Day 51 Could you tell it was a full moon this week? Because it was so obvious in our office! This has been a phenomena I would have never believed in had I never worked for a city. Every time you start to realize things are just a little over the top than normal, you…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 50
Day 50 Today was Wednesday so we had our engineering division staff meeting. Like our last staff meeting, it seemed there was quite a bit to discuss. Everyone shared the status of their projects and other tasks they have been working on. We have been on schedule with everything except for a few projects that…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 49
Day 49 APWA Tour of Concrete Products Plant Today we had an APWA luncheon meeting. And after the meeting we toured Welch Brothers – a concrete product manufacturer located in St. Charles, Ill. I knew this would be an outstanding tour because many years ago when I was in college at Iowa State, they took…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 48
Day 48 Although we did not have today off, many others in the community did including the schools. So I think quite a few people at work took the day off so it seemed a little more quiet than normal at work. I started out going through emails and preparing for several meetings I had…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 47
Day 47 As I had mentioned yesterday I took a vacation day on Thursday so I could attend the student-parent day at my daughter's middle school. But back at work today! And after today, I'm ready to say lock me in a dark, lonely room and hang a sign on the door with a big…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 46
Day 46 Development Review On a 1 to 10 scale of busy, I'd say today was about an 8. Most of my time seemed to be spent handling issues related to one of the developments I have been reviewing. This particular one has been a challenge because the design has changed throughout the review process….
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 44 and 45
Day 44 Hopefully today will be the last day I have to combine more than one day in a post – finally getting somewhat caught up. Today, I went through more emails. And I finished up the final approval letter for that development I worked on last Friday – it is for an industry in…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Days 39 to 43
Day 39 through 43 Day 39—Monday, Sept. 26 On Monday I attended our staff development meeting. We discussed several of the projects that are either under review or construction. We also talked about the challenge of helping people understand and follow through our development process which is as follows: during the concept stage, our staff…
APWA Conference – Day 3
General Session Steven Johnson let the general session of the third day of APWA’s conference. His topic was “Creativity and the Brain—Where do good Ideas Come From?” Johnson started by sharing the story about John Snow who worked with maps and government mortality data to help determine the cause of cholera in the 1800s in…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Days 34 through 38
In an effort to catch up on my postings due to attending the APWA conference, I'm combining all last week into one post then following up tomorrow with the first two days of this week. Days 34 through 36 Day 34 was spent attending the APWA conference in Denver. You can read a short summary…