Doing Work in NYC

I can't believe I'm already halfway through the fourth week of being a "for real" engineer in New York. It doesn't seem like I've been gone that long, and it doesn't seem like this is a permanent thing yet, either. I still feel as if I'll be heading back to school in a month. I'm excited about having a career, but also bummed I don't get to be a student and just hang out. This picture to the right shows my office building location at 1375 Broadway, just at the corner of 37th Street and Broadway. It's kind of in the heart of Midtown Manhattan - which is the heart of New York. I'm basically experiencing everything New York City has to offer every day before and after work.

I've been getting opportunities to travel downtown close to the Financial District for work to attend Pre-Proposal Meetings for CDM. Basically all this means is that I show that CDM is interested in a job, and take notes at the meetings so that we can write a proposal of what they want us to provide them with. Just this past week I went to a meeting for the City of New York and the picture to the right shows an image of where the meeting was held. It was a cool building, even though it was a little intimidating. Oh well. All is well. Other than that, things have been pretty normal, so to say. Christine and I walked around Manhattan over the weekend, and ran in Central Park, which is always fun. We came across this great Grilled Cheese place called Say Cheese! on the Upper West Side. It is a place that Emily, Keller, Christine, myself, and Keller's sister Ellen went to a few years ago and it was that good. Hopefully when Emily comes up we'll try it out again.

Shout out to the Kriegers who celebrated the birth of their first child, Colin, this past week!

Doing Work

Updates from New York Recently:
Nothing.
I've gotten into that mode where nothing new or exciting has been going on. I have another meeting down in the Financial District by Wall Street on Friday of this week, so that's somewhat exciting news. Work is finally starting to feel like I'm making a difference/doing some real engineering work. I enjoy the office a lot, and I'm starting to feel like I'm making some friends and fitting in with the group. This past Monday, I attended an Engineers Without Borders meeting that was held in our office. This group is a group of Engineers of any discipline from around New York City that is interested in helping out communities throughout the world that are not as fortunate as people in the United States. The New York chapter is sponsoring a trip to a community in San Salvador to design and construct some sort of water treatment and water distribution system. I'm glad I was invited to come to this meeting - and look forward to helping out any way I can in order to bring clean water to this community in great need.

Jersey Coast

I didn't quite expect moving to the busiest city on earth would involve me traveling a relaxing beach within the first week of moving here. But, as you can see in the pictures, I made it to the New Jersey beaches this weekend. Christine's aunt and uncle live in Shrewsbury, NJ which is about 15 minutes from a really nice public beach. I left Penn Station in New York on Friday - which was an interesting trip in itself. Penn Station was by far the craziest station (train or plane) that I've ever been in in my life. They don't announce the terminal of the train you have to take till about 5 minutes before the train is supposed to leave, so people start running and pushing their way to the gate once it is announced. It's pandemonium!

We relaxed on the beach all day-it seemed like the first time we got to relax together since graduation in June. It's nice to have an exit from such a crazy place when we need it, plus Christine's aunt and uncle and her cousins are really nice and were very accommodating. Life on the East Coast has been very enjoyable so far!

Living the Medium Life

I'm finally all settled in to my apartment in Weehawken.  As you can tell from the picture, Christine and my mom did a good job of "girling" the place up and making it more homey.  I'm hesitant to think of what it would look like if I would have been left up to set it up.  The move up here was a little stressful and sad; leaving almost everything behind in Cincinnati wasn't easy.  Tears were shed as mom and dad left, but I'm confident that this is where I'm supposed to be right now in my life.  It was a little overwhelming at first to work in arguably the busiest city in the world, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of public transportation and city life.  There's so much to do everywhere you look, it's hard not to find something that suits you.  Work is good, and I feel like it will be a really good company to stay with, maybe even for my career!  CDM is a global company, so it would definitely allow me to travel and still work for them.  I miss everyone back home, and I can't wait to see everyone again!  I'll keep this updated pretty regularly, so check back every few days and I'll let you know what is going on up in the Big Apple!!

 For those who haven't seen yet, this is mine and Christine's "Engagement Picture"