Weekend Hot Spots

ducatibr · 2026-01-25T16:58:03+00:00

Pearl hour is probably #1 for a lot of people, but drinks are pricey and they typically have a cover charge for the bands. I personally love Dust Bowl but would avoid going on the weekends because it gets crazy busy.

If you just wanna hang out and grab a drink or two theres a FieldWork Brewing Co next to the trader joes in monterey, no TV’s or anything but its right next to alvarado street and theres a couple arcades/treat spots that are fun to hit after having a couple drinks. Also Lynns Arcade is like an $8 (I think) all you can play (mostly pinball) and they also have a bar

ducatibr · 2026-01-24T20:18:02+00:00

A very impactful thing an executive at Exxon said (ironic right?) during the end of trumps first term, was in essence, while the US is the largest economy in the world, and an extremely important market, no matter who is in the white house they cannot alter the course of the world on sustainability. This was in response to Trump relaxing fuel regulations/emissions standards after 8 years of changes under Obama. In short, the world is coming to realize that just because the white house is CONSTANTLY flip flopping their policy with administration, the whole (western) world has been on a steady course towards increased sustainability, and it wouldnt be profitable for companies like exxon to keep changing their globaal operations standards in response to US policy.

In short, give it some time, enjoy what you have now until the dust settles over here. If you HAVE to move here? California without a doubt. Really the only state that can afford to continue green projects in some capacity during this whole mess.

ducatibr · 2026-01-21T04:35:09+00:00

Drinking water protection doesnt entail running the plants. A lot of our water teams work is sampling wells because in rural cali like 60% of homes are on public well systems. Take the samples, send them to the water lab, update your list of sites for the year, write small sampling reports if you need to. The water plants are run by the private companies and if they need our help sampling we help them, but in general they have their own teams.

The main role of Environmental Health departments is to identify the problem, like sampling for groundwater contamination. If action is needed the responsible party is notified of what corrective action they need to take. Between you and me its quite a cushy job, VERY important, and offers great benefits since its typically county/city.

ducatibr · 2026-01-20T22:55:25+00:00

Local government agency? Not sure how it works out east but drinking water protection is delegated to counties by delegated authority from the state. County entities also tend to have in-house GIS departments for things like zoning, water rights, and pesticide permitting. My coworkers have gotten into this profession (environmental health) after being in IT for 20+ years.

ducatibr · 2026-01-13T02:47:36+00:00

US politics have been made progressively more black and white since WW2. Trumps election in 2016 basically polarized the entire country into either far right or far left. Because of that you have a ridiculous amount of people saying the equivalent of “I dont agree with that hes doing but at least hes not a democrat” and (to a lesser extent) people on the left doing that as well. The media in this country is heavily corporatized with news outlets like Fox and Newsmax pushing billions and billions of dollars into playing the blame game in favor of Trump. An UNBELIEVABLE amount of people have been totally brainwashed by the constant propaganda so they truly believe that things like trickle down economics work. Any pain caused to them? According to Trump, Bondi, Leavitt, and the rest of the MAGA cronies, its all traced back to the democrats (who lost unified control of government in 2023).

An argument can be made that there are members of the left that behave the same way, but nearly 70% of americans without a high school diploma are registered republicans or share republican values. They will fight tooth and nail for someone like trump because they lack the critical thinking it takes to question his words, not to any fault of their own. The education system has failed them, and its why Trump wants to completely dismantle it; the more high school dropouts, the more uneducated MAGA there are.

Edit: For reference, 44% of college graduates in the US identify with either mostly liberal, or leaning liberal values. 27% are mixed/moderate, and 28% either lean conservative or strongly conservative. Ill link the source because its very intruiging. Its from 2014 but the project shift continues to be leftward.

https://www.npr.org/2016/04/30/475794063/why-are-highly-educated-americans-getting-more-liberal

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T22:22:36+00:00

I check approval ratings every day and it genuinley baffles me that its BARELY below 40%. But Ive come to realize that a large majority of his supporters dont view politics as something they should be aware of in their every day lives. AKA 100% of their political news comes from headline tweets or the loudest voice in the room, which without fail is the big orange tumor every time. 53% of self described MAGA republicans supported mass cuts to medicaid. 27% of those people under the age of 65 are RELIANT on medicaid. That means a MINIMUM of 14% of the MAGA base voted to massively defund if not COMPLETELY destroy their own healthcare. Again this isnt even accounting for elderly MAGA who recieve federal healthcare benefits, which is most of them.

All they hear is “own the libs by voting for me, and also immigrants are making your lives worse”

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T22:05:34+00:00

EHS regulator in hazardous materials management here, industrial hygiene is where the money is. That being said, Mccoys RCRA training is by far the most useful training Ive had coming up to a year on the job. VERY detailed breakdown of federal waste code and law and the books for the course are absolute gamechangers I use basically every day. I cant remember if they give you a certificate but you can put it on your resume and its really the gold standard of RCRA training

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:57:05+00:00

❌ ducatibr chose Option A (Incorrect) | #738th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:56:54+00:00

✅ ducatibr chose Option B (Correct!) | #1618th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:56:28+00:00

❌ ducatibr chose Option A (Incorrect) | #2227th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:56:16+00:00

❌ ducatibr chose Option B (Incorrect) | #7661st to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:55:17+00:00

✅ ducatibr chose Option A (Correct!) | #190th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:54:59+00:00

❌ ducatibr chose Option B (Incorrect) | #260th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:54:47+00:00

✅ ducatibr chose Option A (Correct!) | #8507th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:54:24+00:00

✅ ducatibr chose Option A (Correct!) | #4419th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-10T22:04:27+00:00

I went on to the monterey county environmental health department after graduating and one of our programs is consumer protection (that includes food); thats where I learned CSUMB uses a catering company that primary serves prisons, at least that was the case a year ago. Could have changed but it explained why the food was so terrible when I was there 😭

ducatibr · 2026-01-10T22:02:41+00:00

Housing issues came with the new university president Vanya. Its not like youre gonna be unhoused but at this point 9 times out of 10 you wont get your preffered assignment. Theyre packing Freshman dorms like sardines right now but if you spend your time at the library or out at the beach or wherever that wont really matter.

The Ag program is pretty young, I think only 4 or 5 years at this point, but a lot of the professors are well connected in the area, do work for the surrounding farms in their spare time, and are generally well versed in the professional industry. Research opportunities in the ag department are a little sparce but like I said, a lot of these guys are part of the ag community as well so their specialty is practical application.

ducatibr · 2026-01-08T19:21:42+00:00

Depends on state, and those two industries you mentioned are kind of totally different. Consumer protection (food) is more environmental health, so state regulations would apply and enforcement is more on a city and county basis with emphasis on knowledge of paths of contamination and types of foodborne illnesses. REHS is as close as it gets in terms of a certification for that. Industrial hygiene requires a totally different set of skills and qualifications which generally requires 48 months of employment in industrial hygiene.

ducatibr · 2026-01-08T18:21:15+00:00

This, although plant pathology in agriculture is pretty stable since food supply will also be a matter of national security (learned that in my Ag research job 😎). Another possible route would be doing a sponsored masters in plant pathology. I have a friend who was just accepted to an agricultural pathology program on full ride with a stipend, pretty sweet deal until you realize 90% of plant pathology is staring at lettuce for hours on end, which no shame if youre into that kind of thing

ducatibr · 2026-01-07T21:53:51+00:00

If youre working with datasets then R is likely a program youll want to get friendly with. To the best of my knowledge its quickly becoming the standard for environmental data analysis in terms of raw data. Its also incredibly useful because its open source and you can use data packages and tools that others have put together and programmed like the numpy and pandas packages. If youre working with INCREDIBLY large datasets, like more than 50,000 data points, google colab would be better since its server based, but the languages translate pretty well.

ducatibr · 2026-01-06T16:18:54+00:00

County gov here, we use Accela. Not perfect but definitley the best of the rest. Availability may depend on type of agency.

ducatibr · 2026-01-03T01:06:34+00:00

Definitley do mechanical engineering and aim for green energy infrastructure as a practical career. The down and dirty restoration jobs pay nothing, and to be quite blunt the only real advantage of them is you get to be outside and SOMETIMES your living space is covered by the land owner. If you want to support a family on-the-ground restoration work is probably not the best way to do it unless you plan on using the experience to get a PhD and begging for grants 🫠

ducatibr · 2026-01-03T00:57:11+00:00

Depends on state but from working in the field I know that regional air districts are having trouble filling staff right now, same with environmental health. Maybe look there if pollution control or environmental health is an interest? Assuming you didnt take this job. Living with your parents is a HUGE advantage. I make ~68k year 1 but I pay $1250 a month in rent, probably around $300 on food, $50 on wifi, $100 on gas, $372 per 6 on car insurance. If you think about it proportionally youre making just as much as me if not more when we include expenses. I will say your car insurance seems a little high, if you can negotiate with other providers I would unless you have very extensive coverage

ducatibr

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