Meet Virginia

Some people have told me that my first post, Monsters Inc., was the Kitty Hawk for structural engineers finding a voice in America.  But others might try and correct me - "But Trace, we all watched and loved season 1 of Prison Break before you even entered a college classroom."

And you're right.  Michael Scofield was pretty bad ass.

But I'd say that seasons 2-4 turned America against structural engineers a la Trump to the GOP.  It was time to re-find that voice.  I'd like to think that STLLT may have prepped America for a reboot of Prison Break in 2016.  You're welcome.

So in the spirit of giving structural engineers their voice, this will be the first of a few posts that are slabs that look like things found by other engineers.  I don't have quite as much to write about their discovery - since I didn't discover them - but I have my thoughts regardless.

STLLT Submission #1:

This first one comes from Katelin.  Remember her?  She basically trained me at my job for my first few months.  She is also responsible for 2 of my 4 most regrettable days at work:

1) First, she challenged me to a donut eating time trial.  Ugh.

2) Then she challenged me to eating the leftover sugar from a giant tub of Sour Patch Kids in one gulp.  Nasty!

3) I didn't need to be challenged to have 3 shaved ices on shaved ice day.  That misery I brought on myself.

4) And finally Jeff, another coworker, challenged me to shave my beard into a mustache and bleach it for the holidays.  Wait, nix that one from this list.  No regrets there.

After I discovered Sully's face on my Park Lane project, she was one of the first people I showed.  We loved it.  Then she broke the news that Sully's face was not the first ever slab to look like a thing.  Similar to the Columbus being bested by Leif Erikson, I had been beaten to being the first to discover something great.  I swallowed my pride and asked to see the slab.  Katelin and another engineer had discovered a slab that had an eerie resemblance to Gumby.  As a purist, I would never adulterate a slab (red markings) to make it look more like something, but I didn't have control of the picture.  My apologies.  But it's pretty good, huh?  I think their title is "Gumby in a Bikini."

Some you are wondering, "Trace, why is her slab so much more colorful than yours?  I like it."  Good question.  And I do too.

That slab shows anticipated slab 'deflections' - or how much we think the concrete floors will dip after say...5 years.  It's something we calculate often.  If you lived in that purple zone, over the course of several years, you may find yourself sliding into your window.  Not good.  But don't worry, this slab got fixed.

STLLT Submission #2:

Another submission came from my coworker Zack.  Zack is from North Carolina and found his way to Seattle by means of Texas, but somehow doesn't have any accent.  I once told my coworker, Sarah, that Zack and I are pretty much the same person.  She retorted - "Um, you look nothing alike, and you have completely different personalities.  So no.  You're not."  Then I thought about it for a second, and she was right.  Why did I feel like Zack and I were the same guy?!  During karaoke at the MKA holiday after-party I found out.  King Kunta started playing and Zack and I both erupted singing along.  It was just the first of many songs we both sang when others stayed silent.

His submission required a judgment call on my part to see if it qualifies.  It does.  It's a snippet of internal forces within a slab.  The slab itself doesn't actually look like a thing, but its forces do.  That's cool in my book.  That slab's forces look like Zack's neighboring state of Virginia!

Strangely this slab that looks like a thing brought me back to a middle school memory.  It was my very first concert of my life.  My good friend, Ryan, and I bought tickets to see Matchbox Twenty at the world's greatest stadium: the Fargodome.  Opening for Matchbox Twenty was a little band named Train.  They just had their first big hit - Meet Virginia and I really liked that song.

Unfortunately that concert scared me from concerts for a long time afterward.  First off, it was really loud to my young ears.  And then there was that 50 year-old drunk guy next to us, who tried teaching us the art of checking out women without them realizing it - "See you gotta maintain eye contact for as long as possible, and then when they get close enough to break eye contact - BOOM! You check 'em out!"  Interesting enough, he was actually pretty bad at his own advice ogling every passing girl from a great distance.  Then two 30 year-old women sat on our laps, told us we were cute, kissed us on our cheeks, and then scrammed!  Obviously we were bragging about that afterward, but inside I was scared and didn't want to go to another concert.  But I never stopped liking that song.

So there's that.  I'm just trying to help structural engineers find their voice.  If you're reading this and want to submit your own slab that looks like a thing, just get in touch with me and we'll get it up there.  If not, just read, enjoy, and prep yourself for Prison Break.