Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Finally after 5 and a half weeks we are nearly settled in the US and actually have working internet!!  From turning up at Dulles Airport (of Die Hard 2 fame) on a sunny Friday afternoon in mid March with only a couple of suitcases and 2 hyperactive children, we now have a fancy town house (terraced house in English) with a SUV and convertible parked outside (to blend in), we own smartphones and a smart widescreen LED TV, broadband internet at 20Mbps and today our stuff arrives from the UK.  I will not go into the heartache and pain (not to mention the $23,000 we have spent) to get here (most of it actually reimbursable) but needless to say it all takes quite a bit of time.  Yes the Colvins have finally joined the 21st Century!  We have received a tremendous amount of help from Matt, Ulli and Ben who having been through this already and helped make the process as painless as possible.   Barbecue at ours, once I have bought one!

Work started well meeting up with Matt and Ben as well as all the other Army Officers in the district for the OPD week as Matt has described.  The Dinner Night should get particular mention (great effort from Matt and Ben) because it is the first one I have had in a floating restaurant on a reservoir at sunset and also it was our introduction to the USACE Dinner Night traditions, in particular the brewing of the of grog.  In a nutshell, the junior officer makes a dirty punch for everyone to share but with some poetic significance attached to each of the ingredients to produce a potent but enjoyable brew that is then used to liven up the festivities.  A USACE dinner night should be tried at least once in a life time.

Initially I spent 2 weeks in the USACE Baltimore District Office.  This was to get my USACE email access applied for (still not got it after 3 weeks!) as well as meeting the various departments who I will be responsible to or might need to contact when out in the field, from the design teams and contract managers to the environmental and legal teams.  I was able to go on a field recon of a potential project (a boiler house refit in a barracks block) before going to my field office in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  The project I will be working on as the only resident E&M engineer is a $53 million roof replacement of a main distribution depot on site.  This place is enormous, with a site footprint of 43 acres (1.9 million square feet) which uses an internal Scalextric track of trolleys to move orders around the site.  It runs 24 hours a day and cannot be interrupted in its operations during the refit because it supplies operations overseas (photos to follow once I get clearance…).  The roof has been redesigned and all mechanical and electrical services are being upgraded to improve efficiency.  Currently Matt’s Solar Wall is not linked in with any other environmental condition monitors and each work station (an open area every 2om in every direction) on the shop floor has its own heating/cooling controls for that area making for a very inefficient heating and cooling system.  The new system upgrades all heating and cooling machinery and attempts to centrally control the environmental conditions.   At present the work has not started as there are RFIs and pre construction issues being ironed out.  This a Design Bid Build Contract where an Architectural Engineering company has produced the design for USACE (who only design 15% of their projects) and a contractor has been selected for the construction.  Thus there are complications arising from drawing interpretations at all levels!

And in Other News

Aside from terrorist bombings, fertilizer factory explosions, shootings, gun control debate (why should people need checking before buying a gun and ammunition at a gun convention?), live terrorist hunting and a hurricane warning, it has been relatively quiet.  However a leading Yoga clothing outfitters company has suffered huge losses on the stock market after it was ‘revealed’ that its leading style of yoga trousers had a faulty batch where the material was see through once worn.  Apparently during the “salute to the sun” warm up exercise people at the back of the classes were being treated to a view of the moon and more – (underwear ruins the line………).  Customers are being offered a full refund.

Roadkill Count (back by popular demand)

6x Racoons

3x Deer

2x squirrels

8x anonymous piles of dried out fur

1x Owl

1x St Bernard

Country Song Titles

“Come and take a ride on my big green tractor (if you scream we can go faster)”

“I wish I had been a cowboy”

“God is great, beer is good, people are crazy”

“I am old school (and won’t cheat on my wife)”

See y’all!