Cleaning, Installed Revit MEP & AutoCAD MEP

Still too much time on my hands. Rolled a recycle cart into my office and began to file the good stuff and dump the unneeded paper. Only made it to three-quarters filled. Lots of info filed. Still have several item to transfer into a storage box for putting in the safe. Yes, we have a walk-in safe with +12" thick walls and a large thick steel door. No ventilation. It's a leftover from the days in the mid-1900s when a sugar company handled cash receipts and payments. One on each of five floors. I like to think of it as the Quiet Room where one can go scream their head off in a carthartic release of verbal anger.

I also cleaned out my email box archiving project mail to the dedicated project-specfic folder on the network server. That dropped my mailbox size to 130MB from 850MB. Still need cut more by shifting some newsletters I receive that are not work-related.

Off-loaded about 20GB of data from the internal hard drive to an external one. There's a lot of programs I use for work that I had been keeping on a folder on my machine. Plus there were music files. Ran CrapCleaner and started the defrag program before leaving that day.

That made room for a full install of Revit MEP Suite 2010 and AutoCAD MEP (AMEP) with updates, extensions and add-ons. Process took two hours and that's with the help of the CAD Manager. Opened and looked at the routine. AutoCAD MEP install overwrote the registration of the AutoCAD 2008 (A2008) program with WinVista. Since the A2008 menu has yet to be rolled over to AMEP there's a hiccup in using nearly all the keyboard shortcuts. My personal ones still work.

Fortunately for me I had exported the Profile from A2008 on Tuesday. I imported it into AMEP to set things a bit right temporarily. Kept the original Profiles should I need to return to them.

Ratdog Downturn & Other Things

The 64-bit test failed miserably. Not the OS itself. The darn KVM borked my regular system twice rendering it useless for keyboard and mouse action. The last time a reboot didn't help so I unplugged everything and had the 64-bit box removed.

An ugly few months have passed. We made cuts in March and recently another round. This last one was deep, a slice across all disciplines. It was very disheartening to have to make these choices. Still sitting at the second reduced pay level from this time last year. When this econo-drop started I figured it might last until June 2009 but as time passed I'm hoping for a comeback by June 2010. I wouldn't be surprised if I had end up with a third pay reduction come September. I'm fotunate to not have a spouse, exspouse or children to depend upon me. Never made the jump to larger and more expensive homes. Whether I'm cheap, economical or well-planned I'm not too worried about personal income for the next 12-18 months despite having a few large ticket items to replace at home. Nonetheless, seeing people I've worked with for a several years leave the office is depressing.

We still haven't begun a Revit project. Darn things can't get financing. We're also looking to go with AutoCAD MEP instead of Revit. Doesn't matter, we've jumped onto the Revit MEP Suite anyway to keep backwards capability with AutoCAD. I'll be getting the packaged installed on my PC. Wish I had more that a crappy 80GB hard drive. Maybe I'll spring for a couple new much larger drives to make life easiser. I've tried out the 1TB Seagate at home as an external drive for backup and it works quite well. Might just take th +500GB route on a couple drives. Something to ponder tomorrow.

The forty-one story condo building will be going active without glycol for the condenser water system while running some of the equipment mechanical systems over the summer to 1) check for system leaks, 2) do the fill-and-drain thing over a longer time and 3) provide some cooling as finishes are completed inside. Fun awakes as the bugs get worked out. It's a 3800 gpm system so there's lots of pipe to flow water. They also have to bring up the domestic water sytem and the heaters will take about 10,000 lbs of steam flow as the system heats up.

We hashed out our appeal for LEED Certification for one project. Think we have a good shot at success. Had two prerequisites rejected. Fortunately there were options available for us to provide reasons to accept the methods used. Just hope the USGBC agrees.

Currently working on a local sixteen-story senior housing project with an adjacent four-story component having common spaces at the first floor. System involves split-system DX fan coils with electric heat. At least the domestic water heating system is gas. Good thing considering the full-service restaurant and institutional laundry room.

Got the VA dust collector issue resolved with the help of another consultant and testing by Fike company. End result is that dust collectors are a hot item of concern for explosivity and should only be installed when absolutely needed. I suspect we'll be staying away from them for a long time.

Not many projects running active right now. Lots of opportunities but again the financing issues are causing delays. A 200+ unit apartment building near a private college has received enough funding to move forward with schematic design. Just hope pricing reaches the desired levels.