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A brief update – post Sandy
All clear. We stocked up on everything the man on the telly recommended and while other areas of Maryland were without power for days and others got 3 feet of snow – it seemed to just forget about us. My weekend plans to go to New York are utterly cancelled though – seeing as most of it is without power and the subway systems are completely flooded. They closed down the subways days before the storm hit and essentially crippled the city – I later found out this was due to the thousands of homeless people living down there that needed to be evacuated……they could have used one disaster to solve another….but perhaps that’s the squaddie humor kicking in.
USACE deployed the mobile command and control unit – headed up by our own Mr Brian Walton. He’s still deployed and assisting with the coordination efforts. I applied to do the Emergency Response course a while back but the boss reckoned it wasn’t in line with my DOs (she’s right – I just wanted the jolly) but with hindsight as I was tucked up safe and warm with the Mrs, I decided it was for the best.
I have been doing some coordination work with the Hancock to facilitate the jobs for Nick’s arrival – I’m sure he’ll have a much smoother integration than I did. The HQ project is starting to gear up so there’s some good scope for PE work. The Roofing project should be in full swing ot get some technical aspects under his belt and then there’s a bunch of levee projects that will also make benefit of his skills. I also think they’ve let out all their jokes about englishisms out on me so he’s less likely to be bullied.
The C4ISR is ongoing and tediously complicated. The Office Engineer has embraced the tools that I have updated recently and is making full use of them. We need more staff to get through this!
The Solarwall project was on hold throughout the storm which gave me a chance to catch up on submittals. The biggest problem is actually still with our sister office in Alabama. The biggest cause of wasted time appears to be from the person that wrote the contract (which has been found to hold many holes and mistakes by the Harrisburg Office). It’s as if they are defending poor decisions out of pride or spite and have generated needless work for our office. I have formally requested that the issues currently under dispute (see previous blog) are now to be raised at Contracting Officer level. My boss is supporting all of my observations and conclusions to the point that they are prepared to sever ties with the Huntsville Office if they continue like this….it’s like a soap opera.
My final gripe of late was that having agreed that a temporary solution is required for the Albright flood gate (which managed to not float away in the storm) it appears that nobody is willing to be held accountable. Apparently if nobody is responsible, nobody can be sued if it goes wrong. I find this utterly irresponsible As things stand it’s easy enough to blame the previous contractors that built the gate. I have since been assured by my boss that the correct channels have been made aware and that the relevant plans are in place….even if they don’t know who’s meant to be executing the fixes or where the materials will come from. It’s just wonderful that nobody died.
I have volunteered to go and do another schools presentation. This time it is for Highschool students who have done introductory calculus and are making decision on which avenue to take in their prospective engineering careers. As long as they don’t ask me any calculus questions we’ll all get along just fine. This is another STEM project and I will be able to re-use a lot of the previous stuff I’ve done.
Other News: Right – enough of this – I’m on leave until the end of the week when it’s back to reality. In the meantime I am happy to report that Ulli has now been offered a full time job with the networking agency. We look forward to thanksgiving where we are required to eat lots and watch football….some biblical thing I think.
Also – it appears that Obama remains as Commander in Chief – hopefully the locals will calm down a bit now it’s all over. But if anything goes wrong – at least we know who to blame.
Weeks 26-30 – 01 Sep – 07 Oct 12 – Holiday, training and that horrible “return to work” feeling
The dates of this blog seem to cover a long stretch but when you consider that the first 2 weeks I was on holiday and the third week I was on various training courses, it only leaves the last couple to write about!
For those interested, we had a nice break. We drove North through tropical North Queensland and saw many nice things. I will not bore anyone with the happy snaps.
Week 28 was when I finally completed some safety training with JHG; it should happen within the first few weeks but I guess that’s the way the GLNG MOF rolls! It was surprisingly good and because it was in Brisbane I was well looked after with flights, taxis and a particularly nice hotel in the city centre with a service called “charge-back”. I didn’t abuse it but it certainly puts JPA expenses to shame!
My holiday and courses resulted me being off the Island for 20 days straight and didn’t I know it when I returned. Having to get up again at 0400 was painful. What I was not surprised to see was that nothing had changed, apart from the wall leaning over.
The works programme had been extended by some 4 months and my immediate issues were to find some work for the civil crew to actually undertake. Unfortunately we failed to deliver and said a sad farewell to some of the workforce although they were only temps provided by a sub-contractor. Even so, it’s not a great feeling and rests heavily on you.
That said, things will pick up eventually and new work fronts are scheduled to come live soon…I just have to wait a bit longer…
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 