Category Archives: Engineering

career, Engineering, miscellaneous

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

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I worked till 6:30 PM yesterday. I had planned to work longer, reviewing a set of construction specifications before they went out for bids on Monday. But the design team did not get me the drawings, just the specs. I did what I could without having the drawings, but ran out of stuff to do and so packed up shop and plunged into the storm.

For those of you not in the lower mid west, we were (and still are) in the midst of a huge rain storm, some lightning and thunder too. On Tuesday they were predicting floods for Thursday and Friday, that’s how sure they were of their computer models. It began raining lightly Wednesday night and continued off and on, then hit us hard mid-afternoon on Tuesday, but had periods of light rain sandwiched with downpours. At 6:30 PM it was light rain–or none–so I headed to the Bentonville library to do some research for an article for Suite101.com. When I arrived at the library it was still barely raining, but the sky was darker than ever.

As I arrived at the library so did Scott, a friend from church. He rode up on his bicycle, which he rides everywhere. He has a car, but he prefers to go by bike. He rode his bike to church on Wednesday night. As we left church it looked like rain could start, and I offered him a ride. He said no, he thought he could get home before the rain hit. We went our separate ways and the rain hit a few minutes after we parted. No way could he have made the 5 mile ride home in the dry.

I went straight to the reference books I needed and Scott went straight to the computers. I could see him in my peripheral vision, his back towards me. Hard rain drummed the library roof. When I got up to get one last book to check one paragraph, Scott was gone. I finished my work, checked out a book, talked with the librarians a minute, and headed to the exit. I ran into Scott. He had been somewhere else in the library. I quickly said to load his bike up in the back of the pick-up and I’d take him home. He accepted this time, the rain coming down in buckets (sorry for the cliche).

The route to his place took us along a state highway currently under construction, being widened from two lanes to five. The drainage was not working and we were constantly driving in three inches of water. We got to his duplex subdivision and power was out. He got in to his house, and I headed the twelve miles home from there. The power was out all the way, and it was at my house too. Lynda is in Oklahoma City (drove there yesterday in a seam in the storm, praise the Lord), so I made my way through the dark house, found flashlights, and sat and read.

A most enjoyable time. But only for an hour. The power came on and stayed on, so it was off the to computer for my evening rituals, the dark drive and dark hour not forgotten, but pushed aside. I did all I wanted too then headed to my reading chair where I ate a very late supper and read for an hour under the glare of an electric light.

The dark and stormy night was quite enjoyable.

Engineering, Suite 101

Curve Balls of Life

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This has been a bad week for personal time. It’s been a good week, I suppose, for my engineering career. Monday afternoon the double presentation I made to the site tours of the Arkansas Floodplain Managers Association convention went well. I received many comments on it. This was despite the fact that, at the construction site below the viewing platform, they had decided to jack-hammer out some rock that day, and I had to just about shout my talk.

Then I went to the last day and a half of the AFMA convention in nearby Springdale, arriving back in the office just a few minutes ago. That convention went okay, but I found much of the discussion was over my head. Not the basic floodplain issues; in fact I knew those quite well. But today it was all about digital flood maps and tying them in with various GIS tools, about raster and tif and png, about layers and changing characteristics. It was all more than I could listen to.

Then, as the convention ended, my main client asked me to attend a follow-up session this afternoon and tomorrow here in Bentonville, a session about cities joining/qualifying for the Community Rating System, a relatively new FEMA program designed to reward cities that do a good job at managing floodplains within their jurisdiction.

That’s the curve ball today. I had hoped to spend two glorious hours this afternoon archiving projects. Then I hoped to spend another two hours writing some difficult specifications. I guess the best I can do on those is to tackle them on Friday. But, I may be leaving the office early on Friday to go to a family wedding on Saturday in Pratt, Kansas–a little too far to make it a long day trip.

And I need to write only one more article at Suite101.com to begin earning a 10 percent bonus. Instead of averaging 30 cents a day I’ll earn 33 cents a day. The good part of being unable to write that 50th article is I don’t have to decide where to spend the money.

American Colonial History, Engineering, Suite 101, Writing

A Little Progress

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This was a strange weekend. First off, I ate too much, almost all on Sunday. We went out to eat after church with good friends, and had way too many chips and salsa. I actually ate a smaller entree than I normally do at this place, but the chips were too much. Then we had an evening gathering at church last night, a soup dinner. The event was our Alabaster offering, a twice a year offering for missions building projects. The soup was good (both bowls), the dessert was good, and the fellowship was good.

By the time I got home I felt bloated. I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. We were having Internet connection troubles, and I re-booted the modem and router twice. While doing that, I started a virus scan on my computer. It’s an ancient computer, and it wasn’t done scanning an hour later. I took the time, after playing some mindless computer games, to file papers. I tend to let this go then file a bunch in a flurry of activity. I filed a few, then was down to those that defy being put in a preset category. By evening’s end I had a bunch of those done.

But the big thing to report is that I got back to writing for Suite101.com. I posted two articles: one examining Robert Frost’s poem “The Mountain”; and one talking about British loyalists in the period before the American Revolution. These two articles actually did fairly well with page views over the last three days. I had intended to write the second article about “The Mountain” on Sunday, but after eating so much wasn’t up to it.

So, what’s on for today? In the office I’ll be archiving projects and copying time sheets. At noon I’ll head out to the Crystal Bridges Museum construction site, where I’ll be giving two talks this afternoon, to the Arkansas Floodplain Managers Association, about the floodplain issues we faced in designing the museum. Then tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll attend the convention. I’ll miss this morning’s activities at the convention, but I have to get ready for my presentation.

Engineering, flood studies, writer's platform, Writing

I’m Still Not Writing—but I’m Making Progress

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Well, last night once again I didn’t feel like writing. I spent a little more time in Father Daughter Day, finding most of the tweaks I had wanted to make and maybe an extra one or two. I read a couple of writing blogs I follow. But otherwise I just read and did crosswords and wasted time.

Today, on my to do list was writing that article for Suite101.com on preparing to give a deposition. I started it, but have mostly the outline and first paragraph or two done. I reserved the noon hour for that, but do you think I got it done? No, I read writing blogs and critiqued a poem at the Absolute Write Water Cooler. And, I found one more place to tweak in FDD. And I got all the edits made to my FDD master file.

In a way, I suppose that’s progress. At least some of my time is still spent in writing activities. Along with what I said above, I shared a strategy for publication of FDD with an agent whose blog I read and comment on. He agreed with what I’m thinking of doing. No I just have to do it and see if it will work.

Meanwhile, my 47 articles at Suite 101 had 1559 page views in the last seven days (ending yesterday). That’s over a rate of 81,000 page views a year. That may not be enough platform to convince an editor or agent to take a chance on my books, but it feels pretty good. I’m sure some of those page views, with come mostly from people searching for some topic using a search engine, may be nothing more than a quick look at the opening paragraph and going on to something else, but it still feels good.

Today, in my working hours, I completed two major tasks, and set about archiving my files for the period when I served as Centerton’s city engineer (by contract with CEI). About four projects are unfinished and I can’t archive them yet. Another six I have to keep here until I extract information from them for the second Centerton flood study, which I began work on this week. They they will go off to archive with their brethren. All these files consume about 25 feet of shelf space. When I’m finished archiving them, which will be late next week or the week after, I should be down to no more than 8 shelf-feet of files. That will feel good, and I’ll be able to do without two book cased in my new, smaller office when we move in late October.

Time to prepare for the weekend. On Monday I give a presentation on the Crystal Bridges Museum flood plain work, to the Arkansas Floodplain Managers Association annual convention. It’s being held locally, and the presentation is at the overlook of the construction site. Then Tuesday-Wednesday I’ll attend the convention in nearby Springdale. Another chopped-up week.

Engineering, flood studies, Suite 101

Of Public Meetings and Private Depositions

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Yesterday I prepared to conduct that evening meeting at the City of Centerton. The flood study that I had completed for the headwaters of Little Osage Creek will result in 66 structures–primary residences, commercial buildings, and church buildings–out of the flood plain, but will add 23 new properties to the floodplain. Unfortunate, but my best judgment is that those 23 properties are in a flood hazard area and should be so designated. I calls ’em as I sees ’em.

For the public meeting, we expected none of the 66 people coming out to attend and most of the 23 going in to attend. It wasn’t quite that bad, but close to is. No one wants to learn they need to buy another insurance policy for between $500 and $1000 a year. Everyone says their house never flooded and never will flood so how can they possibly be in the flood plain? Everyone says their house is higher than their neighbors so how can their house be in and their neighbor’s house be out? All valid questions, all fielded well, I hope.

Also at the meeting was an official from the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission, who is an expert on both the engineering aspects of flooding and the flood insurance issues themselves. I don’t know insurance, and learned quite a bit from what he said. He also backed me up on everything I said concerning flood waters and how a study like this is conducted and why some properties are in the flood hazard zone and some are out.

Now that this is over and the application for a map change is at FEMA, I get to rest on this for a couple of months. I have another flood study to do for this same city, and will begin that in perhaps a week or so. Now I turn to this deposition I am called to give. One of our former clients is suing the company, saying we are a bunch of screw-ups who cost them a lot of money. We did six or seven projects for them; they sued us over most of them; the judge threw out all but one of the lawsuits.

That one project is the one for this client that I had the least involvement with. I’m not quite sure why. On the others I was the engineer of record and did extensive checks of the drawings, drainage reports, and other documents. I reviewed them multiple times from preliminary drawings to construction drawings. I met with city utility departments to find out what the utility requirements were. I talked with city planners and city engineers to find out what the street issues were. I signed and sealed the final drawings. I was involved with some of the construction issues. But on this project, I checked only one set of 5 drawings, which were considered a preliminary plat submittal to the City. I had no involvement with the project before or after that.

Because I reviewed that one set, and that set was in the file when the opposing attorney conducted his discovery, I must testify. I don’t mind testifying. I’ve done it about a dozen times in my career, all but one time on civil law or administrative law issues. You’re always a little bit apprehensive, however. The attorney across the table from you will not actually be interested in the facts. His sole purpose is to be an advocate for his client. If he can catch you in a false statement, great. If he senses you are hesitant at some point, he will hone in on that and then make it an issue during the trial. He will be looking for where you disagreed with your colleagues and will point that out in the trial.

And, he will take that deposition with him to the trial, months and months from now, and will hope to use it against you if anything you say during the trial is different from what you said in your deposition. So this is matter of concern.

My deposition is scheduled for Thursday the 17th, but they thought they might have time for it yesterday afternoon. They only had one scheduled, the department head, and thought if that didn’t go terribly long they would call me and take mine yesterday. But they “grilled” the department head for four hours or more, and decided to call it quits for the day. Mine will be Thursday as scheduled. This gives me a chance to do a little more preparation.

And, I think I’ll write an article for Suite101.com: How to Prepare to Give a Deposition. I might even qualify as my own expert on that one.

Engineering

The Siege has Lifted

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I arrived at work today and checked on the status of the siege project. Seems the project team worked through the weekend and took care of the drawings, and most of the spec items. I asked if I could do anything further on the specs, and the project manager said yes, could I do something about three items he wasn’t sure how to handle.

So I spent the morning writing a specification section from scratch. Well, in the Google era there’s really no such thing as from scratch any more. Just pop the magic words in the little toolbar at the upper left and find the answer to all your questions. Of course, that brought up a manufacturer’s website and I had to take their words and make them generic to any manufacturer, but that was fairly easy. Somewhere around 11:30 AM put it on the project manager’s keyboard. The siege was lifted.

Now I get to prepare for two other unusual things. One, a public meeting tomorrow night in Centerton concerning the flood study I prepared. Just what the sleep-deprived engineer needs: two dozen citizens angry about their property being added to the floodplain. The three dozen whose properties are coming out of the floodplain won’t bother to show up; they are happy. And then either tomorrow or Thursday I get to give a deposition in a lawsuit against the company. Some client was not happy with our performance and is suing us. I had a bit part in that particular project, but since I had that part and am still alive and with CEI I’m called to testify and thus must give a deposition. The man who was our project manager left CEI to work for a city planning department and then died less than a year later from cancer. The opposing attorney will no doubt try to say he was incompetent

The work I did consisted of checking a preliminary set of plans for an hour of so on one day. That’s it. And for this I get to take an oath to tell the truth and then tell it. I’ve done it close to a dozen times in my career, either a deposition or actual testimony. Once it was a criminal trial when the mayor was charged with stealing from the city. Twice it was in administrative law hearings over landfill projects. The other times it was disputes between our clients and a city or contractor. I think this is the first time for me to give where CEI was a party to the suit, in this case defendant.

So, the business day winds down. Now to go home to my second job, and see what works of greatness I can produce today to offset dwelling in mediocrity the last ten hours.

Engineering, Suite 101

Under Siege

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My writing schedule called for me to make a blog post last Thursday. But on Wednesday, while I was preparing to teach a noon-hour brown bag class on a computer program for hydrology studies, the chairman of the board came to see me and said they would need my help on a certain project. It was to be advertised in the paper on Sunday, but he was concerned certain things were not being done correctly. He was mostly concerned about the drainage design and whether the calculations had been done correctly. I was able to go through the drainage report Wednesday after the class, but there was much more to do to check the drawings and specifications to see if they were in good shape. So I cleared my day Thursday to hit it hard.

On Thursday, I learned that the project was far along, but no engineer had yet looked at it, except for the drainage report. Thus began a two-day siege of intense quality control checking of the project on my part. I won’t go into details, but it included work all evening Thursday at home. I got to bed about 1:30 AM on Friday, then was up at normal time on Friday and to work at 7:00 AM to continue. I completed what I could by 4:00 PM, and gave it to the design team in bits and pieces during the day. They had three people working on the drawings and one (an admin assistant) working on the specs.

It’s good to work hard, but that was more taxing than it was when I was a younger man. I was exhausted by Friday evening, and did next to nothing. Well, that’s not true. I did some crossword puzzles and watched the 9-11 programs on the History Channel. They had some excellent programs, of footage I hadn’t seen and of people and situations I hadn’t heard of. Saturday I did the usual work around the yard, and some work with Lynda on stock trading, but otherwise did nothing but study to teach adult life group this morning at church.

I tried to take a nap early this afternoon, but made the mistake of turning on the television and watching the Dallas Cowboys not do so well against Tampa Bay. So got up, came to the computer, finished my latest article at Suite101.com, and played a bunch of mind-numbing computer games. Then came here.

The siege will continue Monday morning, as I left the specs with about eight items to be resolved that I should look at some more. But right now I’m going upstairs to read. I haven’t read for pleasure in about a week, and it’s time to. Hopefully I’ll have a more meaningful post tomorrow or the next day.

Engineering

An Anniversary Missed

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I’ve neglected this blog this week. The busyness of life has crept up on me. Been writing, just not here. At home I had some family financial things to worry about. At work it was the usual crush of people wanting me to do their work for them, and me trying to train them how to do it. Yesterday I was concerned with an ethical lapse by one of our younger engineers, and trying to decide what to do about it. And I taught a noon hour brown bag class yesterday.

July 9 was the 30th anniversary of my being a licensed professional engineer. I remembered in May that this was coming up, and planned to do something special for it, maybe Lynda and her mom and me going out for a nice meal somewhere. But the day came and went with me not remembering it.

I took the exam in Topeka, Kansas in April 1979. That was six months later than I could have first taken it, but at the earlier time I was taking two evening courses to try to complete my masters degree, so I put off the exam. I left the exam feeling pretty good about it. A month later I received a letter from the Kansas licensing board–the afternoon portion of the exam was lost and I would have to re-take it. So it would be back to Topeka.

I debated whether to study again. I think I did some, but not a whole lot. Charles was an infant at the time, so he was taking some attention. I wondered if they would have the exact same exam, or have a new one. After all, if the same exam you would mostly remember the problems you worked and could over-study in that area. I didn’t particularly want to gamble on that, so whatever studying I did for this second exam, I distributed among all the problem types I would want to answer.

The day of the exam, the board secretary explain how some Kansas exams were found in the South Carolina post office of the town where they are graded. About 60 percent of the afternoon exams were lost, 20 percent of the morning, and 4 poor schmucks had both parts lost. The fault was with the PO, for she had packaged them well. She passed out the exams for re-taking, and they were the same as the first time! So I was able to go straight to the problems I picked and did before, whipped through them, and was out in an hour instead of four. On July 9, 1979 the letter I was really wanting came, declaring a passing grade and that I was a P.E. as of that date.

The 40th anniversary will come in 2014. I should still be working as an engineer then, at least based on how my writing career is not taking off. Maybe I can talk the company to throw a small party in my honor on that day.

Engineering, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, goals, Good King-Bad King, Harmony of the gospels, Life On A YoYo, Suite 101

August Goals

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Well, I’ve had two fairly productive months, and hope to make it three in a row. Here’s what I have at present, subject to editing, of course.

  1. Write 10 articles for Suite101.com.
  2. Blog 12 to 15 times.
  3. Study: search engine optimization; sources for royalty free pictures; and picture types for digital photos.
  4. Finish chapter 7 in In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; Begin chapter 8
  5. Finish one appendix in a Harmony of the gospels; also one passage notes section.
  6. Complete the engineering article on storm water detention that is due Sept. 1.
  7. More work on Good King, Bad King. Try to identify and outline at least four more lessons.
  8. Work on The Strongest of All study from the apocrypha. I have the five lessons prepared, but need to add some lead-in and conclusion discussions.
  9. And, based on my incomplete goals from July, get some more work done on Life on a Yo Yo, in an attempt to make it a publishable study.
Engineering, freelance writing, Genealogy, Suite 101

So Much To Learn

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Today I have two major tasks at work: prepare for Planning Commission meeting tonight, and prepare for the brown bag class I’ll teach tomorrow noon. The P.C. meeting is easy to prep for: ten copies of two figures and about three pages of text. The figures need some hand coloring, but that’s a throwback to childhood and not at all unpleasant.

The brown bag is tougher to prep for, because I want to include a PowerPoint presentation with it. This is my second PowerPoint to prepare. The last one was all text. For this one, I want to include photos and drawings. This increases the degree of difficulty (from about 1.0 to about 3.5, I’d say). Plus, the last one I did was back in March, and I’ve pretty well forgotten all I learned then. So it’s a learning day. When I get frustrated with building the slide show, I just pull out one of the figures to color. I have till 6:00 PM to complete them.

Then there’s the whole question of learning photographs for the Internet. I spent some time at Flickr, following a link to their Creative Commons, which is the area that’s supposed to have the copyright-free photos. I had a little time with this, then Internet Explorer locked up. So I exited and went back to Flickr, this time the home page. And on that page I could not find a link to the Creative Commons. Am I missing something? I’ll get back to that after this post.

I love learning, but this is almost too much today. PowerPoint alone would be fine, or maybe the photo study would be fine, but the two together are somewhat overwhelming.

On the other hand, the pleasant evening I wrote about yesterday came to be almost exactly as I hoped. The genealogy meeting was good. I actually knew the speaker, and met a few new people. Any time you are in a library, even if it’s just the meeting room, is a good time. At home I filed and wrote and read and talked on the phone for a long time with my son. I balanced the checkbook, which in two prior sittings had refused to be balanced. I didn’t get to my financial record spreadsheets, or paying a couple of bills, but I have tonight for that. Another pleasant evening coming.