The idea of being a mentor, comes from the character with the same name in Homer’s Odessey, where Mentor has a teaching, encouraging, and oversight relationship with Telemachus, Odysseus’s son. The English language adopted the term to mean (via Wikipedia): Mentor: someone who imparts wisdom to and shares knowledge with a less experienced colleague. The …
Tag Archives: Civil Engineering
Sustainable Civil Engineering
Earth day is just around the corner, and it is important that we make sustainable choices in the areas that we have influence in. I’m a big advocate of sustainable #engineering, and it is an area that I have some influence in, to the point where almost all of the major projects I work on …
Future Floods in Calgary?
The City of Calgary and many surrounding communities have recently experienced severe flooding, and there are several questions that engineers need to ask as the clean up is underway: how big was the flood, how frequently can we expect a flood that big, is this because of climate change, how likely is it that we …
Lifecycle Project Costs
I see a lot of new engineering technologies that have been developed in an attempt to better solve old problems. And I see a lot of people buying into these technologies because of the sticker price. I’m ashamed to say that even engineers are suckers for a “bargain” sometimes – without taking into consideration the …
Why I Write
Image by urbanworkbench via Flickr Writing is part of my daily routine, I write a lot, both for work and for myself. Being an engineer and a writer seems to be a contradiction to most people, as though the hard analytical mind of an engineer can simply not operate in a creative endeavor such as …
Simplicity
My whole life is surrounded by technology that has been discovered or invented in the past 50 years. I am a product of Generation-X, the epitome of consumerism. I love and want more technology, I crave the latest gadget, I consume therefore I am. But really, I am a poor example of a consumer, I …
Stormwater Design
Stormwater design is one of the most critical components of urban engineering. Unfortunately in Canada there is no national standard of design principals used by municipalities or approval jurisdictions. I come from Australia where there is a national standard called Australian Rainfall and Runoff that is published by Engineers Australia. Here in Canada, it seems …
Phone Funnies
The first days back at work can be a struggle after a holiday, and it was a good one, lots of family time, hiking, enjoying Spring and seeing the wonders of the Canadian Rockies. Lots of photos here and still more to come over the next couple of weeks. This morning I had a joyful …