So, what's been happening?

Last week was just that, our last week. At least for the time being.

Monday went well enough but the rain we got over Monday night royally screwed us up. The three open units we had turned into swimming pools overnight. Even though they had been covered up as best we could manage, water ran in from the edges and filled them to overflowing. A handful of us spent Tuesday morning pumping them out in the hopes that they might be salvageable.

They were not.

To compound the issue. The weather forcast called for more rain to fall every day the following (this) week. That would make for an entire week lost. So, since the plan was to call a halt by the 19th regardless of our state of completedness, the decision was made to call it quits early.

So, with just a couple of days to work with we opened up only 3 new units thinking we could manage to get at least that much done.

We tried ...

... but we did not.

Everyone had to stay most of the day on Saturday to get those units close to done. By the end of that day, 2 of them were finished but the third had a freshly uncovered feature that had to be dealt with. Myself and 2 others stayed over and worked on Sunday as well to get that taken care of. Then I packed it up and headed straight home from the site.

In spite of the work issues, we still managed to make the most of the week. We arranged another 'Mojito Monday' since the first one went over so well.


On friday night the whole crew gathered for an 'end-of-project' dinner party.

Our final night, Saturday, was spent back at the bowling alley (no pics this time around), followed by some after-hours card playing.

And, of course, the saying of our 'good-byes'. :(

So where does that put me now?

Back in Fort Wayne for the time being. I'm working with the IPFW-AS crew again until the work there runs out, or until other field projects open up, whichever comes first. And there are other projects coming down the pipeline. I just don't know when they will be scheduled to commence. The "sometime after the first of the year" is rather vague.

Anywho, the lineup has some good variety to it. Potential projects include: a hydroelectric plant survey near Cincinnati, a couple of small surveys in south-central Indiana near where I just came from, a cemetery relocation (near Evansville I think), a 20km powerline survey in Kentucky and several larger excavation projects in the vicinity of Knoxville, Tennessee. There is also the return to finish what is left of the Santa Claus project. Those are just the ones I'm aware of. There could well be more crop up in the near future. Which projects I can actually be a part of will be determined by how they are scheduled. Obviously I can't work at 2 projects if they are both running at the same time, in different parts of the country.

As soon as I have something more concrete to pass along I will.

Until then, and especially for those I won't be seeing over the holidays ... MERRY CHRISTMAS!