WSDOT SCR

Since my time here in Yakima is short, I have began to carry my digital camera with me frequently. I don't want to forget this place (it hasn't been all bad ;) ). Well, I decided to share a few pics from the WSDOT "campus" in Yakima.

A sign in fron to the main building.


The WSDOT South Central Region HQ building. The important people, like the region administrator, work here.

The Project Development building (my office). Apparently, it is multiple temporary (modular) buildings merged together and attached to the HQ building. I believe the temporary part of it is no longer. Since there are no plans (at least known to its inhabitants) to replace it.


The famed tin warehouse. This is the second oldest structure, but since the oldest is brick it is in better condition. There are dents and gaps all over this structure. The seems between the tin panels that make up the walls don't necessarily line up. It looks like crap. The worst part is due to a lack of space and many new techs and engineers being hired, the utility office will be reloacted to this building. A portion of it will be modified to include plumbing, ventilation, and insulation. Many of my coworkers and myself find this unbelievable. I really do sympathize with the utility office.
Before the modifications are complete, this building may lay in ruin. For anyone who was brilliant enough to see the movie V for Vendetta, this building is my Parliment ;)

Excerpt from Under The Black Flag

I though I would post one last excerpt from Under The Black Flag. It is from the afterword and discusses why there is such romance with piracy.

There is nothing romantic about modern piracy, and as in earlier times, it is not uncommon for the captain and crew to be seriously wounded or killed if they fail to cooperate. Since piracy is simply armed robbery on the high seas, and has been accompanied by a catalog of cruelities and atrocities, it is surprising that it should have acquired a comparatively glamorous image. Part of the explanation may be found in the exotic locations where many of the pirates operated. The cruising grounds of the most notorious seventeenth- and eighteenth century pirates were the tropical waters of the Caribbean, the west coast of Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Coral islands, lagoons, and sandy beaches fringed with coconut palms have an extraordinary attraction for those brought up in colder northern lattitudes, and this is why even a small time pirate like Calico Jack, who attacked fishing boats in the seas around Jamaica, has more appeal than a bank robber or thief who specializes in raids on main-street banks or stores. There is also the romance of the sea. The mythical voyages of Odysseus, the travels of Columbus, Magellan, and Captain Cook, and the sea stories of Conrad and Melville have fascinated generations of land-based readers. The pirates who roamed the seas in search of plunder share in this fascination.

Another part part of the explanation may be the anarchic nature of piracy. Most people are condemned to lives of monotony. Year in year out, workers in offices, factories, and large and small companies follow the same daily routine. They catch the same bu or train; they drive along the same route and suffer the same delays and traffic jams.They endure hours of boredom, often doing a job which gives them little or no satisfaction. They come home to face the predictable problems of family life or the lonliness of a flat in some dreary location.What greater contrast could there be with a life of piracy? The pirates escaped from the laws and regulations which govern most of us. They were rebels against authority, free spirits who made up there own rules. They left behind the gray world of rainswept streets and headed for the sun. We imagine them sprawled on sandy beaches with a bottle of rum in one hand and a lovely woman by their side, and a sleek black schooner moored offshore waiting to carr them away to distant and exotic islands.

I don't feel like losing any of my loyal readers to the gallows, so if you lead a monotonous life and are considering piracy here is a list of ways to spic up your life without ending up swinging from the yardarm.

• Celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day
• Listen to sea shanties.
• Read Treasure Island
• Watch Pirates of the Caribbean

Or if it is the sea that calls to you... GO
Or if it is the beach, tropical climate, and tropical drinks... GO

Funny Pics

Ah, that is where the rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail went...

Ok, for those of you who attended (or attend SDSMT) whose car does this remind you of? ;)

Top Ten Reasons to be a Civil Engineer

Recently, a friend posted about having the best job in America: a software engineer. I like to think that being a civil engineer is pretty great too. And to reinforce this, here are my top ten reasons to be a civil engineer:

10. Causing the next dark age
9. Ass-phalt jokes
8. Compressive strength test... Not just for concrete cylinders ;)






7. Play in the dirt






6. Free Body Diagrams
5. Concrete Canoes
4. Government jobs...
3. "Studying" hydraulic jumps









2. Huge job market... every state needs us.
1. Where would the world be without civil engineers? No roads, bridges, dams, canals, levees slyscrapers, stadiums.

Kaboom! You’ve been engineered!*

I call myself daring for this blog, but the real daring site of the day is Explorer Destroyer. The creators of this site have just fired the first shot in the war against Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

They have written three different scripts that prompt anyone using IE to visit a webpage to switch to Firefox. They provide the scrips from their page for free. Go ahead try it out... put it on your personal webpage, slap one on your blog, or if you are foolhardy enough, break into the server room at work at place it on your employer's website ;)

You can even make $1 from google for every user that downloads firefox thanks to your banner. All you have to do is sign up for adsense.

As a bonus to this blog entry, here is a line that every single person needs to find an excuse to use. Yet another line from HIMYM.

You just insulted someone I hate by referencing something that I love. Damn you just got even hotter.

*A modified line from HIMYM.

Hangings and Dissections

I have come across an interesting passage in Under The Black Flag:

The dissection of executed criminals had been authorized in Henry VIII's reign and was common practice by the eighteenth century. This was the fate of a gang of pirates who operatefrom Hastings were hanged in 1768. There were instances where a hanged man survived the execution. William Duell was hanged in 1740 and taken to Surgeon's Hall for dissection. As his body was being washed, it was observed that he was still breathing. A surgeon bled him and in two hours he had recovered and was sitting up in a chair. He was sent back to Newgate Prison, and the authorities evidently decided that one hanging was enough. His sentence was commuted to transportation to the colonies.

Now that would be a story to tell your children ;)

The World Looks Beyond Oil

As I was reading the April edition of my Civil Engineering Magazine, I noticed an interesting news brief. Sweden has announced plans to replace all fossil fuels with renewable energy sources by 2020. Currently, Sweden draws most of its energy from hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear sources, but it relies on fossil fuels for transportation needs. Sweden plans onrplacing oil with biofuels.

Also,

• Iceland plans to power all its cars and boats with hydrogen by 2050.
• Brazil intends to power 80% of its transportation vehicles with ethanol within the next 5 years.

Hunting Trip

As my faithful readers already know, I have spent much of my free time here in Yakima tracking a wendigo. I have always tried to stay a safe distance away and on the one occasion that I came face to face with it, I managed to escape. But with my recent news of a new job back in SD I have made a difficult decision. I will rid Yakima of the wendigo before the tenth of july.

I have spent some time researching the beasts... looking for some weakness to exploit. I have consulted with a couple of "experts," who have informed me that a wendigo is "notoriously hard to kill. This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. A wendigo has few weaknesses."

I did learn that the key to defeating a wendigo is to shatter the creature's ice heart. The most gruesome method of disposal is by shattering the creature’s ice heart with a silver stake and then dismembering the body with a silver axe. My "experts" claim to have defeated a wenidgo by literally torching the wendigo. Luckily, I have a friend who has managed to gain a flamethrower solely for burning his effigies. Even though, I may end up choosing the more gruesome method just for the opportunity to do my impression of Lt. Maynard and hang the wendigo's head on the front of my s10.

What is this country coming to?

I have no problem with meeting with the Chinese president to discuss trade issues. It needs to be done. But what is up with the charges against Wenyi Wang?

She is a Falun Gong supporter and is charged with "knowingly and willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening or harassing a foreign official performing his duties." This charge is based on her stating "Your time is running out," to Chinese President Hu Jintao, and later, when screaming "Anything you have done will come back to you in this life."

Supposedly she has crossed the first amendment. I am outraged at this charge. Many worse things have been stated to non-foriegn officials. Why should we protect the foreign officials from the same? Seems alot like hypocrisy to me.

Well, the Washington Post has opened my eyes to the need for such a law:

Such laws are necessary to protect visiting dignitaries from attacks - and to ensure reciprocal protections for U.S. officials abroad.

But the charges are still overblown. From the same article:

But no one alleges that Mr. Hu was ever in danger of anything more serious than irritation or humiliation. According to the court documents, the yelling caused Mr. Hu "to interrupt his speech" and look toward Ms. Wang. There's no question that it also caused Mr. Bush to be embarrassed about a lapse of protocol for a visitor acutely sensitive to diplomatic niceties. Okay, but the United States shouldn't indirectly apologize to the Chinese by means of an action that affronts American values.

I completely agree with the last sentence from the Washington Post article. Bush should not be embarrased by Americans who are not afraid to speak their mind. If he is, then he is not the man who should be running this country.

A little piece of God's Country that turned to Hell on Earth...

Today, I went to see the movie Silent Hill. I won't go into the details of the movie or a review of it... I'll save that for a later post. The town in the movie was abandoned due to fires burning in the coal mines underneath. Is this plausible? I wasn't certain so I did a bit of research/googling.

Apparently the town in the movie (and the game that the movie is based upon) was inspired by Centralia, PA. Centralia, like many small towns in Pennsylvania, was a coal mining town. In 1962, a landfill fire in an abandoned mine pit ignited a coal vein and has been burning ever since. This is a problem for two reasons:

1. The burning coal is creating carbon monoxide.
2. As the coal burns and forms ashes the ground above it collapses, forming sinkholes.

Most residents of the town have been bought out with federal grants and an imminent domain declarations by the state, but some residents still remain. They believe that it is a ploy to "jump their claim." The post office even revoked Centrallia's zip code in 2002!

• An aerial image of the area.

If you are interested in taking your next vacation to Centralia to poke around, look here.

A REAL April Shower

A March blizzard in SD is nothing special. I have even experienced a white Easter once, but 59 inches of snow in Lead, SD as of Wednesday evening!? WOW! The Black Hills in SD have been hit hard.

Breakfast of Champions

A friend of mine just posted his "breakfast of champions," a bowl of frosted mini wheats with chocolate milk. But he is mistaken.

A true breakfast of champions will contain food from all the major food groups and the ability to get a person moving in the morning. To achieve this my breakfast of champions is leftover hawaiian pizza (crust = grains, tomato sauce = vegetables, pineapple = fruit, and canadian bacon = meat) and a cup of coffee.

It begins with a jacket...

Washington State values it's public employees. In May, there will be a barbeque for all public employees. Well, in a lead up to the barbeque, the WSDOT has given all employees jackets (with WSDOT embrpidered on them). I thought, wow, this is kindof cool. A free jacket!

But as I looked closer at the jacket I made a horrific discovery... It was made in China! That's right, the WSDOT is getting jackets from China. Is it just a coincidence that today the governor of Washington met with the president of China? I don't know, but I will keep an eye out for anything odd here in Yakima. ;)

Efficiency

Sorry, I don't have much to post today because I am battling my allergies tonight. But I recently found this picture of "efficiency" on the internet. Enjoy ;)

Now that is Supersized!

There is one semi-fastfood restuarant in Yakima that makes a good burger. But this same restuarant seems to suppot the obese America campaign. Just look at the size of that burger, fries, and beverage!Actually, it is just the display on top of the building. But I thought some people might be interested in seeing it.

The Black Flag

Many people consider the skull and cross bones on a black background the flag of pirates. This may be true in some cases but it is only one symbol of many that were used by pirates of the 18th century. In the great age of piracy, a variety of images appeared on flags, including bleeding hearts, blazing balls, hourglasses, spears, cutlasses, and whole skeletons. Red or "bloody" flags were as common as black flags until the middle of the 18th century. The red is said to have stood for battle, while black for death.

What all pirate flags had in common was their need to strike terror in the minds of merchant seamen. Often the devices on the flags formed a triad of interlocking symbols representing death, violence, and limited time. This was to underline the message that the pirates expected immediate surrender or consequences would be fatal.

A skull or "death's head" was a common symbol at this time in history. I t was often used on tombstones or to mark deceased crewmen in a ship's log. Common knowledge of what it meant is probably why many pirates chose to use it on their flags.

Bartholomew Robert had his crew produce a flag showing his own figure standing on two skulls. The skulls represent A Barbadian's Head (ABH) and A Martinican's Head (AMH); this was to indicate his rage at the attempts by the authorities of those islands to capture him.






"Calico" Jack Rackam's flag portrayed the death's head above a pair of crossed cutlasses






And Blackbeard's showed the devil or "Old Roger" stabbing a bleeding heart with a spear while holding a hourglass (limited time).

Lucky Goatee?

I have two thoughts for everyone today. The first reveals the start date for my job with the SDDOT Bridge office:

Aye Aye, the 10th of July!

I only wish more words rhyme with July, but with my recent dive into pirate literature this fits fine.

As many of you know, I was recently promoted to the level of Transportation Engineer 2 within the WSDOT. Also, I had applied for two positions in the SDDOT (the bridge office and the local programs office). Well, the 3 interviews I had for these positions all had one thing in common: I had a goatee. I had trouble landing a job out of college, I received many rejection letters. But since growing the goatee, I am 2 for 3 on interviews. Could this all have been avoided? Did my goatee make me look more distinguished? Or did it strike fear into the hearts of those interviewing me? What do YOU think?

13 is my lucky number!

Me: Today was the greatest day of my life!

Internet Bum: Is it because of the beginning of Passover?

Me: No!

Internet Bum: Is it because of a full moon tonight?

Me: No!

Internet Bum: Is it because google finally released the long anticipated google calendar?

Me: As great as this was, it was only icing to the cake ;)

SPOILER WARNING!
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Today, I received a phone call from a certain Kevin Goeden, P.E. I was informed that I was chosen to fill one of the openings in the SDDOT bridge office! I am going to be calling to discuss more details (like start date) tomorrow morning. I can just make out SD over the mountains right now, lol.

China and Piracy

When people think of pirates, typically they do not think of the chinese or even women for that matter. But Mrs. Cheng or Cheng I Sao ruled the South China Sea in the early nineteenth century. She is even compared to the great female military leaders Boadicea and Joan of Arc by David Cordingly.

Mrs. Cheng and her husband created a pirate confederation that at its height included 50,000 pirates! By 1805, they completely dominated the coast of southern China. In 1807, Mrs. Cheng took over sole command after the death of her husband. She laid down a strict code of conduct for the pirates:

• The punishment for disobeying an order or for stealing from the common treasure was death by beheading.
• For deserting or going AWOL a pirate would have his/her ears cut off.
• For concealing plundered goods the offender would be whipped.
• The rape of a female captive was punsihable by death. If it was found that the woman had agreed to have sex, the man was beheaded and the woman was thrown overboard with a weight attached to her legs.

As you can tell these were not your typical loot, pillage, and rape pirates. They were much more strict, but also much more successful. Every naval force sent out by the Chinese government to intercept the pirates was defeated and by the end of 1808 the authorities had lost 63 vessels.

Some villages formed militias to protect themselves from pirate raids, but often the pirates swept aside the amateur forces and took a terrible revenge. At the village of Sanshan in August 1809, the pirates burned the place to the ground, beheaded 80 villagers, and hung heir heads on a tree. When the pirates attacked the island of Tao-chiao, they killed a thousand of the islanders.

During the height of the pirates power in 1809, the confederation's fleet was larger than the navy of many countries. There were about 200 oceangoing junks and between 600 and 800 coastal junks. There were also many small river junks used to raid villages that failed to pay protection money.

In 1810, the Chinese government offered amnesty. Also, if the pirates surrendered their weapons and junks, they would be allowed to keep their plunder. And thus ended the reign of one of the largest pirate communites there has ever been.

Top Reasons to Live in Yakima, WA

I have complained about Yakima plenty, but really it is not a bad place to live. I just wish I was closer to my family and friends in SD. But in an attempt to one up one particular friend, I will post my top reasons to live in Yakima, WA.

#6: Mexican Restaurants As Far As The Eye Can See.

In Yakima, the population is about one third hispanic. This has led to an influx of Mexican food restaurants. Anyone who loves/enjoys mexican food, you can eat at a different restaurant everyday for over a month! Yellowpages.com yields 39 results! And remember this is for a city of no more than 70,000 people.

#5: Cheap Apples

This is Washington folks, apple orchards are everywhere around Yakima. I have even heard it called "Fruitbowl of the Nation" During the summer and fall, you can go straight to the orchards to purchase your apples! Cutout those middlemen!

#4: Seattle Entertainment "Leftovers"

The Seattle Metro is less than a 3 hour drive away. This not only allows people in Yakima easy access to concerts and games in Seattle but easy access for entertainers to reach Yakima. Since being here, I have seen Lee Ann Womack, Sugarland, Toby Keith, Clumsy Lovers, and George Carlin.

#3: Weather

The weather here is almost always beautiful and (in my opinion) warm.

The summers are dry and hot and the winters are cool with light snowfall. There is an average of 290 days of sunshine each year with a normal total of 7.98 inches of precipitation. The average length of the growing season is 195 days.

Average Temperatures
Month	High	Low
January	36.7	19.7
April	63.5	34.7
July	87.8	53.0
October	64.15	35.1

#2: Defensible Position

Yakima is situated in a valley between to large ridges. The only access points are provided by the entrance of the Naches (I say Nachos) River and the Yakima River and the exit of the Yakima River. They can be seen below.
This makes Yakima easy to defend from a land invasion of any kind. Btw, I have spent to many hours playing strategy games ;)

#1: An espresso stand on every corner!

Coffee drinkers would love this city. It is difficult to go two blocks in any direction without finding a coffee shop or an espresso stand. I wish I was exaggerating but sadly I am not (or at least not that bad). A search for 'espresso' on yellowpages.com yields 60 results! And I wouldn't be surprised if it was missing some of them.

As you can now see, Yakima is not that bad of a place to live. My only problem with it is the number 1300... the number of miles to Pierre, SD and my parents. I could deal with 600 just fine, but 1300 makes visiting home difficult and expensive for me.