It was a rather unspectacular day. Most construction sites stopped work because of the weather leaving me with not much to do so my boss had me cooking and microwaving asphalt in the laboratory kitchen. I do love the smell of asphalt in the morning!

Went to City Hall in the afternoon to deliver a bid proposal. I was pleasantly surprised City Hall still maintains an open door policy unlike our neighbour in the South where most government buildings have beefed up security in the wake of 9/11.

Today was also the first time I bribed someone although unknowingly. I somehow ended up in a back alley around City Hall trying to find a parking space when I stopped for a moment to check my map. I looked up and saw a man with a baseball cap and sunglasses waving at me. I rolled down my window and he walked over. He asked whether I was looking for a parking spot to which I nodded. After giving him 6 bucks, he pulled aside a few traffic cones blocking what seemed to be a delivery entrance and motioned for me to pull in :lol: He said I could park there the whole day. All day downtown parking for 6 bucks. That's what I call a deal.

Images below can now be enlarged by clicking on them.

Yesterday, I was midway testing concrete in King City when a senior engineer from my company came on site for something completely different. He immediately noticed I was wearing sunglasses and not my safety glasses. In that Obi-Wan to Padawan kind of way, he started lecturing me on the importance of safety eyewear then said he wasn't going to report me this time.

So today, I wore them to work trying to score some brownie points. But with my amazing luck, I ran into the same guy at another site the 5 minutes of the day I didn't have them on... Can you believe that? I was like, "dude, talk to that guy. I had them on just a moment ago!" to which he said I should have them on ALL the time.

Now some random pics:

The day started off good. I went down to the ROM early in the morning to test the concrete. It gave me the opportunity to wander around the site and examine one of the most unique construction projects in Toronto up close. The lattice of steel beams is really a sight to behold. I got some weird looks from the workers when I started snapping a few photos but then I saw the concrete driver doing the same thing.

Pumping concrete to 2nd floor slab-on-deck

Steel beam lattice for 'crystal'

The day started going downhill afterwards. I was asked to go up to Brampton to pick up some asphalt samples another company technician collected and bring it back to our lab. But as I was about to return with the samples, the boss called and told me they needed me urgently downtown to catch a concrete truck for testing ... in 20 minutes. Brampton to downtown Toronto in 20 minutes ... What did he expect from me? I don't know about you but I have yet to gain mastery of manipulating the space-time continuum. I tried anyways and amazingly, made it downtown only a few minutes late. But it was all in vain. I couldn't find the construction site. It didn't help that the only direction I was given was that it was an underground parking garage around City Hall .

I worked today beside Pearson Airport on a commercial land development project testing soil. The workers didn't feel like working in the hot temperature so not much got accomplished. However, I was excited to be there because the project is being run by one of the most famous engineering firms in Canada, Marshall Macklin Monaghan (MMM). Among other superprojects, they were responsible for designing the Skydome and CN Tower. It's one of the civil companies I most want to work for once I graduate. I chatted with the site supervisor from MMM and asked him a couple questions about working there. What I heard was promising. I guess I made a good impression because before long, he was comfortably taking a piss in front of me. You KNOW somebody trusts you when they can comfortably take a piss in front of you.


I'm even more excited about tomorrow. I'm suppose to be testing concrete for the ongoing renovation of the Royal Ontario Museum designed by Daniel Libeskind, the architect behind the new World Trade Center. You can learn more about the project here. There's also a webcam of the construction here. If you look close enough tomorrow, maybe you'll see me! Or maybe not...

So there I was standing under the scorching sun today on the hot pavement looking at an electronic billboard beside the road displaying time and temperature: 31C/10:45AM ... 33C/11:00AM ... 35C/11:15AM!! It was so hot when I lifted a traffic sign off the asphalt, I noticed it left a nice indentation.

Overall, it was a good day; nobody died. However, we do claim responsibility for backing up traffic on Mayfield Road in Bolton. One guy drove by me and showed me his fist. But overwhemingly, the drivers showed a lot of courtesy and gave kind gestures as they drove by.

Came back from work early today. We were suppose to take some core samples along a stretch of road in Caledon but the drill company we contracted cancelled because their machine was broken - or so they said. Our theory is they probably overbooked as they tend to during the busy summer contruction period. Drilling was rescheduled for tomorrow. Hopefully it'll work out.

In other news, Stargate SG1 and Atlantis are resuming this Friday yay! Will Jack and Sam finally get together? Will Atlantis survive the attack from the Wraith marauders? Only time will tell... Now all I need is Battlestar Galactica back and I'd be in bliss.

Hey, I finally got a Blog(TM)! As I like to say, better late than never. I also say last one is a rotten egg but let's not go into semantics.

So why am I starting to blog as of late? First of all, I thought it would be neat to have an archived record of my thoughts to reflect on in the future. A person with no sense of the past cannot subscribe to the future no? I guess that's why I don't have a cellphone yet :bleh: That and holding something that's knocking a few DNA strands out of order beside my head turns me off. Secondly, I just felt like it. Maybe it's because it's hot and humid and I'm sleepless at 1:10AM (edit: 1:18 and counting) with nothing to do. Or is it because I contracted melanchollia because my plan of manipulating my friend Dan to introduce me to some of his lady friends failed. Whatever the reason, it is with great aplomb (it's a word, I looked it up) that I announce that I, Brian, now has a Blog(TM).