...Eight of our buses have become so decrepit that the University is finally allowing us to replace them. We will be getting eight new 34-foot vehicles in June. In the meantime, we have to remove all logos, vinyl stickers and identifying features on the old buses before sale. And that is what I'm seated on the ground doing, using a sharp razor blade. The guys helping me were around on the other side of the bus. You can check out their work by following this link.
...How about that? I'm a surveyor now! *well not really* However, I was able to learning a little about this surveying and plotting tool and do some plotting of points. The points I was documenting were of the bus training and testing courses critical to our bus operations and safety programs. The courses are preserved and laid out all year in a large parking lot using painted dots on the asphalt. Not a problem when the University has no plans to resurface the lot. This is the summer, however, that the lot will get some needed attention, and when it does the dots go away. So we spent the day plotting the location of all the painted dots. Later we will set the points to a map and will be able after that to replicate all the points on the newly repaved parking lot, using the same surveying tool, exactly as before. The surveying tool has an accuracy of 2 centimeters, which is phenomenal. Normal GPS is 20 feet.
The pole is placed on the dot, then you tell the computer on it to read the geographical coordinates. The signal is transmitted to a satellite which locates the pole precisely. Then the data is stored in the computer on the pole, which is later uploaded to autoCAD or maps for printing.Steve (pictured), a Civil Engineering student, and Zack, a CE graduate this May, helped me understand the process. It was fascinating.
...This dirty lump is the sorry remnants of the 64" of snow we had four months ago. Over five days in January we got dumped on with more than five feet of snow and some of it is still here! What a winter! This picture was taken on 17 May on my way to work.
...For 20 years I kept pretty quiet about my birthday at work, and was able to enjoy the 'peace and quiet' ... until now. Somehow word leaked out. Though my fellow bus drivers missed it by a day, they still managed to sneak a cake in and surprise me today. It was pure ninja. I am standing by a bus in the barn barking out orders for everyone to do, and I turn around and there's this birthday cake on the counter staring me in the face. And everyone has big guilty grins ...
I can only hope next year they forget ...
...Just a moment of levity in the break room at work ...
