Three Hundred Twentieth Entry

Is it bad that I am completely fascinated by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis?

It's sad, but the only time my profession makes the news is when there is a disaster like this. Hence my fascination. They even had a professor from SF State CE department speaking on MSNBC. She gave the typical gloom and doom speech given when any engineer talks about our nations infrastructure. And she gave it with a very interesting accent. Indian, southern Indian, I believe.

I was drifting off to sleep at 11:30 when I get a call on my cell from my mom (from her room downstairs...we are a lazy family). She informed me of the collapse and I immediately turned on the TV. Unbelievably cool. She expressed her concern that this may happen here with our 8 Bay Area bridges, but I assured her that the bridges here are built differently. In Minnesota, they do not have earthquakes. Here we do. Our designs are inherently stronger because of the different factors used in calculating strength due to our proximity to various fault lines. There is no doubt in my mind that nothing like this will happen to any of the bridges in the Bay Area. They are designed to resist earthquake movement as well as wind forces on top of being designed to resist the traffic weight and the weight of the structure itself. I told my mom all of this. She still seems skeptical. She'll probably find a way to blame the Taliban for this.

I'm sure in the coming weeks, we will find out for sure what caused the bridge to collapse. I doubt terrorism. I don't think Osama cares much about Minnesohtah. The MNDOT (pronounced Minn-dot(I thought that was hilarious when I heard it 4 or 5 years ago)) officials have been repeating that there was nothing structurally wrong with the bridge and that the construction crew on the bridge was performing routine repairs: resurfacing the bridge, streetlight and guardrail replacement. My guess is just steel fatigue. But I didn't specialize in bridges or anything. Just a guess.

I know none of you share my excitement for this horrible catastrophe. I can see you all eye-rolling as you are scrolling through mindlessly just so you can say you read this. What can I say. I'm a big nerd. Geek too.

It's somewhat fitting that this happen now as I reach a major point in my professional career. I made a decision this week that will affect my life for the next few years. I've decided to go to Grad School at San Jose State. Since I have my PE license, I can skip all of that GRE and reference letter bullshit. Woohoo!! Who's with me!!!???

Three more years of school in a field that I am so very interested in (Transportation Engineering) is a little daunting, but I hate to say it, I've reached a learning plateau at work. There is more that I can learn about the particular engineering that we do, but it is a very narrow field, and rather boring. I believe that the only thing that keeps my coworkers going is that there is so much work right now and there isn't any time to be bored.

By the way...I asked one of the Owners about the rumored quarterly bonuses that half of the company receives. He flatly denied it. Told me in no uncertain terms that there are no quarterly bonuses. I expected there to be some sort of discussion and maybe a private meeting with me and the more important owners to assure me there are no bonuses. Nothing was said. The next day everyone was just the way they were before. No change. The weird thing is, the owner I talked to about it is the biggest mouth in the company and would have certainly told the other owners, which would have resulted in the discussions and meetings with me or with my department. So I'm left still believing in the bonuses and left with less trust for management. This also probably helped my Grad School decision.

One of the drafters got fired today. She was only there for like a month, but today she brought in the absolute best banana-nut-choco chip muffins ever. How can they let someone with these cooking skills go!!??? I guess I'll have to pick up the cooking slack.

Yea engineering!