Double Dream

Portland got an inch of snow overnight, it is pretty strange to get 2 rounds of snow here. ODOT is warning of patches of black ice, I don't really know if anyone got it any worse. I haven't been doing anything all day except sleeping and watch old TV shows, just looked outside and the snow's gone, oh well.

I slept for about 10 hours last night and that's a record for me, the cold medicine I took might have helped, but I took a half dose. This morning I had two dreams.

Dream 1-
For some reason I was talking with another really large engineering company and they'd hired me. My new office was going to be out in the mid-West somewhere, but I was still going to work on projects going on in Portland, so that doesn't really make sense. I remember walking around the building where I interviewed and it being a really nice place, it was on the water and people got along with each other. I tried to figure out whether I'd want to drive my car out to my new place in the mid-West or fly there and have my car shipped out. I also remember going back to the place and wanting to ask more questions but I was flumoxed and didn't want to ask them, questions so that I could compare the two jobs apples to apples. Then I woke up and went back to sleep.

Dream 2-
I was with a group of friends in this large building and I was trying to get even with this other guy and I was going to do it by squirting him. Growing up, my sister and I would stay with my Grandparents and they've got some old time toys that my mom, her sisters and brother would play with, one old toy was a green squirt gun that would fit in you and squirt from between your fingers when you pressed the plunger down with your thumb, I think it was from Green Lantern or something. Anyways, I think I had something similar to this filled with Sprite and I had it hid in a cup to disguise it. My friends thought squirting someone with Sprite was wrong so they left, so I got close enough and I squirted him in a group of people. Then all the other people started running around screaming and stuff, I knew the jig was up so I ran off. This must have been a warehouse where trains would drop stuff off because there was a huge pile of bananas on the loading dock and I grabbed onto the mesh sack that was holding them all together and swung down onto the ground about 12' down, all the bananas fell on top of me and I pushed them off and started running down the tracks, over the large angular rocks to safety. Then I woke up.

Afganistan ain't in good shape

I listened to a speaker tonight from Azad Mohammadi who is the Energy, Power & WAter Team Leader and Senior Water Sector Advisor with International Relief and Development (IRD) and is working in Afganistan. It is pretty bad over there, they've been dealing with war and internal conflict for the past 40 years so they haven't done anything with their infrastructure during that time. He said that a tanker truck used to haul waste Mondays and Wednesdays will be used to haul water on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This guy also said that if anyone is interested in doing work in a post conflict region he could hook us up. "Post conflict" right...

Hondo Part Uno

This is what I sent in for posting on the corporate intranet.

JT in our Portland office recently traveled down to Honduras for a little bit of fun and some volunteer engineering work.



In J's words



" I traveled from December 12 through the 23rd flying to San Pedro Sula, meeting up with friends from Sacramento in Tela and exploring areas nearby like the Punta Sal (Exit Point) Jungle Preserve for a nature hike, snorkeling, and fresh fish lunch and a tour of the Garifuno village of Miami for another lunch of freshly caught fish with rice and beans, and fried plantains.

Next caught an early morning bus to La Ceiba, but my former co-worker and I stopped mid-way to look at landfill project in La Masica. The property for the landfill had been purchased, but the funding window had closed to construct the landfill, so he will attempt to resubmit the proposal for funding from a Non-Governmental Organization and provide design for the landfill. Meanwhile, the nearby cities have been dumping trash on the dirt road that goes through the property and an old man who was squatting there prior to it’s purchase has landfill leachate running through his shack, not a pleasant situation. The other problem is that there is a small stream that goes through the valley into a small marsh, it may be possible to reroute the stream and use the marsh for leachate treatment. My friend in Honduras is worked with Engineers Without Borders on projects in the States and used those contacts to do engineering design for landfills, water and wastewater projects on a voluntary basis for towns around La Ceiba. I am also involved in Engineers Without Borders and visiting the yet to be constructed landfill and meeting with locals knowledgeable of the proposal documentation and talking informally with a government leader about the next steps was a really great opportunity to see how some other projects are developed; it was also interesting to listen to the technical issues being discussed in Spanish, I have only had 2-years of high school Spanish, but I was able to comprehend a lot of it with help from our translator.

From there, met up with the rest of our group who took the later bus to La Ceiba and explored that bustling city’s street markets, a park built by Standard Fruit (Dole), and getting a donut at Dunkin Donuts. Our group took a ferry to Roatan (Isla de Roatan) to relax on the beach, snorkel, and eat local food. Roatan has such clear Caribbean water to look down at some really pretty reef formations and colorful fish.

Then back to La Ceiba for a night then over to this place called the Jungle River Lodge for rafting on the Rio Cangrejal and a nature hike through the jungle, part of the Pico Bonito Jungle Preserve, across the river from the lodge. We slept there a few nights in wood bunk beds, met some other travelers, and played Uno by candle light. Our trip was over, back to San Pedro Sula for a flight to Portland and a foot of snow! I had an absolute blast! "

Uno by candle light is tougher than it sounds, it's really hard to differentiate the blue, red, and green cards. We had to double check before putting every card down when it got really dark.