tables, but being there, I splurged a little. I picked a bigger dining table with 8 chairs, even though I had just bought a small one a couple days ago, a shoe rack/bench, and a game able with 4 chairs that fit into the corners. All that stuff was able to fit nicely in the back of my truck and I felt the 11 hours of driving was definitely worth it. Though it really didn't feel really long to me, as long as I have music I'm pretty happy.

unmotivated

2009-03-13T15:59:00.007-05:00

I haven't done much except for a couple classes. Not even concrete batching. The project I was working on last summer resumed about 3 weeks ago and I haven't been asked to come back out. Though they are just currently mostly doing dirt work. I always tested the concrete, but they apparently got someone else to do it. So currently have no idea what I will be doing this season. Hasn't been much talk of projects besides the two big ones, I-135 and Kellogg and the I-135 and 47th st interchanges. I'm not the only person left in the office though, there's one other, and I think that's because no on wants him. Same probably could be said about me, but I'd rather be in the office anyways. They did recently give me back my state phone, which is usually lent to maintenance for the winter. Though they only gave me the phone and the hostler, which I never used, no charge or car charger which I gave them. So currently my phone is sitting on my desk dead, not that anyone called me anyways.
Lately I've been extra bored. I always have something that I can do, but I just have no desire to do it.

Yesterday I took off early so I can do the final walk thru on the house that I'm having built. I'll be closing on it next Thursday and I plan on moving in on the following Saturday. It shouldn't take me too long to move since I've always lived in the dorms or my parents so I never acquired much furniture. It'll probably take me longer to shop for furniture than to move. This will actually be the first time I've ever lived by myself. I tried to prevent that by trying to convince some of my friends to move in with me, but that kinda fell through. I do have 1 that agreed, but he doesn't graduate until the summer. I am excited to move since this will cut my daily commute time by half. I also just bought a new 52" Bravia and I look forward to enjoying it in my soon to be newly furnished "man-cave".

3 years

2009-02-18T15:53:00.004-06:00

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.

Disappointed

2009-01-23T16:37:00.002-06:00

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.

2009-01-14T16:31:00.002-06:00

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.

Happy Belated New Year

2009-01-06T16:58:00.001-06:00

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

xmas lunch

2008-12-16T16:07:00.002-06:00

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.

asphalt conference

2008-12-09T16:25:00.005-06:00

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.

flex time

2008-11-24T16:24:00.002-06:00

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.

Paving

2008-10-27T15:20:00.003-05:00

I'll have couple days of little until we start concrete paving the south frontage road. We'll have 3000 ft of pavement, 22 ft wide going from 135th St W to the bridge. There's another 2000 ft east of the bridge but that section is no where near ready. As long as the weather cooperates, I should be busy for a while. Though the temperature lately will cut our pouring time down, since we can't pour when it's under 40 degrees F. And if approaches freezing, the contractor will have to use insulated blankets and heaters for the new pavement.

Tomorrow I'll go meet with the builders to finalize the plans for my house. Once I do that, they can start building the house. I still have yet to decide on the color of paint or brick. I think I'll pick some boring safe colors. I'll have to take some time off of work to do it this, so I figure I'll go vote while I'm out. We're actually given up to 2 hours leave to go vote. Depending on how long it takes me, I might not even bother claiming any of that time. This will be my first time voting. I wasn't even registered to vote until I went to a Roots concert, and they were Obama supporters signing people up.

Halloween is coming up and I originally wasn't planning on doing anything, but then a friend invited me to a costume party. Which meant that I'd have to dress up, which is something that I haven't done since elementary school.I was somewhat stressing since it's getting close to Halloween and all the good costumes would be sold out. Plus I didn't want to buy something I'd only wear once. Then it donned on me that I can go as a Shinsengumi member. I already had most of the outfit in my closet. I impulsively bought a Shinsengumi haori when I was Tokyo this summer, and was somewhat regretting it, since I didn't think I'd ever wear it. I have two nice happi that I could wear instead and not look like a fanboy. The only thing I'll need is a tasuki, a white cord that crosses in front and ties in the back, and a long headband. Sadly my hair is slightly too short to all be put into a top knot, so I'll have to make use of some styling gel. I hope I won't have to spend the whole night trying to explain my costume.

Rainy

2008-10-14T15:51:00.003-05:00

It's been raining for the past couple days which has given me a chance to catch up. I've actually been enjoying the project more since I actually have a dedicated task. I'm in charge of the concrete tests and entering the data into the system. It's always been my job, but we've been doing more concrete lately, so it's been keeping me busy. I come in early and the pours usually take 5-6 hours, so it's all I have to do. I get to spend some in the office afterwards and I get to go home after my 8 hours. This current rain is delaying 4 straight days of concrete pours, which isn't good since the contractor was supposed to have the road opened by now.

On these rainy days, the only work that can be done is to watch how well the storms drains that we just installed are working, and if the creek is flooding. I personally never go to check, though I should. I recently started having my house built just 1 mile directly south of the project. I don't think flooding is a problem in that neighborhood, but it'd be nice to check it out beforehand.

Boss's day is on the 16th, so everyone in the office chipped in to buy a gift certificate for the baking supply store that our boss frequents. Today she made some delicious fudge with walnuts, I have no idea what the occasion was. A couple weeks ago she made a cafe mocha cheesecake and some cappuccino brownies for my birthday. They were very delicious. Though the cheesecake wasn't as good as last years. It was also super heavy. I had one piece and it kept me full past lunch, which is unusual for me.

Stars

2008-09-26T15:05:00.004-05:00

Last week I went to a Jenny Lewis concert in the middle of the work week to see if it's plausible for me to do such things in the future. The ride back sucked because it was cold and I didn't bring warmer clothing since I didn't want to be saddled with it during the concert. I no longer have friends in Lawrence to drop my stuff off at. Tonganoxie is the closest which is 15 miles away. I got home at 1:30am, but couldn't fall asleep for another 40 minutes because my body needed to warm up. I'd consider going to another concert during the work, but it'll have to be someone I really really like. Jenny was good, but her second album just was as good as the first one. I also didn't care for your two openers that much, but it did make me appreciate Jenny Lewis that much more.

The project has been keeping my fairly busy. No more sitting in the office until 3pm. Today was the first time that the project was slow enough that I got to stay in the office in a while. To think that I still have another 3 months of this.

Tonight I'm off to Lawrence again to see Stars. They're the 2nd Broken Social Scene group that I'll see in concert, Feist being the first. I'd really like to see my favorite, Metric, but they seem to be avoiding the midwest. This is my last planned concert for the year, though I am considering going to the Hotel Cafe Tour in November, it's on a Sunday and the following Monday is Veteran's day.

I'll spend the night in Tonganoxie then head to Kansas City for the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival to perform Yosakoi. I've only gone to one practice for the semester, but I think I'm still good enough to perform. This will probably be my only performance for the semester, since I don't want to take too much more time off from the project than I already have. I'm losing out on some useful overtime hours.

Meh

2008-09-11T11:48:00.000-05:00

I didn’t get the Construction Engineer position, which kind of sucks because I dislike field work. But I guess it’s ok. It’s a lot more responsibility but it does come with a 10% pay raise. In that position, I don’t think I could take off for two weeks to go Japan, which is something I very much want to do again. And Theoretically I can make more money in my current position because of overtime. I actually made more than the old EAII last year, though I don’t think it’ll happen this year. I also like my current office and boss better.

It makes some sense on why I wasn’t picked. He had some natural advantages. He’s from the North office, so there’ll be no transferring and he has worked with all the techs in that office. Though I’ve worked with all the techs in his office too. He and I start about the same time, so if I were to get the position, I’d be his boss which could be awkward. Not sure if this made a difference, but he’s a Missouri-Rolla graduate, and one of the three interviewers is also from Missouri-Rolla, while the other two were KU.

But now since I know I’m not going anywhere I can focus more on this project. I actually probably wouldn’t hate it as much if I actually felt my presence was necessary. A lot of the time I’m out there with another Tech, and he’s the one that the contractor talks to. I don’t actually do much if I out there during the day, which is why when the opportunity to go work in the asphalt lab came up, I asked to help out. The guy assigned to the lab is taking college classes and has to leave early two days a week. The boss assigned someone who hates the lab to fill in. After he complained to me about I asked the boss if I could go, since I personally prefer lab work to field work. I also want to learn how to do ever part of project, even though it’s very unusual for an engineer to do those things. I talked to my boss and she said she didn’t want to assign me to the lab, because she thought I was going to the EAIII position in the north office. She agreed to let go in the lab one of the days, because she still wants the other Tech to suffer which is fine by me.

Interview

2008-08-29T16:56:00.002-05:00

Today I had my interview for the Construction Engineer position in the north shop. It was a nice laid back interview. They asked me a couple technical questions, but most were about management. I messed up on the technical questions, because I don't know the exact minimum densities required for concrete, asphalt or cement treated based. I told them I was guessing and usually got within 1-2% of the correct answer. I asked my boss a couple days ago on what kind of questions they asked her, but other than that, I did very little to prep for the interview. It's easier for me to just respond to the questions right on the spot. The interview itself felt short. There were three interviewers and each asked me 5-6 questions, but when I walked out, 45 minutes had past. My feeling during this interview was the same as when I first interviewed with the State, but back then I didn't have any competition. This time I have a fellow EAII that started a month before I did. I personally don't care if I don't get the position. I like the office I'm in and what I do, but with the way promotions work here, I have to apply when I get a chance, since I never know when the next opening will be. Though if I really wanted the position, there's 4 other EAIII positions open in the eastern half of the state, the two in Topeka and Olathe aren't too bad of prospects either. I'd prefer to stay in Wichita though, since all family and a lot of friends are here. I have a lot of friends in KC too, but the cost of living is higher. The benefit of Topeka is that it's close to Lawrence which would allow me to go to more concerts.

This Sunday, I'm going to Lawrence to see Ratatat. I'm actually going with 5 of my friends which is surprising to me, since I've never managed to get more than two to come to a concert with me. Especially to see a group that most of have never heard of more than a month ago. Maybe it's because of the holiday weekend. I'm sure none will come with me to see Jenny Lewis or Stars in the upcoming weeks.

Bitter:Sweet

2008-08-15T16:44:00.002-05:00

Been semi-busy working out on the project. Actually had to go out on some days before 3pm. Though I still didn't do much when I went out since there were at least two other inspectors out there. We got the summer intern from the north shop for the last two weeks. Today was his last day. Guess they ran out of projects for him, so they sent him to us. He got to the watch the boring but important part of construction, dirt work. Since they were trying to load in up on OT, he'd come in in the morning with another inspector and leave at the end of the day with me. He was good company, nice to talk to another young "engineer." Talking him kept me awake on those days where we honestly didn't do anything but simply wait for the contractor to go home.

It's now been 4 weeks since I applied for the construction engineer position. I still haven't heard anything except for the initial email saying that they got my application. I emailed our FEA, and he told me that once the closing date passes, District collects all the apps, sends them to the Area. I'm not sure when the closing date is since none of the EAIII positions have closing dates listed. The FEA seems to be still handing his old EAIII responsibilities, so they don't seem to be in a major hurry to fill the vacancy. They waited 3 weeks to list it and it's been open for 5 weeks after that. I wish they would hurry.

This weekend I am heading to Lawton, OK to visit a friend, and then onto Dallas for the Bitter:Sweet concert, my favorite current band. A local dallas band called Shock of Pleasure is opening for them, and listening to some of their stuff, they don't suck. Much better and appropriate opener than the local band that opened for Bitter:Sweet last summer in Chicago. Coincidental I'll be seeing Bitter:Sweet on the 17th which is the same date that I saw them last year. This will be the 1st of 4 concerts I'll go in the next 6 weeks. Luckily the next 3 are all in Lawrence at the Granada, a venue I've never been to.

Japan Trip Part 11

2008-07-28T16:31:00.004-05:00

We woke up for our 8am breakfast. It was just like dinner, very traditional. After breakfast, I decided to get one last soak in the hot springs before we checked out. We gathered in the lobby at 10am, and the Inn took us down to the train station. We still had over an hour before departure, so we did some shopping. The main attraction for just about everyone except me and a couple of others was the Hello Kitty shop with a giant golden Kitty in front of it. I had already bought my Hello Kitty gift in Sapporo, so I had no interest. After about 5 minutes in the shop, I left to explore the rest of the town with Austin and Quixia. We found shop that sold some expensive hand made woodcrafts. I bought a small Hear no, see no, and speak no evil monkey statue, which current sits on my desk at work.

We took the train to Utsunomiya, which is apparently famous for its gyouza. There were at least five gyouza restaurants right by each other in the station. We split into three groups for lunch, since no one restaurant could accomodate us all. I ordered the spicy gyouza with a side of kimchee. From Utsunomiya we took the bullet train to Asakusa, Tokyo. Riding the train made me think of the Chemical Brothers video for Star Guitar. So started playing the song on my zune.

In Asakusa, we went to Kaminari mon. There was just tons of shops, most of it very touristy. I bought a lantern and a Shinsengumi coat. I also bought some tenugui bought they came from shops off the main road. After shopping alone, I finally found the main group. We walked slowly split off as we saw things that interested us, like the arcade for purikura or food. I stuck with Seiji for a while, but after dinner I decided I wanted to head back to the main shopping area to show a Fritzi the out of the way shops that sold tenugui. I was leading Fritzi and Quixia back to the station, when stopped at a Mister Donuts, because Quixia had get something. This stop caused me to get disoriented, or maybe I was already oriented wrong, but I started heading in the opposite direction of the station. After stopping a man for directions we started back and we met up with going to where we came from so we decided to tag along. He was looking for the Golden Kappa statue and the district where they make the realistic looking plastic food. We found the statue but it was fenced off, and we didn't manage to find the plastic food, probably because it was late and most of the stores were closed. We headed back to the station and we still had some time leftover to stop be the tenugui shops. After that, we hopped on a fairly crowded train which we managed to avoid most of the trip, and went back to Minako's house. We packed our things but before we did that I laid out all my goodies and took a picture.

Japan Trip Part 10

2008-07-11T16:36:00.006-05:00

We left Minako's house at 6am to catch the train to Shinjuku, which is the busiest station in the world. From Shinjuku we hopped on a train to Nikko. It was a two hour ride, and most of us slept on it. I slept through the first half, but managed to stay awake for the rest to enjoy the scenery. Once we arrived the inn were staying at sent two vans to pick us up. We dropped off our bags since our rooms weren't ready, and we headed out to tour the shrines. Nikko is a relatively quite town, known for its hot springs and the location of the tomb of the Tokugawa shogun.

We walked from the inn to shrine. It was a huge area. The day we went, several schools were there for field trips. I walked a little slower and walked with a group of senior citizens with a tour guide. I did that for a while until I fell far enough behind. We had lunch at shop in the shrine. Most of our day was spent walking around. Sadly halfway through the trip, the battery died on my camera, and I left my charger back in Yokohama.We returned to the inn around 3-4pm. After getting our rooms, I relaxed for a bit, then headed up to the 6th floor to the hotspring bath. Seiji and the supporters were already up there soaking in the outdoor hot tub. There was a beautiful view and the cool mountain air left good in the hot bath. After the bath, the inn provided us with yukata. When I returned to the room, Austin was napping and Micah was gone, so I got bored and went for a walk around town. I felt awesome walking around in the yukata and vest. Only thing that would have been better is if I had a sword. It was very quiet, and none of the stores seemed to be open besides the conbini.

After returning from the walk it was time for dinner. It was a very fancy japanese dinner. It was much better looking than it tasted. I prefer okinawan cooking over japanese. After dinner, a group of us, all of us old enough to drink, went to the conbini for some liquor. It was like a miniature liquor store. They had a decent selection, though the majority was sake. We all went back to Seiji's room to hang out, drink, and look at some of the pictures that people took throughout the trip. I'm not sure about anybody else, but I got to the happy stage of drunk. After a couple hours we all went back to our rooms for bed.

Japan Trip Part 9

2008-07-10T16:32:00.004-05:00

We woke up around 8:00am and Minako's family was kind enough to make us breakfast. Our first stop on the way to Tokyo was Shibuya. We split into three group. The guys went to the games, manga, and music store, some of the girls went clothes shopping and I have no clue where the third group went. I looked around the manga section, but didn't want to buy anything, that's too much stuff to carry around and I don't want to just buy one volume of a series. I did buy one used Sakura Taisen game for DS, and four ued music cds; Bonnie Pink, two brilliant green, and Lucky Soul. I was happy to find Lucky Soul, since they're a British band, and the Japanese version of their album has two bonus tracks, but it doesn't have the secret track. We ate lunch at Yoshinoya and had some delicious beef bowls. Sadly there was no room for all of us to eat together, so I ate upstairs by myself.

After lunch, we met up and walked to the Meiji Shrine.
On the way we walked to through a massive bicycle and motorcycle parking area. We was a slightly interesting to me. There wasn't enough actual motorcycle, just a lot of big scooters. Along walk way there were some homeless people's houses too.

The Meiji Shrine was kind of interesting, I'm not really fan of shrines. I did buy some lucky charms though. The shrine is right next to Harajuku which was our next stop.

The main attraction was the "underground", which is basically a street with a ton of clothing stores of varying styles. Walking through, one of the owners stopped me and brought me into his urban clothing store. It's not my style but I had time to kill. The prices were ridiculous, and I was definitely wasn't going to buy urban clothing in Japan. I explained to him that I was hoping I could find a great Engrish shirt. He showed me a couple of shirts, but they all had proper English. In fact, Harajuku disappointed me, because I could find any Engrish shirts. I only found little store, that wasn't even in the underground, that had cool shirts. Being a Tuesday afternoon, we didn't see many of the Harajuku girls or street performers.

After Harajuku, we hopped on the train to end to the main destination of all the men, Akihabara. We went straight into the giant Yodobashi store across from the subway station. I went straight to the 6th floor which has all the games, music, and most importantly toys. There was so many things that I wanted to buy, but I knew I couldn't fit them into my luggage. Coincidently, they sold luggage on that floor. I ended up buying a 1/60 YF-19, which has been something I've wanted for the past 10 years. I also bought a Pinky:St figure of Sakura Shinguji. After spending about an hour in Yodobashi, I finally got out to explore some of the smaller shops. I found one shop with a smaller, YF-19 at the price and it was still transformable. The shop also had a ton of gatchapon figures. I wish I had more time to walk around, but I spent too much time in Yodobashi. Dr. John latched onto me in Yodobashi so I wasn't completely free to roam. After buying some gatchapon, John was getting hungry so we went to a Kaiten sushi place.

Earlier that week in Akihabara, a mad man killed several people. So there was onlookers, and media everywhere. I didn't really notice them at first, but walking back after dinner, I noticed. We all met up at the train station, and had a long and crowded trip back to Yokohama. Once back at Minako's I tore into my new toys, and everyone looked at me as if I was a child, which might been true. I was ecstatic to have have my own variable YF-19, which I played with for a while, because I had trouble transforming it. Before bed we had to neatly pack our things, because we were going to Nikko, and Minako was having other people stay at her house while we were gone.

back to work

2008-07-09T16:17:00.001-05:00

Work started on my new project yesterday. Today they’re just clearing and grubbing, so only one person needs to be out there. I’ll have to be out there late in the afternoon after the other inspectors go home, since they don’t want give OT. Which is fine by me and actually works in my favor, because I can come in later. The contractor works from 7am to 5:30pm, so the early birds can cover the morning, while I do the afternoon. At least for now, until we get more things going on. We stopped flex time this week, so people not on project have to work 8am to 4:30pm or 5pm. It’s odd writing this while everyone is still here. I originally started writing this to kill the last 30 minutes of the day after everyone leaves.

I’ve been working semi-hard trying to final out my old project, since I’ll be working on this new one. Copying a couple thousand excel entries into an orange workbook sucks. I also got assigned a new phone today, which is odd. I had to give my phone to the new senior, and I got the old phone of a tech. Why the tech didn't give the phone to the senior, I don't know. Luckily most of us keep the same contacts, so it's not that bad.

Starting next week, we'll have a new tech transferring in from the North office. It makes sense to transfer here, it's a bigger office and we have 4 empty desks. They have tiny cubicles and cram everyone in half the space we have. We also have an awesome boss. I've worked with the new transfer before, and she very friendly and likes to talk a lot. We're not so talkative in our office since we're spread out more.