Day 61 Balancing Budget Line Items I finally completed the analysis of my budget and identified two line items that needed to have funds amended to agree with the actual expenditures. Fortunately there were amounts in related funds that I could amend to a lower amount so the overall change to my division's budget is…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 60
Day 60 Culvert Lining Project Today was the day the liner was delivered for our culvert lining project. The placement of it seemed to go well. The contractor will finish grouting the annular space tomorrow. A resident did stop by to tell us we didn't know what we were doing, and it would never work,…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 59
Day 59 Budget Analysis As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had our intern create a spreadsheet so I could track the money that has been spent in the accounts related to my division. Today I started going through that document checking it against invoices and making sure each entry was coded correctly. I…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 58
Day 58 Tree Contractor Started The Emerald Ash Bore has been in our community for a few years now. But the Ash trees really didn't show severe signs of infestation and damage until last year. Then unfortunately it seemed like they all died this summer so our council decided to make the removal of ash…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 57
Day 57 Intersection Enhancements We have an intersection in our city where many people cross from a local hotel to a banquet center. The crossing is at a state highway and is uncontrolled – no stop sign or signal. So the business is requesting that we look into enhancing it to better facilitate pedestrian crossings….
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 56
Day 56 Water Main Project This morning we finally found time to run out to look at the location of our proposed easement for the water main project I've been working on. Fortunately it looks like the location in the field where I had planned to take it through a local industry's property (if they…
Checking out West Coast Tech Talk
Part of the fun of blogging is the opportunity to connect with others who love what you do. In my case, that's anything public works related! One of the people I recently talked to online was @lahtnesorm. He's a civil engineering technology student on Vancouver Island who blogs about CAD. His site has helpful information about…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 54 & 55
Day 54 I waited until today to post about yesterday (Tuesday) because I ended up not spending the whole day at work. I started the day preparing for a meeting with the city admininstrator and other directors in the city. Normally my supervisor, the director of public works, goes to these meetings. But since he…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 53
Day 53 Checking Construction We started out our Monday by visiting a couple jobsites to make sure everything was going as planned. First we stopped by a development where they had placed curb last week along the edges of a driveway. The problem was that the sidewalk was supposed to carry through the drive, and…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 52
Day 52 Although I worked in the office for a few hours today mainly on correspondence and checking with our inspector and engineers to find out the status of some projects, most of my day was spent at our APWA Public Works Camp. This event is our second unconference session that we've hosted, and both…