The Daily Conundrum

Been a long time coming...

2006-07-30T08:40:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been quite a long time hasn't it? I can't say that I've actually tried to update this site, but honestly it wasn't at the top of my priority list. So what's been going on lately...well not much really. I've been working a lot, and that's one of the reasons I haven't been updating as much. Leave the house at 7:15 a.m. and get back to the house around 6:00 p.m. By the time I get home I just want to relax and spend the evening with the wife, and honestly who reads this thing anyway? Yes, work has been good though. We're busy right now, so busy that we need to hire a new Engineer and Designer. So if you're in the Fort Wayne area and have Civil Engineering experience as well as INDOT experience WE NEED YOU .

What else has been going on? OH yeah, this weekend the company had a get together at one of the co-owner's house. The house was extremely nice, and the people drank a lot. Now I'm rarely one to drink, especially in large quantities. Maybe 2 beers in a night and then that's it for me. My fellow employees and their spouses...WOW. The party started at 1 p.m., too early for me to justify drinking, but not too early for everyone else. By the time 2 p.m. rolled around 3 people had downed about 12 beers between em. But the drinking just never stopped, they just kept getting more and more beer and the women kept drinking the margirita mix. I've never seen so much alcohol being consumed in such a short period. Other than the drinking, it was a good day.

All I can think of now...adios

July 4th

2006-07-05T09:49:00.000-04:00

Wow...it's been a while since I posted here...hmm...not much in the mood for writing at the moment. Darn you work, well shall I see the end of you!

Edit: Well work hasn't been going strong or anything, and it's not like I haven't made time for this...oh well. Hopefully everyone has had a safe 4th and is now safely returned to their homes. The wife and I enjoyed the visit to my parents; however, I can truly say I didn't enjoy the traveling. It wasn't so much the traveling back, it was the traveling there.

First there was a 40 minute traffic jam at the Ohio/Indiana tollbooth, then our flights were extremely croweded. This was to be expected considering the holiday weekend, but we were flying to a usually desolate state. Nebraska isn't one state known for it's beauty anymore. I'm sure when the settlers first got there it was a great sight to behold; however, now it's miles and miles of housing and all the businesses that follow. That and it's extremely hot and muggy, I believe the hottest day we were there it was 101 with 30% humidity. You stepped outside and you just started to sweat, and those days usually aren't few and far between. Other than that it was a great visit and vacation, especially since I ate wwwwaaayyyy too much. Then the wife and I are going back come Thanksgiving, which is perhaps the worst traveling time of them all, due to it's short nature.

I also forgot to mention that my wife and I got split up on our connecting flight, and she got seated next to a very pregnant and very airsick woman. She pretty much filled up all the air sickness bags around her. So altogether I bleieve she filled up 4 or 5 total. Now while this was going on you'd figure out stewardess would be making sure this woman was doing ok. I understand she has a whole plane to take care of, but there is only one sick woman. This woman asked for water not once, but three times I'm told. The stewardess didn't bring her any water, and she also didn't take the filled bags off of them. The husband was a trooper and held them the whole time...something I don't think I could physically do. I'm kinda weird about puking...so for about 3/4th the duration of a hour and thirty-minute flight the husband held onto 4 or 5 puke bags. He deserves a metal!

Other than the traveling the trip was great, though we didn't go see any major firework shows. We were gonna see a baseball game and watch the fireworks after that, but that was one of the hotter days. Something about sweating and letting it soak through all your clothing doesn't interest me much. So we sate on my parents front porcd and watched the neighbors feeble attempts at creating a firework show. It managed to keep their dog entertained from the noises, but we really couldn't see too much...stinking low altitude motar shells. Well that's all I have time for...until next time! God Bless!

Of Firetrucking and Slacking

2006-06-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

This is gonna be a long post; however, while at work I don't think my employer would enjoy me doing such. So I'm just creating it, and getting the pictures uploaded...might see this updated in the next ~~year~~ ~~month~~ week's end.

Ok well I'm cutting it rather close on this one, but who really cares? I mean this is simply for my benefit really...I digress. The other day after work I was running errands for the wife in Fort Wayne. I was just leaving the mall and I could hear sirens coming, but I couldn't tell from where. It was obvious to me that they were getting closer from where ever they were coming from. I was currently stopped at a light so I waited until I could actually tell where the sirens were coming from. Well ofcouse I was the only one that did this and everyone else just continued on their way out. Well first a Firestation SUV, similar to the one on the above but in red, sped by me after I was in a travel lane, and then a fire truck sped by as well. They had to hit their brakes at the next intersection because people just kept going through it. They had simply no regard for the blaring sirens and lights waiting at the intersection. I honestly couldn't believe how many people continued to speed through the intersection with both of these vehicles in clear view.

Now how hard is it to stop and left the firemen...or firepeople...do their job. It'll just takea couple minutes from your end of the day commute, and I can assure you if it was your house on fire, you'd be more than happy to allow these fine men and women to go through the interection without a minutes notice. I just wish there was some more survalliance at these intersections, and that police would right tickets to these people. Oh well, I guess I'll just continue to be courteous and hopefully others will be as well.

Now I had orginally planned to write about EAs recent take over of Mythic [source], but I have no vested interests in Mythic. This is by no means that I hate Mythic, and that their product is underpar. Dark Ages of Camelot (DAoC) is a good game; however, it just didn't appeal to my personal tastes.

I will however talk about my full-time employment that I was just informed of. The company I am currently working for, which will most likely remain ananomous, is extremely interested in hiring me. I am also extremely interested in working for them. They have been extremely good to me, and they have always made sure I have work to do. They bascially said they want me to work directly with another PE, whenever they get him/her hired, and be second in command of their Hydraulic Engineering aspect. That is a great honor, especially when my graduation from college is still 6 months away. That and I also passed the FE! YAY! That means I'm officially an Engineering In Training (EIT). That also means I'm 4 years away from having to take the PE :(. I look forward to this challenge, especially since it means a lot of variety in work will come from my ownership of a PE linsence.

That's all for now...God Bless

Father's Day Weekend

2006-06-19T06:54:00.000-04:00

Well it's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been ~~forgetting to post~~ busy. So yesterday was Father's Day, and I was able to spend it with my Father-in-Law and his Father-in-Law. I spent much of Saturday helping them with putting up a chain-link fence at their church's new ball diamond. Both these men act much younger than they actually are. My Father-in-Law, Terry, is approximately 58, and his Father-in-Law, Frank, has about a decade or so on him. They don't exactly have the energy they think they do, which usually gets them into trouble.

While we were putting up the fence it was pretty hot, I think it finally got up to 86 and thankfully there was no humidity. I could hardly imagine what that day would have been like with Indiana's humidity. So we finish with the first section at about 10 a.m. and Terry and Frank were hurting a bit. The son had been beating down pretty good by 8 and by 10 they were slowing down a bit, but wouldn't acknowledge it. We broke then and Frank had to go bail some hay at this farm, and then Terry and I went to go get some food and head home for a bit, but not in that order.

After sitting at their house for about 10 mins, Terry and I headed out to get some food and then head back out to help Frank mow his Mother-in-Law's house. He insisted that he could pushmow the whole yard by himself; however, we know he'd be done shortly after getting started. So we loaded up the trailer with Terry's riding lawn mower, and headed out. When we got to the house Frank was already there and had just gotten started. We quickly unloaded the riding mower and I went to work on the back as Terry watched over Frank. The backyard took me about 15 minutes, and then when I got off and went to the front Frank was chugging down some water as Terry finished up the front yard. I took the push mower and trimmed where I couldn't get to with the riding. Then once we finished that up it was back to the fence, which we got done at about 3 or 4 p.m. The day was great, and I finally got my farmer's tan back. Oh and when the wife and I got back home I had some great news. My FE examination results were in the mail...and I passed! Woohoo...and as a celebratory gift, the wife bought me an X-box 360...she's the bestest wife evar! Oh yeah...Happy Father's Day.

Oopps...

2006-06-14T15:13:00.000-04:00

In an attempt to streamline the potential text walls of death, I put in the summary coding. Though I guess I accidentally put an extra line in somewhere and all my posts now have the link for Full Story. I'll attempt to fix this when I get a chance...as for now...WORK!

Edit: I guess I didn't do anything and it's just the given code doing what it does. I'll attempt to actually get the code that will only use the Full Story text when prompted to do so, until then I guess you'll have to just guess at what stories actually need it...sorry :(

Sometimes I play in the road

2006-06-14T14:18:00.000-04:00

Excuse my tardiness when posting the story, but I was ~~playing videogames~~spending time with the wife...yeah...anywho. The picture to the left and the picture below belong to about 30 or 40 others where I was ~~forced~~priveledged to go out and take. The pictures of the Auburn Court House (pictured to the left) weren't bad in getting, it was the others that were featured with the fence post below that were rough getting.

Those pictures were taking roughly in the middle of the travel lanes of a fairly busy County Road. The road in it's current state can not handle all of this traffic and not fail. Well that's why they sent me out there, to take pictures of the roadway and make notes.

This stretch of road was approximately a three quarters of a mile one way, which makes for an interesting hike in the middle of summer. The heat wasn't too bad, it was more the cars whipping by at 45 to 50 MPH. Luckily I was equipped with my bright yellow and orange vest, which did a fantastic job and attracting all sorts of insects. Now the whole time I was walking down the road I'd have to stop every 100 feet or so to take a picture. It doesn't sound too bad, but these pictures (as stated previously) were taking in the middle of the travel lanes. So here I am, standing in the road taking pictures while playing a real-life version of Frogger. It was a good break though from the office work. I was able to take my time and bascially made an afternoon of it. Just me, the bugs, and the traffic.

I guess I lied...

2006-06-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

Sorry, but apparently it really didn't hate me it was just Firefox. IE displays everything properly, but Firefox will not display the proper page. You'd expect the code to be optimized for all browsers, but then again I expect to be a millionaire. Anywho...I'll attempt to post the pictures I was trying to upload previously...*crosses fingers*

Why does it hates us?

2006-06-14T14:04:00.000-04:00

Arg...something weird is going on here...tried to publish a post with photos and now it just won't post. They just don't show up on the main page; however, if you click on the archieve the post shows up...why :(.

The Biggest Mix-Up

2006-06-13T18:35:00.000-04:00

This may be new news, or it may be old news, regardless it is newsworthy. This is definitely tragic news, and in all honesty should have never happened. This happened at the university not far from my in-laws, and was in the news quite a ways back. Now the accident in itself is a horrible ordeal that no parent, or for that matter, anyone should have to go through. Now that is compounded by the fact that for 5 weeks one family has grieved the loss of a loved one, and another family has waited patiently and expectantly for their daughter to awaken. Then Witney Carek, whom everyone thought was Laura VanRyn, awoke and it soon became clear to everyone this wasn't the right person.

So, after 5 weeks of bated anticipation one family finds out that they now have their daughter back, and the other realizes that their daughter has died. Where can blame fall in a situtation like this? Who can truly be responsible for something like this? I think all parties can receive partial blame. The morgue where Laura VanRyn was brought told a family member that the body was too badly bruised and mangled to be indentified, and it may be too hard on the family. Now I can understand the reasoning here. Usually if a professional says the body is too bruised and mangled, then I'd have to agree. Though I would have to give myself personal closure in the matter, especially of someone so close to me. The morgue should have checked dental records to ensure that the person they identified was indeed that person. I guess what I'm trying to say is, never take someone else's word on something so precious as a life. I hope you will take a little time to say a little pray for both the VanRyn, Carek, and all the other families that were involved in this accident.

I R BLOGGER!

2006-06-13T11:44:00.000-04:00

Well, if you can believe it I've opened up a blog. Not really sure what I'm going to be writting about, but I can pretty much garuntee it's gonna be free thought. I'll be updating this simply for myself, and if you're viewing this and don't agree...sorry!