A Quiet Day but Productive Day…Oliver the Engineer, the Cook, the Photographer

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Today was another somewhat interesting day at work.  Interesting, in terms that it seem that all the huff and puff of getting things done ASAP was immediately wiped cleaned from everyone’s radar.  Seriously it was strangely weird for it to happen but I would be lying to say that it hasn’t happen before.  This is one of the things about work that I’m seriously confused about. And to add insult it makes me frustrated and makes me feel that i’m not productive.  The confusing thing is that one day certain things are a huge issue and then the next its not and then in that same day another issue is priority.  Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up and give up on this project.  But then I tell myself that I’m not one to quit and that if it hasn’t killed me yet, it will only make me stronger.  I wonder if this is flawed thinking?

Is it flawed?  I really do like my job but this project is seriously “work.”  But it is work that just doesn’t seem productive and leading to anywhere.  Writing this is seriously just making me a bit frustrated to think that I just wasted a lot of time doing nothing.  So at this point time will only tell what will happen or at least I will report what happens.

But since it was a quiet day in the office, this gave me an opportunity to do some thinking and some time to go over the work that I just submitted.  So I did that like a good school kid and work diligently at the assignment.  The funny thing is that I found a lot of mistakes that I know that I will have fix and correct soon.  But at least this time around I have a game plan.  I just hope this game plan isn’t interrupted with another “priority” side project.  And it is just this kind of talk that I seriously want to have a cubicle that I can close and work on my portion of the project.

Now with my current coworkers out of the office, that gave me another opportunity to hang out with my work family.  My work family has been an integral part of my work ethic at Caltrans.  These are the people that gave me an opportunity and believed in me to be the best that I can be at my job.  So to hang out with them, we went to one of our normal lunch time hangout places, Ichiban in Pacific Beach, CA.

At Ichiban, we always get the lunch special bento box and a side of sushi that we all share.  It is a nice bonding time.  We catch up on what’s going, talk about what happening around work, and as of lately has been my venting session about my current work place.  I appreciate my former co-workers giving me an opportunity to do some venting.  And then they also give me some feedback on what I should do and just give me support.  In addition my former supervisor gets to hear what’s going on in my group and gain some insight into what’s going on.  So today’s vent session basically just confirmed my suspicions that some people are setting up some other people to ultimately fail which for the life of me I just don’t understand.  I thought, that we are all on the same team but I guess with today’s revelation we are not.  Is it everyman for himself?  I don’t know but it sure seems like that.  Like a said before only time will tell.  But i’m going to try my hardest to not be sucked into this void of a hole.  This session was a good one to have because it has been awhile that we had a talk like this in a few weeks.

After lunch, we head back to the “dungeon” as I like to call it.  I only call my floor the dungeon, everywhere else around the complex is pretty much happyland to me.  The rest of the afternoon at work went by uneventful.  Which is a good thing because it allowed me to leave work on schedule.  So ask you can see it was a relatively quiet day.

With work out of the way, I went about my normal routine which usually calls for checking in with my parents to see what they would like to eat for dinner.  I’ve been cooking for my parents for close to 2 years now.  Wow!  Seriously 2 years, I just realized that.  All I can say is damn.  In those 2 years, I have learned to be confident as a cook.  My cooking aspirations will have to wait for another post.  Let just say for the mean time that I’ve seriously had fears of not learning how to cook.  I seriously doubt that I would like eating out everyday and relying on someone to cook for me.  So 2 years ago I made a promise to myself to 1) learn how to cook my mom’s food, 2) learn how to cook so that I can do it my way and experiment, and 3) to show people that I can do and that guys can seriously cook ( we don’t just grill, ladies ).

For today’s dinner, I was ask to make Sinigang.  Sinigang is a Filipino dish / stew, that is made of pork ribs or any other meat, Chinese eggplant, green beans, onions, tomatoes, and some tamarindo seasoning.  The pork ribs are chopped and boiled and the tomatoes, as well as the tamarindo seasoning mixed together, and cooked until the meat is tender.  Usually I have my meats cut at the market. I tell the butcher what I’m using it for and they cut it accordingly.  Although if I went to a non-Asian supermarket I don’t think the butcher would know what I’m asking him / her to do.  And when I want the meat to tenderize it faster, I use a pressure cooker, to help.  I do have to say that the pressure cooker freaks me out.  I always imagine a huge explosion happening when I use it.  So use caution when operating a pressure cooker.  In the meantime while the meat is cooking, I prep the other ingredients.  The prep usually just means to clean and chop up the eggplant, green beans, and onions into quarters.  And then after about 15 to 20 minutes all of the ingredients are added in the same cooker and then I let it cook for another 10 minutes until the eggplant and green beans are tender enough to eat.  And then you take the soup and have some rice and enjoy.  In a future post I will post a step by step recipe so you can create this delicious dish.

And lastly to finish off the evening I finally finished up my photo edits for my recent trip to the World Domination Summit.  I went through the images and create a gallery to tell the story of that amazing weekend.  This was the same weekend that inspired me to start this blog.  So instead of telling you what that weekend was like, I’ll let you see the pictures for yourself.  Check out it out here: World Domination Summit 2012.  Enjoy!

A Good Day – Oliver The Engineer, The Friend, the Cook

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So today was one of those days where seriously I expected to fall into the same pit as I always do when I have day like I had yesterday.  And surprisingly it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

I do have to note I did break from routine and bypass getting my morning Starbucks Mocha because I figure I need all the time I can get.  I guess looking back at it now that it was the nervousness that was talking to me.  But I am happy I did bypass the coffee.  So to calm my nerves a bit, I decided to once again listen to another audio book.  Instead of Danielle’s book, I listened to Seth Godin’s Poke the Box.  Today’s commuting lesson was to just DO IT!  Don’t wait for anything and take action.  And also to pursue the curious mind.  However the most important lesson that I took from today’s lesson was to SHIP.  This was something also that was told to me from a very good friend during my trip to the World Domination Summit.  That will be for sure that I will write about soon.

So once again as my morning commute came to a close, I slowly drove into the parking lot.  Yet another surprise awaited.  Just like yesterday, there was a spot available to park in the nearest lot to the office.  What made today especially more awesome was that there was even more spots.  So I guess passing the coffee up today did help.  I got to work earlier and I had some amble parking to choose from.

Now heading up the stairs I just kept thinking to myself; “Oliver, you can do this.  Just stay calm.  You have this under control.”  I kept repeating that to myself as I went up the 6 flights of stairs to my office.

Maybe a subtle sign that today was going to look better was that I did have a little extra step in my walk, as well as it was Tuesday which meant that it was Tie Tuesdays.

Tie Tuesday is the one day a week that I wear a tie to work.  It was create with my friends on the 4th floor as a way to start wearing the ties we had a home and a way to make professional look good.  🙂  So for the last 7 months, I’ve been wearing a tie every Tuesday.  Which I happen to document with pictures.  Link Here.  So it has been a tradition that has made me feel a little special.

Coming to my floor and still repeating the phrase to myself, I hover my card above the sensor to unlock the door and I open the door, ready to take on what was awaiting me on the other side.  One deep breath and I went in.

Walking straight to my cubicle, I tried to not add to the morning banter at work but at least for now, I failed.  I engaged a bit.  Still trying to figure what they said about me.  I know most likely they didn’t say much about me but that’s just my lizard brain telling me that so that I can spend more of my valuable time trying to figure what they said and what I can do about it.  That’s something I will overcome.  But in the meantime, I talked a bit but soon after went straight to work.

About an hour into the work, I realized that I actually was going to get this done in time.  It was about then that my supervisor walked into my cubicle asking how things are going.  Told him that they are okay and that I was fixing some issues that I discovered I made while working late and that will have them done soon.

I will also now spare, you of the boring details of the rest of the day.  But as it turned out, I had a few more hours to spare and I actually did get it done.  To my greatest surprise I actually got most of it done.  Now is it actually good or not that is another story that I will write soon and I will let you know as soon as I find out.  Today just goes to show myself that when I’m on a mission to get something done, more often than not I will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

During the work day, I also was reminded that I had a hangout afternoon / evening with one of my really good friends Hollie.  Hollie, I met during one of my first photowalks that I did for the SmugMug group.  It was from that one on one hang out that we became good friends.  So today we chatted earlier about hanging out and catching up.  It has been about  close to 3 weeks since we even hung out.  So this was a good treat at the end of the day.

Today, Hollie ask me if I wanted to go walking with her and her boyfriend Steve at Mission Bay park for a nice afternoon walk.  And at first, I had to think about it, but then thought to myself; why not.  Since I worked throughout the morning, I didn’t get my normal morning walk in so I figure this would be a perfect opportunity to get some exercise and do some catch up.  And that we did.

We walked about 3.5+ miles today.  And in those miles, the three of us caught up and updated each other on what’s new.  During the walk, I told them about the World Domination Summit.  I described it as a life changing and fun weekend.  And I think I just explain the World Domination Summit as; it is a conference which help you answer the question;

How do you live a remarkable life in a conventional world?

That’s the explanation that I have been giving people because its one of the most straightforward why to put things.  At least for the moment, that may all change once I get through processing my notes from WDS.

And after walking, I was invited and welcome back to their place for dinner.  As always, I’m happy to help out, especially when food is involved.  I helped Hollie with preparing a very awesome meal of Bowtie Pasta and Hollie’s special sauce and a nice refreshing salad.   During this I kept thinking this is what I want to do when I have a place to call my own.  I seriously would just call friends up and see what they are up to and just invite them over for dinner.  I love having friends around and sharing meals with them.  It’s one of the few times during they day, that I actually slow down and just enjoy.

After indulging that excellent meal, we settled in and started to watch tv.  That’s something that I  don’t do often these days.  It was just nice to hang out around two awesome friends and a cat to close evening.

I hope tomorrow will good.  We shall see.  🙂

What A Day – Oliver the Engineer…

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What a day!  Today was what I thought was a just a normal Monday.  I was upbeat, ready to take over the world, and ready to accomplish anything that came along my way.  So I did my normal routine.  Head over to Starbucks, get my vente Ice Mocha with no whip.  Then headed off to work on my normal route.

This morning I decided to listen to an audiobook verses my normal pop morning routine.  The audiobook for this morning’s commute was Danielle Laporte’s Fire-Starter Sessions.  I purchase the audiobook last night.  I also purchased the book as well.  But lately I’ve notice that I’ve become more distracted with reading again.  I don’t know if I just have the gears in my head turning constantly or that I’m just easily distracted with all things social media.  I can’t really pinpointed right now but I need to figure it out before it gets out of hand.  But lately I’ve decided to listen to books verses reading them and not because I’m lazy but because I want to do more with my time.  This has come true a lot lately especially while I’m at work.

So after my normal 20 minute commute to work.  I arrived at worked earlier than usual and thinking that I wouldn’t get a good parking spot.  But to my amazement I found one and it was for sure the last one.  Now this day was looking good.  So I turned off the car and turned off my GPS app on the Phone and headed into the office.

Now with a card swiped and racing up the stairs I got excited for what I was able to accomplish today.  Then slowly it started.

So one of the first signs that day was slowly unfolding was that I have forgotten to bring one of my notebooks with me today to work.  My Moleskine notebooks have become a big feature on my desk as of this last year.  I decided to keep a notebook handy with me at all times because I never know when an idea will strike or I head / read a great quote that is relevant to what I’m working on or thinking about these days.  So I made sure that I always have one with me.

When I discovered that I didn’t have it with me, I brushed it off like it was nothing.  But I knew in the back of my head it was.  Then I decided to grab another one of my Moleskine notebooks, this one was my calendar.  In that calendar notebook, I decided to keep a log of the places I went to during that particular day.  So for today’s entry, it was Starbucks and Caltrans.  However when I wrote Caltrans, little did I know that was where I would spend nearly 12 hours of my day working on a small but important project.  More on that a little later.

Now with my iPhone plugged into my computer, headphones plugged in my iPhone, and just about logged in my computer, I settled into work, with what I assumed at the time would be a busy but productive day.  The morning started normal, checked my e-mail, looked at twitter, did my Good Morning World message of the day which read;

“Good Morning World! Everyone has a story. YOU ARE YOUR AUTHOR. Don’t let others write your story. Instead create the story you want to live.”

From the tweet, I was upbeat and I was.

So now I slowly settled into work.  The first order of business for me was to do some sketches of what I had to get done today.  Along with the sketches I had to do some calculations.

Oh before I forget, here’s some background info on what I’m working on.  So I was tasked to analysis and design some drainage systems for the project that I’m working on.  It’s taken me awhile to get to this point because I was put on other parts of the project that at the time I thought was great but now only to discover that it seriously made my current task so much more difficult because I basically had to start from scratch, where as my co-workers had months to work on their systems.  But oh well, it hasn’t killed me yet.  At least I hope it doesn’t.  So now I’m tasked with completing the whole analysis and design of two drainage systems.  And of course these two drainage systems at the surface look easy but once you get into the details of the work, I soon find out that it is more involved that it should have and the time given to me to complete is a bit crazy.

Now I continue, with the sketches and calculations done for the first system done.  I begin my adventure with doing additional research to make sure that I’m doing my task correctly.  To be honest, this is the first time, that I have ever done such a task.

Oh the task, I forgot to tell you the task, the task I had to do was to draw up profile sheets for the drainage systems that I was assigned.

Conducting my research I find out that there wasn’t a manual to help with setting this thing up.  So I guess I had to do the old fashion way, which was for me, to look at a sample and mimic the sample and then apply my design to look like the sample.

Now I won’t bore you with the really minute details that lead to my 12 hour day.  Let’s just say that after working on it for hours, it turns out that there seriously was a lot of things that I didn’t expect during the design and I had to trouble shoot the problems as I went.  The biggest trouble shoot issue that I had to do today was that the scale of my drawing was off.  My drainage inlets and pipes that I designed didn’t line up to the right elevation and some of the things where just off.  So I spent a better half of my afternoon trying to figure those issues out.   Which unfortunately lead me to stay at work until 7pm.  So I worked today from 7am to 7pm.  And on top of that I had to bring home some of the work to double check my calcs and prepare for tomorrow’s mad dash to finish the design. So wish me luck.

Now i’m off to double check the calculations and work out some of the details so I can get this thing out quickly tomorrow.

Till next time.

-Oliver the Engineer.