Ice Storm

I had heard about ice storms before.  News reports told of roads and transportation systems shut down.  They detailed the plight of hundreds of thousands of people without electricity due to cut power lines.  But never having lived anywhere but Utah during cold winters, I had never experienced a real ice storm in person.  

In Utah, we usually only get the soft and  fluffy stuff.  It either melts almost right away, or builds up in soft piles that can be easily wiped away.  Sometimes it gets a little soggy.  But even the wet snow and slush is still squishy and somewhat easy to deal with.

Then I went on a business trip to Maryland in January.  It was cold the whole week.  That alone was notable.  Obviously we have cold in Utah too.  But the humidity in Maryland made that cold cut straight to the core.  It reminded me of how much the humidity in Brazil made the heat feel hotter.   Even once we entered nice climate-controlled buildings, the cold feeling lingered with me.  I was glad I had my lab coat to keep me warmer while we worked. 

I suppose it is that same humidity that helps in the formation of the ice in the ice storms.  Our storm happened on our third day in Maryland.  I was astounded.  Finally, I had first-hand experience to help me better understand the difficulties that come with such a phenomenon.  I walked from our hotel to a nearby restaurant for breakfast.  On my way back, I saw a car that had slid over the ice through the disability parking stalls up onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.  Fortunately, nobody was hurt and nothing was damaged.  Our rental car was a covered in a 1/2-inch thick layer of hard ice.  One of my coworkers was the one to rent the car on this trip.  So he got the "opportunity" to figure out a way to get it off the car.  The little bit of paper towel we had left in the car the night before apparently was just not going to cut it.  So he just got in the car, turned on the engine, and hoped the heater would melt the ice quickly.  It didn't seem like it was working, when he spied something in the rear-view mirror.  The rental car company had furnished the car with an ice scraper that had been placed mostly out of sight behind the headrest of the rear seat.  We were saved from having to walk to work that morning.  Still, the short drive was somewhat perilous.  And we did witness one car slide into a curb.

To save wear and tear on windshield wipers, and to make scraping ice easier, most drivers in the area would lift up the wipers from the windshield when leaving their cars parked while ice is possible.  Once again, this was a first for me.  But I could see the benefit of that.  Still, many people simply chose not to drive at all.  When we did get to work, we soon discovered that most of the employees at the company hosting us were either late to work, or simply opted to not go into work at all that day.  It hindered our schedule a little, but I wasn't about to speak critically of those who chose not to work that day.

Though the ice storm only lasted one day, the ice itself remained the rest of the week.  I was fascinated by it.  It was so foreign-looking and interesting to me.  It coated lawns with a beautiful solid white dome.  Sidewalks remained covered in a sheet of solid ice.  Ice like that would only form in front of my house if I neglected to shovel the snow and allowed two or three days' worth of elementary school pedestrian traffic to pack it down.  

The storm also prompted the closure of virtually all of the schools in the area as well.  This in turn compelled President Obama to complain.  Even the school attended by his daughters was closed for the day.  Obama, supposedly toughened by years of living in the frigid Chicago area, was dismayed that a little bit of ice caused such a fuss.  But I don't suppose that Obama had to personally drive out in that weather.  Had he done so, I doubt he would have been so critical of the school administrators.  

I for one do not blame them one bit.

Aloha!

So, I've been sent on another business trip to Hawai'i.  OK, so big deal.  It's not all fun in the sun and relaxation in a tropical paradise.  No really, it's really not.  I'm not kidding.  Oh, whatever, believe what you want.

This trip is all the buzz back at the office.  Everyone seems to have heard about the program that has sent people to Hawai'i.  "Oooh, now that must be a really tough assignment." [Insert sarcasm here.]  It's kind of ironic that one of our smaller programs is getting so much attention from so many people in the office.  I hear several may be attempting to discover "legitimate" business reasons to come join the traveling team to meet with customers, etc., especially the etc.

Seriously, it's not all it's cracked up to be.  Sure we do get a little bit of time to enjoy the sites, sounds, and especially tastes of Hawai'i.  But there are serious down-sides to it too.  Take our schedule, for example.  This week we meet at the hotel resort at 1 AM to begin our travel to the work sites.  The travel time on Maui from the hotels in Kihei to the summit of Haleakala is about 90 minutes.  I'm currently on the Big Island.  Our travel time from the resort at Waikoloa to the NOAA facility near the top of Mauna Loa is closer to 110 minutes.  Then we work at the site for about 6 to 8 hours; our time is limited on the sites because our customer is worried about long-term exposure to high-altitude conditions.  So we do our experiments and collect our data, and turn around and go back down the mountain.  So basically half of our 24-hour day is spent at work, during not-so-enjoyable hours of the day, and a third of that time is spent traveling.  And please note that it is not necessarily pleasant travel.  It's mostly motion-sickening winding switchback roads.  Here on the Big Island, it's also a very rough, pothole-filled road much of the way.  Right now, I also don't have a car.  So for any personal time remaining, I'm mostly limited to the locations within walking distance in the Waikoloa Beach Resort, which is about 20 miles away from anything else of significance on the island.

The worst part about it is how much I miss my family while I'm here.  Sure, my co-workers, other contractors, and the customers are all really pleasant people to live and work with.  But being away from my spouse and children for four weeks is definitely no picnic, neither for me, nor for them.

That said, there are still some really neat things about the trip.  This is my second time doing this for the company.  Last time, I got to bring Rae out for a few days before we started our work.  We stayed on Oahu and visited the Polynesian Cultural Center, the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, and other neat sites.  But it was really sad to send Rae off on one plane towards home while I got on another flight towards work on Maui.  But I've also been able to see a fair amount of the islands of Maui and Hawai'i.  The road to Hana is really beautiful.  And seeing live volcanic activity in action at the Hawai'i Volcanos National Park was really amazing.  I've really enjoyed visiting the La'ie Temple and the Kona Temple too.  Yes, the food in Hawai'i is really delicious too, when we get a chance to enjoy it.  Most restaurants have limited lunch and dinner hours that don't match well with our work schedule.  Much of the time they are only open when we need to be sleeping to get ready for an early start the next morning.

In case you are interested, we are testing a faster-than-broadband Internet-like connection.  I was a lead developer of the networking software for this product.  We are testing our network connections between the two mountain tops.  I have been told these two volcanos are the only two such sites at a great distance from each other, but still within line-of-sight of each other anywhere in the USA; hence the reason for this location.  What we are working on is really cool technology and actually one of the most exciting parts of this trip for me.

Here are some more pictures of my trip this year.

"The Land of Enchantment"

Last week, I returned from a travel assignment to Albuquerque: "the Land of Enchantment." I found out on Monday of that week I was supposed to go help test out a new system I helped develop this past year. We had to take it to a facility that is integrating a satellite system we sold last year to test our new system against the satellite before it gets launched this fall.

Two of my coworkers and I flew out late Wednesday night. We stayed at the Radisson that night. I don't think I'd recommend it though. My room was fine, but nothing spectacular since it was only a $75/night room. My co-worker, Jim, however, had a really challenging time. His key wouldn't work in his first room. And his second room was apparently occupied, even though the hotel computer didn't think so. They finally put him up in the top-of-the-line two-story suite. But since it was 1 in the morning by then, all he really got to enjoy of the suite was the bed for five hours and a dead cockroach in the bathroom!

The next morning, the three of us enjoyed a full hot breakfast at the hotel restaurant, compliments of the hotel. Alby and I didn't have to endure the misfortunes of Jim, but we still reaped the rewards by using Jim's free breakfast coupons. But just to top it all off, according to Jim, even the coffee was horrible. Maybe the previous night's experience just left a sour taste in his mouth, since Alby didn't seems to mind the coffee at all. For my part, the orange juice was just fine. :)

We went to Kirtland Air Force Base right after breakfast. It was really neat to see a part of the base I hadn't seen before. We went to a building that is specially equipped to put together and test space vehicles. The satellite we worked with was in a small clean room. The room has a constant flow of positive filtered air pressure to minimize dust and other small particles that could contaminate the space craft. Just outside that room was a high bay area. That area had another clean room in it. Only this clean room was on wheels. It was really cool to see a "portable" clean room. It was maybe thirty feet by thirty feet by thirty feet in size. Quite an impressive sight.

Our testing didn't start out well. We spent the morning just trying to get cables would work for our high-end data link. We enjoyed lunch at the Copper Canyon Cafe, a place near the base that I had been to many times before when I was doing flight tests of another system I had worked on. After lunch, we finally got our link up and running. Once it was running, then I started running. Since the satellite didn't have all of its heating and cooling system enabled, we only had an hour or so at a time with the satellite on before it would overheat. So we had to hurry fast. The satellite inside the building was linked up with our ground terminal in a humvee parked just outside the building. I was the only software engineer there, but we had two systems to check out. I would make a change on the satellite system, then quickly run outside to make a corresponding change on the ground system and check the status. I had to make about a dozen such round trips before we could verify all of the issues and get the link fully operational.

On top of that, we were really starting to be pressed for time. The Air Force folks were asking us to stay another day to get things finished. We, on the other hand, really didn't want to stay another day. So we worked as fast as we could to get it all done on time before our flight out that evening. Our flight was at 6:50 PM. We finally finished up our work at about 5:40 PM. Fortunately, the base shares runways with the Albuquerque airport. So we were at least close to the airport terminal. But we still had a rental car to return. Jim was our volunteer stuckee for that. Poor guy, he really had a lousy trip! We completely ignored having to refill the gas tank and Jim dropped off Alby and me at the terminal. We were there at about 6 PM, which was just enough time, especially since we didn't have any checked luggage and the security lines at ABQ are not often very long. But Jim still had to get to the rental car place and back to the terminal. Fortunately, the attendant at Enterprise was extremely helpful, and apparently not very busy. He offered to give Jim a ride back to the terminal so he didn't have to wait for the shuttle. Jim made it to the gate just as the airline starting boarding passengers on our flight. Phew!

Oh well, just another glorious day in "The Land of Enchantment!" Too bad I may be asked to go back for another round in a few weeks. Hmph!

4-10s Work Week

The place where I work just announced a new work week option.  Basically we will have the option to work the same kind of 4 10-hour days work week that Governor Huntsman recently mandated for all Utah state employees.

Currently we work a 9-80 schedule.  That's where we work 80 hours in 9 days.  Most days are 9 hours long, not including lunch break.  When we work Fridays, we work 8 hours.  Then we get every other Friday off from work.

The new work week policy will give us the flexibility to choose either the 9-80 schedule or the 4-10 schedule, as long as our manager approves our selection.  Then we'll be given the opportunity to update our schedule choice every 6 months.  I'm intrigued by this new option, but I'm not completely sure which way to go.  If anyone has some good advice either way, please feel free to leave a comment. 

Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

4-10s Pros:

• Every Friday off!!!
• Save gas by driving to work one less day
• Longer work days may be somewhat more productive
• More time to get errands done on Fridays during the day

4-10s Cons:

• Less time with family on work days
• More tiring work days
• Have to get up earlier to get to work; this could seriously impact my early morning Wii Fit workout :)

9-80 Pros:

• Bearable duration of work days
• It's what I'm already used to
• More available to customers and vendors who are sometimes not aware that we get every other Friday off
• Every Friday still has its good side; one week we get paid on Friday, the next week we have Friday off

9-80 Cons:

• More days away from family
• More commuting and more commuting during peak traffic times
• Need to keep track of which Fridays are on and which are off

About holidays...

I heard from a friend of mine who works for the state that they will only get eight hours of paid time off for holidays.  If an employee want the whole day off they have to use vacation time or make up the other two hours some other time during the week.  I am completely flabbergasted by this.  I just can't believe the state would be so inflexible.  I really hope that is just a temporary thing and/or I don't really have all of the facts.

As far as my company is concerned, they do have a slight issue with holiday pay this year.  There will be two remaining standard holidays in 2008 after we begin having the option to work a 4-10s week (starting 20 September).  If we elect to work 4-10s, we will only get 9 hours of paid time off for each of those holidays.  It's kind of the same lame issue that the state employees get, but at least it's only one hour difference.  Starting in 2009, they will have the electronic time card system updated and the allocation of holiday hours rearranged to allow for 10-hour holidays for those working 4-10s and 9-hour holidays for those working 9-80 schedules.  There will be 6 core holidays and an additional bank of holiday hours.  Those with the 4-10 schedule get 30 hours for flexible use, and 9-80 folks get 36.  So everyone will end up getting the same total number of hours.  

One glitch that may occur with this policy is that we will be allowed to update our schedule choice every six months.  I'm not sure Human Resources has thought that one through completely.  I can imagine some employees taking advantage of the system by electing for the 9-80 schedule during the first six months of the year when there are fewer standard holidays but more flex holidays available, then switching to the 4-10s schedule the last six months of the year and ending up with more hours of holiday paid time off than the intended 90 hours per year.  Perhaps HR will figure that out and create some kind policy to shut down that potential loophole.

Does Anthony work late today or all day tomorrow?

This new system could get pretty tricky if there is an incompatible mix of employees working 4-10s and employees working 9-80.  A lot of the work I do is done as a team effort.  If the digital hardware designers and software engineers that I work with aren't around on the days or hours I am at work, it could be less efficient.  In that regard I'm surprised the company didn't just mandate the change across the board like the state did.  Still, it is quite considerate to those who have personal arrangements to update (e.g. dependent day care) to allow them to continue in their current schedules.

Public Transportation

I also wonder what impact this will have on the public transportation system.  Many employees at our company are regular users of van pools, buses, light rail, and the commuter train.  Along with the state and the Church, our company is one of the largest employers in the area.  With the state and our company moving to 4-10s, I can't imagine Utah Transit Authority not reconsidering its Friday bus and train schedules.  If the Church were to adopt a 4-10s schedule as well, that would almost certainly result in reduced numbers of North-South Trax runs and Front Runner runs on Friday.  But even without the Church jumping on the bandwagon, I think Friday ridership will still drop significantly.