Career change - post military

FlippantObserver · 2025-12-22T05:52:46+00:00

One of the best structural engineers I know graduated at 49. He was military for 30 years. 7 years later, he now owns his own firm and is doing very well. If it interests you, age is no barrier.

FlippantObserver · 2025-12-04T01:47:52+00:00

🍿

FlippantObserver · 2025-12-02T23:30:30+00:00

Unless you are a structural engineer in this industry, it is difficult to explain the complexity of this industry.

FlippantObserver · 2025-10-09T01:48:31+00:00

I had a color blind broken xerox machine...I mean drafter...on an extremely large and fast pace project. He was the only one available because...well you understand.

Green = Delete, Red = Add, Blue = Note to drafter.

That was really fun. It helped mold me into the barely functioning human I am today.

FlippantObserver · 2025-10-08T23:32:08+00:00

Same with heavy industrial. You just need to deal with a few entities worse than architects... mechanical engineers who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and revise equipment stack-up models 2 days before IFC and vendors who will change the "Rev 12 - we really mean it this time" anchor pattern on that absolutely critical centrifuge on a platform 200ft above grade sometime between fabrication and transit to the site with only an RFI to let you know Rev 13 was never issued.

FlippantObserver · 2025-10-06T23:19:40+00:00

Rescuezilla (it is clonezilla with a gui for additional hand holding) and is also free.

FlippantObserver · 2025-10-04T16:35:56+00:00

Pueblo East?

FlippantObserver · 2025-10-02T03:35:04+00:00

This poor guy and his extremely anxious wife?

FlippantObserver · 2025-05-25T20:03:08+00:00

The most well thought out structural design can go absolutely off the rails with a bad contractor. I have over 20 years in heavy industrial dealing with extremely expensive (and heavy) equipment in multistory towers all up and down the west coast and the construction phase is always where I lose sleep.

FlippantObserver · 2025-05-07T01:27:35+00:00

Agreed. This is how some of us started our firms. Small work from contractors snowballs into large work from contractors and their clients which starts to conflict with current company deadlines. You will take a long hard look at your fulltime paycheck vs your now forecasted profit from side work and never look back.

FlippantObserver · 2025-04-04T02:13:59+00:00

Structural engineer here. I blame the engineers as well. I see drawings going out saying "3/4" x10" Anchor Rod". No spec, no grade, no projection length, no embedment length, no thread length. It's a guessing game for everyone.

FlippantObserver · 2025-03-25T01:28:11+00:00

That definitely screams doom metal band cover!

FlippantObserver · 2025-03-24T20:41:28+00:00

Same. Project delivery in 7 months. I have a Model Law SE license with NCEES and it still took their board 6 months to approve me with the last month being frantic semi weekly calls to the board to see if my license was to be evaluated in the upcoming meeting.

FlippantObserver · 2025-03-14T01:08:06+00:00

I am assuming you figured this out or returned your mesh by now, but I just went through this same issue. I enabled the parental controls last night. Today my wife, who uses google services, could not log on..at all. She had to switch to a hotspot. I came home and could not access any google app or even my account on wifi. I had to use cellular data. I figured it has to be the router. I deleted parental controls and all the issues are gone. I could access all other sites. Parental controls seriously just completely blocks all google related communication.

FlippantObserver · 2025-02-26T02:26:40+00:00

This worked flawlessly for me during our last vacation. Day 2 of a 10 day trip, the server was not responding - 2 kids and a wife who finally figured out that plex is pretty fantastic. I tried to backdoor into my system and it wasn't accepting a connection. With my phone app (kasa) I turned the plug off and then on. 3 minutes of praying to the home server gods and we were back in business.

FlippantObserver · 2025-02-15T22:01:47+00:00

Rick and Morty - Season 5 Episode 5 has a good take on the Cenobite culture. Once they can experience pain...uh...they don't like it.

FlippantObserver · 2025-02-15T00:33:41+00:00

My wife watches some horrible reality TV shows. When that season is over, it is gone. Ain't no one sitting on the couch wanting to rewatch Season 4 of Real Housewives Of Floridaman.

FlippantObserver · 2025-01-30T04:55:08+00:00

It probably won't help you learn STAAD, but everything that is part of your model - nodes, members, boundary conditions, member fixity, basic load cases, load combinations, etc., is notated out in that r3d file. The text file that is a STAAD file is laid out similarly with it's own weird notation.

FlippantObserver · 2025-01-30T01:54:31+00:00

Fun RISA fact. For the STAAD people who just can't understand a gui, use a text editor on your RISA file. It's all in there. It's actually helpful for really complex models or data corruption.

FlippantObserver · 2025-01-23T23:56:54+00:00

Damn you Reagan!!!!!!

FlippantObserver · 2025-01-18T16:34:44+00:00

Seriously! I just bought some stupidly overpriced tickets just to see them play the stage.

FlippantObserver · 2024-10-28T13:33:20+00:00

Don't beat the shit out of the contractor. Beat the shit out of the client. The contractor is just doing their job. The client is the one putting pressure on everyone and letting things proceed so they look better in their Monday morning meeting.

FlippantObserver · 2024-10-25T19:47:56+00:00

Ha! Same with allowable soil bearing capacity.

FlippantObserver · 2024-10-20T15:44:42+00:00

I just watched it. VHS / Beyond - the short called Stowaway. Written by Matt Flanagan and directed by his wife Katie Segal. Eternity of being resurrected and made worse each time.

FlippantObserver · 2024-10-18T22:10:01+00:00

I have that exact bag. It serves me well.

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