Tunneling

A big part of my job right now is building and running simulations to support the design of sewer overflow storage tunnels in DC. There are similar tunnel systems in Detroit, Chicago, and a handful of other places, and most of them are massive. DC is no exception; tunnel diameters from 15 to 30+ feet, depths of up to 100 feet below the surface. They're built using tunnel boring machines (TBMs), which are used for all large diameter tunneling projects these days, including road/transit tunnels.

Maybe I'm just a big engineering geek, but these things are pretty damn cool. They're custom-made for each job, taking into account desired diameter and rock/soil conditions. They not only do the drilling, but the apparatus behind the drills lines the tunnel also. And my understanding is that since they're usually expensive to extract once the job is done (plus since they're custom-made, re-use isn't likely), they're left in the ground when the drilling is complete. Eleven of these beasts were used on the Channel Tunnel.

Here's a promotional video that shows how these babies work.

Busy Times at the Office

So busy, in fact, that I'm this far behind on my rubber band ball:

The Very Definition....

...of the word schadenfreude. On Redick's and Williams' Senior Night, no less! Anyone who's interested in sending Roy Williams or Tyler Hansbrough a fruit basket, or maybe a nice selection of assorted cheeses, let me know, I'll chip in.

Haven't been posting much lately, mainly because I've been very busy at the office, and the last thing I want to do most nights is come home and cozy up to the mouse and keyboard some more. So here's a quick run-down since my last post:

Jenny and I saw Brokeback Mountain last weekend - it's the only Best Picture nominee we've seen this year, but all the same I'd be quite surprised if it didn't win. Before we went to see it, we hadn't been to the movies in about three months. Netflix is both a blessing and a curse, I suppose; we end up seeing so many great old films that we wouldn't otherwise see, but we miss out on some fantastic newer movies for a while, especially if we don't add them to the queue right after they're released to DVD. For example, we just saw Ray the other night. This year's Oscar nominees are somewhat rare for me, in that they're all movies that I'd like to see (eventually). Some years, not a one interests me in the least. Throw in films that didn't get the top nomination but got a lot of good press, like Walk The Line, Cinderella Man, The Constant Gardener, and A History of Violence, and it's certainly a "deep field" this year.

Get this - I received a letter this week from the MVA, stating that my license is in danger of being suspended because of some administrative action in Virginia, where I last lived almost six years ago. What a joke. So after 45 minutes on the phone with various mindless VA DMV bureaucrats (I know, redundancy), who gave me two wrong phone numbers for the insurance verification office, I was able to straighten it out. See, I had moved from Virginia in September 2000, and had all my MD licensing, registration, inspection, and titling done by December 2000. Virginia evidently tried to verify that I was an insured driver in October 2001, and then it took them four-plus years to take further action? Nevermind that it's a non-issue, that it's irrelevant whether I was insured in VA in 20001, because this is 2006. What, are they going to go back in time and suspend my non-existent 2001 VA license? Excuse my language, but what a bunch of fucking morons. It's too bad that I have to drive through that shitty state in order to get to the Carolina beaches or visit my sister in Charleston SC, because I'd much rather avoid it entirely. I did get it straightened out (I think), and they're supposed to mail me a letter that I then send to the MD MVA, which states that the matter has been resolved. But I'm unfortunately a bit dumber, having been forced to spend all that time on the phone with the idiot state employees in Richmond.

Losing Focus

It's so hard to concentrate on work on a Friday afternoon when you've got a sore throat, the day's work is excrutiatingly boring, and there are about a dozen emergency vehicles on the street below my office window - not to mention the flock of reporters and cameras clustered around a D.C. Fire Marshal(?).

I guess someone isn't feeling well over at the Mayflower Hotel, someone important by the looks of it. More breaking news as it happens, here at the CCB!

If I Only Had a Brain

So I was planning on taking the full-blown PE exam this April, but somehow I got the idea in my head that the application deadline was 90 days prior to the test. Sorry, wrong answer, it's actually 120 days! Looked it up just now. So now I have to wait until October '06.

In times like this, I wonder how I got an engineering degree in the first place...

Whole Week of Stuff, Windows Hatred, and More

I just typed up this long entry about my whole week, it was a great post that was all ready to go. So I hit the publish button, and Mozilla crashes. I lose it all. I love Windows machines. They are so fucking fabulous. I need to start saving up my pennies for a PowerBook, that way I can leave all this bullshit behind. Now of course this entry won't be nearly as good, because I'm all pissed off. Hey, if Google owns Blogger, why don't they have an autosave function like they do with Gmail? They do have a 'Recover Post' option, but I'm not sure when it should be used - it didn't work this time. Still, it all goes back to those asses at Microsoft.

Eight days since the last post, but there are reasons for that. Busy last weekend, busy this past week, and now at the start of this weekend, finally getting some breathing room. Let's see, last weekend we received a house guest in the form of my furry little brother Hobbes, my parents' cat, when they left from Baltimore on a Caribbean cruise. He's doing OK, hanging out with Maya and Marty, but the last few days he've definitely been restless. I think he's ready to go home. Halloween party as Liz and Jarriel's last Saturday, I'll have photos up next post. Sunday went to a craptastic DC United playoff game; the home team played about as badly as they possibly could, very disappointing. This week at work was crazy too, since Washington was hosting WEFTEC, the water industry's biggest annual conference/exhibition.

So here I am, a Friday night at home, blogging on the shitty laptop (Jenny/Moonflower is in MC so I can't use the desktop - no, for those not into WoW, I don't have the patience to explain that tonight, sorry). Actually, other than the technical problems, it's been a relaxing evening at home, certainly nothing wrong with that. I did get some painting done earlier, I'm trying to get the dining room finished this weekend. We'll see what happens.

The original, pre-crash post included a short review of The Satanic Verses, which I finished a few days ago on the train ride home. I'll save that for a future post, I just don't feel like re-creating it right now. One more post coming up tonight, Halloween costume pics. I'll be right back...

Michael Douglas, outside the Mayflower. Sorry about the lack of zoom (and quality), I was using my office's camera, a 2MP with a 3x zoom. Plus this was about as close as we were allowed to get.

Hollywood in DC

I suspect that I won't be doing as much work today as usual, since I have a window office and they're filming scenes for a movie at the Mayflower Hotel next door. What movie, you may ask? Well after I got to the office, I went out and had a look around. Based on the personalized director-style chairs that are set up on the sidewalk in front of the Mayflower - and on the other end of the block, well out of view from my window - I deduced (with some help from the Internets) that they're working on The Sentinel. It's about a Secret Service Agent who has an affair with the First Lady, then is caught up in the murder of another agent. And yes, there are some big names in this film, like Michael Douglas, Kim Basinger, Kiefer Sutherland, and Eva Longoria. Those are the people that I've been instructed by by co-workers to keep an eye out for today. I'm not too optimistic though, I doubt that the stars be heading out to the catering tables to grab a bowl of Oreos cereal (that stuff is awful; it seems like a good idea but it isn't, trust me). I hope the film crew is grateful for the weather today - it's the first day in weeks, literally, where it hasn't felt over 100 (with heat index).

FE Exam Revisited, Music Reviews

OK, so I was apparently wrong about bombing the FE Exam, because I passed after all. A source of pride? Not really, more like relief that I don't have to re-take it, and can move on to the PE exam. Yay. Too bad these exams don't actually test your competency as an engineer. How can any multiple-choice format test do that? It's a good way for state licensing boards and the test prep industry to make some money, meanwhile years after the college application process and initial job-seeking, I'm still playing the "it will look good on your resume" game. I've grown to hate that game. However, a PE license will make it much easier to jump to another firm should I want to do that in the future (to shorten my commute, primarily).

I'm also not thrilled that I'll probably end up taking the Civil Engineering test. That test and the Environmental test includes topics such as transportation systems and air pollution that my Biological Resources Engineering program did not include, but the environmental test is 20 questions longer over the same time period, and there are fewer available study materials by far than for the Civil exam. I guess the labels aren't that important, but it still annoys me for some reason.

The White Stripes' Get Behind Me, Satan - two thumbs up. Just what one would expect of this band. They're a blues band as much as a rock band, IMO, and when I hear the Stones or Zeppelin, especially earlier stuff, it's no wonder that the White Stripes sound like such a throwback - those bands we're playing the blues back then, too. The Stripes keep it simple, and it works. Meg's drumming really comes through on this album, too. Sometimes it's like that bass drum is pounding on your skull. In a good way, though.

Coldplay's X&Y - eh, not so great. It's pleasant enough music, but after two solid-if-not-spectacular albums, I expected more than pleasant. There's nothing all that noticeable, new, or catchy here, and too many soft spots.

FE Exam

I attempted the Fundamentals of Engineering exam yesterday up in Timonium. This is the exam that engineers usually take during their senior years or immediately after graduation, but that I - due in part to poor academic advising and laziness/complacency on my part, never got around to taking. But it's a prerequisite for the Professional Engineers exam/certification, a good thing to have, in my field.

Ugh. Not pretty. I honestly don't think that I passed. There's a reason that most people take the exam while still in school - the material is still fresh, and they're used to taking exams. Six years out of school, I have no fresh material, and I haven't taken an exam over that whole time period.

Bottom line - I didn't study enough. I really needed more review of several topics, plus more practice working problems in a timed environment. I can look to my recent travels (3 weekends away in the 5 weeks leading up to the test) as part of the problem, not that that's anyone's fault but my own. I don't find out the news until July, but I can't say that I'm optimistic at this point. This test won't defeat me though, I'll almost certainly be taking it again in October, if necessary.

Last time I was up at the fairgrounds in Timonium, it was for a beer festival. Let me tell you, that was much more fun than an eight-hour engineering exam. If you have to choose, go with the beer every time.

In other news, both local baseball clubs, my hometown O's and the Nationals, are doing well. Baltimore is doing what it couldn't do last year, beat the NYY. As long as they keeping winning 4 out of every 5 games versus New York, that's a good season - if only because it shuts up all the local Yankees fans - you know, the ones who have never lived in any proximity to NYC - who invade Camden Yards each series. Now I don't begrudge real NY fans for rooting for their home team, I even know a few NYY fans who are decent human beings, believe it or not, but these people that show up in Baltimore grew up in Maryland and started rooting for the Yankees during the Joe Torre era. How convenient - they were also big Bulls, then Lakers fans, and these days they just love their New England Patriots. Maybe eventually those 'loyalists' will stop showing up and go root for somebody else. I know, probably too much to hope for.

Planning for the Future?

Time to start allocating more money to our 401(k) plans, looks like we might need them to last a while.

American Leisure

It's official - according to a new study reported by the Onion (America's Finest News Source), Americans lost 180 trillion leisure hours to work in 2004. That number is just staggering to me. Yet another area where we lag far behind developed countries in Europe and Asia.

I'm a positive person though, so I refused to let this news of lost leisure, especially news from a fake news source, get me down. Instead, I scoured all of the Internets (thanks, Google!) for data that validate our hard-working free market society. There are plenty of great things about living in one of the few developed countries with a private insurance system, and having fewer vacation days than anyone else isn't so bad when you consider the US:

• has more televisions per capita than any other country (excluding the super-tiny nations at the top of this list, Christmas Island, Bermuda, and Monaco)
• imprisons up more people per capita than anyone else
  
• uses the most energy per person
• drinks more juice than any country save Canada

So there you have it. We make work harder and have less free time to show for it, but with all of our extra cash, we're buying more TVs, locking up more bad guys, and drinking lots of juice, all with the lights on, the water running and the engine idling. We're obviously having a lot of fun, so who's to say that we need any more free time?