Topic: Old Sparky and New Bearings

[Dinosaur]

A few weeks ago, I turned in my computer keys and closed out what has proved to be my last session of Civil 3D.  The break is now complete and permanent at least for the foreseeable future with an offer and my acceptance of a position decidedly "uncivil" where the only pipes are full of wire and the ground is actually something metal in the dirt.  Starting Monday morning I will be an official sparky for the first time in excess of 20 years and to crank this direction change into a completely different quadrant, I will not be using Autodesk ANYthing - not even vanilla.
It is my hope to be able to remain somewhat current with new features and issues with Civil 3D and continue helping out the Land Lubber community as best I can from the sidelines.

[dfarris75]

Old Sparky?

[Slim©]

Congrats again, my friend!!!

[sinc]

Good luck with the lack of "civility"!

[Krushert]

Congrats Dino.  May you find many new enjoyments with electricity

[Dinosaur]

Old Sparky?

Yep, I was a sparky back in the early '80s - all of it hand drawn.  I got to work on such exotic projects as $70k tenant finish jobs for a penthouse apartment, mystery power routing to top secret radar sites in Alaska, ski resorts in Breckenridge, Colorado (REAL fun field visits) and an assortment of water / waste water treatment plants.
There will be no more pushing around dirt and forcing water to flow down hill for me unless there is yet another career change in store for this old geezer.  I am completely hooked though - I have plenty of data around to play with whenever I can manage to score a demo of Civil 3D.

[Dinosaur]

Good luck with the lack of "civility"!

Better still - lack of city submittals and deadlines.  This gig is mostly entering data from existing designs and analyzing it to determine what is necessary for OSHA compliance at maintenance points and recommend any possible more economic alternates.  The place is actually growing in this business climate.

Thanks Slim, and more of the same right back atcha.

And thanks to you also Krush its a "shocking" change to be sure, but I always did like designing circuits as a good second choice to civil.  The pay sucks, but pay always sucks to some degree and at at 6 miles distant, my commute for the entire week will be about the same I was doing in one day over the last 12 years.

[Slim©]

Better still - lack of city submittals and deadlines.

Amen to that, Brotha!

[Dinosaur]

Better still - lack of city submittals and deadlines.

Amen to that, Brotha!

That alone was worth about half the pay cut I took.

[jonesy]

I wish you every fortune in your new job Dino.

I hope it proves a worthwhile charge change for you...

6 miles away is good.... specially when the cost of a commute is growing day-by-day..

Good luck matey

[dfarris75]

Yep, I was a sparky back in the early '80s - all of it hand drawn.  I got to work on such exotic projects as $70k tenant finish jobs for a penthouse apartment, mystery power routing to top secret radar sites in Alaska, ski resorts in Breckenridge, Colorado (REAL fun field visits) and an assortment of water / waste water treatment plants.
There will be no more pushing around dirt and forcing water to flow down hill for me unless there is yet another career change in store for this old geezer.  I am completely hooked though - I have plenty of data around to play with whenever I can manage to score a demo of Civil 3D.

Ah I see. Very cool. I wish you well.

It was only about 7 years ago this month I moved to Fl. and got into civil. Prior to that I was designing and drafting catv systems. As a matter of fact I may very well have designed and drafted the system that serves your home. Does Everest ring a bell?

[Dinosaur]

It was only about 7 years ago this month I moved to Fl. and got into civil. Prior to that I was designing and drafting catv systems. As a matter of fact I may very well have designed and drafted the system that serves your home. Does Everest ring a bell?

It actually does, but I am not sure under what context or what location.  from '93 thru '95 we were in the Denver metro, Spokane, WA and Kansas City.  The connection could be in any of those places.  One short stint, that does not appear on my resume was for a place specializing in routing fiber optic runs from the seabed off the Oregon coast to all points East where I got my first sniff of MicroStation.

[dfarris75]

Yeah we did fiber too. Everest was a startup company back around 2000. They built a system in K.C. which I had a part in. I went to ITT and learned AutoCAD just to land a job in catv mapping using Microstation (v 4.0 no less)!

[Dinosaur]

It may be part of our system.  They started laying fiber optic around here about then.  I live in one of the northern 'burbs named Gladstone.

[dfarris75]

I don't recall doing any work there... I remember doing Overland Park, Raytown, Olathe... Most of the southeast portion I suppose.
Little story I like to tell about it. The company I worked for started Everest. Prior to that we did design/mapping for many cable companies. When they started Everest they basically began turning down work from other companies to "focus" on designing the Everest system in K.C. I complained to coworkers and even my wife that it was a bad move and they should've kept doing work with other companies and if they didn't change that the company would fall. I guess we started on designing Everest in the late 90s, well maybe 99 and into 2000. I saw where the company was headed and they weren't that much of a delight to work for anyway so we packed up in '01 and moved to Fl. Within a year or so of my leaving they had disintegrated into maybe two employees and were completely gone not long after. Maybe I should have talked to management about that whole thing before they went under. Back then I was afraid to talk to management about those sorts of things thinking they would holler at me for saying they were wrong. Heh.