Back to the Old Grind

With the holidays over the real world is cranking back up albeit at a more sensible pace that last year at this time. 2006 was a 16-month year for me. 2007 was only a 14-month year. After the vacation, I'm still hanging with 225 hours of accumulated vacation time. Management wants me to start taking more time off. Figure maybe a three two-weekers.

A 13-story apartment building I'm doing now has a deadline of Jan 25 for the design development (DD) set with more detailed information than previously shown. We were working on a construction design set for mid-February. Unfortunately, issues with a projected construction cost about 20% over budget, per the owner, has some of us in the office thinking the project will fade away after the DD set is released for another round of pricing.

I reclaimed a historic home remodel project that I had given up to a coworker because of my vacation. His last day was Dec 21 so it came back to me with a vastly different redesign which has several problems, one of which is "things that don't fit"-- equipment and ductwork located in a basement exit hallway with 7'-4" vertical clearance from floor to underside of 1st floor joists. Told him of this situation when he took over but it obviously did not stick to the brain. Could have been that others helped without knowing that situation and a couple others.

I'm supposed to get one or two more projects. Not sure what that will amount to. We've got several that will require multiple participants on the design due to their size. I might be involved in a portion or have an entire project to manage and design.

We finally got our Cadzation AcroPlot Pro update for WinVista. Sure as hell makes life a lot easier when creating PDF or DWF files. It essentially works as a front-end batch program with specialized PDF printing to optimize the graphical appearance of linework, hatching and shading while keeping the PDF file size as small as possible compared to other PDF printing methods. Being able to make a single multisheet PDF file of say twenty drawings is another benefit. One can also make individual PDFs as well. Not cheap as a single license but still worth it; very cost effective in multiple licenses. I can setup twenty or thirty sheets for PDF plotting and walk away to deal with other issues or work on other software.

Working, mostly playing, with the XO laptop has been fun. I've been carrying it in the shoulder bag just about everywhere. Use it at a couple casual restaraunts where I can sit at the bar for lunch and use their wireless access point to catch up on number of things away from work. Still learning about it. Snagged a 4GB SD card to keep for downloads and file storage. I've plugged in 1 & 4GB USB flash drives without problems. Not yet familiar with file transfers but that will come. The small keyboard is a bit of a stumbling block for touch typing so I'm getting accustomed to single-finger typing. Can't yet access corporate email due to a security certficate problem on the server but other email access is working fine. Got the year of "free" T-Mobile HotSpot service setup. "Free" is subjective. Most of their hotspots are a national coffee shop chain known for expensive beverages. Got two of them on either side of the office building at work so there's really no benefit there. Perhaps it will be elsewhere.

Weekend work involves sections for two rooftop air-cooled chillers, a single 15,000 cfm makeup air unit and three large scroll-type fans. Oh, yeah, editing a mechanical spec.