The Kiewitmobile!

Why do we have this? I have no idea..
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Downtown Denver...

Standing Behind the Clock...

From Up High!

I was chatting with Dennis today and he asked if I wanted to see downtown Denver from the roof of the Union Station. No brainer! See for yourself...

My Favourite Security Guard!

Dennis is my favourite security guard at the Denver Union Station. We ride the bus together nearly every morning on the way to work and then talk periodically throughout the day as I go back and forth from to the site and the office and back. It's always fun on Monday mornings when he tells me stories of his kids' antics over the weekend. Dennis always makes me smile.

Meet the Crew!

These are some of the awesome guys I work with on a daily basis. These are only the ones who happened to be eating lunch with me between the carbon filters. We'll start on the right. That's Joel. I don't know him too well because he's been on night crew most of the time I've been with Kiewit. I do know it's a nice guy with a sense of humor who makes it a point to say good morning every day. Juan is next to Joel. He gets wet, a lot. Juan works around the bag filters and hoses. He has full rain gear so when something like the fire hydrant explodes (which has happened), he can fix it. And yet, somehow, Juan is always smiling. Next to Juan is John, the dewatering foreman. John is very quiet, methodical and good at getting everything done. Once you get to know him better though, a funny side comes out. Next to John is Aaron (dude with all the stickers on his hat). That's my boss and probably the hardest working person on the site. Sitting in the center is the man we call Benjie. He's just crazy! Everyone brings fresh jalapenos to work and give them to Benjie at lunch. He eats them raw like they are candy. Doesn't even break a sweat. Totally crazy. Not shown here are Kyle, Austin or the other Juan. I'll snatch pictures of them later.

We're All Gonna Die!

Today the project engineer came into my office completely panicked. A man was in the office kitchen testing the water and he shared the data with the project engineer. Now the project engineer knew our water discharge standards for chlorine were 0.05 mg/L and this man's tests were showing much higher levels. The project engineer came to find me to figure out why that was and how to fix it. After listening to the two men, I realized everything was fine. Drinking water standards and aquatic life standards are different, particularly when it come to chlorine. Chlorine kills fish, but humans need it in the water to kill diseases or else we die. The discharge limit is for the fish and the office water was for humans. The numbers are supposed to be different. I'll never forget the panicked look on my boss's boss's face. Too funny. Afterward I had the scary realization that the project engineer had just come to me, an intern, for help and called me the project "expert" on the subject. Yicks! I better hope I know this stuff.

Testing!

The picture above shows Aaron, holding two samples of water I just tested. I use a calorimeter every day and test levels of iron, chlorine and manganese in the water. I take samples of water and then add different chemicals depending on what I'm looking for. If the water has iron in it, it turn orange. If there is chlorine, it turns pink and manganese turns purple. I then take readings to get more precise results. My job is to keep us in compliance every week. I can use my tests to determine what areas are having trouble and how to fix them. It's a fun job.

Air Quality Monitors

The devices pictured above have been my constant companions the entirety of my internship. These are the air quality monitors that I carry everywhere! Basically, they measure (you guessed it) the air! The particles in the air to be exact. The blue monitor is called a DustTrak and the yellow monitor is a P.I.D. I walk the entire site three times a day sticking my air monitors in different places and seeing what happens. In the morning its fun. I get to walk the site and say good morning to everyone. Everyone on that site knows who I am and what I'm doing. By the final test though, in the heat of the afternoon, I'm hot and tired and sore from luging the machines around. They get heavy and you have to hold them up at breathing level! Yesterday afternoon Kyle came to find me while I was pumping water out of a weir tank. Kyle and Aaron had set up a meeting for me with the lady in charge of the air monitoring and neglected to tell me. My job was to convince her that since we were no longer digging up contaminated dirt, three times a day was a little much. The guys were hoping for once a week or even once a day. I think they are dreading doing this when I am gone. I managed to convince the lady though, that the air monitoring is no longer necessary. Therefore, we are completely done until phase 2 starts! This is my official goodbye to the air quality monitors!

Before a Helicopter is a Helicopter...It is a BOX!

A Post for My Uncle Tom...We Love CAT!

Welcome to My Lab!

The Bottom of an Elevator Shaft...

A Girl?

This week I'm on safety tour. This is where we walk around the site checking for safety stuff and present our findings at the daily meeting. The two guys on tour with me came to the dewatering area to find me on Thursday. They aren't normally outside or near my area, so they didn't know who I was. They found Aaron and I and the first thing out of their mouth? "You're a girl?!" Aaron, of course, cracked up. The guys stammered an explanation. They didn't know there was a girl intern on site, all the rest are guys. Not to mention, the assignment list just said 'Anderson' so they didn't know any better. It was an understandable mistake, but the looks on their faces were priceless!

Shopping with Aaron...

For the last couple of days I have run errands with Aaron for supplies. We have had a blast. We have a tendency to get a little lost, well, a lot lost actually, but always find our way back to the Union Station after a while. Today we went to Home Depot, Ace and Lowes where I learned that taking Aaron into a hardware store is like taking a two year old into a toy store. No matter how many times you tell them not to touch something, every time you turn around they have their fingers in something! We were standing in line today to check out at one of the stores and there were a lot of strobe lights at the register. Next thing I know my boss is pushing buttons to turn every one of them on. His explanation? "Well, I guess they shouldn't have made me wait in such a long line." By the way, we were only waiting in line behind one person. I was laughing pretty hard. Like I said, we had a great time!

My Yellow Hard Hat!

As a new person on site, I was required to wear a white hard hat on the construction site. This signified that I was a newbie who didn't know the safety rules. In other words, if I did something stupid, please teach me and don't fire me. After 30 days I get to wear a yellow hard hat like everyone else. I've been really looking forward to getting my yellow hard hat so when it didn't show up, I started to wonder. My 30 days were over at the beginning of this week so by the end of the week I began to suspect that someone had forgotten me. I asked Aaron who promptly got embarrassed and promised I would have it by the end of the evening. Sure enough, before I left work he let me pick out a hat! I chose the wide brim like everyone else on my crew wears. This is the hard hat that will stay with me the rest of my time at Kiewit!

Now That's Power Washing!

It's a Dirty Job, But Someone's Gotta Do It!

Fun with Sisters!

Amy, Bethany and I went to see Eclipse together this weekend. Going to the movies with my sisters is alway crazy. I'm pretty sure it's actually completely impossible to embarrass them. We had fun though. We all decided to wear our matching T-shirts from Forks that Mom and Dad got us on their trip. I have to say, that just made the experience even more fun. A good time was had by all!

Shopping for a Wedding Dress...

Yesterday my mom, grandma and my bridesmaids (Bethany, Amy and Cynthia) went shopping for a wedding dress. I don't think I realized how complicated this was going to be. Richard was the funniest man and he was in charge of helping us get started. After a tour of the story he took me to the flower girl section to pick out white shoes to wear while trying on dresses. Then he started pulling out dresses, bras, slips, tiaras and veils. He taught Bethany (my maid of honor) how to put everything on me and then she was tasked with getting me dressed. I have never seen so many clips, snaps, and zippers before. Let alone all that fabric! Bethany was great at figuring it all out. We were laughing pretty hard together in the dressing room though. When I would come out in each dress, Richard would use clips to make all the dresses fit. The smallest they had in store was a four and I'm smaller than a zero, so nothing fit in the slightest. Richard worked wonders with those clips. He would then run to find a matching veil and hair piece to put my hair up. We didn't find the dress, but not from lack of trying. We will probably head out tomorrow to keep looking. At least now I know what I'm looking for!

MSDS

This is an MSDS book. MSDS stands for Material Safety Data Sheet. It's a paper that tells about an item, how to handle it, things that could go wrong, composition, etc. I'm in charge of updating these really big books and it's a challenge. Every material that comes on site has an MSDS, including wood and whiteboard cleaner. It's not exactly a fun job, but someone has to do it!