Sunday, 27 May 2007, 2:56 pm
Hello Again! The last time I sent out one of these emails was exactly two months ago this day. Two months ago I was still in school, not really thinking much about finals and just enjoying life. Many things have happened and I would like to highlight a few events.
My last semester went well for me. I took all my finals and ended up doing pretty well in most of my classes and projects. For one of my engineering classes, we designed and engineered a luxury hotel and that project was a lot of fun. I also got involved in some different engineering societies to help further my experiences. One group that I really like is the Institute for Transportation Engineers and another group on campus is the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Following finals week, I stayed in Utah working at BYU and training some new employees before I left. I also had the opportunity to listen to Dick Cheney speak at the BYU Convocation. The lease on my apartment ended the day of graduation and so I was lucky that some friends let me stay with them for a few days. I stayed in American Fork for the first weekend and then spent the next week in Salt Lake City. It was very fun staying in Utah. I was able to go up American Fork Canyon and see the beautiful valley up there, and also to enjoy the energy of downtown Salt Lake City with the large buildings, fine dining and the company of good friends.
After staying in Utah, I drove home to California. The weather was fantastic and being able to spend some time with my family was great. I was able to go into San Francisco about four times and also into the Davis / Sacramento area a few times also. I spent most of my time fixing things around the house and applying for different jobs. Everything was moving pretty slow until Thursday May 17th when I was offered two jobs making pretty good money and then Friday morning another company called and offered me a job. With so many options I had to make a decision.
PSI a nation wide company called and offered me job working Salt Lake City. They needed more help with one of the coolest projects I could ever imagine working on at such a young age. They are working on the City Creek Project which is a billion dollar project in downtown Salt Lake City. They have purchased three city blocks and they are going to build a massive mall and five high rise towers. Well… Let me continue with the timeline. I like the project and how much they wanted to pay me and so Sunday I drove out to Utah.
Monday afternoon I went into the project office which is on the 8th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in downtown Salt Lake. I was given a tour and had some paperwork to fill out. The next morning at 6:45 am I reported to work. At the moment I am commuting from Provo but hopefully I will be able to find housing in Salt Lake.
A little more about the project. They are currently demolishing the existing buildings and parking structures on what is known as “Block 76.” We are digging a huge pit so we can build the foundation and also a five story parking garage that will be completely underground. They are also preparing the Key Bank Tower for demolition. The tower is 20 stories tall and they will be imploding it on August 18th. If any of you want to watch, you should come. I am functioning as a field engineering inspecting different elements of construction. It is very cool to be working with so many cool people on a very high profile and a complex project such as this.
There is so much work to be done. Last week alone, I worked over 70 hours and that will probably be the same throughout the whole summer. PSI wants me to work during the school year, but I think it will be too hard to manage school and commuting to Salt Lake for work. But it has been a very exciting week and should only get better. This project will also take about five years to complete, so I am pretty much guaranteed work for the next five years.
So that is what I am up to at the moment. I have also included some pictures.
Canyon – We went up American Fork canyon. It was beautiful. Camille (center) lived at my apartment complex during the school year and her parents live near Elise (who I was staying with after school was out).
City Creek – This is a rendering of the project. It is too hard to explain all the different buildings and things that currently there and what is going to be built, but yellow and red buildings are all going to be new. We are building five high rises one which will be over 40 stories tall and two others that are around 30 stories tall. It will be very fun to watch this all go up. And for those who are familiar with Salt Lake, this is happening right in front of Temple Square off of South Temple and Main Street.
Cooking – One of the last meals before school got out. In the other picture, you will see the dessert that they made.
Friends – This is Camille and Elise again with me poking my head in the background.
Karaoke – This was also some time during the last week of school. Some time in December we had an auction and I purchased a meal prepared by my Bishop’s wife. So we went and had a great evening with some authentic Polynesian food and some Karaoke. That is Jaime and myself rocking out to one of our favorite songs.
San Francisco – I was only in California for one Sunday. That was mothers day. I had a speaking assignment in church that morning and that afternoon we went into the bay area. It was very pretty.
Yummy – This is the dessert that girls made. It was really good.
So that is a “brief” update on my life. I guess I could go into many more details but I will spare that for the moment. This summer will be fantastic and I am very excited to be studying Engineering and just to be going to school.
Oh… I also made a website during the school year. I bought the website and loaded some attempts of webpages on to it. I will make a public announcement of it once it is ready.
Have a great holiday weekend and I will chat with you later!
Farook