Week in the life of a poop engineer

This week was particularly varied so I thought it might be interesting to share it on my blog. So here goes (If I can remember because it has been a loooong week!)

Monday

Started the week pretty normally in the office with meetings about a couple of projects, answering email and even found time to head to my favorite coffee shop, Latte Land for a dirty chai (if you haven't tried one, I highly recommend them. It's a regular chai latte with an espresso shot added!) In the afternoon we had a rather long but important meeting to discuss an important job pursuit. I enjoy the creative aspects of developing a proposal and making sure we have a clear message. On this particular pursuit we have an excellent set of folks on the team so it was a cool meeting (if meetings can be cool?)

Tuesday

Now my week starts to get more interesting... To kick off the day I had a meeting about social media and how the industry uses it. It was interesting to see that many people are signed up on Linked In but very few seem active in the discussion groups. Another observation was that the more specialized groups seem to have discussions with more substance. As an early adopter of Linked In (I think I had an account before Facebook was a twinkle in Zuckerburg's eye) I'm interested to see how it expands and changes as more people use it for different purposes. Later in the morning I had various discussions about various projects including a treatment facility using Anammox bacteria (exciting new development that could revolutionize wastewater treatment, no honestly!). I was also helping to finalize a proposal for a very interesting WERF project on Phosphorus recovery. That would be an awesome project and we have a very strong and truly international team so I'm pretty hopeful.

In the afternoon I flew up to Chicago to take a mid term exam at IIT, 'cause what else are you going to on a Tuesday afternoon? Later in the evening I flew off to Washington DC to stay with some good friends (also happens to be a client) whilst I was working in the area through to the end if the week. I travel a lot and usually stay in hotels so it's really nice to be able to stay with friends instead.

Wednesday

Wednesday? What the heck did I do Wednesday? Oh, that's right, I went into our local office in Gaithersburg. Spent some time helping with the finishing touches on our WERF proposal and then spent the rest of the day preparing material for a workshop to be held on Thursday. Headed back to my friends' place in the evening.

Thursday

Workshop day at the Blue Plains AWTP. It's a very interesting plant that serves DC and surrounding areas with a huge amount of work going on right now. Which means that pretty much every major US consultant you can think of is doing something on the plant! The purpose of the workshop I was doing was to discuss the process design of a future filtrate treatment facility that will use the fancy bugs I mentioned earlier (sorry any biologists reading, I know they're bacteria and not bugs, but that's the lingo we use in the poop treatment business so get used to us having our own sloppy definitions for things!).

The workshop went well, but I was pretty much worn out by this point in the week so it was very nice to head back to my friends' place for beer, wine, an excellent vindaloo and even some late night Scrabble (how did we end up playing 'till after midnight on a school night!? Naughty engineers!)

Friday

Friday I went and laid down in a dark room all day to recover. Well, that would have been nice but no, I headed back to our local office for a little while before driving to Baltimore airport to fly back to KC. One thing I do try to do if I have to drive a lot is to make calls to clients and coworkers. On my drive to the office I had a call with one of our CFD guys in the UK. CFD is cool stuff for engineers and geeks alike... Super cool for engineering geeks like me!

Fortunately for me, the SouthWest flight I was on didn't have WiFi (really pronounced Wiffy for those in the know), so I couldn't really work and so I just chilled out playing the Harry Potter Lego game on my iPad and listening to some old David Crowder.

Drove home via Taco Bueno. House still there, cats pleased to see me and spent the evening watching Real Steel and typing this blog.

Next week? Cincinnati and DC again.