water, water everywhere

So it has been an interesting morning here in Northern Nevada. Woke up to the radio reports of the oncoming flood. Morsa called and said she was leaving her apartment so as not to get trapped there by flooded roads.

Jumped in my truck and went to the south part of town to check on all the ongoing projects, here are some pics of the water in and around the projects I have been working on:



Here is Toll Road, across Geiger Grade (going to Virginia City) from a subdivision I designed. As you can see by the roadside signs, there is no getting across this one.



Here is a bridge we designed under Steamboat Parkway. The rise of the opening is about 15 feet at the center.



Here is the creek immediately downstream of the bridge. I would say it is flowing about 6-7 feet deep here.



Here is what happens when a culvert crossing under a road gets clogged. Which is frustrating when you put so much effort into designing it so it works.



And here is what happens when a storm drain (or in this case, an irrigation pipe) gets too much water. This is a manhole whose lid has popped off, and the water is now flowing out of the manhole.

Of course, we are getting used to this extreme weather every New Year's - we got a few feet of snow last year. And despite how it looks in the pics, everything at our projects seems to be working pretty well. Hopefully it will hold up until tomorrow.

And hopefully Morsa will be able to go home tonight.

no need for panic

Device that contains radioactive material lost in northwest Reno

Seems one of my contemporaries left their nuke gauge on the back of the truck. Funny how the news makes it sound like a national emergency. If only the public knew how many nuclear devices are being used around them everyday. Or should I say "nucular", per our president.

some stuff

I thought I might post a few recent pics, get caught up a little bit.

The flooring project is on hold temporarily, until the "holidays" are over. That way I can venture out in public to get supplies, with no fear of crossing paths with those overcome with shopping frenzy.

I did have to do some yard cleanup:



I ended up with about 11-12 bags of leaves from my little yard. Quite amazing.

Got that done in time to fly off to NYC for some Thanksgiving revelry. Not much sightseeing, but some good quality time at Transplant's place. Saw the Brooklyn Bridge up close:



Pretty amazing really. Especially for a nerd engineer. NYC is full of such engineering marvels, for me the underground infrastructure (subway, sewers, water systems, etc) really boggle the mind.

At the south tip of Manhattan, we saw this guy in the park:



A turkey wandering amongst the pigeons. We figured, since it was the day after Thanksgiving, that this guy had escaped and was doing his best to hide out in the middle of the city. "I'm a pigeon, I swear."

Since I've been back, I've just been getting back into the swing of things, I've even recovered my work motivation, and look forward to staying late and working weekends for a while. Sick I know.

I had to restock the food supply, so I went over the the local Costco and picked up some wonderful beef.



Nothing like some all-american beef. These ribeye steaks should hold me for a while......

Until next time....