2003-11-14 - 10:29 p.m.

Fighting Floods

Some people assume engineers do something more than just push papers around like everybody else. In a way, I've always felt that engineers should be able to do things quicker than most people. I've met some really slow engineers in my life.

Today instead of going to the office, I was out in the field taking a flood fighting course. The course is required, since I volunteered this year to be on-call for levee patrols. When it rains here in California, it may cause devastating floods, which are associated with levee failures.

Being an engineer, I'm supposed to be able to spot these problems before other people. I think that is a reasonable request. Being single, if I make a wrong step and get swept away in the flood waters, nobody would miss me. This is a second good reason to do this, though I've never heard of this happening.

The bottom line is, I'm tired because I now know how to properly fill and place sandbags to prevent things like boils or overtopping of levees. It was good to pull on my boots and STOMP on bags full of sand that I shoveled. It also was nice to be an a blue collar work environment.

But naturally it rained, so I'm wet and tired. Good night.

-=-

<< previous - next >>