What It's Like to be Todd

Last Tuesday Todd and Russell drove into Brisbane to look at some surveying gear from another project. It is pretty crazy because all these projects are under the same company but each operates as their own little business. This means that at the end of the job, the job tries to sell off all their gear instead of transferring it to a project that is lacking. In any case, they were headed to Brisbane to look at some of this gear and I went to work by myself. HOLY MOLEY I have not been that busy since a Tuesday at uni (when I had classes all day and RA meeting till 11pm, ah those were the days...). Back on topic, wow busy. I sit next to Todd in the office and he usually passes tasks, plans, surveys onto me because he gets interrupted all the time by someone wanting something. Todd's surveying mantra (it seems) is "don't give the engineers what they want but what they need." Basically someone always wants something but the wanter could often figure it out for themselves through a ruler or these amazing tools called eyes. The real ones, no synonyms here. 

Consequently, being myself and Todd all wrapped into one was exhausting! I was trying to get as much work done as possible but also constantly got interrupted by this or that. Even though I sit next to him and always see the interruptions, this was a whole different ball game and I think I am perfectly happy most days to just sit on deck. 

Families without borders

Back in the grind of work (more words to follow on that) but still thinking fondly of my time back home. From my last dinner out on the patio with dad and kt to my time in Connecticut, my time home reminded me how blessed I am to have such an incredible support system. I know that without the support of my friends and family I could not do what i am doing (not speaking for jan but I bet she feels the same way...).

Sometimes I freak out about being in this tiny little town of Dalby but then I remember that through it all (on the other side of the world) I have friends at home who are supportive of all my crazy moves, job switches, etc. Thank goodness for technology!

One of the points when this reverberated the most was when I was in Connecticut taking pictures with my Sherry family. Someone mentioned that there was lots of people missing from our "family" and so we held up pictures of Todd, Jan, my cousins, etc so they were apart of the picture. Super cute illustration of my amazing foundation. Couldn't do it without y'all!

ps. Apologize for the short/ fairly poorly written blog. I clunked this out between showering and cooking dinner and I want to be in bed in an hour! I need days that are at least 48 hours long here. More on work nonsense later :)

Fraser

Driving onto the ferry to take us across

So deep breath… and catch up! I feel like I have to write really fast to get all this in and therefore metaphorically speak really fast, hence the breath.

This construction stuff is tiring and time consuming and tantalizing/torturous (at times), any other t-words to fit in there?

Todd and I have a few weekends off since I last wrote but we have been doing some travelling which I must tell you about now. To start off, we went to Fraser over a month ago and despite feeling a bit ill, it was really nice. We went with Todd’s parents and Roman and explored this beautiful bit of Australian Island. It was a 4 hour drive or so from Dalby and just north of Double Island Point (an area we had been to many times before). Fraser was beautiful and had an incredible clear water lake with a sandy bottom called Lake MaKenzie. Of course, there was the usual incredible stretch of beach and picture perfect campsite (see pics below).

We only had one full day on the Island and it is over 100k long so we will definitely have to go back. We spent the day exploring and swimming and then retired to our site for some eating while Todd and Roman watched youtube clips and tried to teach themselves how to throw this bait-net-catching-thing of Tony’s (Todd’s father) until the night descended upon us.

Pictures paint a thousand words, and so enjoy these pictures that tell the story between my words.

Lake McKenzie

Lake McKenzie

The fishermen

I'm a yankee!

Since I have been in Australia, I have been called a yankee quite a few times, but never as many times as I have on site. Over the past month or so that I have been working, I have had many conversations with people in which they want to tell me all about their adventures in America and why I have currently settled in Dalby of all places (good question!). The other day we had a practice emergency drill on site and so there was 50-70 of us standing around and apparently it got around quite quick that "there is a yankee standing over there," referring of course, to me. Of course, I am always amused at this nickname because I am sure people from the South would not be so pleased to be called a Yankee. Even as a Californian, not so sure we are Yankees but I figured a little American history lesson wasn't necessary on a construction site. That's another thing, once people find out I have a master's degree, they are shocked that I am working in construction. Most of them, and I quote, "couldn't last longer than six months at uni."

Another funny thing on site is that anytime one of these rough and tumble guys curse in front of me, they automatically apologize to me. I guess they think my delicate lady ears can't handle it, cute, huh? Besides that the boys (and Todd of course) are taking good care of me and I am happy although very tired! Todd and I have a break this weekend of four days and then we are back to the pump for another ten. We are headed to Fraser Island today so I will have lots of beautiful pictures from our road trip on the next posting. Till then, love to you all!

Site notes

So in my last post I talked about what I do on site and now I am going to briefly describe what I see. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to take photographs so you all will just have to use your poor old imaginations! We are in the middle of farmland and grasslands. The soil is deep red and the vegetation is pretty thin and low to the ground. There are few trees on site although I am sure that has to do mainly with the "clear and grub" that is done to prepare the area for work. What we are working on now is the earthworks for infrastructure work that will be happening. Basically that means that there is lots of dirt, rock, and more dirt and not much else.

Besides dirt we also have some fabulous creatures. And by creatures I mean insects. And by insects I mean HUGE bugs that look like they are on steroids. The other day I looked out the window and noticed these dark things on the screen. After looking closer, I realized they were giant cicadas the size of my fingers, not my pinky, probably closer to middle... Definitely prehistoric looking. I have also seen beetles the size of my fist and there has been a six foot long snake lurking around. On the upside, we have lots of cute kangaroos and Todd and I saw an emu the other day on the way to work. It is really nice to be working outside and we have made our commute fly by by reading to each other. We have just started Harry Potter, Todd's first time. I have to admit that I may have forced him into starting it but now he loves it! Yay reading time.

Despite my inability to take pictures on site, I promise to get a picture of me in my getup soon!

In a sea of orange

A couple of weeks ago, I craned my neck over our neighbors fence (not really, the fences are short), and could see clothesline after clothesline hung with orange fluorescent shirts. They were in different states of wear, from bright to faded by the sun, but they were all the characteristic of a construction home. Well now we have joined the ranks...

These last 11 days on site have been exhausting, nerve-wracking, fun and extremely educational. Todd wasted no time and threw me into the deep end. I have a variety of duties: general admin stuff (organize registers, send emails, etc), surveying field work, and surveying office work. I have to say that the last two are definitely my favorite. My field work is pretty basic at the moment. I go out with a device that receives GPS signal and a controller for the device to measure points. There are people on site who test the soil in different areas to make sure it conforms to specific guidelines and I go out with them and measure exactly where they do those tests. Make sense? I also helped Todd and Russ a bit with some other field work but it is a lot to take in all at once. 

My surveying office work has to do with this program called Terramodel that Todd is an absolute genius with. Basically I take the points I measured out in the field and import them into the program so they can be seen on the design of the site. Of course I am oversimplifying things a bit, but it is pretty basic stuff and I now have it down pat. Todd is a fantastic teacher and has started me on these basic plans but I am already progressing to learn more and more complex commands. Apparently I am already helping out heaps as he said the other day that I am already more valuable as a surveying assistant than as an admin person and if it was just us, he would have to hire someone else so my time wasn't occupied by silly stuff. Honestly, it is just incredibly fun to learn more about what he does and tackle a whole new industry! It is all part of my plan for world domination, well orange-clothed world domination anyways... :)

Impressions

So we all know that first impressions are very important but I have learned that they can also, often, be very wrong. Because of this, I am going to hold off delving into the details of my glimpse into the construction world and just say: if business offices were run like construction sites, business would fail, Todd is just as brilliant as I knew he was (and more of a leader than he likes to think), and that everyone is just as nice, albeit as crude as I expected. I must say that I only worked on site for one day so far and so after my next stint (10 days) I will let you know more of my impressions.

To further entertain you, Todd and I celebrated our first semi-Passover together apart from my family. Last year we were at the Erman's house for the first night (fun times!), but this year we had no matzah, no haggadahs or matzah balls and no manischewitz. Very sad indeed but we made due with charoset, vanilla flavored vodka in black current juice, brisket and a showing of "The Prince of Egypt" with Russ. Over all, a very fun night :)

Luckily we had this Passover/Easter weekend off so we spent it doing so much needed spring cleaning. Most of it is not picture worthy, but look at this handy earring organizer I made out of velcro and a clothes hanger! Fun brain explosion right there :)