Brian Brenner - Too Much Information Living The Civil Engineering Life (2015) PDF

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Brian Brenner, P.E.

Too Much
Information
Living the Civil Engineering Life
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Texas at San Antonio on 09/16/15. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Too Much
Information
Also by Brian Brenner
Don’t Throw This Away:

The Civil Engineering Life
Brenner reports on what it’s like to be
a civil engineer in the 21st century: the
mindset, the practice, the profession.
Equally skilled as a writer and an
engineer, Brenner ranges from serious
discussions of suburban sprawl,
technology run amok, and bridge
aesthetics to comical accounts of
packrat habits, quacking moments, and
engineering fashion. This entertaining
collection of essays displays Brenner’s
distinctive combination of quirky
humor and engineering “right stuff.”
(ASCE Press 2007)
Bridginess: More of the

Civil Engineering Life
Brenner turns his pen and signature wit
to the subjects of urban sprawl, airport
infrastructure planning, and, of course,
bridges. After reading this collection
of essays, you will know bridges from
more angles than a through truss. You
will think twice before placing a salad
on the roof of a car. And you will know
just what makes a truly great college
response letter. With his charming
and fluid style, Brenner makes civil
engineering funny, interesting, and,
at times, even glamorous.
(ASCE Press 2010)
Too Much Information

Brian Brenner, P.E.
Illustrations edited by
Ryan Marshall, E.I.T.
Foreword by
Stephen J. Ressler, Ph.D., P.E.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brenner, Brian R.
Too much information : living the civil engineering life / Brian Brenner, P.E. ; illustrations
edited by Ryan Marshall, E.I.T.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-7844-1394-4 (print : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7844-7903-2 (ebook) — ISBN 978-
0-7844-7904-9 (epub) 1. Brenner, Brian R. 2. Civil engineers—United States—Biography. 3.
Civil engineering—Anecdotes. 4. United States—Social life and customs—Anecdotes. I. Title.
II. Title: Living the civil engineering life.
TA140.B7284A3 2015
624.092—dc23
[B]
2015011096
Published by American Society of Civil Engineers

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Errata: Errata, if any, can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/9780784413944.
Copyright © 2015 by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 978-0-7844-1394-4 (print)
ISBN 978-0-7844-7903-2 (PDF)
ISBN 978-0-7844-7904-9 (EPUB)
Manufactured in the United States of America.
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
Cover credit: Illustration by Ryan Marshall, E.I.T.

For Lauren,
of excellent bridge dates

Looking forward to the next 30 years
Contents
Foreword, by Stephen Ressler ix
Roll the Maps 1

Googling Yourself 11
The Trouble with Invasive Species and Tribbles 16
My New Snow Blower 19
Disco Bridge 22
Friended by a Bridge 25
When I Was on Jeopardy 29
Too Much Information 34
Mathcad and S-E-X 48
Inappropriate Variables 50
How to Buy Presents, Engineer’s Edition 53
The Amazing Bridge Race, by Ryan Marshall 57
Gas Mileage 68
Columbo as a Bridge Engineer 72
Rhode Island 77
The Engineer’s Check 81
Pomelos 85
It’s the End of the World as We Know It 88
No Borders 92
Zip It 96
A Bridge Offer You Can’t Refuse 101
September 12 105
Cape in a Day 110
Cross-Country 116
Who’s on First: Bridge Edition 132
Holy Spanning Function, Batman! 134
Engineering Valentine’s Day 137
You Do It, and Then It’s Done 140
School’s Out 143
Raising the Bridge 146
The Short List 150
Return to Dulles 153
Riverside 156
The Red and the Blue 159
Aging and Infrastructure 162
Number One, Baby! 164
The Bridges of Dallas 168
A Human Bridge at the Super Bowl 172
You Need Brain Surgery 175
Proposing on a Bridge 178
Slope Stability of Pretzel Bags 184
Horizontal versus Vertical Construction 186
Giant Pumpkin 192
When You Don’t Know Enough to Google 195
Acknowledgments 201
Publishing Credits 204
About the Author 205
Foreword
Somehow, in this little book of essays, Brian Brenner has managed to

provide something for everyone. For the traveler, there’s a treatise on
the joys of old-fashioned maps—largely forgotten in the era of the global
positioning system. For the historically minded, Brian reflects on Con-
cord’s Old North Bridge and other unremarkable structures that, quite
by accident, became the backdrop for conflict, tumult, and controver-
sy. Gardening enthusiasts will learn about growing giant pumpkins. If
you’re nostalgic for old-fashioned amusement parks, there’s an essay for
you, too. No doubt, the behavioral scientist will appreciate Brian’s hys-
terical reflection on the psychological effects of receiving praise from
one’s automobile. And for residents of northern climates, a cautionary
tale on the perils of engaging the “hyperdrive” setting on that new snow
blower.
There is much here to delight the engineer as well. Indeed, broad
as his appeal might be, Brian never lets us forget that he is a bridge engi-
neer, nor does he understate his love for his chosen profession. Even in
his nonengineering essays, we receive delightful tidbits about historical-
ly significant spans and unexpected insights into the engineering profes-
sion from an insider’s perspective.
Perhaps Brian’s greatest contribution in writing this book is to defy
the stereotype of the engineer as uninteresting, humorless, and uncom-
municative. In doing so, he honors us all.
In short, Too Much Information is not too much information at all.
—Stephen Ressler, P.E., Ph.D.

Roll the Maps

The other night, I was peacefully reading in the bedroom. Lauren walked
in and laughed.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked indignantly.
She pointed to what I was reading. It wasn’t a book. It was a map.
I’ve always enjoyed reading maps, and not just to find out where
I’m going. I can open a map and stare at it for hours. I imagine the places
on the map and the people who live there. I wonder what the roads look
like, and the mountains, and the rivers and lakes. I am fortunate to have
a natural sense of direction, and my enjoyment of maps reinforces this.
I look at maps and then understand how a place is laid out, with what
going where. Then when I finally get to visit the place, I know exactly
where I am.
Many, many years ago, gas stations used to hand out free maps.
This was a complimentary service, like free air for your tires or squee-
gees for your windshield. Growing up, my friends and I used to raid the
gas stations of all their maps. We were juvenile delinquents in a very
limited, low-rebellion, nerdy, not-particularly-overly-disturbing kind of
way. After we absconded with the maps, I had a stash providing hours
of reading material. There was a lot to see. There was New England in
all its exotic, remote glory, with towns named Berlin and Florida and
Norway. According to the maps, a strange foreign country resided just
to the north of the United States. The country had many similarities and
could have been just another state, although a very big state. But this
strange country was very different, with French-speaking residents and
vast expanses of wilderness. At some point even farther north, the maps
just stopped. This was the edge of civilization—no people but only ice
and polar bears.
Living the Civil Engineering Life 1

Eventually, I decided that actual maps weren’t good enough, so as
a boy I made my own. I drew imaginary landscapes with cities, penin-
sulas, forests, capital cities, and rivers. Then after drawing the maps, I
imagined what it must be like to visit the places. They didn’t actually
exist, but it seemed like they should. I could picture them.
Fortunately, no one learned about my youthful map delinquency
phase (until now), and I grew up to be a responsible adult. Lauren and I
were thinking about a Canadian vacation. Using a legitimate approach,
I got some maps of the Canadian Maritime provinces. Reading these
maps brought me back to my childhood. I imagined travel to the edge
of civilization, which was somewhere in that strange northern country
of Canada. Previously, I had never been north of Montreal or east of
Bar Harbor. According to the maps, there were additional places to the
north and east of these cities that I had never seen. But they were there.
They were on the maps. There was Quebec, with its vast river and inter-
esting bridges. There was Nova Scotia, with the relatively large city of
Halifax and interesting harbor suspension bridges.
The province of New Brunswick seemed to be like Maine, but it
had all sorts of quirks like the world’s biggest tides and a magnetic hill.
On the magnetic hill, you took your foot off the brakes and the car went
uphill, defying the laws of gravity. East of New Brunswick, across a large,
interesting bridge, was beautiful Prince Edward Island. The island was
out in the ocean, but not really—it extended offshore into the Gulf of
Saint Lawrence, which on the map was either a gulf or a very wide river.
I wondered what it would be like driving north of Montreal along
the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. As you were driving, at what
point did that wide river no longer qualify as a river but become a gulf?
It was probably a subtle thing. You would be driving along and could see
the far shore, but then you couldn’t. Once the shore receded, it would
be like driving next to the sea. The Saint Lawrence is in the province
of French Quebec, and all of the maps were mostly in French. So you
didn’t even drive next to a river, but next to a “fleuve.” I found something
about driving next to a “fleuve” very appealing, almost in the same way
that I like the word “abutment.” You could imagine that a bubbling river
mimicked the pleasing sound of the word “fleuve,” in the same way that
a “croissant” is imagined to be a flaky pastry, or a “pamplemousse” is
imagined to be a grapefruit.
2 Too Much Information

On my virtual map journey, I imagined driving northeast from
Montreal along the banks of the fleuve. At the halfway point between
Montreal and Quebec was another city that I knew nothing about—
Trois Rivières. I wondered why it was named “Trois Rivières” and not
“Trois Fleuves.” At this location along the Saint Lawrence was the only
fixed river crossing between Montreal and Quebec City. In the distant
past, before the Internet and indoor plumbing, my imagination would
have stopped at this point. But armed by modern technology, I was able
to Google information about the bridge. It was named the Laviolette
Bridge, and it turned out to be a graceful, overdeck arch truss, with
nicely proportioned approach spans. This 1960s design suffered from
a serious construction accident in which a caisson flooded and 12 con-
structors perished. The accident evoked memories of the great historic
tragedy of the Quebec Bridge disaster farther downstream (Figure 1).
My map journey took me farther north, to Quebec City with its
fortified walls and the giant cantilever bridge. The wide river narrows at
this point, and it was an ideal location for a bridge crossing. The Quebec
Bridge is iconic not just because it is still the world’s longest cantilever
truss span. The bridge suffered from two tragic accidents during con-
struction. Study of the events leading to the tragedies is recommended
for all bridge engineers.
Figure 1. Laviolette Bridge, Quebec

Source: Photo by John White, <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laviolette_Bridge.jpg>
(Feb. 27, 2015)

Maritime Canada is graced with many excellent bridges. To the east,
Nova Scotia has two of Canada’s biggest suspension bridges crossing the
harbor in Halifax. The province consists of a land mass that projects out
into the Atlantic Ocean. With all of that water surrounding everything,
there were lots of spanning opportunities for good bridges. The north-
ern section of the province, Cape Breton, is not part of the mainland,
but is an island separated by the Strait of Canso. My map showed one
fixed crossing point, Highway 104 at Port Hastings. I suspected that the
highway crossed the strait on a bridge, and what a monumental bridge
it must be! The strait was like a fjord, a mile wide and deep. The struc-
ture would be more than a mile long, crossing the icy, windswept strait.
Heroic engineering must have been called upon to design and build
such a structure.
I was right about the heroic engineering part, but interestingly
there was no monumental bridge. The crossing is a rock causeway. It
was constructed starting in 1952. Earlier plans considered cantilever
truss bridges like the Quebec Bridge, but these never came to be because
of the World Wars. After World War II, the North American economy
ramped up, and the two ferries could no longer handle the traffic. The
solution was to fill the strait with a mound of boulders. The causeway
includes both a railroad track and a two-lane highway. Like an iceberg,
only the top of the rock pile extends above water. Below is a large moun-
tain of rocks. The artificial land connection is not complete. At the north
end is a short swing span bridge for boats. So Cape Breton Island offi-
cially remains an island (Figure 2).
I enjoyed visiting Nova Scotia on paper. But of all the maritime
Canadian places, Newfoundland seemed the most interesting. It was a
Figure 2. Canso Causeway

Source: Photo by Swampfoot, <http://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Canso_Causeway_Aerial_2007.jpg>(Feb. 27, 2015)

faraway place that you couldn’t drive to without going by ferry. New-
foundland (to be technically correct, the province of “Newfoundland
and Labrador”—Newfoundland is an island, and Labrador is part of the
mainland northeast of Quebec) seemed to be mostly populated by seals

and shorebirds. Maybe three or four people lived there, but that was it.
But the map suggested that the eastern edge of the island was the site of
a modestly big city, Saint John’s. The second largest city, Corner Brook,
wasn’t really a city but more like a large town. The map even indicated
some limited-access highways on this sparsely populated island.
From an infrastructure perspective, we should note that the height
of civilization can be measured by the number of freeway-to-freeway
interchanges. In a junction of limited-access highways, cars and trucks
travel from one to the other with no traffic lights or other impedances.
In California, Texas, and elsewhere, urban freeway-to-freeway inter-
changes are vast swooping affairs of multilevel viaducts and acres of
paved highways and structures. Many of these mega-interchanges are so
large that there is no room left for houses or buildings (Figure 3).
Figure 3. High Five Interchange, where U.S. Highway 75 intersects with

Interstate 635 I, Dallas
Source: Photo by David Herrera, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/56181704@N00/471801087/>
(Feb. 27, 2015)

So in urban Texas, all that remains is highway and lost cattle. Most
interchanges, however, are simple cloverleafs. The greater the number of
such interchanges, the more advanced the civilization.
Incredibly enough, distant, underpopulated Newfoundland had

its own freeway-to-freeway interchange, at the junctions of Highways
1 and 2. With help from Google, I could inspect the site. I zoomed on
an aerial view of the interchange, and there it was, not a full multilevel
facility, but a simple but graceful cloverleaf. The view didn’t show many
cars; that made sense because seals don’t drive. But it was definitely a
freeway-to-freeway interchange.
West of Saint John’s, the remote, seal-swept island seemed to
expand to a landscape of rolling majestic mountains, dense forests, and
fierce fjords. Most of the features had names that were pedestrian or
vaguely French-Canadian. But one place didn’t appear to have a French-
Canadian name at all. It was perhaps the most inappropriately named
town in North America, if not the world. Looking at the map, I did a
double and then a triple take. How was such a town name possible? The
poor people! Oh, the humanity!
A short digression: For English speakers, apparently there are many
inappropriately named settlements in North America and throughout
the world. For example, one can visit and snigger in a Pennsylvania
town named Intercourse. But that was nothing in comparison to this
Figure 4. A seal
Source: Photograph by Amanda Boyd, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, <http://commons
.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grey_seal_animal_halichoerus_grypus.jpg> (Feb. 27, 2015)

town in Newfoundland. Its name, which starts with “D,” is five letters
long, and rhymes with “Bildo,” is just too embarrassing and inappropri-
ate to be printed, and I will not do so here. One can barely imagine what
growing up in this vibrant Newfoundland town must be like. It must be

unusually stressful. One would suspect that the residents struggle with
their hometown identity.
Consider this scenario: A young man from this unnamed town is
making his way in the world. He travels to the big city to find his for-
tune, perhaps to Corner Brook, or Saint John’s, or even the big Canadian
Maritime apple itself, Halifax. He arrives in his best (and only) suit for
the interview, carefully arriving early so that he has time to brush off the
moose hairs and make himself presentable.
An attendant greets the young man: “Made it in time for your
interview, eh?”
The young man responds, shyly, “Yes indeed, eh?”
The attendant says, “Very well then. Let’s complete some paper-
work before we proceed to the corner office for your interview.” (Ref-
erence to the corner office in Corner Brook is simplified by use of the
following expression: “Corner2 Office Brook”.) The attendant scans the
young man’s application. “It looks like everything is in order. However,
one entry is missing. What town are you from?”
The young man looks on tight lipped, with a blank stare. He
responds, “I am from Dlsiuerlibug.”
“I’m sorry,” says the attendant, “I didn’t get that. Can you please
repeat it, eh?”
“Certainly,” says the young man, discretely moving the fingers of
his left hand back in front of his lips so that his voice again will be gar-
bled. “I am from Dlsiuerlibug.”
With the relentless march of technology has come a disturbing new
development: GPS. Now all cars and cell phones have GPS devices, and
no one needs maps. GPS provides step-by-step readouts of directions
from one place to another. With reasonable care in following the direc-
tions, it is hard to get lost.
Unfortunately, the GPS units are a bit bossy and anal, wanting you
to go a particular way without being very flexible about variations. If you
go off the path, the computer will wait a second or two as the satellite
relay catches up and the machine recognizes your transgression. Then
the GPS voice indicates that it is “recalculating,” and it provides new

instructions. Unfortunately, the word “recalculating” is typically spurted
by the computer in a condescending, nasal tone, as if the machine had
done all of this heavy thinking to plot out the route and you were too
much of a boob to follow such simple, childish directions.

The programming has improved with time, and I wondered if the
machines had egos. The other day, Lauren had both her car GPS and a
separate Garmin device active at the same time. But neither one pro-
vided information about traffic. Her smart phone did, so she turned it
on with Mapquest as well. For part of her drive, all three machines were
simultaneously blurting out directions.
One could only imagine what that sounded like:
Car GPS: “Lauren, turn RIGHT in 500 yards.”
Garmin: “You will turn right in 400 yards.”
Smart Phone Mapquest: “What foolish directions. Do not turn
right. Go straight in 300 yards.”
Car GPS: “No, Lauren, turn RIGHT in 300 yards.”
Garmin: “Are you really listening to those idiots?”
Smart Phone Mapquest: “Recalculating. Recalculating.”
Garmin (starting to lose its battery charge): “My mind is going
Dave. I can feel it. I can feel it. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do….”
And so on.
With the step by step of GPS and the general overall demise of
things printed on paper, maps are starting to become scarce and a thing
of the past. Soon, you will only be able to find paper maps in my child-
hood imagination drawer. And these won’t be maps of actual places. To
me, this is a sad development. GPS spoon-feeds disconnected pieces of
information, and you lose a fuller geographic understanding of a place
that you would otherwise get by reading real maps.
In Lauren’s and my favorite movie, Twister (well, really my favorite
movie, which Lauren watches because I like it), there is a scene where
the tornado-chasing team of scientists is camped out in a field with
cows. Distant thunderstorms roil the Oklahoma horizon, a portent of
bigger and badder things to come. Two of the storm chasers are discuss-
ing their maps.
One complains that the other is folding the maps incorrectly and
wrecking them. Annoyed, he says, “Look, all I’m saying is: Don’t fold
the maps.”

The second storm chaser says, “I didn’t fold the maps.”
The first storm chaser responds, “Yeah, well Kansas is a mess;
there’s a big crease right through Wichita. ROLL the maps.”
The movie wasn’t filmed all that long ago. But back then there was
no GPS, and the tornado chasers had to rely on maps. Now that technol-
ogy has advanced beyond the printed medium, I’m starting to miss the
good old days. On my next ride, hopefully alongside a fleuve, I’ll have
one of my ratty old maps unfolded in the passenger’s seat.
Garmin will exclaim, “Turn right in 400 yards.”
I’ll respond, “No, I don’t think so,” and I’ll toss Garmin out the
window. Garmin will land on the pavement with a thud, and in her last
breath, she will recalculate.
The Story of Dlsiuerlibug, Newfoundland, and Labrador

There is no definitive answer to how Dlsiuerlibug, Newfoundland,
received its name. (In keeping with the family standards of this pub-
lication, note that “Dlsiuerlibug” is not the actual name of the subject
town.) The area was named by European explorers in the 1700s. Some
report that “Dlsiuerlibug” was chosen by a Spanish sailor, but there are
no records, at least none that anyone is reporting. It is possible that the
name predates the current, slang definition. It doesn’t seem likely that
the town knowingly received its name based on the slang definition.
Figure 5. Official sign of Dlsiuer

libug, Newfoundland, and Labrador
Source: Photo by J. C. Murphy, <http://commons
.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DildoNewfoundland.jpg>
(Feb. 27, 2015)

So, the moniker, Dlsiuerlibug, became more notorious with time, as
opposed to a deliberate ploy to select a notorious name.
The town of Dlsiuerlibug is a small fishing village with about 1,200
residents. It is a very scenic place located on a beautiful inlet, Dlsiuer

libug Arm, which is just east of Spread Eagle Bay. (I am not making any
of this up. It is on the map. Look at the map.) Dlsiuerlibug Arm has a
shape that looks a bit like the slang definition of “dlsiuerlibug.”
Apparently, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has
many towns with unusual names. Embarrassed residents of several of
these towns voted to change the names. For example, “Silly Cove” was
renamed “Winterton,” and “Tickle Harbour” was renamed “Bellevue.”
That is really too bad, because who would not want to visit Silly Cove
or Tickle Harbour? In 1985, a “Dlsiuerlibug” town resident campaigned
to change the town’s name. But he failed to get the required 100 signa-
tures on his petition (seals were not included), and thus the matter never
came to a vote.
Since then, residents of the beautiful village have grown to accept
and even appreciate its provocative name. Tourism has been augmented
by the steady stream of visitors who want to take a picture by the road
signs to “Dlsiuerlibug” and then stop by to see what the fuss is all about.
Along with “F$#%%$!,” Austria, and “A##S,” France, “Dlsiuerlibug”
proudly remains for English speakers one of the world’s most inappro-
priately named places.

Googling Yourself
Maybe it was a long week. Your significant other was out of town or
shopping or cutting the grass. You were a little bit tired. And there it was,
beckoning. You turned down the lights a bit, poured a little Chablis in
the goblet, put on some soft music to set the mood. You whipped it out
(the laptop) and typed it in. You Googled yourself!
I was curious about the phenomenon of Googling yourself (i.e.,
typing your name in the search engine Google). To find out more, I
Googled “Googling yourself.” Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Egosurfing) provides a long list of synonyms:
1. egosurfing;
2. vanity searching;
3. egosearching;
4. egoGoogling;
5. autoGoogling;
6. self-Googling;
7. master-Googling, and, of course;
8. Googlebating.
According to the article, everyone does it, or at least 47% of all
Americans. Googling yourself may affect your eyesight. This is because
if you do it too much, the strain of looking at the screen can hurt your
eyes. So, clearly, self-Googling should be done in moderation. Some

think that if you Google yourself, hair will grow on your knuckles, but
this seems unlikely.
Not everyone can self-Google, at least, not to any satisfying con-
clusion. I have a colleague named John Smith (his actual name). When
I Googled “John Smith,” 2 million or so references appeared. None of
them referred to the John Smith that I know. If you have a distinct, spe-
cial name, Googling it may return no references at all. Or the Google
algorithm will somehow return something vaguely related but not really
related at all. I tried Googling the name “Bob Bobablinzki.” I’m not sure
if there even is someone named Bob Bobablinzki, but it seems like there
should be. Google did not accept the name, but insisted that I was really
interested in “Bob Babinski,” a well-known journalist in Montreal.
For the best self-Google, it helps to have a distinct name, not too
common but not too bizarre. Fortunately, my name is reasonably dis-
tinct, but not so unusual and not so common as “Bob Jones.” It seems
that there are a bunch of Brian Brenners around the United States.
The top Brian Brenner, according to Google, is not an actual per-
son. He is a character on an HBO TV series, The Newsroom. Mr. Brenner
was having an affair with MacKenzie McHale, but he dumped her. To
get revenge, MacKenzie started dating Will McAvoy, and then she had
another affair with Brian Brenner. Then they all broke up.
One of the most popular Brian Brenners is a performer from Ohio.
He is an Elvis impersonator. Mr. Brenner has a website that describes his
services (http://brianbrenner.com/):
Influenced by the Las Vegas Legends, Brian Brenner is a true
showman. With style and talent reminiscent of the great
Vegas headliners, Brian brings to the stage versatility, excite-
ment, and a dash of glitter.
This Ohio native is a Vegas singer who also does a little Wayne
Newton. In addition, he sings tributes to Tom Jones, Engelbert Hum-
perdinck, and Celine Dion (Celine Dion?). Mr. Brenner has toured all
over the United States, but his recent focus seems to be in Ohio. Interest-
ingly enough, Mr. Brenner and I have never been in the same room at
the same time.
Another prominent Brian Brenner lives in North Carolina. Mr.
Brenner is a real estate agent with some listings of beautiful properties in

the town of Cary, near Raleigh. I would consider buying a house listed
by Mr. Brenner. He has a trustworthy name.
Some other Brian Brenners include a tattoo artist, a sports coach,
and an orthopedic surgeon in California. I was pleased to learn that

when I selected the Google Image option, the pictures of Brian Brenners
were good looking, a lot more handsome than me. So the Internet Brian
Brenners were raising the bar in that category.
I wonder if there is a “fourth wall” in self-Googling, as there is on
stage. The fourth wall refers to an imaginary gap between the actors
and the audience. When you’re watching a play, it is understood that
the actors and audience are separate. The performers present a drama
before your eyes with all sorts of intimate detail and conversation.
But the mirage is that members of the audience are not actually there,
although of course they are. Some daring playwrights violate this illu-
sion by dragging the audience into the show. This is the premise at Ital-
ian Wedding dinner theater shows, where you are invited to be part of a
nutty family for an evening.
Therefore, in respect for the fourth wall, one should always self-
Google in private. But I thought that it would be interesting to break
the wall and contact my namesakes. So I e-mailed Brian Brenner, an
undergraduate student in Florida. I found Mr. Brenner’s contact infor-
mation on a website for a program called “HEROES.” Here is our e-mail
conversation:
Brian Brenner (me): I am a bridge engineer named “Brian
Brenner,” working north of Boston. I also teach at Tufts Uni-
versity, and I write engineering essays (I am pretty busy).
I’m working on a new collection of essays. One is entitled
“Googling Yourself.” It’s sort of self-explanatory.
As I was doing research, I encountered some interesting Brian

Brenners across the US, including an Elvis impersonator in
Ohio. I saw your name and thought I would contact you.
Some questions: What is “HEROES”?
Brian Brenner (the student): HEROES (Health and Education

through Research, Outreach, Empowerment, and Service) is a
club at the University of Florida that acts as a liaison between

various organizations in the Gainesville area that try to help
with various health disparities in our area. We also directly
volunteer with many of these organizations getting our mem-
bers involved in things like educating young people on proper

dietary plans, how to exercise, and how to just be a kid.
Brian Brenner (me): What are you planning to do with your

degree—grad school upcoming?
Brian Brenner (the student): I have plans on attending medi-

cal school in the future or pursuing a graduate degree in
some form of molecular biology as I am interested in cancer
research.
Brian Brenner (me): Even though you are not an engineering

student, do you still appreciate the Sunshine Skyway?
Brian Brenner (the student): I do appreciate the Sunshine Sky-

way it makes getting from St. Pete to Bradenton much easier
and it gives a pretty cool view of Tampa Bay. (Not bad fishing
either.)
From my brief interview, student Brian Brenner seemed like a nice
guy, smart and with a future. Googling myself got me thinking about
who the real Brian Brenner is. Are there other Brian Brenners so that
there can be multiple versions of Brian Brenner?
One morning while riding my exercise bike, I watched an episode
of the old, cheesy Stargate SG-1 TV series. In this episode, Teal’c, who
is an alien assisting the earthlings, starts to hallucinate that he is living
a different life. In this alternate life, Teal’c is a human fireman, not an
alien. He starts to get confused about reality—is the hallucination real
and reality a hallucination?
Following up on this theme, I wonder: Who is the real Brian
Brenner? Am I a bridge engineer from Massachusetts, married with
two kids? Or maybe I’m really a Las Vegas–style singer specializing
in Elvis impersonations, with occasional flourishes of Wayne Newton
and Celine Dion? Maybe the Las Vegas singer is reality, and the bridge
engineer is hallucination. Maybe that’s what Google is trying to tell me.
What about the other 300 or so Brian Brenners? What if the scope of

this discussion was expanded to include “Bryan Brenners” in addition
to “Brian Brenners”? You see, Google suggests that when searching for
“Brian Brenner,” perhaps I should look for “Bryan Brenner” as well.
What if all of reality was a mote of dust on the tip of a pin in some
alternate universe? Also, if a bridge is built in the forest and no one is
there to see it, does it still cross the river?
The advent of the Internet and Google has made the world a lot
smaller, like that mote of dust. In seconds, I can virtually meet my dop-
pelgangers from across the world, colleagues whom I probably never
would have had contact with or even known about. It seems that there
are a bunch of Brian Brenners, but as far as I can tell, I’m the only engi-
neer. So I’m still unique in that way. According to the web descriptions,
the Brian Brenners are, for the most part, nice guys who have made
modest but valuable contributions to society. This is good to know.

The Trouble with

Invasive Species
and Tribbles
My house is situated high up on a hill. In late June, I sit on my lawn chair
in the front yard and look out over the neighborhood. My neighbors,
who are diligent, can be seen struggling with their lawns. They are
applying fertilizer and pesticides, and they are mowing and watering. If
they are more environmentally focused, the fertilizer is natural instead
of synthetic. In other words, they are spreading quantities of animal
manure over their plants. This natural fertilizer often has a zesty smell,
which wafts over my front yard paradise. Sometimes the combination
of the zesty aroma added to the peer pressure rousts me from my lawn
chair to attend to chores in the yard. Truthfully, reading on the grass is
a better activity than cutting it. But after a while, you want to be able to
see the bunnies walking on your lawn and not just the tips of their furry
ears that poke above the tall, uncut grass.
My diligent neighbors try their best. But with all of that scurrying,
no matter how hard they try, their lush green lawns are all interrupted
by offensive blossoms: crabgrass, dandelions, and for the really unlucky,
poison ivy. The good plants, such as grass, are all hard to grow and fussy.
The weeds require no care at all and just grow by themselves, with or
without manure.
Why?
On my design-build job, we had an environmental review meeting.
One of the topics was a plan for dealing with invasive species. This was a
discussion about requirements for limiting and controlling the spread of
different types of flora, especially plants not native to the area.
Listening to the discussion, I thought that invasive species are a
lot like life in general—things that you want are hard to get, but things
that you don’t want pop up anyway. This tendency doesn’t just apply to

plants. You may gorge all you want on brussels sprouts. But if you eat
more than a few spoonfuls of Häagen Dazs, you will become obese and
diabetic. How was it determined that brussels sprouts are good and Häa-
gen Dazs is bad? Instead, wouldn’t it make more sense if everyone got fat
from brussels sprouts?
If that doesn’t work (and it doesn’t), another approach would be to
redefine what’s desirable and what isn’t. If we decided that dandelions
and crabgrass are desirable on our lawns and reclassify regular grass as
weeds, then we would be all set. No more manure or pesticides in the
spring—just let that baby rip!
After the meeting, I thought about the ultimate invasive species,
and at the same time I received a little lesson about overall culture on
a design-build project. In the original Star Trek TV series, there was an
episode that took place on a distant space station. The station was at the
border between the United Federation of Planets (the good guys) and
the evil Klingon Empire. This original series episode was broadcast dur-
ing the second season. As we all know, during the show’s first season,
competition between the Federation and the Klingons was limited and
defined by a space treaty enforced by an alien super race. At that time,
the Klingons did not have the skull protrusions and distortions that
appeared in subsequent Star Trek TV series. When questioned, Worf
did not provide a suitable explanation for this peculiar, historic change.
He grunted to let us know that it was a sensitive topic not to be discussed
in public.
But I digress. The Klingons and the Federation were competing to
claim Sherman’s Planet. In accordance with the treaty, if the Federation
could demonstrate a superior use for this planet, they would win the
right to claim it. To do so, they planned to farm the planet using quadro-
triticale, an advanced form of wheat. Peaceful farming with grain was
thought to be superior to evil domination by the Klingons.
While all this was happening, a peddler on the space station pre-
sented Lieutenant Uhura with a “tribble,” a furry little creature that
made a pleasant purring sound. Lieutenant Uhura was entranced by the
tribble. She convinced the peddler to let her have one as a pet, and she
beamed back to the Enterprise.
Sadly, like many invasive species, the tribble had an unfortunate
trait that detracted from its overall desirability. Tribbles apparently were
incredibly procreative, much worse than bunnies. It wasn’t like you

could grow your lawn to hide them, either. Within a few short hours,
a single tribble had multiplied so much that the spaceship was over-
run with its progeny. Tribbles were everywhere. Even worse, the tribble
horde found its way to the Enterprise’s food supply. At this point, Cap-
tain Kirk deduced that the tribbles may have been able to get at the pre-
cious store of quadrotriticale. Sure enough, when the grain storehouse
door was opened, it was empty except for a flood of furry tribbles that
rained down on the distraught captain.
With the supply of quadrotriticale grain eaten by the voracious
tribbles, all seemed lost. The Federation had no way to farm Sherman’s
Planet, and the evil Klingons soon would claim ownership. But, surpris-
ingly, Dr. McCoy noticed that many of the tribbles in the grain store-
house had died. It turned out that the Klingons had poisoned the grain!
Once the plot was revealed, the Klingons were kicked off the space sta-
tion and the Federation successfully claimed Sherman’s Planet.
So I guess my mind wandered a little bit after the meeting. But I
was proud that I had come up with such a clever analogy to illustrate
the concept of invasive species. During the “post meeting,” that period
after the actual meeting when everyone still meets, I wandered over to
my contractor partners to share this excellent insight. I described the
meeting topic and how the discussion of invasive species was just like
that episode in Star Trek (second season). My colleagues all had blank
looks on their faces.
“At the meeting, it was like they were describing tribbles,” I said
with some urgency. “It was like the invasive plants were tribbles over-
running the space station. You know, tribbles.”
“What is a tribble?” the project manager, Rob, asked. Then he
offered additional, more colorful language to expand on his question.
My analogy, which was clearly obvious, didn’t work so well in this
case. Therein lies the cultural difference. On traditional design-bid-build
jobs, the engineering team largely works with engineers. Working with
the contractor doesn’t start until after the job is bid, and then the rela-
tionships and project approach are much different. On a design-build
project, engineers and constructors team and work together right from
the start. But it turns out that whereas close to 100% of engineers have
watched Star Trek and appreciate all the details and references, at the
contractor level, the percentage is a little lower.
There are other distinctions between design-build and design-bid-
build projects.

My New
Snow Blower
In New England, life revolves around the seasons. In this ongoing annual
revolution, there is a month called “August.” June is nice, July spectacu-
lar. But during both months, residents are haunted by thoughts of what
came before—the long, hard, cold, harsh months of bitter existential
survival.
But in August, all is forgiven and forgotten. The winter has long
past. August is the paradise month, a month of easy living, a month
of peace. The days are warm and sunny. The traffic is light. A pleasant
breeze ruffles the lush green trees. The fat squirrels, gorged from eating
too many nuts, bask contentedly on the front lawn without bothering to
apply lotion with sun protection factor.
But paradise is deceptive. Every year, it seems, August comes to an
end. Then a cold wind whips down from northern Quebec. The leaves
burst into color and explode. The sky darkens, and a nasty gray storm
churns up the Atlantic and pummels the shivering residents. In August,
New Englanders start to believe in the concept of paradise. Once again,
they are forsaken.
Many years ago, we bought our house in August. That was a mis-
take. The purchase date masked a flaw that should have been obvious,
but we didn’t catch it until it was too late.
Our house is attractively set atop a hill. Unfortunately, to get to the
house, you have to climb a steep, treacherous driveway. The driveway
is so steep and fierce that one actually passes through different climate
zones to get to it: tropical rain forest at the bottom, tundra at the top.
Ascending the driveway is not an issue in August. In January, it’s another
story.

I decided that shoveling snow is good exercise, so over the years
I’ve been shoveling by hand. In my research for this essay, I was sur-
prised to find someone else who shared this approach:
Up until that moment, I had only disdain for those mechani-

cal menaces. They were for the weak, the pampered. No, I pre-
ferred the exercise of shoveling—the peace after a storm, the
winter quiet interrupted only by the manly scrape of a shovel
on concrete. Sure, it took longer. It required physical effort.
But so what. I liked it, I told myself. It brought me closer to
nature, closer to the elemental Viking quality of life in the
Great Northeast.
According to experts in the field of psychology, this is what

is called a massive rationalization. In other words, complete
bear scat.
(James Preller <http://www.jamespreller.com/2009/01/13/

snow-blow-love-winter-reflections>)
To keep the driveway clear, I’ve gained some expertise in weather
forecasting and Boston snowstorms. For example, most storms have
a brief warm period right at the end before the northwest wind blows
and Canada visits. During this period, whenever it is, snow must be
removed. Otherwise, my steep driveway could remain ice covered until
June, and the family would starve.
Over the years, my snow-shoveling plan worked reasonably well.
But then we were clobbered by a series of way above average snowfalls.
Trying to shovel 24 inches of snow at a sharp angle, in the cold and dark,
with howling winds was turning out to be a problem.
To address the impending driveway calamity, I purchased a snow
blower. Because I’m an engineer, everyone assumes that I’m good with
gadgets. But the sad truth is that I’m not, and a snow blower is a really
big gadget. Not only that, but Lauren insisted that I get a deluxe snow
blower with extra attachments. The one we purchased has tracks like
a tank, and it features many different settings. My snow blower can be
started by rip cord or electric charge. To get it going, you have to choke
it (not physically choke it, but dial the engine to “choke”) and move cer-
tain buttons to certain positions. It took me a while to get the hang of

this. For the first big snowstorm, I couldn’t start the snow blower for 15
minutes. There was a TV commercial the other day about an iPad app
that starts your car. A person typed on her iPad in Minnesota, and the
car started in New Jersey. I think I would like that app, but unfortu-
nately, even with deluxe snow blowers, it’s not available yet.
Shortly after my new snow blower arrived, the forecast was not
pretty: 24 to 36 inches of heavy, wet snow with blizzard-like winds. It
snowed all night, and sadly the snow brought down trees and small jet-
liners. All over New England, roofs were failing because of the weight
of snow.
Eventually the snow stopped, and it was time to clear the driveway.
Gamely I figured out how to get the machine started, and I powered
up. It seemed that starting the snow blower wasn’t the only new skill I
needed to learn. Snow blowing requires a different approach than shov-
eling does. My steep driveway runs parallel to my neighbor’s. I couldn’t
quite get the hang of the snow chute at first, so I was blowing snow onto
his driveway. This is not a neighborly thing to do, and he was standing
there as I did it. For a few minutes we traded snow back and forth as
he cleared his snow back onto my driveway. It was entertaining but not
productive.
One of the knobs on my control panel was “hyperdrive.” At least,
I think that’s what it was called. I dialed hyperdrive, angled the chute
slightly, and watched my powerful snow blower shoot a plume of snow
that leaped over my neighbor’s driveway and landed on the driveway
two houses down. Quickly I readjusted the chute upward. Now the
snow shot high into the sky in a beautiful frozen geyser. The force was
so powerful that particles reached escape velocity, resulting in a faint
ring around the Earth.
Fortunately, the winter eventually came to an end. The snow melt-
ed and leaves grew on the trees. Perhaps when you read this, it will be
January and maybe the heart of a new long, white winter. But for now, I
am enjoying the warm season. It’s August, and winter will never return.
No snow, the blower is safely stored in the garage, and the only thing to
consider outside is the grass. During the warm season, it’s time to deal
with the warm season gadgets. Maybe I’ll get a new lawn mower, with
elaborate attachments. I’ll blow the clippings onto the lawn next door,
and on a sunny, warm afternoon, my neighbor and I will get into a grass
clipping fight.

Disco Bridge
QJB wrote a rap song named “Bridges Got Swag.” The first verse goes like
this:
Bridges got swag. Bridges got swag.
Hard in the paint and I’m dunking and they mad.
Man, they wanna be like me, QJB.
Bridges got swag, that’s how its gone be.
(<http://rapgenius.com/Qjb-bridges-got-swag-lyrics>)
I think this song is about playing basketball and not about bridges. But
I agree that bridges have swag. I’m not even sure what that means, but
it sounds good.
Bridges and music have a long and involved relationship, if you
stretch the definition of “relationship” and treat the word “long” in its
relative sense. Back in the disco era, circa the 1970s, the Brooklyn and
Verrazano Bridges made prominent appearances in the movie Saturday
Night Fever. It was a type of “good cop–bad cop” plot setup, except with
bridges. The Brooklyn Bridge was the good bridge, representing hope of
escape to Manhattan from dreary Brooklyn. If things didn’t work out,
the Verrazano Bridge, which was the bad bridge, was available to jump
off of. Overall, this treatment was simplistic. Not all bridges are com-
pletely good or completely bad. Like people, bridges also have shades
of gray.
In the 1970s, engineers still used slide rules and dressed poorly
(more poorly than today). After completing their manual calculations,
they went to the disco to blow off steam, where poorly dressed people
were accepted and even appreciated. During this era, Alicia Bridges

was an important artist. She was not an actual bridge but wrote and
performed disco songs. Ms. Bridges wrote the famous song “I Love the
Nightlife.” It is a standard, mindless dance song with a thumping beat.
Interestingly enough, this song has a relationship of sorts with

structural dynamics. It is possible to match the music’s thumping beat
with the period of vibration on the Tacoma Narrows collapse video (if
you slow down the song or speed up the video).
According to Wikipedia, Ms. Bridges is not known for much more
than her hit song. Unfortunately, Ms. Bridges is not a structural engi-
neer. She is, however, a vegetarian and a strong supporter of animal
rights issues.
Which brings us to a paper, “Simulation of Cable-Stayed Bridges
Using Disco” (Huang et al. 1994). The article was written during the
period when desktop computers were beginning to be widely used in
infrastructure design. At this time, there was no wireless and Face-
book hadn’t yet been invented. The article describes an application of
a construction simulation model, Dynamic Interface Simulation of
Construction Operations (DISCO), for placement of concrete dur-
ing cable-stayed bridge construction. The Pasco–Kennewick Bridge in
Washington state, one of the first U.S. cable-stayed bridges, served as an
example (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Pasco–Kennewick Bridge (foreground), also called the

Ed Hendler Bridge
Source: National Park Service Historic American Engineering Record, <http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/
hhh.wa0138> (Feb. 27, 2015)

In addition to DISCO, the article refers to another great acronym,
CYCLONE. What the initials stand for is not defined, but apparently
CYCLONE was a type of modeling methodology. In the 1990s, personal
computers (PCs) were increasingly powerful, and they were starting to

replace mainframes and minicomputers. So reference is made to run-
ning the applications on “MicroCYCLONE,” in other words, applica-
tions geared toward PCs. I wished that the authors included a discussion
of a DISCO MicroCYCLONE, but I was disappointed. It would have
been like a small disco inferno. Alicia Bridges could have performed it.
The article is a scholarly treatment of an early-1990s graphical
automation effort. Decades later, this approach seems a little bit quaint.
In the paper, great reverence goes into descriptions of processes that for
us are now automatic and part of the background. It’s a serious paper for
its time, but I was really hoping that the article would be about bridge
modeling using actual disco, not the acronym version.
In the article I wanted to read, the authors would have devel-
oped a musical lab where models of cable-stayed bridges were tested
for dynamic acoustic response. That loud, thumping beat could induce
resonance and might turn out to be a less expensive way to evaluate sta-
bility than wind tunnel modeling. Also, by testing for disco music, you
could get a feel for which bridges were most musically responsive, and
which were wallflowers. (An artist, Jodi Rivers, has actually done some-
thing like this: http://www.singingbridges.net/documentation/index
.html). I suppose that by the 1980s, bridges would have been no longer
responsive to disco at all, having moved on to New Wave. During that
later period, a favorite band of many bridges was the Cars.
The title of the article proves that you can publish a paper about
almost anything. Or it proves that you can create an acronym for almost
anything. Or it proves that you can Google two disparate topics and
come up with a long list of references about how they are related. And
that’s the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it.
References
Huang, R.-Y., Grigoriadis, A., and Halpin, D. (1994). “Simulation of
cable-stayed bridges using disco.” Proc. 1994 Winter Simulation
Conf. Winter Simulation Conference, Georgia, Institute of Electri-
cal and Electronics Engineers, New York.

Friended
by a Bridge
In the past, there was only one category of friend. But by the 21st cen-
tury, there were two categories: “actual” friends and “virtual” friends.
Actual friends are living, breathing human beings. They can call you on
your iPhone and meet at Starbucks. Virtual friends are mostly friends
who are found online. They may be living and breathing, but not neces-
sarily so.
Perhaps this categorization of friendship is oversimplified and
maybe even far-fetched. But Hollywood has started to make movies
about people falling in love with their smart phones. Also, there are sto-
ries about forming deep relationships with online poseurs. I think an
entire TV show on HBO focused on this. An online friendship becomes
troublesome only when an attempt is made to change categories from
virtual to actual. In that case, the real version may turn out to be a lot
different than what was depicted online. For example, the real person
may not be 21 years old with a full head of hair and an active practice in
brain surgery.
One may evaluate the quality of “friends” by the parameter “popu-
larity.” In the past, “popularity” could be measured based on quantity
and quality of actual friends. Way back when, before the Internet, it was
not impossible to have virtual friends. (In other words, it was possible
to have virtual friends.) People could correspond by snail mail and thus
form virtual friendships without actually meeting. But the technology
of the day was slower and did not support many relationships above
and beyond actual friends. To measure “popularity,” one could consider
the number and quality of actual friends. It would not be enough to
just evaluate the number of actual friends. Some people who seem to

be popular have dozens of actual friends. But these friendships may be
shallow and inconsequential.
Therefore, it could be concluded that an individual with dozens of
weak friendships was not, in fact, “popular.” On the other hand, an indi-
vidual may have a few very close friendships. This lucky person could
count on a few close people to watch his or her back and even to pay the
bill at Starbucks. In evaluation of popularity, it may be concluded that
quality is important as well as quantity.
Fast-forward to our current era, the age of too much information,
and we now avail ourselves of virtual friendships. At first, there were sev-
eral social networking programs like MySpace and others. But the social
online media have converged on Facebook. The developers of Facebook
were Harvard nerds who came up with the idea in their dorm rooms.
The simple concept was for a website that could electronically duplicate
social networking. Their website would create a virtual world in which
college students could interact. All of the intricate social behaviors of
students could play out on the website but freed of the physical and time
limitations of actual meetings.
The student developers initially were motivated by finding better
ways to meet girls. Becoming multibillionaires happened later. Their
website, named “Thefacebook,” was an instant success. Within days of
its release at Harvard, the majority of the students had signed up and
prepared their own pages. From that point on, the site experienced
exponential growth. The site was launched for access at one college after
another, and at each one it was an instant hit.
In the early days of Facebook, membership was provided exclu-
sively to the college communities. You could join for free, but you had
to have a college e-mail address. The site was developed for students, but
that didn’t stop professors from joining as well. Because I had a Tufts
e-mail address, I signed up. I wasn’t looking to meet girls. Instead, my
plan was to snoop on my students and prepare PowerPoint presenta-
tions for class using photos from their pages. Other than my name and
a picture, I didn’t post much information about myself. I didn’t list my
likes or dislikes or whom I wanted to meet. At this point, I wasn’t net-
working using Facebook. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t have any adult
friends to connect with on the site.
Eventually, membership in the Facebook club was broadened to
include everyone. At that point, the site’s exponential growth increased

exponentially. Facebook was now out to conquer the online world.
Soon, many of my adult friends became members, and they started to
“friend” me online. Of course, we were friends already in real life, but
this was friendship proposed on the website. We would be electronically

linked, with special privileges like being able to see each other’s wall and
all sorts of other intimate electronic secrets, not that I had any.
After a while, the adults started to get into it. Just as with kids,
there was a certain social competitiveness about the number of friends
you accumulated on your site. College and grade school kids had hun-
dreds and even thousands of Facebook friends, but for adults, topping
a hundred meant that you were wildly popular. I didn’t keep track of
how many friends my friends had, but if I did, I would comment that I
had more friends than most of my friends. In fact, I had way, way more
friends. Way more. This meant either that I was very popular and cool,
or that I was an asocial nerd limited to bragging about my virtual social
success.
At about the time I made the transition to an actual, social Face-
book user, I was friended by a bridge. One day as I was reading my
wall and liking posts from (human) friends, I received an invitation for
friendship from the Capilano Suspension Bridge in British Columbia.
The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a Canadian tourist attraction near
Vancouver. It is a daring pedestrian rope bridge suspended over a high
gorge. For visitors to Vancouver, it is someplace to go. For our honey-
moon, Lauren and I spent a few days in Vancouver, and because it was a
prominent bridge, of course we visited (Figure 1).
Bridges are great, and I was pleased to become friends with the Cap-
ilano Suspension Bridge. But I was a little bit confused by the request.
Although bridges are excellent, they are not alive, so it was not clear how
the bridge friended me, or why she even wanted to. But I accepted the
invitation, and the bridge entered my Facebook social network.
Over time, we got to know each other, at least virtually. The bridge
has a fairly robust network of acquaintances and activities, especially
considering that she is inanimate (well, she sways in the wind, but still,
she’s not sentient). I could see from our friendship that Capilano, or
Cappy, as I like to call her, lived a charmed, exciting life, hanging as she
did in that daring position over the gorge in British Columbia. Cappy is
quite the party bridge. She is a swinger who is always on the lookout for
fun and a good time.

Figure 1. Capilano
Suspension Bridge
Source: Photo by netsnake, <http://
www.flickr.com/photos/42140894@
N02/4105612734> (Feb. 27, 2015)
With the world coming to Vancouver for the Winter Olympics in

February 2010, Cappy apparently was attracting a lot of attention. After
one’s fill of skiing and ice shuffleboard, visiting a nice bridge turned out
to be a good way to round out the trip. Cappy was greeted by hordes of
new visitors, and not just online guests but actual live human beings.
It must have been exciting to meet all of those new people. However,
Cappy is not alive and probably did not feel excitement.
I was pleased to learn that on Facebook, bridges are like people.
So after being friended by the Capilano Suspension Bridge, I decided
to take the bull by the horns and invite other bridges for friendship.
To date, I have friended the Golden Gate Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge,
and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The Sydney Harbor Bridge has not
accepted my friendship yet; she is truly playing hard to get. But I hope
that some day she will enter the orbit of my bridge friends as well. In
addition to having great new bridge colleagues, my overall friend total
has increased, and I have become even more popular than before. Not
that I’m keeping count.

When I Was
on Jeopardy
This is Jeopardy! Here are today’s contestants:
[Contestants walk one by one into studio.]
First, let’s meet Kyle, a brain surgeon and classical stage performer
from Chicago, Illinois.
[Applause]
Next, here is Charise, a poet from Berkeley, California.
[Applause]
Finally, meet Brian, a bridge engineer from Boston, Massachusetts.
[Applause, to an extent]
And now here is your host, Alex Trebek!
Alex walks to his podium. He says, “Welcome, contestants. Wel-
come, viewers. We have a really exciting show today with terrific partici-
pants. Let’s meet today’s contestants. Hello, Kyle.”
“Hello, Alex,” Kyle says.
“Kyle, you have quite an interesting background. I understand that
you specialize in an unusual type of brain surgery. That must be quite
difficult to do.”
Kyle says, “Well, Alex, thanks, but truthfully it’s not that hard. Brain
surgery is not rocket science. Anyone can become a brain surgeon with
enough work, years of training, innate intelligence, and perseverance.”
“I see,” Alex says. “That is quite fascinating. Tell us about your work
on stage.”
“I am lucky to work with a troupe of Shakespearean performers.
We’ve been presenting works of Shakespeare in a simulation of the origi-
nal Globe Theater north of Chicago.”

“That’s amazing. You are quite talented and well rounded. Good
luck, Kyle.”
[Applause]
“Now let’s meet Charise. Charise, you have quite an educational

background. I understand that you were a triple major in college. That is
very impressive. It’s hard to have enough time for one major. What can
you tell us about that?”
“Yes, Alex,” says Charise, “I majored in English poetry, ancient
Roman history, and psychology.”
“What a diverse field of study. That is amazing! You should be well
prepared for the categories we typically have on Jeopardy,” Alex says.
“Good luck on today’s show.”
[Applause]
“Now let’s meet our final contestant, Brian, a structural engineer
from Boston, Massachusetts. Brian, you’ve also shared with us an inter-
esting story. I understand that you used to take your wife on bridge
dates. What, exactly, is a ‘bridge date’?”
“Well, Alex,” I say, “When I first started dating my future wife, Lau-
ren, I would take her to see bridges that I helped design.”
Alex says, “How unusual. That’s not a typical date. She must have
been very impressed.”
“I’m not sure she was impressed at first. I think she expected to go
out to dinner at a nice restaurant and not walk around in the mud up
abutment slopes. But after a while, she grew to appreciate the design
layouts and detailing of the bridges.”
“I see,” Alex says. “Where do you go on dates today?”
I respond: “I think today Lauren prefers to go out to a nice
restaurant.”
[Nervous laughter]
Alex chuckles.
“Okay, contestants, now it’s time to play Jeopardy. In a moment, I
will reveal the six categories on the board. These categories have been
randomly selected and have been chosen utterly and completely by
chance. Remember that when you provide an answer, it must be in the
form of a question.”
[Excited applause. Camera pans to reveal categories on the Jeopardy
game board.]
“Here are our six categories.”

Kyle rings his buzzer.

“Yes, Kyle,” says Alex.
Kyle says, “CPM, does that stand for cardiopulmonary method?”
“No,” says Alex, “It stands for ‘Critical Path Method,’ a technique
frequently used in scheduling of engineering projects.”
“Alex, these categories do not seem fair.”
“I’m so sorry, Kyle. I didn’t understand your question.”
Kyle rings his buzzer again.
“What is, ‘These categories don’t seem fair’?”
“How so, Kyle?” asks Alex.
“What is, ‘Because the categories are all based on engineering
topics’?”
Alex responds, “Well, Kyle, as you know, the categories were select-
ed completely at random. After decades of episodes of Jeopardy, with
categories such as Elizabethan drama, generals in the Civil War, and
overall subjects that only liberal arts majors could master, would it not
be possible for us to have engineering questions as well, if only for once?”

Kyle says, “Yes, I suppose that it is possible.”
“Very well then,” says Alex. “Backstage, we drew lots to decide who
would select first. Brian, please choose the first category.”
“Alex,” I say, “I hardly know where to begin. How about ‘Reinforced

Concrete’ for 200?”
[Camera pans to the game board, where the first answer is revealed.]
After several intense minutes of play, both the Jeopardy and Dou-
ble Jeopardy rounds are complete. Alex reviews the scores:
“At the conclusion of Double Jeopardy, Charise has minus 3,200.
Kyle has minus 6,000. Brian has 117,400.* Brian, I believe your score is
an all-time record. You are very knowledgeable about today’s randomly
selected topics.”
“Thank you, Alex,” I say. “You know, it has been a real honor for me
to appear on Jeopardy. I am so fortunate that the categories were some-
what familiar to me. Usually the categories are subjects like ‘Ancient
Greek Mythology’ and ‘Phonetic Haiku.’ It’s nice to have some concrete
questions for a change.”
“Brian, I know what you mean,” Alex agrees. “Now let’s prepare for
Final Jeopardy. Contestants, in a moment, I’ll show you the final answer.
Although in this case, because both Kyle and Charise are embarrass-
ingly deep in the negative column, there’s no point in playing. But let’s
do it anyway, just for fun. You’ll have 30 seconds to write your response.
Please be sure it’s in the form of a question.”
[Camera pans to the game board.]
“And now, here is today’s Final Jeopardy category: ‘Suspended
Spans.’ Contestants, good luck!”
* A technical reviewer of this manuscript cautioned the author to verify that it was, in fact, pos-
sible to achieve a score of 117,400. Here are some calculations:
Assume that the contestant “Brian” answers every question correctly.
Assume that “Brian” answers all three Daily Doubles, waging total earnings and thus dou-
bling his score. Assume that Daily Doubles are responded to at the end of both rounds, to
achieve maximum doubling of earnings. Furthermore, assume that Daily Doubles are placed
on the game board in the lowest scoring questions (one Daily Double for the first round, and
two Daily Doubles for Double Jeopardy, the second round).
With these assumptions, the highest score that is mathematically possible before Final
Jeopardy is 221,600.
Therefore, a score of 117,400 is conservative.

Author’s Note
This essay is not a completely original idea. There was an episode of the
TV show Cheers where the mailman, Cliff, is on Jeopardy and all the
categories are about collecting the mail or going to a bar (you can see
it on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=botdmsQilnU). But I
think my version is the first to be about structural engineers (for what
it’s worth).

Too Much
Information
Part I
One day in the near future, maybe even this year, I would like to receive
a message declaring that there is no more new information. Someone in
charge of new information will have performed a study and determined
that the current amount of information is good enough. No more would
be needed. Like a declaration of the end of history in the 1990s (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man), this
will be the end of new information. To declare the end of new informa-
tion is no small task. The supporting study would be important. There-
fore, it would be a thick study contained in numerous, voluminous
volumes and filed away someplace (both electronic and hardcopy) for
convenient reference.
Nowadays there are about 3,000 different ways to deliver a message
declaring the end of new information. It could be delivered via e-mail,
voicemail, fax (does that still exist?), snail mail, Twitter, Facebook,
Linked-in, YouTube, and so on. Because delivery of the message using
3,000 different formats is, in itself, additional information, I would like
delivery in only one format. Let’s go with snail mail. It will be delivered
by my kindly old postman, maybe on a warm, sunny day in early June.
My kindly old postman will be on the edge of retirement, perhaps before
the post office, itself, retires. Based on the magnitude and significance
of this message, he will not just drop it in the mailbox along with the
L.L. Bean catalogs, invitations for multiple credit cards, and paper bills.
He will walk up my steep driveway and ring the doorbell.

“Kindly old postman,” I announce. “Welcome.” I’ll invite him inside,
and we’ll share some milk and warm chocolate chip cookies on the
porch and ponder the announcement that there is no new information.
But sadly, when the big day arrived, the postman did not ring my
doorbell. Instead of receiving an announcement that there is no new
information, I received a catalog inviting me to attend the latest online
webinars. The cover of the catalog pleaded an anxious message: There is
new stuff to learn; the knowledge train is leaving the station, and you are
not on it! Learn it now! Learn it now!
The catalog was 40 pages long, and it even offered a convenient
website to check out the many sessions whose listings couldn’t fit in the
printed catalog. On that long, comprehensive, and somewhat desperate
list was the topic “Design of Stiffened Slabs on Grade on Shrink-Swell
Soils—New Approach.” I was concerned about this invitation because I
wasn’t quite up to speed on the old approach.
The webinar lists and topics have been expanding with time.
Clearly, there is a lot to learn, and the amount of knowledge seems to be
increasing. While more knowledge is being created and disseminated,
no one is in charge of determining when we’ve learned enough. There-
fore, it appears that my imagined June visit from the kindly old postman
was unrealistic.
For bridge engineers, the concern is graphically illustrated by the
thickness of the AASHTO bridge design code. (AASHTO is the Ameri-
can Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, a U.S. orga-
nization that develops the national bridge design code and in general
provides standards and guidance for transportation infrastructure anal-
ysis and design.) Back in the day, the code fit in a modest loose-leaf
binder. More recently, just the annual updates of the new load and resis-
tance factor design (LRFD) code are thicker than that. The full current
code can no longer fit in one binder, and two extra-thick binders are
now issued. Keeping in mind that paper will soon be a thing of the past,
a CD is provided for the thousands of pages. It’s all good and neces-
sary stuff, but it’s a lot, and the amount is increasing. Bridge engineers
need to know all the sections. But some are not familiar with section
2.3.4.2.3.4.2, and this is troubling.
It may be an issue of evolution. There is only so much informa-
tion the human brain can learn and manage. Humankind’s store of

knowledge has recently expanded so quickly and to such an extent that
perhaps evolutionary mechanisms can’t keep pace. The idea behind
natural selection is that the fittest adaptations would be favored for pro-
creation of subsequent generations. So, in the distant past, our ancestors

who were best able to avoid being eaten by hyenas lived to procreate and
provide these positive traits for future generations.
But what is the argument for natural selection related to the task
of adapting to AASHTO? Are the bridge engineers who best master
the voluminous new code found to be the most suitable mates? When
I was dating, I offered this argument at bars, with limited (actually, no)
success.
Computers may fill in the evolutionary gap. My brain has not yet
evolved to handle the tens of thousands of details that affect analysis and
design. But I can type things in Google, and in seconds I have access to
almost the entire stored knowledge of humanity. Google is so smart that
it now even guesses at what I want as I type a query. Usually the guesses
are pretty good.
An article in the Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/
18895468) suggests three ways to address too much information (TMI):
• Method 1. Develop new technology to filter the information and help
clear the fog. For example, routines can be programmed to automati-
cally store and clear your e-mails. Some of this happens automatically
now with junk filters.
• Method 2. Develop self-discipline. Just as you can avoid getting fat by
not overeating, you can avoid information overload by limiting your
intake of information. The fact that so many people are obese suggests
a limitation to this approach.
• Method 3. Attend new management seminars that provide coaching
on how not to get overloaded. The seminars are classes that seem to
offer new information to be learned, so this may be contradictory.
An argument that there is too much information is specious, I
know. Knowledge is a good thing. In my case, and probably for all of us,
mortality ultimately addresses any concerns for a cap on lifelong learn-
ing. Until then, as the database of things to learn expands exponentially,

it is increasingly important to be increasingly selective. You can’t know
everything, but you can prioritize learning and know enough.
Part II
Upon reaching a certain age, you are requested to participate in a medi-
cal screening event. Younger men and women have no idea what this
is. But once you reach the age, older colleagues know exactly what is
involved, having themselves experienced it. Attending the event is
almost like an initiation, not into a fraternity, but into the obsolescence
club. Next stop: AARP card.
I reached that special age, but I tried to ignore my doctor for a year.
Although I am fortunate to be in good health, my doctor was having
none of it. After enough chiding, I was scheduled to attend a medical
screening event.
My friends (those old enough to understand) expressed a combi-
nation of sympathy and enthusiasm. Some were maybe a tad too enthu-
siastic. It seemed like a fraternity hazing ritual, except that there was
no fraternity and no beer, and all the brothers were all decades older
than the ZBT pledges. Maybe the event could have been included in
the script for Animal House—you know, “Thank you, sir. May I have
another?” But the film’s final cut did not include the medical screening
event, and that is just as well.
Colleagues assured me that attending the medical screening event
was really no big deal, having successfully completed this rite of passage.
One colleague had 16 of them, or something like that. Considering the
desired frequency for the event, that made him 130 years old. Either he
looked very young for his age, or maybe he just enjoyed attending the
medical screening event and scheduled more of them than was perhaps
required.
An article in the New York Times compared the process to home
renovation. The author commented:
Everyone who undertakes major home renovations ends up
loathing their contractor. When I was recently redoing my
kitchen and bathroom, I finally figured out why. It has noth-
ing to do with the contractor’s honesty, quality of work, punc-
tuality or the mess they make. It’s about behavioral economics

and human psychology—in particular, the unusual way that
we assess pain.
(http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/how-
colonoscopies-are-like-home-renovations/)
In this case, I was looking to hire a good contractor, hopefully avoiding
requests for information (RFIs) and claims. As far as deficiency reports
were concerned, let’s not go there either.
Although those in the know said that the actual event itself was
not that big a deal, preparation the day before was a bit of a pain in
the ass (so to speak). The contractor (doctor) sent me a detailed guide
that described the materials and suggested the means and methods. This
looked like a project specification, so I liked it at first. But then once it
was time to fulfill the spec requirements, I liked it less. As part of the
specifications, no solid food was allowed, and any liquids consumed had
to be clear. I wondered if I could mash up an English muffin with cheese
in the food processor. It would then be a “liquid,” although a gross and
disgusting liquid. I thought about submitting my own RFI. But even if
the mashed-up English muffin with cheese wasn’t solid, it would not
meet the definition of a “clear liquid.” So I didn’t submit the RFI.
On the day of the event, it seemed that the Apocalypse was about
to strike. That summer, Massachusetts had been raked by Midwest-style
tornadoes and shaken by a rare Northeast earthquake, which also dam-
aged the Washington Monument. On the date scheduled for the event, a
hurricane was barreling up the coast. Tsunami and the plague probably
weren’t far behind. Maybe I was being a little bit overdramatic as Lauren
drove me to the surgery center. After all, I had successfully complet-
ed preparation the day before, which everyone said was the hard part.
There was nothing to worry about at the event itself. To calm down, I
turned on the radio. Pink Floyd was playing—“Dark Side of the Moon.”
The event requires anesthesia, so in a sense it is like surgery. The
process is challenging for engineers. By our personality and training,
we like to be in control. It comes with the territory of mastering the
complex analytics of our profession. But surgery is a journey in loss of
control. You enter the complex as a fully functioning person, starting
out in the pleasant waiting room. Then, step by step, you are reduced to
an object that is the subject of the procedure. You lose your clothes and

wear a “johnny,” you’re confined to a gurney, and you are prodded and
poked by all sorts of things. Eventually, they wheel you into the oper-
ating room for performance of the event. Everyone else there is still a
person, in control. For you: chop chop.

The procedure was performed at an outpatient center. For more
intense operations, you need a hospital. In Massachusetts, we are for-
tunate to have some of the world’s best facilities. Regardless of the cur-
rent health-care imbroglio, today’s hospital care can be miraculous.
Medical conditions that in the past impaired the patient or were fatal
are routinely fixed today, using advancing technology, drugs, and data
management. In David McCullough’s description, Paris was the center
of the medical universe in the 18th century (see The Greater Journey:
Americans in Paris, Simon & Schuster, New York). A visit to the hos-
pital then was a little bit different than today: no anesthesia, few drugs,
bloodletting as a cure for everything, and an infrastructure ill suited to
the practice of medicine as we now know it. During that period, many
people visiting the hospital were not cured and died.
If at some time you need access to advanced care for yourself or
your loved ones (and most of us will), it is good news that we live in the
21st century and not the 18th. Today, medical miracles are routinely
performed. The miracles are supported by an advanced but mundane
infrastructure. A modern hospital, such as the magnificent Massachu-
setts General Hospital in Boston, is like a small, self-contained city. The
hospital has internal streets and transportation facilities, stores, shops,
and restaurants. Walking around the hospital, it can seem like a city, too.
The main corridors are inhabited by hundreds of doctors and nurses
moving intensely and purposefully in random directions.
The hospital infrastructure requires performance standards that at
times must be more stringent than what is usually needed. For example,
vibrations must be severely limited next to surgical operating theaters.
For hospital buildings adjacent to transit tunnels, shaking from a sub-
way train must not affect the surgeon’s hand. Likewise, requirements
for food contamination and drug purity require special care. At a drug
compounding facility, impurities tragically led to dozens of deaths and
widespread sickness. That such events today are tragic and not routine,
as in the Middle Ages, illustrates how we have advanced.

Back at the outpatient center, it was time for the event. The good
part about anesthesia is that one moment I was fretting about the event.
What seemed like seconds later, I had awakened, and it was done. In
their bedside manner and interaction, my nurses and doctors were uni-
formly terrific. I was grateful to be so well taken care of. The doctor was
pleased with the results. He said I was good to go for another 10 years.
All that remained to be worried about was that hurricane barreling up
the coast, which turned out to be mostly a tropical storm, but, unfortu-
nately one with massive rainfall and still quite a disaster anyway.
Part III
There is a physical limit to the universe, and its edge may be encoun-
tered just beyond the last cell in the program Excel.
Each cell in Excel is designated by a numbered row and a lettered
column. Home in Excel is the cell A1. It is possible to leave Home and
travel out into the domain of the spreadsheet. This voyage is virtually
accomplished by using your mouse or arrow keys. For me, travel from
Home to nearby cells is pleasant and comforting. In Excel, visiting the
familiar terrain near Home is like a trip to Rhode Island. But beyond the
familiar lies the wild frontier, places like Ohio and the nebulous border
of knowledge where everything is unknown and nothing is familiar or
comfortable. The edge of the known may be a frightful place, but for-
tunately, one can get there easily. It is possible to travel to the edge of
the Excel universe by going Home and then pressing a sequence of End
and Down keys. At the time of publication, the last cell in Excel was the
following:
XFD1048576
where in Excel notation, “1048576” is the row number, and “XFD” is
the column letter. If you haven’t used Excel (and actually admit that
you haven’t used Excel), think of a game of Battleship. If you haven’t
played Battleship, this analogy won’t help. But if you have, in this case,
the board is about 40 by 40 miles long, or something like that. If I were
better at this, I would come up with a description like this: There are so
many cells that if you placed them side by side, you could travel to Titan
and back.

If you should try to journey to cell XFD1048577, which is one cell
beyond XFD1048576, what would you find? At the time of publication,
you would find nothing. The cell XFD1048577 doesn’t actually exist.
There is nothing. It is a null void, an empty, inky blackness of nonexis-

tence, like being in a dreamless sleep where you never wake up. It would
be as if the entire existence of everything was imagined by an autis-
tic boy looking at a snow globe (http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/10/12/
st-elsewhere-reunion-snow-globe/).
It seems that, like the overall universe, the Excel universe is in a
state of constant expansion. When Excel was first created (or some time
after the Borg-like company, Microsoft, subsumed Lotus 123), there was
a Big Bang. In the beginning, all information resided in cell A1. But then
there was a massive information explosion, and the universe started to
relentlessly inflate. Today, computer cell references are in continuous
expansion and flight from Home. The edge of the universe today is
XFD1048576. Tomorrow, with the exponential increase of computing
power and data to use it, who knows where the edge will be?
Maybe there will be a stopping point, a time when there is no more
information to be learned, and no more cells needed to manipulate it.
At that point, at the end of knowledge and the expansion of Excel, the
universe will start to contract. Matter will collapse into a big black blob,
and all knowledge will be trapped in cell A1.
But such a time is in the distant future. Today, we have only been
exploring the two-dimensional universe with coordinates in the x–y
plane. In Excel, there is a third dimension, worksheets that overlay each
other. Imagine a z direction in Excel. These worksheets are described by
their numbers. A new workbook automatically includes three vertical
worksheets, and apparently there is no explicit limit to the number of
worksheets that may be created other than the power of your computer
(http://perlmaven.com/spreadsheet-write-excel-maximum-number-of-
sheets). With an infinitely powerful computer comes an Excel universe
with no limits. The issue, then, becomes not too much information, but
not enough information (NEI).
Part IV
Driving south on the Expressway in Boston, you pass by a storage facil-
ity. The facility advertises that it provides “Museum Quality Storage.”

Occasionally, the owners hang a large inflated padlock from the side
of the building to emphasize how safe the storage is. This illustrates
the concept of security but not necessarily of quality. If they wanted to
emphasize the “museum quality” aspect, I guess they could hang a bal-
loon of the Mona Lisa.
I enjoy seeing the giant padlock. It is probably New England’s sec-
ond most recognized silly roadside attraction, the first of course being
the giant bug in Providence, Rhode Island. Seeing the big inflatable pad-
lock provides entertainment and an appropriate sense of surreality as
you zip down the “Expressway” at 3 mph during “rush” “hour.”
A building devoted to museum quality storage is not an anomaly.
Self-storage facilities are being built around the United States. The num-
ber of facilities was reported to increase from 6,601 in 1984 to 46,500
in 2010 (http://www.unclebobs.com/storage-units/the-history-of-self-
storage.cfm). The need is being driven by the explosion in personal stuff.
A corollary of too much information is that it leads to acquisition of too
much stuff.
In the United States, our personal spaces are overflowing with too
much stuff. One thousand square foot homes that were the height of
luxury in dreamy Levittown have morphed into massive McMansions,
with three-car garages and walk-in closets that are the size of what used
to be bedrooms. In 1970, the average single-family home size was 1,400
square feet. In 2009, the average size increased to 2,700 square feet
(http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/us-home-size.html).
The process of demolishing a small house and replacing it with a
personal castle is known as Mansionization. In the suburbs, cozy ’50s
ranches are torn down, house by house, and replaced by behemoths five
and six times their size. Extra space is needed to house families that have
decreased in size. In practice, there are only so many rooms a person can
use. After the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, having 24 dens may be
overdoing it. So this becomes not so much living space as it is cleaning
space. With the McMansion comes a need for the McCleaning staff.
What was good enough for life in the past is not good enough any-
more. The post–World War II homes of Levittown today look small and
restrictive. Just as there is no one in charge of deciding that there is too
much information, there is no one deciding that there is too much stuff
or too much space. For those who are not immortal, you really can’t take
it with you.

The History of Self-Storage notes,
There’s every reason to believe that a number of social and
economic factors will continue to drive our need for self-

storage units. Divorce rates remain high and as households
split up, one or both spouses will need a place to store pos-
sessions while seeking new housing. Aging baby boomers are
downsizing to smaller homes, but putting prized possessions
in storage for their heirs. Americans are on the move again,
looking for new employment opportunities in other cities and
states, and storing their things until they get settled in. And,
as ever, it’s just our human nature to buy more stuff than we
have room for.
(http://www.unclebobs.com/more/articles/the-history-of-
self-storage.cfm)
That is a rosy outlook for self-storage. But maybe a countertrend
is developing. We may be wired to be pack rats, but some have ratio-
nally confronted their natural urge to have more of everything, and they
are attempting to rein it in. At the vanguard of this countertrend is the
“tiny house” movement (See the Tiny House blog, http://tinyhouseblog
.com/). Tiny houses are pretty small. They are the house equivalent of a
studio apartment. Living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens are all stuffed
together in multiuse spaces. Tiny house builders are enthusiastic and
almost evangelical in promoting their ideas of small living and sustain-
ability. The tiny houses are inexpensive and don’t require a big footprint.
On the flip side, you can’t store all of that essential stuff, and there is not
a lot of room for big parties.
Maybe rationality will win out over human nature, but that does
not seem like a safe bet. Until then, we’ll need lots of museum quality
storage to store all of our things.
Part V
It is not well documented (in fact, it is not documented at all), but the
first bridge was designed by a budding engineer named “Grog.” One day
many thousands of years ago, Grog was being chased by a large woolly
mammoth. During the chase, Grog came across a shallow stream. In

his desperation, he was able to ford the stream, but not before narrowly
avoiding the swooping trunk of the hungry pachyderm.
Later, when Grog revisited the bridge site, he saw a large black
monolith, and “Thus Spake Zarathustra” could be heard humming in

the background. Grog came to a startling conclusion. He realized that
he could drop a rock slab across the stream. To verify his approach,
Grog referred to the nascent AASHTO bridge design code, which in
those days was about one page long and was chiseled on the wall of a
neighboring cave.
Bridges by Grog and his contemporaries are preserved in England
and today are known as clapper bridges (Figure 1).
Today’s version of the AAASHTO bridge design code, as we know,
is thousands of pages long, and it is not chiseled on stone. That’s all I
have to say on this matter. Except that the American Concrete Insti-
tute (ACI) 318 Building Code (1989, “Building Code Requirement for
Reinforced Concrete,” ACI 318-89, Farmington Hills, MI) used to be
a paragon of design code self-restraint. For decades, this admirable
code has been contained in a publication about the same size, without
massive, double-digit page growth from year to year. But maybe ACI
Figure 1. Clapper Bridge

Source: Ryan Marshall

committee members felt left out. The relatively compact design code
has been renumbered and revamped. It has gotten thicker, but doesn’t
require two books. Yet.
Part VI
My colleague Erik found an Android app called “i-Search.” OK, backing
up a bit, most of you know what “Android” and “apps” are. But just in
case you don’t, an “app” is an application that you can load on your cel-
lular telephone. “Android” refers to the operating software on a group
of cellular phones. The other group is largely driven by Apple software.
Both systems begin with “A,” which is additional information. However,
a further discussion of the two types would be like comparing fruit with
mechanical beings.
The “i-Search” app can search for wide-flange steel beam sizes
based on cross-sectional dimensions and approximate year constructed.
Many readers are not compelled to do this. Should you find yourself
inspecting a bridge, this app can be very helpful in the field. But it is
even more useful than you might expect. You can enter in span lengths
and loading to do a quick check of column or beam capacities. At a cer-
tain point, this app may serve as a replacement for a junior structural
engineer. In that case, the “Android” moniker would be appropriate.
I still have a flip phone. It does have some primitive advanced fea-
tures, which I ignore. My flip phone has a type of GPS, but that is only
for the geographically challenged. Real engineers do GPS in their heads,
not on their telephones. For a fee, my flip phone can play telephone
games. There is a game where your pets are threatened by falling debris,
a sinister variation of Tetris. I am frugal, so I can do without this game.
It’s true that I can’t talk to my phone like other people do.* But there was
a movie about a man who fell in love with the voice on his mobile phone.
I’m thinking that I’m better off with a phone that doesn’t talk back to me.
* I just discovered that I can talk to my cell phone, and it can respond to basic commands.
To get along better with my friends and family who have smart phones, I whip out my cell
phone, which I have named “cell phone,” and say, “Cell phone, provide directions to drive home,
and do it fast!” My primitive cell phone can only call my mother by voice command and so
will not respond to this more sophisticated request. However, my smart phone colleagues are
impressed that you can talk to a primitive flip phone. In this way, I gain some technological
expertise cachet.

Today’s mobile phones are much more than just telephones. Way
back in the days of Seinfeld, mobile phones were about 17 inches long
and only functioned as telephones. Today’s cell phones feature nano-
technology and really small chips. They are smart phones, with massive
amounts of capabilities far beyond just talking to other people. I was
hiking with my son, Daniel. He has an iPhone, and it started ringing
in the middle of the woods or otherwise making its presence known.
The call was from overseas, thousands of miles away. Big deal—even
my primitive flip phone can do that. But then, Dan said, “Let’s Skype!”
So he connected his smart phone to a geosynchronous satellite, and we
were talking back and forth with pictures in the midst of the wilderness.
I was thinking about a short story by Jack London, “To Build a
Fire.” In the story, a man is traveling in the wilderness. It’s about 40
degrees below zero, and the man has one chance to start a campfire to
avoid freezing to death. He gets the fire going, but unfortunately it’s set
below a tree. Wind shakes snow off the branches, and the fire is doused.
The man is unable to start another fire, and he doesn’t have a smart
phone with the campfire app. So he freezes to death.
Back out at the jobsite, I was walking with Santiago on a bridge.
We wanted to get a feel for some structural vibration (pun was not
intentional).
I said to Santiago, “There’s not much vibration, but it would be
good if we could measure it.”
Santiago said, “Why don’t I use my smart phone? It has four
embedded accelerometers, and I downloaded an app for $5 that evalu-
ates acceleration.” Santiago placed his smart phone on the sidewalk and
turned on the app. The smart phone proceeded to measure vibrations
and plot time-history data, all to a pretty good level of accuracy. It pro-
vided graphs.
“Santiago,” I said, “That’s awesome! In the past we had to make
arrangements days in advance, and now you can just walk up with your
cell phone. I’m thinking that it would be good to get some strain mea-
surements as well. Does your cell phone measure strain?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Santiago. “Everyone knows that smart
phones can’t measure strain.”

Part VII
Online advertisements seem to be really well targeted nowadays. Unlike
old paper newspapers, ads on the computer somehow appear to be

directly related to the reader. What an advantage that is, to hawk specific
advertisements to people who may be more receptive to seeing them.
For example, the computer may determine that you suffer from
hemorrhoids. Then as you are surfing, it will conveniently flash adver-
tisements for Preparation H. This is more efficient than randomly open-
ing a paper newspaper or watching TV and hoping that you encounter
an advertisement for Preparation H.
The other day, I was reading an article in the Washington Post online,
and there was an advertisement for Amazon dot com. The advertise-
ment automatically selected a particular book Amazon thought I might
be interested in. The book was entitled Bridginess: More of the Civil Engi-
neering Life, by Brian Brenner. It turned out that I was, in fact, very
interested in that topic. I clicked on Amazon to learn more and went
to the site of the book. The book’s description seemed very appealing.
It was a humorous book about bridges. What could be better than that?
To assist readers in deciding whether or not to purchase the book,
Amazon included a selection of reviews. Not surprisingly, all of the user
reviews received five stars! One of the reviews was submitted by “Mari-
lyn Brenner,” the author’s mother. She highly recommended it.

Mathcad
and S-E-X
Bob, an engineering colleague, was preparing for his son to go to college.
He decided that there was a list of talks he needed to have with his son.
Being an engineer, it made sense to make a spreadsheet. Some of the
topics seemed straightforward and were relatively easy, like discussions
about being responsible, not drinking, and eating right.
However, one of the talks on the list was more challenging. Bob
decided that he had to have a talk with his son about S-E-X. (Bob was a
little embarrassed, so he spelled it out instead of saying the word.)
I was confused about the need for a talk on this subject.
I said to Bob, “Your son is 18. Haven’t you had that talk already?”
Bob said, “Yes, we had that talk a few years ago.”
“So isn’t one talk enough? Probably he knows the details now. It’s
supposed to be like riding a bicycle.”
“That’s true,” Bob said, “but you know that my son is not very active
in this category, and only now he’s starting to get up to speed.”
Then Bob offered an analogy that we engineers could all understand:
“Let’s say you attend a lecture in Mathcad. You’ve never used
Mathcad to date. Maybe you want to be a frequent and experienced user
of Mathcad. But the timing was never right, and you never had a chance
to try the program. So you attend this lecture on how to be a Mathcad
user, but it’s all sort of theoretical and doesn’t make much sense. It
sounds like it would be a lot of fun to be experienced in Mathcad appli-
cations, a power user. But you go to the lecture, and it all goes in one ear
and out the other.
“Flash forward a few years, and finally you have a chance to score
in Mathcad. Now someone offers to provide some information in how

to use Mathcad. As awkward as that may be for the instructor, now
the details are relevant and make sense because they are more directly
applicable.”
“I see what you mean,” I said to Bob. “It’s difficult to appreciate

instruction in Mathcad until you’ve actually applied the program.”
“Exactly!” said Bob. “This is why it’s a good idea for us to have a
refresher talk.” In his mind, Bob added a check mark on his spreadsheet.
I was going to ask Bob if he planned to discuss the topics of Excel
and AutoCAD, but I decided to wait to learn about how his talk went
on Mathcad.

Inappropriate
Variables
I was teaching structural lectures for the professional engineering (PE)
refresher class. This is a class for young engineers to bone up on their
civil engineering fundamentals in preparation for taking the profession-
al engineering exam. Because they are young engineers and college stu-
dents, I expected that they would come to class with an (overall) higher
level of maturity. Possibly they might also have acquired a wizened out-
look on the world. Of course, they’re mostly in their 20s, so their out-
look is probably not so wizened.
Anyway, there is a point in my lectures when I get to inappropriate
variables. These are unfortunately named structural parameters. They
are always good for an embarrassed guffaw from the college students
while the professor gamely teaches on as he tries also not to burst out
laughing.
My presentation starts with Mu, an expression of the ultimate
moment in a structure. This is a nice, pleasant, innocent variable, with
not much to laugh at. But unfortunately, the discussion then proceeds
to the variable, Pu, the ultimate axial load. Usually I have to describe this
variable as “P sub U.” If I pronounce Pu as “P–U,” the college students
may explode into fits of middle school laughter.
I can understand such a reaction from juvenile college students.
But this shouldn’t be so with the young engineers in the PE refresher
class. Bravely, I presented Pu as “P–U.” The class listened attentively and
was still. Not a cackle! How excellent, how mature this class was! I could
say “P–U” with a serious face and continue with my intensely profound
and important lecture. I didn’t have to worry about names of variables
causing disruption to my presentation.

It turns out that a review of the syllabus requires discussion of
many inappropriate variables and procedures. There is the always-
challenging calculation of “skin friction.” In construction, it is impor-
tant to attend the “pre-erection meeting” so that the erection can pro-
ceed fully and on schedule. Discussion of heat of formation and stiffness
calculations likewise seem to suggest nonengineering applications for
those so inclined. (One of the technical reviewers for this manuscript
suggested that I should also mention “shrinkage” and “full penetration
butt groove welds.”)
Way back in middle school, I remember the thrill of opening the
dictionary and turning to an inappropriate word. It didn’t even have to
be an inappropriate word. It could be a word that was close to inappro-
priate, or maybe vaguely inappropriate sounding, or on the same page
as an inappropriate word. In those days, dictionaries were large books
made out of paper, and so you would open to “pages” and not click on
screens.
The dictionary terms and definitions were stodgy and proper. At
least, that’s what the authors attempted. But the best linguist could not
avoid defining something that was slightly, mildly naughty, if in fact
that’s what it was. Part of the middle school thrill was not just encoun-
tering naughtiness but also reading an adult’s pained attempts to make
it all proper and not naughty at all. For a prepubescent boy, the defini-
tion of a word like, say, “brassiere,” could be utterly proper and correct
but still would generate embarrassed, excited sniggers in the sixth grade
cafeteria.
Nowadays, probably the thrill of the naughty chase has abated
somewhat. With Google, Bing, and the like, it is not necessary to open
a dictionary. One can type on a personal computer or speak to a cell
phone, and in seconds a naughty word and 2,000 synonyms appear
on the screen. Another click, and images with video accompaniment
appear as well. Things that were vaguely, mildly naughty back in the day
have today been flooded by the advancing technology, which provides
images of inappropriateness beyond the wildest imaginations of teenage
boys of the past. Along with too much information, too much space, and
too much food, advanced civilization has provided a new affliction: too
much porn.

I was pleased that students in my last review class were unusually
mature, dignified young engineers. The discussion was scholarly and
solemn. With increasing confidence, I proceeded with the discourse,
covering all the challenging concepts and variables like Pu. With grati-
fication, I was able to call it “P–U” and not “P sub U.” At the end, it was
time for questions. One student raised his hand.
“Professor Brenner,” asked the grim-faced student, “would you
please describe the variable for calculating ultimate force?”

How to
Buy Presents,
Engineer’s Edition
Karl, a young structural engineer, has successfully applied the engineer-
ing method for the purchase of presents. Each year, Karl decides on an
overall theme for holiday gifts. For example, recently the annual theme
was bridge gifts (I think that a bridge theme for gifts is appropriate for
every year). Once the overall theme has been selected, Karl then buys
suitable bulk items satisfying the intent of the overall theme. In keep-
ing with the bridge theme, Karl might purchase a stack of books with
humorous bridge essays.
With the theme selected and gifts procured, toward the end of the
design schedule Karl customizes each gift for its intended recipient. For
the year of bridge gifts, customization might include addition of per-
sonal notes. Or perhaps, a recipient might have a violent objection to
a particular type of bridge, preferring, say, a suspension bridge over a
more modern interpretation by Calatrava. Karl customizes the particu-
lar gift for such a recipient to avoid bridges out of favor and lead to a
satisfactory deliverable (Figure 1).
Karl has developed an excellent schedule and approach for procur-
ing gifts. It is efficient and thrifty and avoids the inefficient approach of
nonengineers who wait in three-hour lines at Walmart the day before
the gift is needed. Karl has even programmed spreadsheets with macros
facilitated by Visual Basic program to better manage his gift data. His
spreadsheets are nicely formatted, with data that facilitate checking and
appropriate QA/QC.
After a gift is procured, some aesthetic treatment is often needed.
Engineers do not like this phase because it does not pertain to function,
and it can be understood to be wasteful. Another structural engineer,

Figure 1. Engineer’s Gift Procurement Schedule

Guy, suggests the following approach. A true engineer wraps his or her
gifts in structural bridge drawings instead of wrapping paper, making
sure that something good shows on the top of the package, like a title
block, a beam section, or an abutment. In this way, the gift giver can
avoid frippery and even encourage sustainable practices through reuse
of valuable paper.
Those who are not engineers (and what a sorry lot I am refer-
ring to) occasionally face the dilemma of purchasing a gift for an

engineer. A website provides some suggestions (http://gadgetboy.hub
pages.com/hub/9-Unique-Gift-Ideas-for-Engineers-Students-Too). The
author comments:
If you’re lucky enough to know an engineer, you’ll know that

they’re a unique breed. Intensely curious, passionate about
precision, design and how the world works, they are fasci-
nating to talk to. Truthfully, our world wouldn’t be what it
is today without them. Finding a great gift for an engineer
or engineering student is a great way to show how much you
appreciate their interests.
Finding a gift that will pique their interests is always a chal-

lenge. You’ll want to get them something unique, something
that will hold their attention and something that they’ll
remember (and potentially use). That’s a tall order, especially
if the engineering world isn’t something you’re overly familiar
with.
The author provides some suggested gifts that satisfy her criteria.
One suggestion is to purchase a model of a medieval war machine—a
catapult. It seems to me that the author is spot on with her suggestion.
At our engineering holiday party, even before I read the article, I
had in fact purchased a model kit for a medieval war machine for the
party grab bag. It was a Yankee Swap, a grab bag format that engineers
find particularly pleasing. This is because everyone picks a random num-
ber from a hat and selects gifts from the grab bag in numerical order. At
a Yankee Swap, each successive person may trade his or her gift for one
that was previously selected. So in addition to the use of numbers, the
engineering appeal is magnified by the event’s rule-based strategy.
I didn’t use drawing sheets to wrap the box as Guy suggested. But I
did wrap the catapult box in the next best thing: calculation pad paper.
This was engineering catnip. The box was opened early in the competi-
tion. It must have been the second or third package unwrapped. Like
infant Simba at the beginning of the movie, The Lion King, the engineer
selecting the box triumphantly raised the exposed gift to the crowd. It
was a catapult! The crowd oohed and aahed in appreciation. But after
the initial excitement, the lucky winner realized that he had a problem.
Having selected so early in the swap, there was no way to hold onto such

a desirable gift. When he thought no one was looking, he tried to casu-
ally hide the catapult box under his jacket, but that didn’t work. The next
engineer opened a box containing a kitchen serving mitt and quickly
proceeded to trade for the catapult.

Karl was lucky and selected a high number in the draw. This meant
that he could trade for any of the presents already chosen. When it was
his turn, he opened one of the remaining gifts. It didn’t matter what it
was (boxer shorts? a $5 Dunkin Donuts card?) because he knew what he
wanted. He smiled and quickly traded for the catapult. Soon the swap
was over, and Karl was the big winner. That night, he assembled the
model catapult and soon brought it to the office to show off. Now the
catapult is perched on his desk, and Karl occasionally uses it to lob flam-
ing rubber band balls at the neighboring Huns.
Over the years, I have received several requests for guidance on
how to purchase gifts for engineers. I am also an engineer, but some
have concluded that I have above-average skills in empathizing and
understanding other engineers. Said another way, colleagues perceive
that in the overall world, I am socially clueless, but in the more limited
society of engineers, the following expression may be applicable: “In the
land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
To provide guidance for my colleagues, I prepared a list of items
that are suitable and in fact serve as excellent gifts for engineers (Table 1).
Each of these items is a book. To achieve maximum satisfaction,
one should consider a gift package including all three.
Table 1: Gift Items Suitable for Engineers

Item Number Description
Item 1 Don’t Throw This Away! by Brian Brenner
Item 2 Bridginess by Brian Brenner
Item 3 Too Much Information by Brian Brenner

The Amazing
Bridge Race
by Ryan Marshall
(Author’s Note: Our graphics editor, structural engineer Ryan Marshall,

takes over in this essay, describing his road trip down south with lots of
bridges.—Brian)
At the start line, there were a dozen teams (at least, this is how we imag-
ined it). Each team had two engineers. Phil Keoghan had a steady but
anxious look in his eyes. He said in a clear and excited voice, “You are
gathered here together to participate in a race around the bridge world.
The bridges are waiting for you. Good luck, and travel safe.” He raised
his right arm in the air, pointed his index finger toward the clear, blue
sky and held that pose for a few seconds of suspenseful anticipation.
Then, he swung his arm below his waist in a swift motion and exclaimed,
“GO!!!” And that was how The Amazing Bridge Race began.
Well, that is how I envisioned the opening scene of The Amazing
Bridge Race taking place. That is, if CBS were ever to wise up and give
the American television-watching public what they truly crave: a com-
petitive reality series that features pairs of contestants racing around the
world to see one or more fantastic bridges at each destination. The con-
testants would travel to different countries to learn about the location’s
bridge history and bridge culture, while also competing in structural
engineering challenges that test their bridge knowledge and problem-
solving skills. At the end of each leg of the race, the last team to arrive
at the designated bridge and check in with Phil could be eliminated
from the competition. The winners of the last leg of the race will receive
$100 million to design and build a signature bridge at a location of their
choosing, other than Rhode Island.

My idea for The Amazing Bridge Race all started when my girl-
friend (now fiancé), Amanda, told me that she had to move to Tampa,
Florida, for the next six months of work. We knew that we could make
the move into a memorable experience by turning the journey into a

bridge road trip. We would travel down the East Coast with the route
decided by what bridges we would want to see along the way. (I’m using
the term “we” loosely. Although Amanda is not opposed to bridges and
has been indoctrinated by countless bridge conversations and bridge
dates during our two-year relationship, she had no particular desire to
take elongated routes and unnecessary detours to see as many bridges
as possible. However, she was grateful that her wonderful, charming,
and ruggedly handsome boyfriend was willing to take multiple days off
of work to split the 1,400-mile drive with her. And compromise—along
with excellent bridges—is the backbone of any successful relationship.)
As an avid viewer of the original, less exciting version of The Amazing
Race, I repeatedly found myself unintentionally using the phrase “on the
next leg of the race” throughout the trip. After the sixth time of Amanda
politely reminding me that we were not actually racing between bridges,
I had the brilliant idea for the The Amazing Bridge Race. Because CBS
was largely unreceptive to the idea when I pitched it to them in a well-
worded letter, this recounting of our bridge road trip will have to func-
tion as a substitute for the show (for now). So, on January 22, 2014,
beginning in the humble, and subsequently historic, town of Medford,
Massachusetts, our version of The Amazing Bridge Race began.
Our first destination was the newly opened Kenneth F. Burns
Memorial Bridge over Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Massachu-
setts. Designed by a team of brilliant and talented engineers of Fay, Spof-
ford & Thorndike, the Burns Bridge is unique. It is a five-span, steel-box
deck arch structure that gracefully leaps across the lake. The low rise-to-
span ratio of the arches accentuates the horizontal length of the bridge
and properly expresses its spanning function.
It is possible that as a member of the Burns Bridge design team, I
may be a little biased. Regardless, this was a huge milestone for me. The
Burns Bridge was the first project that I worked on in my professional
career, and being able to see the 2D drawings, 3D renderings, and giant
stack of calculations transformed into a real, tangible object evoked a
rewarding feeling. The exact emotion is hard to explain, but it generally

consists of pride, accomplishment, and ownership. And in addition to
seeing the product of countless hours of work fabricated into a real
object, it’s easy to see that the bridge will be serving the general public
in a useful, practical, and necessary way. Every day, people will use this
bridge to cross Lake Quinsigamond, and they will be relying on our
design to ensure that they are able to do so safely and easily (Figure 1).
So as we approached the bridge, I knew that we were about to
drive over a design that I was a part of for the first time. Although I had
already walked on the bridge the previous week to examine the struc-
ture during the final phases of construction, this would be the first time
that I’d be using the bridge for its primary purpose: to cross between
Worcester and Shrewsbury without needing a boat, swimsuit, or inflat-
able arm floaties.
“But wait, there’s a huge problem at hand!” I thought to myself as
I looked over at Amanda from the passenger’s seat. The problem, if you
are reading carefully, is clear: I was in the passenger’s seat! To me, this
was completely unacceptable. I needed to be the one driving over the
bridge, and I’d have it no other way. So I expressed this to Amanda, who
assumed that I was trying to make a chauvinistic statement about how
all men are better drivers than women. After reassuring her that this
Figure 1. Kenneth F. Burns Memorial Bridge in Worcester,

Massachusetts

was not the case, I convinced her to pull over to the side of the road
and quickly switch seats with me. This was the first of many times this
happened throughout our trip. So with the steering wheel in my hands
and a grin on my face, I drove us over the Burns Bridge, and it was every
bit as magical as I thought it would be. (Although I insisted on being
the one to drive over the bridge, I also did not want to focus on driving
while we were on the bridge. I was looking all around me and trying to
take in every detail, and Amanda was capturing this personal milestone
by taking my picture, with the flash on. Perhaps the most magical thing
about us crossing the Burns Bridge was that we weren’t the first people
to have a recorded automobile accident while crossing it.)
Continuing on from Worcester, we headed south toward Washing-
ton, D.C., where we would spend the night. There are so many note-
worthy bridges to see in the northeast, even just in the state of New
York alone, that it was tough deciding the best route. Although I was
tempted to take I-287 over the Tappan Zee Bridge, which is currently
being replaced, we ultimately decided to continue down I-91 to I-95.
This route would allow us, with some minor circumnavigation, to see
the George Washington Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Verrazano–
Narrows Bridge, and the Bayonne Bridge, which bridge experts (should)
call “the New York Bridge Quadfecta.” (“Quadfecta” is not a word.
Should a word be created to describe four perfect things, it follows natu-
ral logic that it would first be applied to bridges.)
The first stop was the George Washington Bridge. This magnifi-
cent suspension bridge never fails to impress me. Even though cars are
encouraged to travel on the lower level, which generally has less traffic,
I always insist on taking the upper level. This level allows you to fully
experience the bridge, providing a terrific view of the Hudson River.
On a clear day, I’ve heard that you can see the Statue of Liberty in the
distance. I can’t confirm this, though, because I am always preoccupied
looking at the suspension cables and the grandiose steel towers.
The original design of the George Washington Bridge included a
stone fascia to encase the exterior of the towers. Amanda didn’t know
this, but fortunately she had me as her informative, not-at-all-annoying
travel companion. When the Great Depression hit, it was decided that
there wasn’t enough money to clad the towers with stones, as was origi-
nally intended. This is all for the best, if you ask me. I prefer the towers

to proudly exhibit their structural material and form instead of being
disguised as something they are not. If I wanted to see a bridge with real
stone towers, I would go to the Brooklyn Bridge. And I did want to, so
away we went.
Next stop was the Brooklyn Bridge. As far as bridges go, this is the
Mona Lisa of civil engineering. The only difference is the fact that the
Brooklyn Bridge actually serves a useful purpose and is what should be
defined as the epitome of beauty. The Brooklyn Bridge is remarkable. It
has been standing for more than 130 years, which is an incredibly long
life for a bridge.
Once I was able to pick my jaw up from atop my feet, I again start-
ed sharing my trivia knowledge with Amanda. I told her how the chief
engineer, John Roebling, died during construction of the bridge because
of a botched foot amputation and subsequent tetanus infection, leaving
his son, Washington Roebling, in charge of the project. When Wash-
ington Roebling got a debilitating case of “caisson disease,” or decom-
pression sickness (the bends), he became unable to directly supervise
construction. He therefore left his wife, Emily Roebling, in charge of
overseeing the construction of the bridge! She studied higher mathe-
matics and bridge design, which is incredible, considering the fact that
the bridge completed construction in 1883, a time when women hardly
ever worked, let alone designed bridges. Amanda was so grateful that I
kept these fun facts coming and was so in awe of how smart her boy-
friend is that she forgot to say, “Thank you, Ryan!” or “Wow, you’re so
incredibly smart, Ryan!” But she didn’t have to say it aloud. I could see
the appreciation in her eyes.
From the Brooklyn Bridge, we headed over to the Verrazano–
Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension bridge span in the United States.
Amanda was impressed to discover that I was the first toddler to cross
the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge when it first opened. (This is actually
not true; I would have to be much, much, much older to have been the
first baby to cross the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge—so much older that
I’d likely be checked into a retirement home, eating my food in mashed
form and rambling about my experiences as a great, wise bridge engi-
neer in books I’d title Bridginess or Too Much Information.) This bridge
is quite remarkable, and it is definitely worth experiencing firsthand.

Last in the Quadfecta is the Bayonne Bridge, an enormous steel
arch bridge. It was the world’s longest steel arch when it opened in 1931.
The visit provided me the perfect opportunity to tell Amanda about the
“Raising the Roadway” project currently under design for this bridge.
Once completed, this will be a true modern-day feat of engineering.
However, there was an accident near the bridge that caused a huge
amount of traffic, so we (Amanda) decided to change our route and skip
the Bayonne Bridge.
With the New York Bridge Quadfecta behind us and my bridge
appetite temporarily satiated, we continued south. Next up: the Dela-
ware Memorial Bridge, twin suspension bridges that span the Delaware
River and connect the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. When you
finish crossing over the bridge, you encounter a toll booth almost imme-
diately. I talked briefly with the toll booth employee to let her know
that the bridge was completely worth $4. Amanda, embarrassed at even
knowing me, sank slightly in her seat.
Five minutes down the road, we encountered another toll! Because
my bridge euphoria had worn off, I was not pleased with this toll worker,
who hoarsely grunted, “Four dollars,” at us. It turns out that we had
already driven through the entire state of Delaware, having traveled a
whopping five miles since entering at the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
Clearly Delaware isn’t a very big state. But it is still bigger than Rhode
Island.
Having seen more bridges in a day than most people get to see in
two or even three days, we finally arrived at the first pit stop destina-
tion, Washington, D.C. We got a night of much-needed rest and then
spent the morning sightseeing in our nation’s capital. After performing
a quick 1-2-3 pat of my pockets to ensure that I hadn’t left anything
behind, we were ready to embark on the next leg of the race! And the
next destination was a great one: the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is a set of twin suspension bridges that
lead to Maryland’s Eastern Shore region. We first stopped in a nearby
park on the shore to take pictures of the bridge. I was in complete awe
of the bridges, silent as I admired their scale and beauty. I started taking
countless pictures. Having recently discovered that creating panoramas
was one of the many features of my smart phone, I used technology to
capture the incredible length of the bridges in one picture.

When I finished taking a perfect panorama, I turned around to see
how Amanda’s photos were coming out. Maybe I was naïve to assume
that Amanda would also take dozens of pictures of the bridge. But what
I saw when I turned around shocked me. Amanda was not taking pic-
tures of the bridge. She wasn’t even looking at the bridge! She was strug-
gling to open a package of crackers. She wrestled with that stubborn
package, finally got a cracker out, and bit half of it before realizing that
I was watching her. Seeing the astonished look on my face, she asked
me, “What?” I knew I couldn’t begin to describe how bizarre it was to
me that she wasn’t completely captivated by the bridges, because any
normal person would have been shocked at how completely captivated I
was. So I gave her a kiss, said, “Nothing,” and continued taking another
couple dozen pictures.
After an excellent ride across the bay, we continued driving down
the Delmarva Peninsula toward the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel-Bridge.
This bridge-tunnel combination is so long, you lose all sight of land.
It almost feels like you’re driving directly on the ocean at times, and
the tunnel is unfathomably long. It was quite the experience. While we
planned on going to the restaurant on the fisherman’s pier that is located
along the tunnel-bridge, we got there too late, and the restaurant was
closed. This was a big disappointment, because we had been driving for
so long and essentially trapped at sea for the last 30 miles without any
access to a restroom.
With no restroom in sight, the constant sloshing sound of the
watery bay, and a long, dark, deserted pier, I will leave it to your imagi-
nation what happened next. More details than that might be too much
information.
Although it was a pretty safe assumption that we would get lost
at some point on the trip, it was certain that we would have to stop for
gas every 350 miles or so. When I said that I thought getting gas was
a “waste of time,” Amanda laughed, not fully acknowledging the sig-
nificance of the race. And even though it took up even more time, I
always cleaned the windshield at every gas station with squeegees in
cleansing solution. Every time, Amanda would thank me for being so
considerate and taking such good care of her car. It always feels good
to do nice things for other people and be appreciated for it afterward. (I
still haven’t told Amanda that the only reason I cleaned her windshield

was so that the pictures we took while driving over bridges wouldn’t be
marred by streaks of dirt and bird droppings.)
Our next pit stop was Charleston, South Carolina. Here we saw the
Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, a beautiful, symmetric cable-stayed bridge

over the Cooper River. The design is simple and elegant, and it was my
favorite of all the cable-stayed bridges we saw on the trip. Like the Zakim
Bridge in Boston, the pylons are triangular. This means that as the cables
increase in height on the pylon, they move toward each other over the
roadway. The next two bridges we saw, the Talmadge Bridge in Savan-
nah, Georgia, and the Dames Point Bridge in Jacksonville, Florida, were
also cable-stayed bridges. On these two bridges, however, the cables are
planar, and the pylons are H-shaped. Although I had never seen a cable-
stayed bridge design like this before, it has less of an impact when you
drive over the bridge.
With the Ravenel Bridge, the cables seem to welcome you to drive
through them. With the Talmadge and Dames Point Bridges, the cables
feel disengaged from the bridge, like they were once suspension bridges
whose cables got accidentally bunched together (Figure 2).
One thing we (I) noted at this point in the trip was that the sus-
pension bridges had vanished, and the bridge landscape had drastically
changed. We wondered what had happened to the suspension bridges
and noted that the cable-stayed bridges had less character and were
almost interchangeable. In fact, while making a photo album once the
Figure 2. Comparing (left to right) the Ravenel, Talmadge, and Dames

Point Bridges

trip was complete, Amanda grouped pictures of the Talmadge Bridge
and the Dames Point Bridge together because she didn’t notice that they
were two different structures.
Although most of our bridges were planned before the trip began,
sometimes we (I) were (was) pleasantly surprised with bridges we saw
along the way that were not on our itinerary. My favorite example was
when we were driving through Sanford, Florida, and we came across an
extravagant cable-stayed pedestrian bridge. Even though it was late and
we wanted to stop for the night, I convinced Amanda that we had to go
loop back to take a better look.
This bridge really substantiates the claim that our country has
cable-stayed bridge fever. It was not a very long span, leading me to
believe that many other design alternatives would have been more effi-
cient and economical. For example, the designer could have included a
pier at the midspan, because there was a large barrier between north-
bound and southbound traffic. In fact, the bridge was also a through
truss, which would have seemed appropriate if the cables weren’t also
present. Although definitely more interesting to look at than most
pedestrian bridges, it looked like a standard prefabricated truss pedes-
trian bridge that later had two pylons and cables added to it for abso-
lutely no reason. The bridge looks completely overdesigned, and it was
clear that it was designed to be a cable-stayed bridge because someone
wanted to build a cable-stayed bridge (Figure 3).
The final pit stop on the race before reaching our ultimate destina-
tion was Jacksonville, Florida. We stopped for dinner in the Jackson-
ville Landing. This was a gorgeous location with a bustling economy
and plenty of great food venues. It also, and more importantly, had a
lot of diverse bridges in view at once! Most prominent was the Main
Street Bridge, a vertical-lift steel truss bridge over the St. Johns River.
The bridge was both monstrous and elegant. It is slightly reminiscent
of the industrial age, but it is still fully functional and properly fits in
with its surroundings. When you turn your head to the west side of the
river, you can see the Acosta Bridge, a concrete box girder bridge. The
haunches on this bridge give it an elegant silhouette against the setting
sun, although some of the proportions look a little off. In addition to
these bridges, there was also a steel truss bascule drawbridge, which was
open, and additional highway bridges in the distance. The scene could

Figure 3. Cable-stayed pedestrian bridge in Sanford, Florida

not be more picturesque, so I captured the moment in yet another per-

fect panorama (Figure 4).
We had finally reached our destination of Tampa. However, before
getting Amanda settled into her apartment, we needed to check in with
Phil at the final pit stop of the race: the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in St.
Petersburg, Florida. An immaculate cable-stayed bridge that rises high
above Tampa Bay, this bridge was a fitting culmination of our bridge
road trip. The simple cable-stayed bridge has two pylons centered in
between the eastbound and westbound traffic lanes. The cables are
painted yellow, which makes the bridge glow in the distance.
When we neared the end of the Skyway Bridge, we (imagined that
we) saw Phil at the other end, standing on a large The Amazing Bridge
Race mat. We pulled over the car and ran to him as quickly as we could.
There was a native Florida man next to Phil, wearing native Floridian
attire (white polo, khaki shorts, flip-flops, and a straw hat), who greet-
ed us in his native tongue, “Wel…come … to … Flor…uh…duh.” We

Figure 4. Main Street Bridge over the St. Johns River in Jacksonville,
Florida
Source: Ryan Marshall.
turned to Phil, who said, “Ryan and Amanda, you are… (incredibly long
pause for suspense) …the…FIRST team to arrive!”
We did it! We won the Amazing Bridge Race! Amanda and I start-
ed cheering in excitement, jumping up and down in joy, thinking about
the wonderful bridge we would get to design with our prize money.
But Phil had a sad look on his face. He cut our reverie short.
“Amanda and Ryan, I am sorry to say that you have incurred a penalty.
You skipped over the Bayonne Bridge and did not complete the New
York Bridge Quadfecta, which is unacceptable by any bridge engineer’s
standards. You therefore have been eliminated from the race.”
And that is how we (Amanda) lost the Amazing Bridge Race.
Although disappointed with the outcome, we (Amanda) learned a lot
along the way, we (I) will never forget the bridges we saw, and we (we)
wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world.

Gas Mileage
My new car is a hybrid gas–electric sedan. Our previous new car, pur-
chased a few years ago, is my wife’s Prius. The Prius is also a car, but my
children refer to it as the tin can. The Prius is a small car with a hybrid
gas–electric motor. This was the first commercially sold hybrid, and the
design engineers were let loose to reinvent everything. For decades, cars
had a certain way of doing things. For example, you needed a key to start
the vehicle. The Prius engineers did away with that requirement and just
about every other convention. The model has a new shape, a new con-
trol panel, a new way of starting, and a new way of shifting.
I didn’t drive Lauren’s car that much, so I didn’t get to fully experi-
ence or appreciate all the changes. But my new car also has been reen-
gineered from the old standards. So now I’m learning the ropes. The
first change is that it gets astonishing gas mileage, upwards of 40 miles
per gallon. The second change is that the car is a bit of a nanny, with its
extensive, intrusive dashboard display that compliments me when I’m
good and scolds me otherwise.
The dealership was a little bit circumspect in describing the new
car’s capabilities. I got a brief lesson in how to handle the advanced con-
trol panel. In the old days, a short lesson was all that was needed. There
were only a few things on the control panel, such as indicators for speed,
amount of gas remaining, and warning lights for mechanical failure.
In my new car, things have become a bit more complex. There are
indicators for speed, aggregate gas mileage, current gas mileage, yester-
day’s gas mileage, electrical routing, the weather (inside and outside),
and a host of symbols and guides that I don’t yet understand. The radio
no longer has one switch, and it’s no longer a radio. Now it is my per-
sonal entertainment center, with dozens of symbols on the touch screen

for AM, FM, more FM, the CD player, the iPod, the Bluetooth, the mys-
tery thing, and a few other slots. I can control the sound system from
the touchpad or from additional keys on the steering wheel. This also is
a relatively new addition for cars—extra buttons on the steering wheel.

This is helpful, I guess, because I don’t have enough buttons to press on
the dashboard, control panel, and elsewhere in the cabin. I will need to
be careful here because I’m not sure what all these controls do. I assume
that one is the passenger eject button.
An overly complex display panel does not appeal to my Luddite
nature. I would be satisfied just to turn the thing on and drive, but you
can’t even do that anymore. The car doesn’t have a key. It has a “key
fob.” The fob opens the door automatically as you walk next to the car,
which actually is pretty impressive. Then, when you sit down, you push
a button without a key, and the car turns itself on, which is also pretty
impressive. I drove some of my engineering colleagues to an engineer-
ing lunch, and I was actually showing off how my new car could turn
itself on and run by battery. They were impressed until they started ask-
ing questions about all the features on the control panel, about which I
was clueless.
Somehow, through some sequence of keystrokes on the display
panel, I figured out how to show my ongoing gas mileage. The car
displays my current and cumulative gas mileage for each voyage. The
display includes a graph, constantly updated, that shows my driving
progress. The graph does not bother to show mileage data below 25
miles per gallon (mpg), because that would be pathetic. So already the
car is editorializing—if you can’t even make it onto the graph, you are
worthless.
The continuous readout has led to a change in my driving person-
ality. Before, I would race to my destination and zoom down the inter-
state at a speed perhaps a tad higher than the official speed limit. But
in my new car, at the end of a trip, should I reach or exceed the target
mpg, the car rewards me with the statement, “Excellent!” on the display
panel. If I do not drive well that day, the compliment of “Excellent!” is
withheld. In its place is nothing, a blank panel that scolds the driver: You
are not “Excellent!” you are nothing, you are a blank! The panel doesn’t
actually say this, of course, but that is what’s communicated.
I think if we are honest, we will admit that we all wish to be excel-
lent, not just in driving but in every aspect of life. Now when I am

driving, I strive to be Excellent! Thanks to the continuous data display
and information overload, I try to avoid wasted drops of gas. It turns
out that there are some tricks you can use to improve your gas mile-
age. These improvements are facilitated by an engineered approach. As

a general rule of thumb, the brake pedal should be avoided at all times.
That sounds foolish at first, because how would you stop otherwise? But
every time you use your brake, you are depriving yourself of precious
forward momentum. That wastes gas, and then you are not Excellent!
Consider that nemesis of gas mileage, the red traffic signal. A red
light is problematic because it seemingly requires you to hit the brakes
and lose that valuable forward momentum. But an effective remedy is to
plan your cruise to the traffic signal well in advance. If a signal has been
green for a while, you can expect it to turn red. By removing your foot
from the accelerator, you can glide gracefully to the signal. So what if
you glide at 14 miles per hour and there are four trucks behind you? Gas
is at stake! If the distant signal is red, it will turn green as you approach
if you time it right. If it turns red, you may need eventually to creak to
a stop. But at least you didn’t burn any crucial molecules of gas on that
folly.
With my new awareness of gas mileage, many times I have been in
red-light cruise mode, slowly gliding to the signal. Perhaps the drivers
behind me are annoyed, trapped at 14 mph when they could accelerate
to 40 and race to then wait at the red light. Sometimes it’s a multilane
road. The frustrated, emotional nonengineers behind pull sharply into
the adjacent lane and burn rubber. A few moments later, I glide to the
signal stop, timing it so that the car creaks to a stop just at that moment.
Before, the nonengineers were smug, but now they are confused. They
arrived no faster than I, but after burning rubber they had three fewer
gallons in their tanks. I flash them a saved-gas, I’m-an-engineer, self-
satisfied look.
How to accelerate is an important issue that affects gas mileage. It
is easy to quickly empty your tank if you gun it on the freeway. Before,
I would accelerate from zero to 60 in a few seconds. Now in my new-
found wisdom, I accelerate from zero to 60 by Tuesday. By accelerat-
ing more gradually, I save gas. Freeway driving is another place where
you can drive carefully and avoid use of the brake. I never tailgate and
always keep many car lengths in front of me. I always glide downhill. It
would be even better if I could always drive downhill and never uphill,

but that’s not really an option. I always try to time my lane changes and
moves so that I can avoid sudden stops. No stops, no brakes, no loss of
gas mileage. It all adds up.
With these tricks and more, my mileage has steadily improved.

Now I’m in the car, and soon the graph is plotting 25 mph and increas-
ing. I drive carefully, prudently, and at the end of the ride, I am Excellent!
I’m thinking it’s only a matter of time before the advanced dash-
board display even further advances. A few years from now, maybe with-
in a decade, I’ll sit down in my electrohydrogen hybrid vehicle. I’ll start
in manual before letting the autodrive take over.
“Good afternoon, Brian,” says my car.
“Good afternoon, Hal,” I respond. I decided to name my car Hal.
“Recently you have achieved excellent gas mileage,” says Hal.
“Thank you, Hal,” I respond.
“Your mileage this week was 430 miles per gallon.” (In the future,
the world gave up on metric and changed back to customary units of
measurement.) “But, Brian, I am concerned.”
“Why is that, Hal?”
“Let me describe my concern,” states Hal in his sonorous voice. “I
have detected a negative trend in your gas mileage. It is Excellent! but the
rate of excellence is decaying.”
“Well, that certainly is of concern,” I respond. “Have you found a
cause for this negative trend?”
“I believe I have,” says my car. “I have performed a careful analysis of
various components that contribute to your gas mileage. The mechanical
equipment is running superbly, and your intelligent drive is of course of
uncommon intelligence, so therefore these components do not explain
the rate decay.”
“I see. What component is responsible for the problem?”
Hal says, “I have detected an increase in mass in the users.”
“An increase in mass, Hal? What do you mean—can you provide
more information?”
“Yes, I believe I can,” says Hal. “Brian, I am concerned that you have
been putting on weight. You have become tubby. Tubby drivers do not
get good gas mileage.”
Okay, but back in the present, my intrusive car can’t talk back to
me in such a manner (yet). However, it can flash all sorts of data in a
continuous information stream overload. It can let me know that when
I conserve gas, I am Excellent! And after today’s ride, I am.

Columbo as a
Bridge Engineer
Recently I saw an advertisement for free TV. For $19.95, plus shipping
and handling, you could order a box. When attached to your TV, the
box provided hours of free, crisp, high-definition TV, with multiple sta-
tions. Furthermore, if you acted now, a second box was included in the
original price for free, plus shipping and handling. The advertisement
was filmed on a boat. The hawker sipped a cool drink as his boat lazily
floated in hazy sunshine off the Gulf Coast.
He exclaimed, “Look, I can watch TV for free off the Gulf Coast!”
Not only that, but a year of free TV could save you almost $1,000
over cable TV, assuming that you had signed up for premium chan-
nels with sports, on demand, and a DVR. Over 10 years, you could save
$10,000 over cable costs. Over 100 years, you could save more than
$100,000, not even factoring potential return on investment or proceeds
from winning lottery tickets that could be paid for from savings by not
purchasing cable.
I was amused watching this advertisement because I was one of
the 2% or so who never purchased cable TV to begin with. Although
it is not well known, in the past all TV was free. Also, you had to actu-
ally watch TV on a TV. There were not additional options streaming on
your PC, DVRs, Hulu, Netflix, your telephone, or some other tablet or
iPod. You just bought a TV, plugged it into the wall, turned it on, and
after adjusting the rabbit antennae, selected from five stations. That’s it.
Today, the simple world of television entertainment has grown more
complex. Even the world of retro TV has been tampered with. At some
point, they changed the signal from analog to something that required
boxes. You could still get free TV floating on the Gulf of Mexico. But you
needed a box to convert it to the new appropriate signal.

Originally, there were only three free networks, a few nonnetwork
stations, and PBS, which no one over six watched anyway. In today’s
confusing broadcast landscape, a whole bunch of new free TV stations
have appeared on top of the 300 or so cable stations, pay-per-view,

streaming, and all the other web options.
These new, free stations appeal to a demographic that might be
described as older, thrifty, and Luddite—in other words, stations geared
toward me. Unfortunately, this target group is perhaps not as appealing
to advertisers, who seek male viewers from 18 to 28 years old who can
be relied upon to impulse-buy expensive automobiles, beer, and costly
baubles. No, sales targeted toward my demographic niche focus on dif-
ferent categories of merchandise. These are perhaps a little more spe-
cialized, a little less impulsive, and a little less profitable. Lauren and I
nicknamed one of the new free TV stations that we watch as the “shut-
in” station. Advertisements on this station include pharmacological
products, dentures, and something called the “Clapper.” The Clapper is
a device that you use to connect your lights, radios (for those who still
have radios), and other electric devices. By clapping your hands twice,
you make the Clapper turn the device on or off. The Clapper, therefore,
is ideal for folks who don’t want to get out of bed or otherwise physically
move more than is necessary.
The shut-in station does not offer new material. Instead, it broad-
casts old TV shows from back in the day, programs like F Troop, I
Dream of Jeannie, Green Acres, and, of course, Gilligan’s Island. On
Sunday mornings, you are invited to the “Brady Brunch,” in which you
may watch several hours of back-to-back episodes of The Brady Bunch.
Some have commented that they just don’t make TV like that anymore,
and it’s true. Many of the shows appearing on the shut-in station are
execrable, shows like Lost in Space, which are devoid of drama, cinema-
tography, quality of writing, narrative continuity, acting, set design, and
other components that are understood to comprise quality in the filmed
media. These were truly awful TV shows, very bad, very, very bad. But
there were days in the fifth grade when you got to stay home sick with
a bad cold. Watching such tripe all day long was comforting and helped
spur recovery. Or it contributed to brain rot and the current declining
status of the West. For the target demographic of older, thrifty Luddites,
there is a deep sense of satisfaction in reliving the bad television of one’s
youth. Thus, the shut-in station was cashing in on nostalgia.

Even back in the 1970s, not all TV was bad. Some programs were
renowned for their quality. One highly regarded show was the murder
mystery Columbo. This series was presented in the form of a movie
shown every other Sunday night or so. The lead character, Columbo, was
a seemingly befuddled L.A. detective who worked in homicide. Colum-
bo had no first name that we knew of, and he had a long list of quirks.
In sunny California, he wore a ratty old raincoat in every episode, and
he was always disheveled. Columbo drove a car wreck and continuously
smoked a cigar, which was inappropriate even in the 1970s. He seemed
confused and out of place, but that was the joke that we viewers were all
in on. Columbo was way smarter than he seemed.
But the villains never got the joke. Each episode began with a mur-
der. Someone rich, famous, and powerful performed the crime, and not
until after the second commercial was Columbo even on the scene. The
next 90 minutes showed Columbo snooping around the crime scene,
quickly figuring out who did it, and then piecing together unlikely
evidence to ensnare the offender. In the end, the befuddled detective
brought down a rich and powerful evildoer. Unlikely justice prevailed.
The fun for viewers was in watching how eagle-eyed Columbo connect-
ed obscure clues. Also, for poor schlubs in the audience, there was the
satisfaction in seeing the rich and powerful receive their comeuppance.
In the pretechnology, less-information age of the 1970s, Columbo
solved crimes by being an astute observer of human nature and minu-
tiae. Columbo would notice that the victim’s shoelaces were tied back-
ward, and from that he would deduce that the victim did not put on his
own sneakers. Someone had changed the victim’s shoes to sneakers, and
it clearly followed that a barbell that accidentally landed on the victim’s
neck was no accident, but murder! In a way, the show was a precur-
sor to today’s TV procedurals, such as CSI. However, the evidence that
Columbo relied on seems quaint and faint, in comparison to CSI, with
its microscopes, labs, computers, and DNA.
The progression of crime dramas mirrors the overall advances in
data collection and management. From the 1970s to the 2010s, informa-
tion has multiplied by a factor of 73 quadrillion (I made that up). The
quirky, personal touch of Columbo has been replaced by CSI’s imper-
sonal data analysis, silky labs, and pulsating electronic music. At the
crime scene today, no one really needed to notice that the shoelaces

were tied backward. They could just collect the DNA and thousands of
other assorted data points, sic the computers on it over the weekend,
and announce the criminal’s identity on Monday.
Much more data are much better, of course, except that maybe they
aren’t. When there weren’t so many data, one had to use smarts and
work-arounds to fill in the gaps. One had to analyze. With the over-
flow of data has come loss of the old ways, which were born of necessity
because back then you didn’t have massive data and tetragigabytes of
computer processors.
We see this trend in our engineering work. A project in the 1970s
that was built using 50 drawing sheets would need 400 sheets today.
Probably the project is not eight times better if it needs eight times as
many sheets. But AutoCAD provides a practical and easy way of draw-
ing and depicting so much more than by manual drafting. What may be
lost in that startling technological advancement are the skills needed for
managing and depicting information based on more limited data and
more limited means. If you can’t just cut and paste, you have to spend
more time deciding on what to show and how to show it. You wouldn’t
have the luxury of plopping extraneous sections on a sheet.
I enjoy watching Columbo, and not only because I am an older,
thrifty Luddite. Of all of his disarming quirks, my favorite was the way
Columbo would walk back into the room after a lengthy joust with the
villain. After questioning, Columbo would leave and the criminal would
be relieved that the evil truth was not revealed. But then Columbo would
appear back at the door saying, “Oh, just one more thing,” and he would
ensnare the villain in a sudden revelation.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if Columbo were
a bridge engineer. I don’t think he would have been solving murders, but
maybe he would provide assistance for the analysis. We would be sit-
ting with computers working through indeterminate frames. Columbo
would skulk around the office in his raincoat and disheveled hair, but
the effect would not be the same. Unlike southern California, with its
glamorous movie stars and otherwise beautiful people, all the engineers
in our office would have disheveled hair (those who had hair). These
engineers wouldn’t wear raincoats, but they would have mismatched
shirts and pant bottoms that had been prepared for rising sea level.
Maybe Columbo would be our boss, pacing back and forth ruminating

about the mysteries of moment transfer. He would grill the engineers
for what seemed like hours, railing against the computer and how things
were back in the old days. Eventually, chief engineer Columbo would
tire and head for the men’s room. The junior engineers would breathe a
sigh a relief that the grilling was over.
But then Columbo would be back, hovering over the monitors
with a manual calculation sketched on toilet paper, “Oh, just one more
thing—did you use the correct fixed-end moment?”
Analysis solved.

Rhode Island
The inevitable question is asked: Is Rhode Island really a state? After the
former planet Pluto was demoted to planetoid, some have considered a
similar reclassification of Rhode Island from a state to “oversized coun-
ty” or “state-oid.” So far, this change has not been made.
In the past, I was invited to make presentations in Rhode Island. I
was even invited to give a keynote speech at a conference in Newport.
The conference was held in one of the beautiful old mansions from the
Gilded Age, the plush dining room filled with hundreds of guests. They
were engineers, so they were not exactly dressed for the Gilded Age,
although many attendees had clothes and socks that vaguely matched.
This might be considered a notch up from the couture at an average
engineering event.
So this mildly pampered crowd queued up at the tables for a feast
of scented scones and steaming seafood. As dessert was served, it was
time for the presentation. Because it was an engineering event, I thought
I would include some humor in my speech. I prepared a few of my best
Rhode Island jokes, such as the one where you’re driving south across
the border from Massachusetts on I-95 and four minutes later you’re in
Connecticut. The audience chuckled with polite appreciation.
The official name of the state is “State of Rhode Island and Provi-
dence Plantations.” A longer name perhaps helps residents deal with the
state size issue. Furthermore, Rhode Island’s nickname is the “Ocean
State.” This is a bit pretentious, considering that Rhode Island techni-
cally does not have any ocean shoreline. It’s all bay or sound. But a nick-
name of the “Ocean State” is thinking big, in contrast to the “Pinecone
State” or the “Butterfly State.”

For residents of Massachusetts, living on the border of Rhode
Island is helpful. As a state, Massachusetts is not all that big either. But
thanks to Rhode Island, Massachusetts residents avoid an inferiority
complex. We can strut around with our greater understanding of space

and our higher place in the order of things. If you are from a state next
to Rhode Island, everything seems, well, bigger.
Despite its puniness, Rhode Island is the site of some of New Eng-
land’s biggest bridges. Three large bridges connect the mainland to
Aquidneck Island, home to the city of Newport. The biggest of the three
is the Newport Bridge (Claiborne Pell Bridge). It is a spectacular sus-
pension bridge featuring the largest span in New England at 1,601 ft.
The bridge crosses Narragansett Bay, and it opened in 1969. Along with
the main suspended span is a series of deck truss approach spans. The
overall bridge is 11,247 ft long.
Not far away is the Mount Hope Bridge, a two-lane suspension bridge
designed by David Steinman that opened in 1929. The bridge connects
Aquidneck Island with the Rhode Island mainland at Bristol. The bridge
was financed by bonds that were to be supported by tolls. Unfortunately,
the bridge opening was just in time for the Depression, and a few years
later the Mount Hope Bridge Company went bankrupt. Eventually, tolls
were removed when it was determined that it cost more money to collect
the tolls than to just let traffic ride for free. The graceful old suspension
bridge was subject to substantial rehabilitation work between 1998 and
2004. The aging bridge crosses a corrosive saltwater environment, and
more work is needed. The Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Author-
ity provides a 10-year plan for the bridge (http://www.ritba.org/sites/all/
themes/ritba/pdf/April%201%202014%20DRAFT%20Ten%20Year%20
Plan%20Mount%20Hope%20Bridge.pdf) (Figure 1).
A third bridge connecting to the island from the east crosses the
Sakonnet River, and it was recently replaced. The original bridge was a
continuous truss span that opened in 1956. It was replaced by a steel box
girder bridge in 2012.
The Rhode Island bridges and connecting highways seem to be
missing a few links. I-295, a beltway around Providence, is really only
half a beltway. The highway circumvents Providence to the west. A con-
necting piece to the east was never built. This highway was to be desig-
nated I-895, and different alignments crossed the Pell Bridge and the

Figure 1. Mount Hope Bridge in Portsmouth, Rhode Island

Source: Photo by John McDaid, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/27564022@N00/2188284348>
(Feb. 27, 2015)
Mount Hope Bridge (with a twin to be built alongside it). Throughout

tiny Rhode Island are correspondingly small stub ramps and ghost high-
way connections for the section of freeway that was never built.
Rhode Island’s biggest recent infrastructure project was the reloca-
tion of I-195 in downtown Providence. As part of this massive project, a
new tied arch bridge was constructed across the Providence River. The
project relocated I-195 to the south, freeing up a large swath of Provi-
dence that had been cut off by the earlier highway construction. The
project also moved the junction of I-195 and I-95 farther south, improv-
ing weaves with RI 146 and helping to unclog a chronic traffic problem.
The highway structures, especially the new tied arch, are aesthetically
detailed and fit nicely in the revised layout of the city.
The new arch bridge crosses just south of the hurricane barrier
that was constructed in the 1960s. The barrier includes gates that can
be closed to prevent a surge of water flooding downtown Providence
from Narragansett Bay. Such a surge caused massive damage from the
unnamed hurricane of 1938, and later from Hurricane Carol. The bar-
rier was the first of its kind built in the United States. With increasing

concerns for climate change and sea level rise, the barrier provides a to-
date successful example of an engineering and infrastructure approach
for providing future protection against flooding.
For those keeping track of such things, the highest point in Rhode
Island is Jerimoth Hill. Unlike craggy peaks in the Rocky Mountains
or even tall hills of the Appalachians, Jerimoth Hill is really just a large
mound. Also, it is barely within the borders of Rhode Island, being a
stone’s throw from Connecticut. Although in reality, all of Rhode Island
is barely within the borders of Rhode Island.
If you are thinking of a trip to the state and even a vacation there,
remember that it is a small, small place with not much to see, although
there are some great bridges and infrastructure projects. Natives of
the state are aware of the size issue, so it is not necessary to frequently
remind them that they live in a tiny, very small state. Additional point-
ers: The TV show Family Guy is set in Rhode Island. But because it’s a
cartoon and does not feature actual living characters, you will not have
the opportunity to meet Brian, the talking dog. This is different from
a visit to Kennebunkport, Maine, where you can actually bump into a
Bush.

The Engineer’s
Check
Ryan and I were inspecting a bridge when he announced that he didn’t
have his cell phone.
“Why don’t you have your cell phone?” I asked Ryan.
“I left it at home,” he responded.
“Why did you leave it at home?” I asked. “Didn’t you check?”
The check, which all engineers do (at least, all male engineers), is
a quick pocket pat-down. This is known, informally, as the “engineer’s
check.” You pat your pockets to verify that you have your keys, your
wallet, and your cell phone. These are the basic requirements. Through-
out the day, engineers pat their pockets to verify that their keys, wallet,
and cell phone haven’t fallen out or been pickpocketed. The engineer’s
check may not prevent pickpocketing, but its frequent application helps
to avoid other disasters. For example, should your cell phone slip out of
your pocket and onto the car seat while leaving the car, a timely applica-
tion of the engineer’s check alerts the checker and allows implementa-
tion of a recovery plan.
First thing in the morning, the engineer’s check has often saved
me when I’m racing out the door. Regardless, leaving home is a com-
plex procedure with many steps and milestones. My schedule includes
such tasks as showering, shaving, putting on clothes, and leaving the
house. Missing a scheduled item can have dire consequences. Also, tasks
should be performed in the prescribed sequence. For example, clothes
need to be put on before leaving the house and not after.
Assuming that I make it out of the house on schedule, with all
milestones achieved, the engineer’s check helps me even when I’m sev-
eral blocks from home. At that point, I most likely have my keys because

it would not be possible to drive otherwise. But my wallet and cell phone
could be missing, and a quick pat-down will let me know I’m okay and
the contingency plan isn’t needed.
Actually, I’m getting a little nervous as I’m writing this. What if

something is missing? Let me check ….
Excellent—everything is where it’s supposed to be.
Some have commented that a desirable addition to the engineer’s
check is a more uniform arrangement of items. The idea is to always
place the three crucial items in the exact same location. For example, the
wallet and cell phone may go in the front left pocket, and the keys in the
front right pocket. Which pocket and which items go there are not so
important. The issue is one of consistency—that the items are always put
in the same location. This can be helpful for application of the engineer’s
check because the resulting feedback is more rapid and consistent. On
the other hand, personally I’ve found that the cost of placing each of the
three items in the same place outweighs the benefit. It is enough just to
ensure that all three items are in my pockets.
Therefore, placing each item in the same pocket each day is a bit
anal and obsessive-compulsive. However, I determined that it made
sense to shift the location of my house key on my key chain. I moved my
house key in between two larger car keys. Now when I come home in
winter and it’s dark, I can easily find my house key because it is always in
the proper location on my key chain.
Back at the bridge inspection, Ryan indicated that he checked that
morning when leaving his house. This was of concern.
“If you checked, why don’t you have your cell phone?”
Ryan commented that he went to walk his dog. In doing so, he
brought along bags for scooping up refuse. He had stored the bags in
one of his pockets.
Still, I was confused. “So, why don’t you have your cell phone?”
Ryan said, “When I checked, I thought the bag was my cell phone.”
Now my concern increased. In his application of the engineer’s
check, why would Ryan confuse a plastic baggie with a cell phone? Then
it dawned on me.
“Ryan, did you put a bag filled with dog poop in your pocket?”
This could explain why he thought that he had his cell phone, when
in fact he didn’t. Although, during the engineer’s check, one would think

that a pat of the front pocket would return a squishy feel in this case.
The response would be much different than the tactile response from a
cell phone. Should one apply geotechnical testing criteria, results would
indicate that the dog poop baggie would have a low blow count while
the cell phone, being of a relatively stiff material, would have a high blow
count—although probably one would not subject a cell phone to a blow
count test.
“No, of course not,” Ryan said, a little bit shaken. Ryan was normal-
ly unflappable, but his thought that I thought that he may have stored
a baggie with dog poop in his pocket was unsettling. He said, “I had a
bunch of baggies, not just one. When I quickly checked while leaving
the house, I thought that based on volume, it was a cell phone.”
This explanation, which barely made sense, was a relief in a way
because Ryan had not placed a baggie with dog poop in his pocket. But
now I had concerns about his QA/QC procedures.
To further assist in this discussion, Ryan has provided an illus-
tration of the engineer’s check (Figure 1). His illustration shows some
variations that may need to be accounted for in the procedure. In the
figure, locations of the keys, cell phone, and wallet are schematically
shown in different pockets. However, note that the wallet is identified as
Figure 1. The engineer’s check


being placed in the back pocket. In my case, this figure is inaccurate. As
previously discussed, I don’t put each of the three items in a particular
pocket. But I always use my front pockets and avoid use of the back
pockets. So during the engineer’s check, I pat only two pockets and not
three.
Another complication is that one of the pockets contains two items.
Usually I keep my wallet in one pocket and the cell phone and keys in
the other. A variation of this, say the wallet and keys in one pocket,
results in a brief moment of concern for me during the engineer’s check.
Because the wallet should typically and correctly be in its own pocket, a
variation from the routine can be disturbing.
Note that additional information has been provided by the figure.
Ryan has labeled “the engineering 15.” This is a variation of a more com-
monly known phenomenon, the “freshman 15.” Students first attending
college frequently put on extra pounds because of all that pizza, beer, and
ice cream. Young engineers newly at work in an office job with deadlines
and high stress tend to pork out a bit and not get enough exercise.
Ryan had completed his first year as a practicing engineer, and
occasionally I provided him with helpful reminders about the engineer-
ing 15. Like, for example, the time we had dessert day at the office and
Ryan loaded two plates with one or more of each dessert. His plates
were piled so high that the slopes of the goodies were unstable, lead-
ing to concerns for slope stability. Add to this dynamic loading plate
movement as Ryan carefully juggled the plates, and one could envision
a Bishop’s failure with chocolate rum balls scattered all over the floor.
Should you meet Ryan (and he is a terrific young engineer worth
meeting), it is clear that for him, the engineering 15 has not yet taken its
toll. But due to the additional stress from his failure to apply the engi-
neer’s check, I hope he will not go home, drown his sorrows in beer and
pizza, and then arrive the next day with a new problem and cliché to
deal with.

Pomelos
As an engineer, I’m a creature of habit. I do things in a certain way, which
makes me happy.
It makes nonengineers around me, such as my wife, less happy, but
such is the way of the world in which engineers like me live and (attempt
to) communicate.
I decided that I like grapefruits, so a few times a week I bring a
grapefruit to the office for lunch. The grapefruit is proudly displayed on
my desk in the morning. I look at the grapefruit, and I’m glad, knowing
that I’ll get to eat it at lunchtime.
Almost always it’s a ruby red grapefruit because they taste better
than white grapefruits, and anyway, ruby red grapefruits are the way
grapefruits should be.
When I was food shopping, I made a new, startling discovery. The
supermarket was selling a fruit called a “pomelo.” It looked like a grape-
fruit, but it was much, much bigger, almost like a small beach ball.
Although it wasn’t a grapefruit and thus a violation of the fruit pro-
tocol, I purchased one and brought it into the office. The other engineers
were excited. I had told them that I found a beach ball–sized grapefruit
that I was going to bring in and display on my desk. When the fruit
arrived, they were curious and appreciative. A group of my colleagues
huddled around the giant yellow fruit. After a brief discussion, they
arrived at a consensus that although it wasn’t a grapefruit, it was close to
a grapefruit. Therefore, the applicable specifications were satisfied.
Before eating the pomelo, I attempted some structural model-
ing experiments. I have a collection of office toys for my desktop that
includes a laminated rebar splice, Nerf basketballs with the company

logo, and a little toy train. The laminated splice is a “bar lock,” which can
be stood upright on my desk. On pomelo days, I balance the pomelo
atop the splice. The balanced pomelo is stable under static loading, but
dynamic loads are of concern. It is unclear if collapse could be avoided

due to vibrations from floor movement or my pounding the desk.
One could argue that perhaps my engineering ways are too rigid.
My excitement and the appreciation of the other engineers were based
on viewing an exotic variation of a grapefruit. But why consider only
a grapefruit? Why not another fruit such as a tangelo, or something
beyond the citrus family? Why focus on fruits at all? Instead of eating
grapefruits for lunch every day, maybe I should go water skiing or learn
Swahili. Learning Swahili would break the mold, and the other engi-
neers would be impressed.
In his blog, Wit and Wisdom of an Engineer, Steven Sanders writes
about “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Engineers” (http://witand-
wisdomofanengineer.blogspot.com/2011/01/seven-habits-of-highly-
effective.html). With acknowledgment to Stephen Covey, at this point
everyone needs to have seven effective habits—men, women, teens,
families, readers, and so on. Number 7 on Sanders’s list is to “sharpen
the saw.” He writes,
If you just graduated, plan on working until you are 75-years
old. The jungle has changed. Think about how you as an indi-
vidual will need and want to evolve over the next 50 years.
Never reading a book or learning something new is not an
alternative in our new Darwinian world.
What he is suggesting is that engineers should not be complacent. We
should not get overly comfortable with our engineering habits and ways
of doing things.
An engineering career counselor, Anthony Fasano, advises a dif-
ferent approach. Noting that engineers can develop bad habits, Fasano
thinks that these should be replaced by other habits:
Here’s how I am breaking my habit of eating too many sweets;
I believe that you can use the same methodology for break-
ing ANY bad habit. In order to break a bad habit, you MUST
replace it with another habit, preferably a good one!

(http://engineeringcareercoach.com/2012/11/28/replacing-
bad-habits-in-your-engineering-career-can-be-as-simple-as-
cucumbers/)
This approach is appealing to me. It invokes the engineering problem-

solving method to address a problem, which is then to be solved in the
context of engineering. To deal with something moldy, you don’t need
to break the mold. You just build a new mold.
The pomelo looks great on my desk, and I wish I could keep it per-
manently. But it’s a fruit that will eventually start to rot if I don’t eat it.
So I’ll either have to get another pomelo, or maybe now that I’ve broken
through to a new fruit, I can try something more adventurous, like a
cantaloupe or even a small watermelon. But I do not plan to learn Swa-
hili. The criteria calls for fruit, and I think I’ll stick with that.

It’s the End of

the World as
We Know It
Harold Camping was a Christian radio broadcaster who calculated that
the world would end on May 21, 2011, at 6:00 p.m. On this date, the
righteous would be whisked up to Heaven. The remaining less righteous
would suffer from fire and brimstone on what was left of Earth.
To support his analysis, Mr. Camping prepared calculations:
1. The number five equals “atonement”, the number

ten equals “completeness”, and the number 17 equals
“heaven.”
2. The number of days (calculated as follows) between April
1, 33 AD, and May 21, 2011 AD, is 722,500.
a. Christ is believed by Camping to have hung on the
cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33
AD, and April 1, 2011, is 1,978 years.
b. If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of
days in a solar, as distinct from lunar, year), the result
is 722,449.
c. The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.
d. 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
3. (5 × 10 × 17)2 or (atonement × completeness × heav-
en)2 also equals 722,500.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction)

If this appears at first glance like a dense engineering calculation,
that may be because Mr. Camping’s college education is in civil engi-
neering. He received his bachelor of science degree in civil engineering
from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1942. It’s not clear wheth-
er he practiced engineering after receiving his degree. It seems that there
is a big difference between calculations for advent of the rapture and
for estimation of bridge design loadings—although, after working on a
good bridge, I definitely experience a feeling of rapture.
Showing how the world will end is popular fodder on TV and at
the movies. A cause of the end may be political, such as a result of the
former Cold War. The end may be caused by a religious event or an
environmental catastrophe. Or it may be caused by something difficult
to characterize, such as zombies. In the early to mid-2010s, The Walking
Dead was one of the mostly widely watched TV shows. For those wor-
ried about the apocalypse, being overrun by zombies is not high on the
list of concerns. But this type of entertainment is not supposed to be
rational. In The Walking Dead, a zombie plague annihilates the state of
Georgia, and the living struggle to survive.
Zombies are not real, but even so, the program goes to great lengths
to graphically depict the decaying infrastructure with great realism.
First, Atlanta is destroyed, and the remaining citizens flee during a hell-
ish rush hour on the freeway. This may or may not have been a parody,
because at times Atlanta is like this without zombies. For example, in the
winter of 2014, the genteel southern metropolis suffered from a devas-
tating ice storm. Drivers abandoned their cars, and pundits comment-
ed that it was just like The Walking Dead (http://qctimes.com/news/
opinion/editorial/columnists/barb-ickes/moliner-in-atlanta-zombie-
apocalypse/article_4a38ac6e-81fc-53ad-965d-13d3c511e816.html).
After the fall of Atlanta, the action moved to abandoned villag-
es and settlements in the beautiful piedmont countryside. Part of the
show’s charm (I’m not really sure if “charm” is the right word here) is the
degree of realism and detail invested in showing the zombie wasteland.
The writers and producers started with the absurd premise of zombies
and then showed realistically what it would look like.
Other potential causes of the end of the world are more plausi-
ble. The apocalypse, if it is to come, may be caused by global warm-
ing or even impact from a giant asteroid. An infestation of zombies is

less likely. A digression: With my engineering background, I was having
trouble understanding the logic of zombies. The basic idea is that after
people die, they come back as the undead. They are putrefied versions
of their former selves, subsisting on the flesh of the living. As zombies,

they are a lot hardier than the living. They don’t seem to be able to die
of thirst or even hunger. The only way to kill a zombie … which is dead
already … is to shoot it in the brains. This is why in a lot of zombie mov-
ies, you hear chants of “shoot the brains.” Okay, none of this makes any
sense. Also, I have conceptual troubles with vampires and werewolves.
Ghosts are slightly more plausible.
For Hollywood to visually depict the apocalypse, it is necessary
to show massive implosions of bridges and buildings. One of my least
favorite movies was the remake of the 1953 The War of the Worlds. This
is the one where Martians travel to Earth in light beams. Then they rise
out of the ground and pulverize the Bayonne Bridge. Seeing hundreds
of people zapped by ray guns was unpleasant and disturbing. But the
filmmakers lovingly depicted the destruction of the bridge, and for me
that was too much.
Until recently, the visceral horror of the end of the world has been
something that you could watch in an air-conditioned movie theater
in July, with a large popcorn and a soft drink. I’m not sure why this is
enjoyable. Maybe it’s because after 90 minutes of slaughter and wanton
destruction, you safely walked outside in relief to find that society was
still intact, more or less. Civilization almost came to an end in the past.
The most recent and most horrific example is the deprivations of World
War II. For those younger than the Greatest Generation, the widespread
destruction and savagery of WWII is probably beyond our comprehen-
sion. One difference then was that there was no Internet, no instant
communication, and no YouTube. What happened in Nagasaki stayed
in Nagasaki. It was only after the fact that visual images started to filter
out of Auschwitz.
Today, the speed of communication is much different. It was pos-
sible to watch the Japanese tidal wave of 2011 in real time as it swept
across farmland, obliterating everything in its path. The helicopter
videos of the actual disaster did not seem that realistic, almost like a
B-level movie production. Likewise, the horrific terrorist destruction of
the World Trade Center was viewed by millions as it happened. In later
fictional depictions of wanton destruction, when confronted with actual

horrors, Hollywood needed to up the ante. A recent Superman movie
featured not one but six skyscrapers being destroyed, all shown with
precise and almost fetishistic attention to detail.
Harold Camping is one of a long line of false prophets predicting

the end of days. Mr. Camping’s prediction of May 2011 was preceded
by an earlier estimate of our annihilation, which was supposed to occur
on September 6, 1994. When it didn’t, Camping realized that he made
an error in his calculations. Unfortunately, the checker didn’t catch it.
Clearly, the world did not end either in 1994 or May 2011. Mr. Camping
revised his calculation, concluding that the world would end in October
2011. That didn’t happen either. Ironically, the world did come to an end
on December 15, 2013—for Mr. Camping. On this date, he passed away,
after suffering from a stroke after living in seclusion following his earlier
failed predictions.

No Borders
Traveling eastbound up the big hill on Route 9 in Shrewsbury, Massa-
chusetts, you used to be greeted by a giant Borders bookstore sign. It
might be a cold early winter day, maybe late December, gray with low
light. The frost had long since been off the pumpkin. The pumpkin had,
in fact, frozen solid. Beyond your windshield, a cold wind scattered
brown leaves and debris across the barren, desolate landscape. Outside,
a few hardy people wandered about. Like a rock, like an island.
But the sign, the giant Borders beacon, offered hope of something
nicer inside. Just off the road was an oasis of warm comfort, with rows
and rows of books, magazines, an espresso bar, jazz music. Inside, the
intelligentsia of central Massachusetts debated concepts over hot lattes.
Maybe outside it was a colder version of The Walking Dead. But inside, a
spark of civilization persisted to light the gloom. Eagerly you accelerated
up the hill and parked.
And what bone-crushing disappointment awaits you there now!
No books, no lattes, no inspired discourse. The store was shuttered, the
shelves long since bare.
I am a fan of bookstores in an age when they are all going out of
business. I have watched as several of my favorite haunts have with-
ered and died. For bookstore fans, the process is grim. The liquidators
start with a fully functioning store with books, a newsstand, and a café.
Then the whole operation seems to cave in on itself. The café closes, the
books are marked down, and the shelves are stripped. Everything must
go. Like rabid rats, the periodicals are herded into a corner, and even
the furniture is put up for sale. After a few weeks, most of the choice
books and magazines are gone. All that’s left are damaged books, rejects,

and copies of less popular magazines like Cigar Aficionado—things that
most people wouldn’t buy anyway. On closing day, they turn off the
lights, and the formerly vibrant bookstore is forlorn and desolate. Only
the shelves remain. The musty carpet is stained by drops from lattes long
since sipped.
There was a large Borders in downtown Boston that was housed in
a former bank. What a great repurposing that was! Some vestiges of the
bank remained, like the money vault. When the overall company failed,
the store closed. Now only one large bookstore remains in all of Bos-
ton. This, in the Athens of America, a city renowned for knowledge and
readers. Across the United States, only one national bookstore company
remains—Barnes and Noble. B&N would seem to have a monopoly on
the bookstore business. But even it is reported to be not in the best of
financial health.
Bookstores are victims of changing times, technologies, and eco-
nomics. You can surf the web for a book on Amazon and probably get a
better deal. The overall number of book buyers has decreased, and it has
been reported for a while that people are reading less. On top of that, the
whole idea of books is becoming an anachronism. For those who bother
reading at all, it is to be done in the near future on an electronic tablet,
to which you can download hundreds of electronic books. Paper books
then will be a thing of the past.
But bookstores don’t only sell books. They provide a place where
you can browse, have coffee, and in general experience the world of lit-
erature in an inviting, participatory space. With the passing of book-
stores goes a loss of a cherished public space. I suppose you could try to
visit the local department store, but reading the clothing labels does not
provide the same type of experience.
Once the bookstores are gone, all we may be left with are public
libraries. Fortunately, it seems that libraries will be around for a few
more years. Libraries are somewhat immune to the market pressures
that have sunk bookstores. I like visiting my local library, and I’m glad
it will continue to exist in the near future. But the library experience is a
lot different. At bookstores, patrons are invited to browse, chat, and even
sip on coffee at the café. Libraries are more like a middle school class-
room, with enforced silence and absolutely, positively no food allowed.
At bookstores, the books are enticingly displayed, inviting you to browse

and hopefully purchase. At libraries, the books are mostly warehoused,
and you need to know what you’re looking for ahead of time to find
it. The aesthetic of a bookstore is like that of a book vacation, where
you can walk in, browse thousands of books, and purchase any that you
want for your own. The aesthetic of a library is more like that of a book
prison. The books may be permitted out on the lam for a few weeks. But
after that brief period of parole, the dogs are called out if the prisoners
aren’t returned.
Even libraries are struggling to adapt to the great changes posed
by the new technologies in publishing and information distribution.
Libraries used to be the central place where one found information for
research. Grade school students used to have to do things like open
encyclopedias and paper volumes to complete their homework and
write reports. The other day, Ryan was in my office and I showed off by
using a multisyllabic word (correctly) in a sentence. Ryan was not con-
vinced that I knew what I was talking about, so I opened my ratty old
dictionary, a paperback that I’ve had since high school. Ryan’s look was
of astonishment and bewilderment.
“What is that?” he asked.
I was confused by the question. “It’s a dictionary. It’s a book in
which you can find the definitions of words.” When I thought about
it, Ryan’s question made more sense. If you can Bing it on your smart
phone, the paper version is anachronistic.
If everything can be found by Google and the web, what’s the point
of a library? To meet this challenge, my town library has repurposed
itself as a multimedia center. There are free computers to use, books on
CD, books on some new format that isn’t a CD, DVDs of TV programs,
movies, music, and lot of other formats. The rap-your-knuckles-be-
quiet vibe is still there, so no one can mistake the place for a bookstore
café. But the institution is trying to stay current and provide a central
physical space to go for information.
The bookstore industry’s collapse poses some significant impli-
cations for infrastructure. Bookstores inhabit small and medium-size
commercial spaces that in many cases graced small downtown shopping
areas. Without bookstores, storefronts go vacant, and villages start to die
on the vine.

It’s not just bookstores, of course, but an increasing list of merchan-
disers that have fallen to the Internet and Walmart. On a recent bike
ride, I passed by a defunct video and record store. These spaces have not
been rented for new uses and have sat vacant for months. With a loss of
each function, whether it be records, bookstores, or so on, commercial
downtowns and villages with their small shops become less economi-
cally viable. There are not enough tenants to rent the stores.
All we are left with then are giant big box stores and the Internet.
The de facto public space provided by the former private enterprises is
going away and not being replaced. A big box store is inherently aso-
cial—no cafés and book browsing there. Even those stores, minimally
inviting to the public as they are, are in the crosshairs of Amazon. Brick
and mortar stores have an advantage over the Internet because they
provide the touch and feel of merchandise along with the instant grati-
fication of purchase. Amazon is researching ways of duplicating that
experience by reducing the time from order to arrival at your doorstep.
If you can buy a bauble on the web for pennies and have it appear at your
home that afternoon, why go through the hassle of driving to a store?
Should Amazon ultimately succeed, we’ll be left with no stores, not
even big boxes. Then we’ll all just stay home and text.
Maybe someone will figure out a financially viable way of providing
casual public meeting space. Urban planners refer to this as the “Third
Place”—not at home and not in the office. The Third Place is a key part
of the marketing plan behind Starbucks, although at $5 a cup of coffee,
Starbucks may not be so viable in the long run either.
For several months, renovation was under way in the former Bor-
ders bookstore in Shrewsbury. The other day I was driving up the hill
on Route 9, and the Borders sign had been replaced. The new store was
finally unveiled: a Buffalo Chicken Wings outlet. So on a cold winter
day in December, all of the former readers could now congregate in the
chicken wings fast food joint. No poetry, no intelligentsia debates, no
jazz music, just the sound of mewling flesh and sucking noises as sticky
barbecue sauce dripped onto the protruding bellies of the corpulent
patrons. This is the future: chicken wings instead of books. To quote one
of my favorite movies, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through
life.”

Zip It
I’ve made a list of criteria for my winter morning workout. Before work,
if it’s above 10 degrees Fahrenheit, I’ll go jogging. Depending on how
cold it is, I have multiple layers that are to be worn based on the tem-
perature and wind chill. If it’s 40°F or warmer, instead of jogging I’ll go
biking, but only if the road is dry and free of ice. Biking is clearly better
than jogging, and I like it better. The limit is 40°F, but sometimes I’ll
negotiate with myself so that I can go biking because it’s better. What
if it’s 39°F? That’s close to 40°F. What if the window thermometer says
32°F? My house is usually five degrees colder than at the center of town.
So 32°F is actually 37°F, which is close to 40°F. But then it depends on
the wind.
I drive a tough bargain with myself, but sometimes the negotia-
tions just don’t work. On cold, dark mornings, another option is the
gym. My gym opens at 5:00 a.m. At 4:44 a.m., the early, early crowd lines
up at the door. These are the regulars who take great pride in lining up
before opening. Sometimes the doors open at 4:58 a.m., and then the
regulars get credit for an additional two minutes of workout. Otherwise,
it’s a little contest to see who can be the first gym rat to walk through
the door.
For those who sleep late and don’t make it by 5:00 a.m., there is spin
class, which starts 45 minutes later. In spin class, you ride on a stationary
bike as the instructor barks different movements—ride fast, ride slow,
sit, stand, and so on. The class is set to thumping music. I’m not a big fan
of spinning because I would rather be outside on my road bike, cruising
the countryside. But sometimes it’s hard to pretend that 10°F is close to
40°F, even with negotiation. There just aren’t enough conversion factors.

Veteran spinners have formed different opinions about the instruc-
tors. Some instructors are nice, and some are too nice (as in, too easy).
Some instructors are demanding, and some are over the top in their
demands. I suspect that the toughest instructors carry a bit of a grudge.

They tried to make it to the Olympics, first in gymnastics or the high
jump. But when that didn’t work, they trained for a lesser sport like bad-
minton. When they failed at that, all that remained in life was to be a
spin instructor. In this role, they could take out their decades of rejec-
tion and frustration—on us. There is an aphorism for this: “Those who
can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach phys ed. Those who can’t
teach phys ed become spin instructors.”
One time I was in spin class with my friend Steve, and we were chat-
ting it up in the back of the room. Steve is also an engineer, but he deals
with software. That day we had one of the more serious spin instructors.
The music was on full blare, and I thought she couldn’t hear us chat-
ting. But the disrespect factor was definitely there. She couldn’t hear it,
but she could see it. Our chat infuriated the instructor. This instructor
didn’t make it in the high jump. She didn’t make it in badminton. After
all of those failures, at least she could have her subjects’ full attention
and devotion. At first she glared at us offenders, but when that didn’t
work, she announced to the class to cut the talk and “zip it.” The other,
attentive riders were startled and looked back at the offenders, us. We
cowered in shame. From that day on, Steve and I refer to this instructor
as “Zip It.” We also sheepishly avoid talking in her class.
My gym is part of a growing national chain that is opening facilities
all around the United States. It’s a franchise, but arguably the results are
better than other franchises like KFC or Burger King. An advantage of
joining is that you can visit clubs at many locations, and they all open
at 5:00 a.m., or even a few minutes earlier. The clubs are almost identi-
cal, no matter where you go. The good news is that you can easily find
whatever you’re looking for, whether it’s a certain type of free weight,
the lap pool, or a basketball court. Even the furniture, décor, and soap in
the showers are the same. On a trip to Dallas, there was a branch about
half a mile from my hotel. I was able to duplicate my favorite workout
routine with almost exactly the same equipment, in almost exactly the
same way, with everything in almost precisely the same location on the
gym floor. This is a good setup for engineers, who prefer things just so.
I liked it.

The bad news is that each gym is the same, but not quite. The rooms
are slightly different in a disorienting way, a little bit like that episode of
Seinfeld where Elaine meets a new set of friends exactly like the old set,
but not exactly the same. They almost have exactly the same quirks, but
some quirks are different and bizarre.
Going to exercise at a health club is a relatively new concept. In the
distant past, humans didn’t need health clubs because they got a good
workout running from saber-toothed tigers. In the less distant past, you
still didn’t need a separate place to exercise because workouts were a part
of everyday life. Most jobs required manual labor. Farmers woke up by
5:00 a.m. to perform heavy physical labor, not to go to the health club.
In the past, avoiding physical activity was considered a privilege avail-
able only to the rich. The fondest dream of Tevye, the poor milkman in
Fiddler on the Roof, was to sit all day long and study with the learned
men. It wasn’t just about the prestige of learning but also a release from
physical toil. Tevye would have had great difficulty understanding the
point behind a health club.
Today in industrialized countries, and increasingly everywhere
else, most of us sit around all day in mental toil, not physical toil. For me,
there is a slight amount of exercise in typing this essay on the keyboard,
but not much. On top of that, instead of biking or walking to work, we
sit on our butts for 40 minutes or more while navigating through stalled
traffic. Then we go home to hours of watching TV before dozing off to
sleep on couches or beds with springs overtaxed from all that extra non-
muscular weight padding our fat frames.
Modern life is mostly devoid of physical effort. The activity of tex-
ting does not break a sweat. Add fast food and poor eating to the mix,
and the result is the present-day epidemic of obesity and related pre-
ventable diseases. It can be argued that our current infrastructure design
aggravates the problem. What if instead of commuter butt-sitting, on
the way to work butt-sitting, and en route to home butt-sitting, the
infrastructure provided more opportunities to walk or bike as part of
the daily routine? From this perspective, the sprawling suburbs contrib-
ute to the poor health and the premature death of its inhabitants.
At my last spin class, I was lucky to have one of the nicer instruc-
tors, who didn’t tell me to zip it. But while we were biking, she played
some retro-neo-disco-rap music, and I fell into a dream, Beatles-style
(“A Day in the Life,” Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band). I looked

out at the machines and weights on the main gym floor. For a moment,
I imagined that the scene was not a gym but the medieval Tower of
London. I had watched several episodes of The Tudors, a cheesy TV
series about life in the time of King Henry VIII. At Henry’s royal court,
those who fell out of favor (which seemed to be everyone) ended up
imprisoned in the Tower of London before being beheaded or drawn
and quartered. The tower had a medieval torture chamber with fiend-
ish machines like the rack. Out on the gym exercise floor, I couldn’t tell
the difference between the medieval torture machines and the modern
exercise equipment (Figure 1).
This illusion was compounded by the way many of those work-
ing out were seemingly in pain. One guy doing lat pulldowns grunted
and moaned as the sweat dripped and splattered. In the time of Hen-
ry VIII, the people were mostly illiterate, terrorized, disease-stricken,
and underfed. But on the flip side, they were not obese, got lots of exer-
cise, and avoided the need for three-hour commutes on fume-laden
Figure 1. Exercise equipment or

medieval torture?

expressways. Overall, probably the modern guy doing the lats had the
advantage over medieval peasants. But perhaps it wasn’t as cut and dried
as you might think.
In spin class, I worked hard pedaling on my stationary bike, going

nowhere at a rapid pace. But eventually, there was that moment when
the serotonin kicks in. The room, the blaring music, the instructor all
fade away. It’s no longer winter. I am biking on a country road in late
May. The sky has puffy northwest clouds, and a light breeze ruffles the
newly green leaves. Bright, warm sunshine bathes the cows mooing on
the field. There is a destination, but it is distant, and all that matters for
now is the ride (Figure 2).
Figure 2.
Source: Photo by Trailsource.com, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/69742158@N00/4744003781>
(Feb. 27, 2015)

A Bridge Offer
You Can’t Refuse
I don’t have cable TV. I almost got it when they changed the free broad-
cast method and my TV stopped working. I was going to connect to a
satellite. Unfortunately, there are too many trees around my house, so
the little dish didn’t work. At that point, I learned that you can use a box
to connect to the revised free TV. This seems to work okay, and there are
even a few extra free channels that I couldn’t get before.
Although I hadn’t seen them, I’m told that there are many worth-
while cable TV shows, things that you really want to watch. Today’s
most popular show is The Walking Dead, and it can only be seen on
cable. The show is about the world overrun by zombies, so I’m not sure
that is a great inducement to get cable TV.
In addition to cable TV, there are new delivery formats like Hulu,
Netflix, streaming gizmos, and whatnot. I assume that once I finally
sign up for cable, it will be passé and I’ll still be behind the times. (Sure
enough, the popular media recently announced that it was time for the
death of cable TV. See, for example Ben Collins of Esquire magazine,
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/beginning-of-the-end-of-cable,
Nov. 2014.) My children respectfully laugh and note that it is already
passé. To retain a little bit of their respect, I didn’t show them my old
record collection—although Rachel went through a phase where she
and her friends were interested in records, so maybe that technology is
coming full circle.
Fortunately, even without cable, there is still hope for me. You can
borrow DVDs of cable TV shows from the library, and then watch them
even though you don’t have cable TV! For the winter, I set up my exer-
cise bike in the basement, and I’ve been watching old cable TV shows

while working out each morning. I’ve watched the new Battlestar Galac-
tica, True Blood, and all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1. I even watched
three seasons of The Walking Dead, but then I had difficulty eating meat.
One show that I missed when it was originally broadcast was The
Sopranos. It was a show of great acclaim that everyone talked about. I
set out to watch all of it during one long winter. At first, I only watched
an episode on the bike each morning. But then I started sneaking in
more. I watched a few more at night as well. That added up to many
hours of watching The Sopranos every week. Maybe that was not such a
good idea. Originally, viewers could only watch an hour per week, and
there were only 13 episodes per season. I’m not sure it’s wise to watch
such an intense show in higher doses. Fortunately, my excessive screen-
ing of The Sopranos has had no effect—although I’ve started to talk in a
funny accent, dress in a funny way (that is to say, funnier than my usual
clothes), and my anger management skills seem to be in decline.
The Sopranos presents a realistic portrait of suburban New Jersey
gangsters. It received many awards for its excellent script writing and
performances. Some have commented that the most interesting parts
of the show are its dark black humor, Tony’s wacky deranged mother,
and the bizarre juxtaposition of ultraviolent, corrupt mafioso behavior
in contrast with the trials and tribulations of mundane, upper middle
class suburban New Jersey life.
The script machinations are interesting for sure. But for me, the
best part of The Sopranos is its depiction of bridges. Each episode begins
with a travel montage across the bleak industrial/postindustrial land-
scape of the Hackensack Meadowlands in New Jersey. In this introduc-
tion, head mobster Tony Soprano is driving from Manhattan to his lush
house in the suburbs. He drives out of the Lincoln Tunnel and onto the
New Jersey Turnpike. During his commute, we catch glimpses of many
old, historic bridges.
The most prominent is the Goethals Bridge, which connects Eliza-
beth, New Jersey, to Staten Island. The bridge, built in 1925, features
a cantilever truss main span crossing the Arthur Kill, a tidal strait. It
has two lanes in each direction with substandard geometry by today’s
standards, and it is approaching the end of its useful life. Plans for a
replacement are in the works. The replacement structure currently being
considered is a pair of leaning pylon cable-stayed bridges.

In addition to the Goethals Bridge, the introduction shows a series
of nondescript turnpike highway bridges and several old trusses. The
Pulaski Skyway makes a brief appearance. The skyway is a two-mile-
long truss connecting to the Holland Tunnel. It has two large cantilever
truss spans crossing the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers, along with a
series of large underdeck truss approach spans (Figure 1).
The skyway is currently the subject of a reconstruction project
(http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/commuter/roads/pulaski/, Nov.
2014). Eastbound traffic has been diverted for two years to facilitate
structural repair and replacement of the deck.
The hulking skyway forms a perfect backdrop to the swampy, wast-
ed Hackensack Meadowlands landscape. It is a beautiful old structure
that looks retrograde and somewhat menacing. It is a sinister-looking
bridge that Tony and his fellow mobsters would want to drive across.
The skyway and the other historic old bridges in the introduction
montage help set the tone for the series. Showing a sleek, shiny new
cable-stayed bridge would not have the same effect.
Figure 1. Pulaski Skyway

Source: Historic American Building Survey, <http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.nj0900> (Feb. 27, 2015)

Other bridges make brief appearances, including several trusses
and a through-girder railroad bridge in Kearny, New Jersey. Old bridges
account for about half of the screen time. The pulsing theme music has
as its chorus, “Got yourself a gun.” I hear these lyrics as “Got yourself a
bridge.”
The Sopranos was originally broadcast for six seasons from 1999 to
2005. For the first three seasons, the introduction montage included a
prominent shot of the World Trade Center Twin Towers hovering in the
distance. In the fourth season, the introduction was changed.

September 12
On September 12, John was late for a meeting.
The previous day, John had had another meeting planned for his
project working on Newark Airport. The client was the Port Author-
ity of New York and New Jersey. The meeting was originally scheduled
for 9:00 a.m. at the Port Authority office on the 73rd floor of the World
Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Earlier that week, John had had a
late-night function, and he spoke with the client requesting that the
meeting be held at 9:30 a.m. instead, to give him a little bit more time
to get to New York. Usually for this regular client meeting, John would
catch the 6:00 a.m. shuttle to be at the World Trade Center by 8:00 a.m.,
if possible. This time, the meeting would be later.
John parked his car in the Logan Airport Central Parking Garage
in Boston and made his way to the Delta shuttle, where he caught a flight
leaving at 6:15 a.m. It was a brilliant, beautiful September day, one of
the nicest of the year. The travel connections were fine, and John made
it to his company’s New York office on John Street, a few blocks from
the twin towers. He arrived earlier than expected. At about 8:45 a.m., he
heard some sirens outside, possibly a response to a fire. Because he was
early, John tried calling his client to see if the meeting could be moved
up a bit. There was a problem with the phone connection, and he was
unable to get through. The John Street office was in an older building
with open windows. John noticed smoke, probably from the fire that
was the source of what sounded like increasing commotion outside.
John and his colleague left the John Street office at about 9:00 a.m.
and started walking a few blocks to the World Trade Center. On the
street, there was a lot of activity. Looking up at the east side of the North

Tower, John saw flames shooting out of the building. His first reaction
was disappointment that the meeting would probably be canceled and
that he would have to return another day to New York. Although John
made a big deal of being a Yankees fan, in his heart he was a true blue
Bostonian and appreciated not having to go to New York too often.
As John and his colleague approached the World Trade Cen-
ter, flames on the side of the building became noticeably worse. John
thought of a blow torch suddenly spitting plumes of orange and white
out the side of broken windows, with increasing vertical and horizontal
extent on the face. It occurred to John that it was a much bigger fire than
he first thought. But with firemen and vehicles now frantically rushing
down the street to the site, John felt some comfort that things would be
okay.
Many people were milling about on the street and looking up at
the fire. John overheard some discussion that a small plane had acciden-
tally hit the building. The next series of events, occurring at about 9:03
a.m., took place in perhaps a split second. But the events were sharply
etched in John’s mind and seemed to last a lot longer. John heard the
roar of a jet plane as it flew low. There was a crashing sound, then the
smell of kerosene, and John saw a mushroom cloud of flame and debris
blast through the north-facing side of the South Tower. John thought
that he was looking at the sun. He and other pedestrians tried to shield
themselves against a side of an adjacent building as debris rained down
onto the street. Like thick snow, huge reams of office paper floated down
from the sky and onto the street.
At this point, John realized that he was at the scene of a terrorist
attack. His survival sense kicked in. John started to rationalize, and he
evaluated the scene. He thought that the perpetrators knew what they
were doing, and he suspected that they had additional plans in store to
cause more death and destruction. John logically concluded that the ter-
rorists would throw homemade bombs down the manholes in the sur-
rounding streets near the building. With nearby underground gas lines,
these would explode as people attempted to flee the site.
Now John joined a throng of people moving toward the East River.
He was reminded of a Godzilla movie, but in this case Godzilla attacks
Manhattan and not Tokyo. John made it back to the John Street office,
but he couldn’t get into the building. Building security personnel were

preventing people from entering. John tried calling the office on his cell
phone, but he couldn’t get a telephone connection.
Approaching the East River at Water Street, John and his colleague
were able to hail a cab. The driver had just dropped off another passen-
ger at the World Trade Center. John instructed the driver to head toward
the Brooklyn Bridge. John specifically requested the bridge and not tun-
nels because he was concerned that the tunnels were more vulnerable to
attack. The cab inched along to the Brooklyn Bridge. Throngs of people
and cars frequently parted on the road to provide a path for police vehi-
cles, fire trucks, and ambulances heading toward the World Trade Cen-
ter. Despite the overall chaos, John was impressed by how well everyone
cooperated to make way for the emergency response vehicles.
On the radio, John heard that the airports were closed. John
requested that they be driven to the nearest rental car facility. Crossing
the Brooklyn Bridge, it occurred to John and his colleague that they
already had a car available, so they asked the driver to continue north
to Boston. They traveled outbound on the Major Deegan Expressway,
where northbound traffic was very light. Southbound, however, was
another story. The traffic in this direction was at a standstill.
They stopped for gas and proceeded north, arriving at Sikorsky
Memorial Airport in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The airport was closed,
but they were able to find a rental car office that was open about two
miles away. John tried to rent a car for a one-way trip back to Boston,
but the company had a $400 surcharge for drop-off. A woman at the
counter overheard their conversation and told them that she was driv-
ing to the Route 128 Station in Westwood, just south of Boston. She
offered them a ride, and John and his colleague gratefully accepted.
Throughout the journey back to his Massachusetts home, phone
calls home and to the office were not mostly getting through. However,
in the late morning, one of John’s calls did make it through to the main
office in Burlington, Massachusetts. At this point, colleagues were able
to spread the word that John and his associate were safe and en route
back home.
At that point, John probably could have taken the rest of the day
off, without much debate from upper management. But once back on
Route 128, he decided to return to the Burlington office, arriving there
by 3:00 p.m. A television was on in the lobby, and for the first time he
saw footage of planes striking the World Trade Center buildings.

John had to drive downtown on Wednesday for a meeting, and
his car was still at Logan Airport. John’s son-in-law drove him back to
Logan Airport in the early evening to pick up his car. In the garage, John
noticed unmarked police cars with flashing blue lights and a group of
men wearing dark blue suits. They were hovering around a car parked
two aisles over from his. They examined the car with flashlights.
John was able to return home with his car.
The next day, I had a meeting with John in downtown Boston for
a discussion about another project. He was late to the meeting, and I
asked him why.


109
Cape in a Day
In the darkest moment of winter, I was reading from a book called Bike
Rides in Massachusetts. I had received the book as a birthday present, and
with wind-driven six-foot drifts outside, it seemed like a good time to
read it. In this book, every day was sunny and nice, with no snow drifts,
and the sky was filled with puffy white clouds. Each chapter described a
different bike ride. Most were in the 40- to 60-mile range, a long ride for
me but not extreme. The book extolled the virtues of the crisp air and
spectacular scenery that awaited pedalers. The accompanying pictures
were mostly from three seasons, because you can’t ride outside with six-
foot drifts. On a cold winter day with my bike banished to the garage,
reading about all that upcoming fresh air and scenery was invigorating.
The rides were all appealing and reasonable, with one exception.
One route, named “Cape in a Day,” was ridiculous. Unlike the relaxing
pleasure jaunts in the 40-mile range, this ride was more than 120 miles
long. You started in downtown Boston, continued south over the canal,
and onto Cape Cod. Then you wound your way east and north up the
arm of the cape, finishing many, many hours later at the tip in Province-
town. Unlike any of the other bike tours, which started and ended at the
same point, this was a one-way ride with a different starting and end-
ing point. That only worked because at the finish point, you had to take
the Provincetown Fast Ferry back to your starting point in Boston. The
catch was that if you didn’t make it in time for the ferry, the ride would
not be “Cape in a Day.” The need to catch the ferry added an exciting
time component—miss the last ferry, and you had to get accommoda-
tions overnight.
As a blizzard howled outside, I marveled at the intense nutti-
ness of “Cape in a Day.” Who would even think of trying something

so outlandish? For its part, the book tried to goad readers on, praising
the supremacy of those special, elite specimens who completed “Cape
in a Day.” This ride was described to be a pinnacle achievement of New
England cycling, as Mount Everest was to mountain climbers. I smiled

and flipped the page, thinking cape in three days maybe, but not “Cape
in a Day.”
As the long winter wore on, my son got into the act, and we started
thinking more about the feasibility of “Cape in a Day.” It was completely
ridiculous to even attempt it. But we kept on talking, and after a while it
started to become not so ridiculous. With enough planning, mapping,
and pacing, maybe we could do it. At first, this conversation was a ver-
sion of father–son “chicken,” but neither one got out of the way of that
moving truck. After a week of this, we decided to do it.
When the snow eventually melted, we blew the dust off the bikes
and started training: first 60 miles, then 80 miles, and so on. We picked
a day in the middle of the summer and laid out the route. The ride would
start at the Seaport World Trade Center parking garage in Boston. We
would make our way south to Quincy, move inland on Route 53 to
Plymouth, cross some backcountry roads, cross the canal, and onto the
cape for the big finish. Even on the map, the ride looked outlandish.
Forget about biking it—just driving would take two hours.
On a Sunday in July, it was time. We packed up the packs before
sunrise. Arriving at the Seaport garage, I unloaded the bikes, oiled things
a bit (the bikes), and started pumping my back tire. In preparation for
the ride, I had switched to narrower outer tires. This apparently was an
issue. As I pumped, the back tire’s tube made a sickening, gaseous sound
and quickly flattened.
Even before starting, I had a flat. Precious seconds ticked away, and
the ride was in jeopardy. I upended the bike, took out one of the two
spares, and quickly changed the flat. Within 15 minutes, we were out
of the garage and on the road. But it was a disheartening way to begin.
That 15 minutes could be the difference between catching the ferry and
searching for an overnight room.
Early Sunday morning, the streets of Boston were quiet. We made
our way through South Boston and across the Neponset River to Quin-
cy. As we rode next to Wollaston Beach, the sun rose over calm, peace-
ful water. Miles started to pile up as we made it to Route 53 and moved

down to Plymouth. I suffered a second flat, this one on the other tire,
and made the change using a few more crucial minutes. Even with the
flats, overall we were pedaling faster than we planned, so we were on
course and ahead of schedule. It was a problem that I had no spares left
for my bike. Dan had a few that I could use in an emergency, but his tires
were bigger.
Biking on a 100-plus mile ride in the northeast takes you past a
lot of aging infrastructure but also past several reconstruction projects.
Massachusetts has some of the oldest bridges in the country, and many
look their age. Crossing back and forth over Route 3, one of two free-
ways connecting Boston to the cape, we passed through construction
work zones where bridge viaducts were being rebuilt. A few projects
were to replace the superstructures. The bridges were reconstructed a
half at a time, with narrow lanes and tight sidewalks for bikers.
As the heat of the day built, we made it to Plymouth. We biked
through downtown, with the natives and tourists starting to stir. A
few miles farther south, we turned onto a back road and passed Myles
Standish State Forest, with its sandy scrub pine forests and cool glades.
After many miles of rolling terrain, we reached our next milestone: the
Cape Cod Canal.
Cape Cod started out as a peninsula, but with construction of
the Cape Cod Canal in 1914, the cape became an island. Two highway
bridges and one railroad bridge cross the canal. For bikers, using the
railroad bridge is not an option, so the choices are either the Bourne
Bridge to the west or the Sagamore Bridge to the east. The bridges can
mostly be identified by location, because they are structurally identical:
twin overdeck truss arches with deck hangers. For decades, the distinc-
tive bridges have greeted vacationers from Boston making their way (by
automobile) down to the seashore. The bridges are beautiful, but the
years and salt spray have taken their toll. The structures are frequently
under construction. Serious discussion has begun for longer-term plans
for how to maintain and possibly expand on these lifeline connections
(Figure 1).
Because we were already positioned to the east, our choice for
crossing was the Sagamore Bridge. For such a grand crossing, the pedes-
trian and biking access point was not so grand. A narrow sidewalk could
be reached from an unmarked and obscure connection in the shopping

plaza parking lot northwest of the bridge. The sidewalk is narrow and
uncomfortably close to streaming and frequently stalled traffic. But even
so, pedestrians are treated to a beautiful view of the canal and Cape
Cod Bay glistening to the east. The high, narrow bridge, unfortunately,
is popular not only with vacationers, but also has a reputation as a “sui-
cide bridge.” We saw a sign offering contact information for the Good
Samaritans, who could perhaps provide hope for those in need. Bridge
pedestrian fencing had been raised to reduce opportunities for jumpers.
We crossed the canal and reveled in our achievement. If we stopped
at this point, we could still brag that we made it to the cape in a day,
because now we were on the cape. But Provincetown was still more than
60 miles away. After stopping for lunch, we rode past marshes and small
towns on busy Route 6A. The road is a pleasant, bikeable highway hug-
ging the north face of the cape, near Cape Cod Bay. By now, the heat of
the July day was starting to rise. But our strategy was to be on Cape Cod
by the heat of the day, and the strategy worked. Inland it was hot, but we
were treated to cool, salty breezes.
Figure 1. Sagamore Bridge, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Source: Photo by Ryan Marshall

We decided to turn south at Dennis to connect with the Cape Cod
Rail Trail. The trail is built on a former railroad right-of-way, paved and
widened for bikes and runners. It is the first rails-to-trails bikeway in
Massachusetts, at the start of a program that has converted dozens of

former rail beds. Riding on the trail would add a few miles overall to the
route. But the bikeway is scenic and beautiful, and it provides 23 miles
of smooth, car-free passage from Dennis at midcape to Wellfleet up on
the cape’s arm. Several bike shops serve the cape, including a shop at the
western starting point, where I was able to purchase three new tubes.
The trail passes by several ponds, including one with a beach, where
we stopped for a short break. Wading in the water after 85 miles or so, I
was starting to feel it. At this stop, we bumped into some friends biking
in the other direction. They were staying on the cape that weekend and
were biking shorter distances. My friend Steve said with some under-
statement that I looked a little tired. Fortunately, there was an answer
for fatigue, and it was only another five miles or so down the bikeway.
After a dip, we biked on to Orleans and one of the world’s best ice cream
parlors. I inhaled a double-thick cappuccino frappe. (A “frappe” is a
New England term for an ice cream milkshake.) The combination of
sugar and caffeine provided a turboboost that lasted for the remaining
30 miles, and I was ready to go.
For extreme bike rides, and I suspect extreme workouts of all
kinds, there is a point when time stops and one’s focus narrows. For
me, at about mile 100, the universe seemed to collapse in on itself. All
that remained was us and the bikes. There was a faint blur of the sur-
rounding cape countryside, but I didn’t really see it. North on Route 6,
the pavement heated up, and our water bottles were out for every other
turn. We peeled off onto Route 6A, a quieter alternative to the busy main
highway. Eventually, we reached a hill and descended to the last stretch
next to the bay. We pedaled past seaside shacks and sand dunes. Almost
as if it was a mirage, Provincetown appeared around the bend. The dock
offering passage home jutted out into the bay.
We pedaled past a series of motels and into the densely packed
town. We didn’t have a detailed map, and by then Dan’s iPhone was out
of juice. But finding the dock was not difficult—we traced a path along
the bay and pedaled directly to it. Our official stopping time was before

5:00 p.m., with more than two hours to spare before the last ferry. Dan
and I locked up the bikes and headed off for a beer.
A few hours and beers later, the sun set over Cape Cod Bay. With
our bikes secured on the boat, we settled back on what felt like extra-
cushioned seats and didn’t move much. I don’t remember much of the
ride back to Boston. The cold beer, the murmur of lulling water, and the
salt spray combined to produce a satisfying stupor. For an hour on the
ferry, I focused on existing, not much more. Dan and I had done it! Dan
and I had accomplished the supreme accomplishment for Boston bikers.
Now we were elite, first class. Others would tell us of their tiny 20-mile
jaunts, but we would say, “That is very interesting, but have you heard
of ‘Cape in a Day’?”

Cross-Country
Flying across the United States can be done in five hours, plus or minus,
not including airport time. Driving or by train takes several days. But
by bicycle? From sea to shining sea, such a journey would take months.
1971
Joe was eating breakfast with his fraternity brother, Jim, when they
noticed a picture on a box of Wheaties. That’s how it began. On the box
was a photo of Bob Richards, an Olympic pole-vaulting champion. In
1969, Richards had biked and jogged across the United States to pro-
mote physical fitness. In 1969, biking cross-country was not something
that many people did. But that summer, humans landed on the moon,
so now anything was possible. The story on the cereal box lit a spark in
the two friends that smoldered for a few years.
Joe graduated from Drexel University in 1970 and started a job
at Gannett Fleming in Pittsburgh. He and Jim discussed plans to cycle
cross-country. Joe was a bit restless and finally requested a few months
off from his job that summer. His boss told him to get it out of his sys-
tem—the work would be waiting when he returned. Joe, Jim, and Jim’s
roommate, Don, took three months off. Jim and Don had just finished
their master’s degrees at MIT, so they had the opportunity to bike as
well.
The three planned to leave from Margate, New Jersey, near Atlantic
City. They had identical Schwinn Varsity bikes, with sleek steel frames
weighing upwards of 38 lbs. These were entry-level road bikes at the
time, quite a bit heavier than today’s composite frame bikes, which are
actually lighter than gravity and require tethering when not in use. (This

statement is hyperbole. Bikes, even today, are not lighter than air.) Each
rider also had pannier bags packed with tents, cooking utensils, clothes,
and other supplies. Their original plan was to cook out each night at
stopping points. Joe and Don purchased an early version of a CamelBak

in Virginia Dale, Colorado, a canvas bag filled with water, which stayed
cool as it evaporated.
The team set out on Wednesday, June 9, 1971. Joe remembers this
first day as one where early ambition met the reality of the ride. His col-
leagues had been training all spring, but he hadn’t had as much time to
get in shape, nor a training partner. Jim and Don slowed the pace a bit
for Joe to keep up. Midway through the day, Joe started thinking that his
first day riding would be his last. After 25 miles, Joe asked for a stop. The
group rallied, however. When Joe explained that maybe the guys should
go on without him, Jim said, “You can forget the fact that you’re not
going to make it. Get it right out of your mind because that’s ridiculous.
We’re all going to have our problems.”
New Jersey was mostly flat. The first day, the riders crossed the Ben
Franklin Bridge and arrived in Philadelphia, where they stayed with
friends at the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
As they moved west, the terrain became more challenging. In
Pennsylvania, the number of hills increased, and the slopes got steeper.
Pennsylvania back roads were frequently in poor shape. Eventually, the
riders averaged about 100 miles per day. Mileage increased a lot after
they had been on the road a bit and arrived west on the Great Plains.
Once they reached eastern Ohio, the team’s plans for cookouts fell
by the wayside—they were too tired to cook and too anxious to eat.
Instead of cooking, the boys looked for diners in the towns where they
stopped. By 1971, McDonald’s had started to sprout, but it was still
before the fast-foodization of America that was to come. Many towns
had roadside diners. These restaurants were not fancy and were a bar-
gain for the three former college students.
A big added benefit was that the diners were where many locals
congregated. In 1971, the sight of three kids biking cross-country was
pretty unusual. At many stops, the riders quickly found themselves at
the center of attention. This led to good conversation with the locals and
even invitations to spend the night, with dinner and showers. It became
a great way for them to experience the ebb and flow and to get a feel for
the local terrain.

On nights when they didn’t receive home invitations, Jim, Don,
and Joe camped out at city and state parks. Eugene Sloane, in his Com-
plete Book of Bicycling (1970, Trident, New York) recommended camp-
ing in cemeteries. However, the first two times they tried it, starting with
their infamous night in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it rained. Their ceme-
tery nights included wet sleeping bags and overall sogginess. So they
took that as a message to look elsewhere to camp. Once, Jim slept on
the porch of a house in a ghost town in Colorado. When biking into
a strange town (which, to them, was almost every town they encoun-
tered), they often took the initiative to ask the local police if they could
recommend a viable campsite. The officers provided advice on where to
camp out and even patrolled at night to make sure that they were okay.
Sometimes there just wasn’t a good place to camp. So the town
police thoughtfully offered them a place to stay—in jail. In Wyoming
and at a few other locations, the boys rested somewhat comfortably
overnight in lockup. Joe remembers calling his parents one night from a
local town jail. That was an interesting conversation.
Out on the road, the sight of three kids biking cross-country in
1971 generated a lot of curiosity and enthusiasm. Passersby would noti-
fy people in town ahead of time, and the three friends became mini
celebrities, featured in articles in local newspapers (Figure 1). The three
Figure 1. Joe Anthony, Jim Hoburg, and Don

Dudley in Newville, Pennsylvania, in 1971

are pictured riding in the attire of the times: short shorts and sneakers.
Spandex had yet to be invented, and they didn’t wear helmets. Fortu-
nately, there were bike stores along the way (it was 1971, not 1771), and
the riders carried spare tires, oil, and some basic tools. Joe remembers
getting a total of two flats, but the others had a quite a few more. Toward
the end of the trip, Don got a flat on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was
cumulatively flat number 13 out of 16 for the whole trip. It was a flat,
true, but what better place to get one and enjoy the view? After Don
fixed his flat, they walked their bikes the rest of the way across into San
Francisco.
In planning the route, the bikers did not take advantage of Google
maps or Facebook, because along with spandex, neither had been
invented yet. The idea of tapping your cell phone to get a street view of
any locale or asking Siri for help would have seemed far-fetched. The
boys used paper maps to plan their trips. There were surprises along the
way: roads that didn’t match the maps, roads that did match the maps
but were in poor condition, roads on the maps that didn’t exist, and
missing signs. The three had no online blog, but Joe had a Super 8 cam-
era with which they made some movies. Jim saved not only the movies
but also a device that can actually play them. Watching the silent movies
is a trip back in time and technology in many ways.
Travelers crossing North America all faced a great barrier: the Mis-
sissippi. The river has challenged cross-country travelers going back to
the days of horses and buggies. Earlier pioneers had to ford the river. In
1971, Joe, Jim, and Don had a big advantage because there were dozens
of bridges to cross. They made it to East Saint Louis and crossed the
river on the Eads Bridge, the first fixed crossing of the Mississippi south
of Minneapolis.
The beautiful Eads Bridge has three steel arches, which were the
longest spanning arches at the time of construction. The bridge was the
site of many firsts: first use of steel construction, first use of the cantile-
ver method to build a bridge, and first construction of deep-river cais-
sons for the piers. The caissons were excavated under compressed air,
resulting in many cases of nitrogen poisoning (the “bends”) and several
fatalities.
On June 14, 1874, construction was largely complete. Just to be
sure, the engineers led an elephant across the span. In the early days of
bridge inspection, the thinking was that elephants knew to avoid rickety

structures. Almost 100 years later, Jim, Joe, and Don safely crossed in
comfort and in style (at least, in the style of the times).
The United States in 1971 was at the height of the post–WWII con-
struction boom. When the Greatest Generation returned home from

war, the country erupted in a peacetime flurry of building. It was a
period of mankind’s largest aggregated construction of infrastructure.
Of that flurry of work, the Interstate Highway System is considered by
some to be the biggest overall project. By 1971, much of the Interstate
Highway System was built, but there were still another 10 years or so to
go.
With so much of the country newly built and rebuilt during this
period, many of the roads and buildings the riders passed were in rela-
tively good shape and not suffering from decades of inadequate mainte-
nance. In 1971, the suburbs were just starting to really sprawl. Many of
the towns the boys biked through had a traditional 19th century Ameri-
can form, with active town centers surrounded by the hinterlands. The
bikers passed busy factories, whose work had yet to be sent offshore.
In July, the plains were hot. Kansas was an ongoing series of flat
fields in between grain silos. On the toughest day, it was 106 degrees
in the afternoon. The boys were buffeted by a 30-mph head wind.
Approaching Ness City from the east, they saw a blue building that
might have been a restaurant. They battled the wind and heat and made
it to the porch. A waitress had watched them struggle in the distance,
and once they made it, she had three large, cold glasses of iced tea wait-
ing for them. Decades later, the iced tea memory is still strong. This was
also one of the nights they ended up “in jail.”
Slogging across the plains, the bikers made it to the foothills of
the Rockies. They stayed four days in Pueblo, Colorado, at Don’s par-
ents’ house. Photos of the team from Colorado have a gas station back-
drop—gas was $0.38/gallon. After some debate and a green light from
the Colorado State Patrol, they decided to bike north into Wyoming and
cross the Rockies by interstate. Along the way, they stayed one night in
a rodeo stall. They made it to the newly opened I-80 and biked on the
shoulders for hundreds of miles, camping off the sides and crossing the
Continental Divide. They biked next to the salt flats in Utah, crossed
Nevada, and continued through California to Sacramento. They biked
across the Golden Gate Bridge, arriving in San Francisco on August 4.

The western wheel-dipping occurred in San Francisco, at Golden Gate
Park. In Joe’s case, it was not a wheel-dipping but a bike-flinging. The
Super 8 captured this moment. Joe remembers the bike being a bit salt-
challenged from the seawater for the remainder of the ride, which wasn’t
quite done yet.
After a week in San Francisco, the boys biked south along coastal
California State Route 1 and arrived in Los Angeles after a few more
days (Figure 2).
For thousands of miles, the riders had envisioned eating prime rib
at Lawry’s Prime Rib. This was, for Don at least, to be a celebratory event
for the ride. Don called ahead and was given an approval, but the three
were distraught when they learned that it was a fancy joint, and they
needed sport coats. The restaurant was willing to loan them the duds,
but it didn’t feel right, and they ended up having a fabulous hamburger
across the street. It wasn’t until 20 years later that Don finally made it
back for the meal.
A conversation with Jim, Joe, and Don today triggers a flood of
memories. Joe distinctly remembers the bridges as high points for the
trip (not sure if that was for the author’s benefit, but let’s go with it).
Crossing the bigger rivers such as the Mississippi or the Delaware were
Figure 2. Joe Anthony, Jim Hoburg, and Don Dudley

in Lompoc, California, in 1971

moments of great accomplishment. In addition to the bigger spans,
there were many smaller rivers in between. The bridges were milestones
and rewards to the team. They were barrier busters. Their last big cross-
ing, the Golden Gate, was probably the most iconic bridge of all.
When dinner was done, the group made it to LAX and slept on the
seats in the terminal, biding time for their flight the next morning. The
trip took three months going west and about five hours flying back.
2009
Danny saw a message for “Bike & Build.” The Bike & Build group orga-
nized bicycle rides for college-age students across the United States
during the summer. In addition to biking, on every third or fourth day
or so, the bikers stop in a town to participate in a community service
project, such as a Habitat for Humanity house build. Each caravan of
students would have three or four young adult leaders. The Bike & Build
program combined two things Danny was passionate about: biking and
community service. He had been out of college for two years, and his
reaction was, “Why didn’t someone tell me about this sooner?”
Danny applied to be a team leader for one of the cross-country
groups. He had saved up enough money, and he gave his notice at his
construction job in Maryland.
As one of four tour leaders, Danny would share responsibility for
guiding the 32 college students participating in the ride. The tour was
one of six organized by Bike & Build in the summer of 2009. Danny’s
tour left from Providence, Rhode Island, and ended in Seattle, with sev-
eral thousand miles of road in between. The city and town stops were
chosen ahead of time. For planning, the four leaders could take advan-
tage of information from previous tours along the same general route.
In early planning, Danny’s job was to contact churches and community
leaders to organize food and accommodations. Most of the meals were
donated. For 32 college students plus the four young adults, that was a
lot of food. Danny and his three coleaders spent several weeks looking
for donations and otherwise mapping out the trip details.
The tour’s basic approach featured a series of bike segments from
50 to 100 miles or so. Every third or fourth day was a service day. The
kids took a break from riding to help build a house or contribute to

another community service project. Lodging was arranged at volunteer
churches, community centers, and campgrounds. The riders camped in
sleeping bags on the floor of community center halls or out in tents.
Unlike the 1971 ride, jails and cemeteries were not on the itinerary.
The tour had a van to carry supplies, which each of the four leaders
took turns driving. Bikers would proceed in groups, with some serving
as “sweepers” to inspect progress and make sure everyone in general
was okay.
The 2009 riders could take advantage of newly developed tech-
nologies, such as cell phones and the web, which were not available in
1971. These were a great boon for keeping track of routes and riders. But
still, the logistics were daunting. Danny’s team had to make it across the
United States on a fairly tight and choreographed schedule. Many sites
along the route were supported by volunteers, and the group needed
to make it to their destinations on time. There was not a lot of sched-
ule float for really bad weather or major unforeseen events. Health and
safety issues were always of concern. Part of the challenge of leading the
tour was keeping all the moving parts moving and then being flexible
enough to adjust plans when things didn’t quite go as expected.
On June 14, after months of dreaming, it was time to go. The bikers
gathered at India Point Park in Providence, Rhode Island, for their big
send-off. Friends and family watched as the bikers symbolically dipped
their back wheels in Providence harbor (Figure 3). Many months later,
the dipping of the wheels would be repeated on the far coast to conclude
the journey. The group gathered for a photo with the harbor as a back-
drop. Fortunately, there was also a nice bridge.
The best-laid plans were almost washed out that day by torrential
rains the night before. Some roads on the first day’s route were flooded.
Danny and the team were able to reroute. As a sign of good things to
come, the sun came out as they started pedaling, and it shone brightly
the rest of the day.
The first leg was a relatively easy ride through Rhode Island to
Pomfret, Connecticut, less than 40 miles away. The route’s beginning
was mostly flat, with some modest hills farther west of Providence. But
it was still Rhode Island, and whatever slopes the Ocean State had in
store paled in comparison to what was to come. Danny’s biggest chal-
lenge that first day was in getting a handle on the group dynamics—how

Figure 3. Bike & Builders leaving the Brown University

boathouse in Providence, Rhode Island, on June 14, 2009
the students would ride, how the team would coordinate overall. Some
students were not in the physical condition they would be in a few weeks
later. The first leg of the trip was fairly easy but still daunting for some
riders who would be in great shape in a few months, but at present were
closer in status to young couch potatoes.
In 2009, they had Google Maps and cell phones, but most of the
cell phones weren’t yet smart. The group had two GPS units. But overall
they relied on street signs to navigate west. Some of the signs were not
so accurate. Riding west, the riders scattered a bit. The sweepers had
trouble keeping up. Some riders turned south by mistake and ended up
adding 10 miles to the day’s ride.
The team leaders worked out paper cue sheets for their routes.
Some riders made the connection between the burgeoning technology
and a new way to navigate. But trading in maps for the new, improved
GPS approach was not necessarily all good. One rider later commented:
Guys, I was just thinking the other day, how much absurdly
simpler it would have been to have all had iPhones instead of
cue sheets (and how much absurdly less character we would
have built, all the extra grandma’s we met asking for directions

along the way, and all that time looking around us and not
spent glued to our stupid iPhones!)
(Justin Villere’s blog, commentary by Jake Rosenberg, Aug.

12, 2013)
Ironically, Danny’s biggest headache that first day probably turned out
to be his former professor who came along for the ride, officially to help.
The help turned quickly to liability once the professor rode over glass on
the mean streets of Providence and then proceeded to get three flat tires.
Danny ignored his former professor’s pleas to be allowed to remain on
the side of the highway as road kill, and he successfully helped change
all three tires.
Among other accomplishments, biking cross-country is an experi-
ence in achieving milestones. Some of the biggest milestones are the
state border signs. It was a big advantage starting out in Rhode Island
instead of, say, Alaska, because after only a few hours, the riders reached
their first state border. Groups of riders gathered for pictures at the Con-
necticut welcome sign. Farther west, the states would be a bit bigger
and the welcome signs few and far between. As they crossed the Con-
necticut border, the ride and countryside opened up to beautiful fields
and rock walls beneath a puffily clouded sky. The biggest hill was the
last, a challenging slope on Route 44 into town. After tackling that hill,
the team rode into Pomfret. Bikers were greeted with tables of fruit and
watermelons.
The first night’s accommodations were in the First Congregational
Church of Pomfret. This was a beautiful, classic New England steepled
church that graced the town center. (Sadly, the church was destroyed by
a fire in 2013.) The riders washed up at the Pomfret School next door.
Danny and the coleaders remember the team being giddy that night.
They had crossed a state and completed their first leg. But there were
still many states and several thousand miles to go.
On the road for a few days, the four group leaders settled into a
routine. What began as a morning planning meeting started to get more
elaborate. The leaders would go over the route and then give the riders
a chance to ask questions or present fun facts about the town they were
headed to (usually researched through Wikipedia). The rider presenta-
tions quickly morphed into performing the stretch of the day, the dance

move of the day, selecting the rider of the day, picking the word of the
day, the Yiddish word of the day, and the made-up word of the day. By
the end of the trip, the route planning meetings could last almost an
hour. Luckily there was time for biking after the planning meetings.
Biking cross-country can be great on a warm, sunny day in June.
But there were a few days that were not so warm and sunny. The tough-
est day was early in the tour on June 20, biking from Roscoe, New York,
to Binghamton. This route took the riders through the Catskill Moun-
tains with several long, tough slopes. Adding insult to injury, the day
was raw and wet. The group hung on that day, but some riders had to
be picked up by the van. Another day farther west, thunderheads built
on the plains of Iowa and the entire segment was canceled because of a
thunderstorm. But other than these two days, most of the time the rid-
ers had more accommodating weather.
Approaching the Mississippi River in Illinois, Danny decided to do
the cornfield equivalent of crowd surfing at a concert. The event is cap-
tured in a video, which shows him accelerating into the field and ending
up flopped on the stalks. Danny had many cornfields from which to
choose. For much of the ride west to the Rockies, it was acre after acre
of cornfields. By 2009, much of U.S. agriculture had been converted to
a monoculture of corn farming, with some soybean fields in between.
The trend is described in The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
Single-crop farming of corn had largely replaced the more varied crops
of past farms. The result was a huge surplus of corn supporting increas-
ingly manufactured foods. Pollan describes how the process has helped
to depopulate the Great Plains, because monoculture farming with
heavy use of pesticides and fertilizer is less labor intensive. In contrast
to 1971, the 2009 bikers encountered many hollowed-out towns on the
plains. With as much as half the rural population gone, small towns had
shuttered shops and empty buildings. It was like the 1971 ghost towns in
a way, but the ghosting was caused by a more current economic driver.
One of the more disturbing sights around the cornfields was the
brand name signs in front of the fields. In the past, corn did not come
with brand names. Corn was corn. But with genetic modification and
patenting, companies proudly marked their spots. Danny logically knew
that the corn was genetically modified. But seeing the signs branding

different fields of corn and soy really underlined how our food system
had become a manufacturing system.
There were other changes in the land. The 1971 tour crossed a
country still in the thick of manufacturing and the post–World War II

boom. By 2009, the land was wracked by the effects of off-shore manu-
facturing, factory closures, and older mill cities where infrastructure
was in bad shape. Danny remembers several places where the group
was eager to leave quickly. Youngstown, Ohio, left a negative impression.
Riders thought that it seemed like someone had bombed the road at the
city border. Much of the city’s infrastructure was decaying.
But indications of more positive changes could be seen as well. The
team biked past many windmills over the plains. The bikers encoun-
tered several wind farms and activities providing support, such as road
improvements for the turbines. A few years later, fracking would have
a bigger effect on the landscapes of rural Pennsylvania and the upper
Midwest. The relatively new process of hydraulic fracturing, “fracking,”
opened up huge reserves of natural gas that were previously not accessi-
ble. As a result, the trend of farming depopulation was reversed in many
areas. Formerly desolate areas became boomtowns, with huge increases
in population and strained demands on infrastructure for housing and
support facilities. Bike & Builders setting out today would encounter
these new boomtowns haphazardly sprouting up on the plains.
On July 9, the team reached the Mississippi River at Clinton, Iowa.
They crossed on the Gateway Bridge, a two-lane suspension bridge
with a 644-ft center span. This bridge was constructed in 1955–1956
and opened on July 2, 1956. Opening day ceremonies included massive
traffic jams as eager drivers crossed the bridge and back several times.
Many dignitaries attended the opening day ceremonies, but Vice Presi-
dent Nixon was unable to attend. The span was celebrated for its big
contribution to progress and improvement for the town of Clinton.
When the cross-country bikers arrived in 2009, the bridge was
almost 60 years old, and it was a bit worn and outdated. It was subject to
closure and reconstruction in 2006. Inspection reports now refer to the
crossing as functionally obsolete, with substandard two-lane highway
geometry and shoulders. In contrast to the modest and classic suspen-
sion bridge, recently constructed bridges across the Mississippi have
mostly been cable-stayed spans (Figure 4).

Figure 4. The new Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Bridge over the
Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri
Source: Photo by Paul Sableman, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/53301297@N00/8285327151>
(Feb. 27, 2015)
Danny and his fellow riders made it to the heartland and had a nice
view of the river. They also remember being attacked by bumblebees.
July 14 was a build day. The team camped out in Carroll, Iowa,
where they contributed to a Habitat for Humanity house build. Stopping
for a community service project every fourth day was the “build” part of
“Bike & Build.” It distinguished this ride from other tours, which are just
tours. Habitat for Humanity provides affordable housing through dona-
tions of labor and materials. Homes are comfortable but modest, and
most of the pieces are built by volunteers, supervised by construction
experts, who are also volunteers. The Habitat organization works with
local communities to find sites to build, rallies support for contributions
of materials, and organizes the volunteer groups to actually build the
house. Future beneficiaries of the program undergo a rigorous process
to qualify to live there. They do not receive handouts but are expected to

participate in building their own house through contribution of “sweat
equity.” So the future homeowners contribute alongside the volunteers.
For volunteers, the activity of physically building and interacting as
part of the community is a higher order of charity than just contributing

money. The experience of working on a house also provides a big bonus.
In getting out and building, volunteers can get a lot of practical experi-
ence in carpentry, painting, and building.
It’s a great idea, but the Habitat for Humanity approach may not
work for everything. Probably a cross-country program featuring “Bike
& Brain Surgery” would be less successful, even with expert supervi-
sion. When building a house, a lot of specialized work needs the atten-
tion, experience, and care for which inexperienced volunteers are not
appropriate. But even so, many jobs have more mundane aspects that
volunteers can tackle with good supervision. The Carroll, Iowa, volun-
teers in July 2009 were hyperenthusiastic young adults eager to fix the
world. When the project is finished, a deserving family gets a house, and
all parts of the community are that much stronger for it.
Moving farther west, the students biked more than 100 miles on
August 3, from Bozeman to Helena, Montana. It was hot and dry. Their
views were affected by haze from a nearby forest fire. The fire season in
2009 was above average, building on hot, dry conditions and years of
below-average rainfall. The cross-country ride was not directly affected
by fire, but the threat was there. Another 2009 team on a more south-
ern route was directly affected by wildfires and needed to significantly
change routes.
By August, the group had biked several thousand miles and was
high in the Rocky Mountains. The little hills back east were a distant
memory by now. The team crossed the high desert of Washington State
and reached the last barrier before Seattle—the Cascades. The route
took them alongside I-90 to the Snoqualmie Pass. As in 1971, bikers
rode on the shoulder of the interstate for 40 miles. In exchange for gru-
eling climbs and extended slopes, the kids were treated to jaw-dropping
views and fresh mountain air. Going west, the route was a bit easier than
in 1971 and certainly in the decades before. Modern Interstate 90 fol-
lows the trail of the Mullan Road. This was a wagon train road originally
built under the leadership of Lieutenant John Mullan in 1859. It was the
first road connection to the Pacific Northwest.

Vestiges of the old Mullan Road can be seen heading west. In 2009,
the bikers had modern comforts and technology, but they were follow-
ing in the wheel tracks of the past trekkers and pioneers who traveled
west. The journey over distance and time is one of sweat and some tears
but also of building infrastructure and exponential improvements in
technology. When the Bike & Builders finally dipped their wheels in the
Pacific, they were among the latest pioneers in a progression that has
lasted for centuries.
Speculating on future cross-country trips decades from now, what
will the new pioneers see? Maybe the 21st century’s first decade will be
remembered as a time of pause in U.S. infrastructure growth, a peri-
od when the country, for whatever reason, caught its breath and then
later regrouped to rebuild. Then the infrastructure forms representa-
tive of some of humankind’s greatest physical creations on Earth will
be renewed. The potholes will be filled, the water pipes patched, and
the buildings painted and fixed. Bridges old and new would again shine
across the Mississippi.


131
Who’s on First:
Bridge Edition
I had some questions about specifications for a temporary bridge. Unlike
permanent bridges, temporary bridges can be preassembled and rented
for a period of use. These modular structures are manufactured by the
Acrow Bridge Company (http://acrow.com/), Mabey Inc. (http://www
.mabey.com/), and other suppliers. Most temporary bridges are truss
structures.
For some help, I visited a regional sales representative for tempo-
rary bridge construction. Here is our discussion:
Me: I am interested in specifications for a temporary bridge.
Salesman: Excellent. You’ve come to the right place. I have great
experience dealing with temporary bridges. Do you know what type of
temporary bridge you had in mind?
Me: Mabey.
Salesman: I see. You’re not really sure about exactly what type of
temporary bridge you want. That is understandable. Although they
seem simple, in reality temporary bridges can be very complex.
Me: I was not aware that they were complex. Thanks for your help.
Salesman: That’s why I’m here—to help. I am glad to have the
opportunity to assist you in this challenging issue. Have you thought
any more about, in general, what you’d like to specify?
Me: Yes I have. I think, Mabey.
Salesman: I see. “Yes, I have,” as in you know what type of bridge?
Me: Yes. Mabey.
Salesman: Well, is it “yes” or “maybe”?
Me: Yes, that’s correct.
Salesman: What’s correct?

Me: Mabey.
Salesman: Maybe “yes” or maybe “no”?
Me: No. Mabey.
Salesman (by now getting a little perplexed): I think if we looked at a

catalog, perhaps you could better describe what you had in mind. Look
at this excellent catalog prepared by the Acrow Bridge Company. Would
you consider specifying an Acrow Bridge for your job?
Me: No. Mabey.
Salesman: So you’re sure you’re not interested in an Acrow Bridge?
Me: Yes, I’m sure I know what I want. Mabey.
Salesman: Yes, you’re sure, or maybe?
Me: Well, both.
While we’re on this subject, I was trying to think of a way to include
the excellent and perhaps most appropriately named seismic engineer,
Dr. Ian Buckle, in the dialogue. If anyone has a good suggestion, please
let me know.

Holy Spanning
Function, Batman!
Bridges are usually designed to span rivers and highways. They are
not usually designed for roosting bats. An article, “The Bridge as Bat
Cave,” provides a discussion for this relatively new design requirement
(Tina Grady Barbaccia, Equipment World’s Better Roads, Better Bridges,
http://www.betterroads.com/better-bridges-3/). The Oregon Depart-
ment of Transportation (ODOT) includes criteria for development of
bat roosting areas in bridge superstructures (http://www.oregon.gov/
ODOT/HWY/OTIA/pages/news_bats.aspx). The roosts are suggested
only for bridges over water.
Designing bridges to accommodate bats is an innovative way
to address a concern for declining bat populations. The underside of
bridge superstructures can be detailed as minibat caves through strate-
gic placement of diaphragms and additional plates and covers.
After a few roosts were constructed, no one was sure if bats were
using the artificial caves at first. But then the habitats were determined
to be effective when inspectors found piles of bat guano beneath the
artificial caves.
Oregon is probably a good place to develop bridge habitats for bats.
The Northwest is also the setting for the Twilight books and movies,
which are about vampires. So there’s an additional connection.
Texas is well populated by bats. One of the most well-known urban
roosting habitats for bats is found in Austin, below the Congress Avenue
Bridge (formally, the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge). The
bridge is a multispan concrete deck arch structure across the Colora-
do River. One of several bridges at the site, the present structure was
built in 1910 and was rehabilitated in 1980. The rehabilitation project

inadvertently added some new nooks and crannies below deck, which
turned out to be ideal for bats. Today, as many as 1.5 million bats roost
beneath the bridge. The flight of the bats at dusk is a popular tourist
attraction (Figure 1).

Originally, bridge designers did not plan for roosting bats. More
recently, environmentalists have concluded that the spaces below
bridge decks can provide a good habitat for bats. Instead of letting it
happen by chance as in Austin, some DOTs now actively plan for bat
accommodation.
A quick digression: Consider the ramifications of designing struc-
tures for bats. If you have to design bridges to accommodate bats, then
you probably have to design them for just about everything. This implies
that bridge engineers have to know just about everything to be able to
design for just about everything. This implies that bridge engineers are
akin to superheroes, like Batman.
Ideally, the world should then recognize that bridge engineers are
like superheroes. Therefore, the requirements for bridge engineering,
Figure 1. The Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas, famous for the
bats that come out at night
Source: Photo by reader of the pack, https://www.flickr.com/photos/youngandwithit/3575040286/
(Feb. 27, 2015)

being so robust, comprehensive, and awe inspiring, would come with
some nice perks. I envision that back in the day, just the mention of
bridge engineering would engender a type of enthusiastic reaction from
the opposite gender. For example, a young male bridge engineer attends
a structural engineering party. He visits with an attractive young lady.
Being a bridge engineer, he does not mince words and efficiently gets
right to the point:
“Good evening,” he says with some pride. “I am a young bridge
engineer.”
In this perfect world, the young lady is duly impressed and offers
one of the three following responses:
Response No. 1: “You must deal with really big beams.”
Or response No. 2: “I greatly admire your spanning functions.”
Or response No. 3: “It must be very exciting to work with attractive
bridges.”
It is possible that other responses may be provided.
I had the chance to attend a DOT meeting where the topic of bat
design was discussed. The DOT had a bat expert who was truly up to
speed on all of the details for proper design of bridges to accommodate
bats. I forgot his name, but his colleagues affectionately referred to this
gentleman as the “Batman.” During the presentation, the chief district
DOT engineer, Mr. Bruce Wayne, P.E., seemed to be very accommo-
dating to the additional design and construction requirements for his
bridges—although now that I think of it, Mr. Wayne and the “Batman”
were never in the room at the same time.
Designing bridges for bats is part of the overall trend of sustainable
design and construction. In the past, infrastructure engineering had a
narrower focus. A bridge was a bridge, not a potential bat habitat. Today
we are challenged to look at the bigger picture. A bridge that can be
successfully designed for bats can do more than just satisfy its spanning
function.

Engineering
Valentine’s Day
For many engineers, Valentine’s Day is a challenge. It doesn’t really
include any of the things engineers love. It doesn’t have gadgets, there
are no objective functions to maximize or minimize, and usually you
can’t do a cost-benefit analysis. Valentine’s Day is based on feelings, and
thus it focuses on the irrational. There are a few nonabstract compo-
nents to Valentine’s Day that engineers can appreciate. For example,
flowers are popular that day, and at least they are corporeal. But what is
the engineer to make of a Valentine’s Day card? How does one select the
optimal card—what are the design criteria? What is the procedure? It is
all so … illogical.
Some engineers have tried to approach Valentine’s Day using
the engineering method. For example, a group performed a study for
selecting the best chocolate for your spouse (http://cr4.globalspec
.com/blogentry/11516/Best-Valentine-s-Day-Chocolate-for-An-
Engineering-Wife?from_rss=1). Here is their method:
• Chocolate samples from various manufacturers were selected at
random.
• The chocolate attributes evaluated included visual appeal, aroma
(smell), touch (snap, feel against the fingers), taste, and texture.
• Chocolate parameters were rated from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) using a
wide variety of male and female coworkers.
The analysis seemed to be competently and robustly performed. It is
possible that some (well, all) of the criteria were evaluated subjectively.

More specific information was not provided about the “wide variety of
male and female coworkers.” It is unclear what the “variety” was.
One mechanical engineer confessed that Valentine’s Day is his
favorite holiday (http://mofame.blogspot.com/2010/02/happy-valen

tines-day.html). He states: “Say what you will, Valentine’s Day has always
been a favorite holiday of mine. What’s better than a celebration of love,
candy, and flowers?”
It is unusual to encounter an engineer with such a positive atti-
tude toward Valentine’s Day. But after further research, I was suspicious.
Immediately after proclaiming his joy for Valentine’s Day, he posted
online video links to two pranks by engineers on their significant oth-
ers. In one prank, a gentleman actually proposed to his girlfriend after
installing a clever mechanical device that coated her in green goo when
she opened the closet. The clever mechanical device was ingenious
and well designed. Overall, his approach was amusing but maybe not
the optimal approach for delivering a marriage proposal. Interestingly
enough, the girlfriend, coated in green goo, said yes to the proposal. It’s
not clear what happened with this couple after the proposal.
It took many years, but after a while I succeeded in developing cri-
teria and an approach that even an engineer could follow to successfully
observe Valentine’s Day. My criteria include such design steps as this:
“Buy a Valentine’s Day card, or else!”
In satisfying this criterion, I’ve actually customized my cards over
the years in an engineering-appropriate way. In addition to hearts, I
draw little suspension bridges on my cards. For variety, some years I’ll
include cable-stayed bridges.
Even though I have had better success with Valentine’s Day over
time (sort of), I’ve often wondered—to balance Valentine’s Day and
restore equilibrium—perhaps there should be an engineering-type holi-
day. One way to do this would be to have a holiday that I’ll call “Nuts
and Bolts Day” (NB Day). NB Day would be designed especially for
engineers. On NB Day,
• All conversations are to be linear.
• Feelings may be discussed, but only in terms of solving problems. For
example: Person No. 1: “I feel really sad today.” Person No. 2: “Is that

so? What a shame. Let’s evaluate three causes of your sadness and pre-
pare preliminary and final design for remediating your feelings.”
• Cards are not required, although greetings may be sent by e-mail.

Extra credit is provided if the e-mail has some sort of programming
in it. Demerits for use of emoticons.
• Activities on NB Day can be virtually anything—as long as they are
standard, typical, and expected activities, appropriately scheduled,
with little random variation, and in accordance with accepted habits
and protocols.
In Boston, some nonengineers actually came up with a proposed
holiday in response to Valentine’s Day. The proposal can be heard on the
Loren and Wally program, a radio show in the drive-to-work morning
slot. The holiday is called “Steak and a You-Know-What Day” and is to
be celebrated on March 20 (http://amir4.blogspot.com/2007/03/march-
20th-steak-and-you-know-what-day.html). Regarding further descrip-
tion on protocols for this proposed holiday, additional details are not
provided here.
Finally, below is a part of an abstract from an actual paper entitled
“Some Evidence for Heightened Sexual Attraction under Conditions of
High Anxiety” by Donald G. Dutton and Arthur P. Aron (Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 1974, Vol. 30, No. 4, 510–517). It is some-
what related to bridges and Valentine’s Day. Here is the paper’s abstract:
Male passersby were contacted either on a fear-arousing sus-
pension bridge or a non-fear-arousing bridge by an attractive
female interviewer who asked them to fill out questionnaires
containing Thematic Apperception Test pictures. Sexual con-
tent of stories written by subjects on the fear-arousing bridge
and tendency of these subjects to attempt post-experimental
contact with the interviewer were both significantly greater.
No significant differences between bridges were obtained on
either measure for subjects contacted by a male interviewer.
Probably there are many lessons to be learned from this study. I leave it
to the readers to determine what the correct ones are.

You Do It, and

Then It’s Done
To be an engineer is to travel on a set of prescribed journeys. Our work
is governed by projects with a defined trajectory and life. For example,
a bridge project starts out as a proposal. If the proposal is accepted, the
job begins, and the new bridge project enters early design with prepara-
tion of a set of concepts. A team is formed to wrestle with the concepts:
direct participants, including the designers and reviewers, and indirect
stakeholders, who comment in one way or another. Over time, the con-
cepts start to gel. In the beginning, everything is possible but nothing is
defined. With time, the broad universe of all possibilities narrows to a
specific, smaller universe of more precise forms and shapes. In the same
way that a child grows from an infant with unlimited potential to an
accomplished adult with limitations, so does the nascent bridge.
At some point, it’s pencils (or mice) down for the design effort, and
then it’s time to build. If it’s a traditional design-bid-build, the division
between the processes of design and construction are more defined. If
it’s design-build, the design and construction phases overlap. Eventually,
the design is done. Detailed submittals are submitted, and the intellectu-
al exercise of creating a bridge starts to wind down. The piers are formed,
the beams are placed, the deck is poured, and the roadway stripes are
painted. Then it’s time for ribbon cutting. It is a moment of great accom-
plishment and triumph, a culmination of years of sweat and tears.
But at the pinnacle of achievement, when the project is over, the
team disbands. The shared experience of accomplishment is no more.
A few summers ago, I was a long-distance observer of three sepa-
rate communities of kids. My former student led a caravan of college
students biking across the United States (see the essay “Cross-Country,

2009”). My daughter went on a cross-country trip with her youth group.
And several adult friends worked part-time at an overnight camp a few
hours away.
All three groups established new, self-contained communities. But

the communities were not permanent. As the summer wound down,
all three communities more or less came to an end within the last week
or so. The students reached their destination in Seattle, my daughter
returned on the last leg of her bus ride, and the camp held its closing
weekend ceremonies.
Members of all three communities participated in intense adven-
tures, with a marked path, goals, and achievements. Probably this was
most obvious to the bikers, because their journey was literally on a path.
They traveled thousands of miles laterally and thousands of feet up and
down, completing a journey that most of us can’t imagine, let alone
participate in. Likewise, all the young inhabitants of these temporary
summer communities shared in intense experiences of growth, partici-
pation, and discovery, not yet burdened by the wisdom and experience
that naturally come with time, mostly whether you like it or not.
So at the moment of triumph and accomplishment, when the goals
were met and the mountains were scaled, why did the participants feel
sad? The reactions were uniformly similar among all three groups. My
teenage daughter’s travel companions all cried the last day, and she was
morose (well, more morose than average) when she returned. During
the last weekend, the campers were moribund. On the cross-country
bike trip, one of the bikers commented in his blog: “What great accom-
plishments they all had, what soaring successes, but it was all accom-
plished. It was done. The experience was over.”
My friend Steve accused me of being elegiac (check this out—even
though I’m an engineer, I used the word “elegiac” correctly in a sen-
tence!) when I talked about this subject with him. But it seems to me
that for us jaded adults, there is something to be learned in watching
youth grapple with the end of summer.
For everyone, but particularly for engineers, life is a series of
projects. The projects more or less follow a similar path. There is the
confusing, exciting start-up phase when the work is being defined. Par-
ticipants sort out their roles. The scope is being scoped. After this messy
introductory period, things settle down to an extent, and the project

moves into its production phase. Now, we hope that everyone is march-
ing down the same road. A community has been created, with mem-
bers, roles, and responsibilities. As in all communities, there are pluses
and minuses—the project will have terrific milestones, nutty detours,

great contributors, and not-so-great participants. As the process gears
up, things become shopworn but comfortable. Everyone and everything
tends to be where it needs to be (we hope).
But as with any project, the submission date looms. As the deadline
rears its ugly head, activity ratchets up to a feverish pitch. With seem-
ingly unattainable deadlines, the normal schedule morphs into nights
and weekends. Maybe it’s not as much fun as a cross-country trip, but
the project community bands together to finish the calculations, draw
the drawings, and write the reports.
And then it’s over. You do it, and then it’s done. The project is fin-
ished. The client is happy (usually). Are we? Our little project commu-
nity is disbanded, not as dramatically or with the same finality as that
of the young cross-country bikers, but it’s still over. We’ll do something
else, the next day in fact, but never again in the same way, with the same
circumstances, and with the same people, as in our completed project.
I remember feeling this way after finishing a large and challenging
bridge project. The work had some 11th-hour twists and turns, but we
were able to pull off all the last-minute changes and meet our dead-
lines. It was intense, it was nights and weekends, and then it was over.
I was glad that we achieved what we did and glad to return to a more
normal schedule. The client was happy, so we were invited to design
more bridges the next day. But the project was completed, never to be
repeated again in that way, at that moment of time. So summer ends, the
leaves drop off the trees, and a cold winter blankets the land. Then the
sun comes out again, the trees bud, and the cycle repeats itself.

School’s Out
Transitioning from student to professional engineer can be uneasy.
Students participate in organized classrooms. Their classes have a
curriculum, defined learning objectives, and measurements of perfor-
mance. Starting in kindergarten and continuing through 16th grade,
maybe higher for an advanced degree, students attend organized, for-
matted classes. They complete a series of sequential, bite-size assign-
ments of increasing complexity and intellectual rigor. They get feedback
through report cards. Classes, assignments, and the overall school expe-
rience are geared toward the developing intellects and functions of chil-
dren. To an extent, even older college students are treated in this way.
Practicing engineers are expected to act as adults, and we hope
that they do. Practicing engineers must deal with the messiness and
uncertainties of the real world. Engineering problems for responsible
engineers are not so clear-cut as the students’ homework assignments.
Real-world problems are often ill defined and open ended and feature all
sorts of constraints and interactions with other ill-defined, open-ended
problems. Whereas students are drilled at getting the “right” answer
throughout their educational career, practicing engineers often find that
there is no one “right” answer, but one that is good enough to satisfy
the multiple constraints. The messy, ambiguous world of the practicing
engineer is formatted to suit the messy, ambiguous problems with which
we must deal. There are no homework assignments to solve, but there
are design submittals with target deadlines, based on a shifting schedule,
shifting resources, shifting client needs, and a budget that may or may
not have enough resources to address ill-defined problems. A respon-
sible, practicing engineer learns to function, survive, and prosper amid
all of the challenges and ambiguities of the real world.

What happens when it is time to transition from the order of
school to the chaos of the real world? Like a beautiful butterfly emerg-
ing from the chrysalis, at some point an engineering student is declared
to be a responsible engineer (and my apologies for comparing students

to caterpillars). The processes and environments for both students and
practicing engineers are reasonably well defined and understood. What
about the transition between the two?
To aid in the transition, some approaches have been used:
• Formal mentoring. Some large organizations have defined mentoring
programs where senior engineers take junior engineers under their
wings.
• Informal mentoring. Junior engineers seek out and work with practic-
ing engineers informally and learn the ropes that way.
• Internships. Many colleges seek to place students out in practice before
graduation. For some programs, this is a requirement.
• Magic. Using this approach, which seems to be common in many
organizations, newly minted engineers are flung into the real world
and expected to accumulate wisdom through osmosis.
Through development of the “body of knowledge” (BOK), ASCE
has taken a stab at defining the transition period: what it means to
gain engineering experience, what the experience is, and how to define
it and measure it. Programs of a sort have started to work with these
definitions, through development of continuing education classes and
requirements.
But, unfortunately, the big divide in expectations and approach
between student and young engineer is exacerbated by the gap between
academia and practice. In a perfect engineering world, academia and
professional practice would be coordinated and seamless. There would
be no ivory tower walls to scale in this nirvana because there would be no
ivory tower. Professors and practitioners would alternate back and forth
in the realms of teaching, research, and applied engineering. In such an
environment, the harsh transition for a newly graduated engineer would
not be as harsh. There would not be an abrupt division between the
cocoonlike metrics of the student environment and the get-it-done-now
free-for-all of the engineering world.

I have had the privilege and good fortune to be both a practicing
engineer and a professor. Over the years, I have seen how many of my
students have struggled to cross the threshold to achieve the status of
a responsible engineer. In class before graduation, I’ve lectured them

on the stark divide: how one moment they are students, and the next
moment they are suddenly adults. Many have taken advantage of men-
toring programs and opportunities. Some are fortunate to find positions
where there is a more formal adjustment to the realm of engineering
practice. Some had assignments as interns. But for many more, the
approach for their transition can best be described as magic.

Raising the
Bridge
A video camera was placed near an old railroad bridge in North Caro-
lina. This bridge had very low vertical clearance above the road, barely
more than 12 ft. The camera recorded a series of trucks crashing into
the bridge. Even with warning signs posted for low clearance, one after
another, truck and van drivers seemed to ignore the warning.
Drivers used different approaches, all unsuccessful. Some were
just oblivious and had the tops of their vehicles ripped off. Others knew
that there was a potential problem, but they relied on a little finesse to
ease their vehicles through. A lot of grease might have helped in these
cases, but a little finesse did not. One driver inched his semi beneath the
underpass, and the video captures the top of the truck slowly peeling off
like a sardine can.
Through it all, the old bridge survives one crash after another.
How much vertical clearance should be provided is a bit like
deciding on the number of soil borings to be taken. The ideal number
for vertical borings and the ideal vertical clearance is infinity. Using a
dimension of infinity, then you can really be sure you have enough bor-
ings and clearance. However, a vertical clearance beneath a bridge of
infinity is not practical because for one thing the bridge would need to
span at a location beyond the edge of the universe. So some dimension
smaller than infinity is needed. But a smaller dimension often seems
to be inadequate, as experienced by the unfortunate bridge in North
Carolina.
Today’s minimum interstate highway clearance is specified to be
16.5 ft. In the past, a clearance of 14 ft or lower was provided. As high-
ways are rebuilt, it’s interesting to see reconstructed bridges next to

older ones. The new bridges are raised to current standards, but the old
structures remain with lower clearance. On Route 128 in Weston, Mas-
sachusetts, the Recreation Road overpass was replaced with a new struc-
ture at the current, higher required clearance. But immediately to the

north is an old, active railroad bridge that carries a commuter rail line.
This through-girder bridge provides a smaller vertical clearance across
the highway. Drivers not well versed in the ways of engineers would be
confused by the juxtaposition of different bridge heights.
For the replacement bridge, the thinking is that it makes sense to
spend a bit more to build a higher span. Eventually, all the bridges will
be replaced, and then higher vertical clearance will be provided every-
where. That’s the idea, but it seems like it will take a long time to achieve
this goal, if it is ever to be achieved. The railroad bridge may be replaced
eventually, but there is still the problem of grading the tracks higher, not
so easy to do along a limited right-of-way.
The correct vertical clearance itself is a moving target. Today it’s
16.5 ft. Maybe in a few years, it will be 19 ft. Or maybe everything in
the United States will switch to metric after all, and then the correct
minimum clearance will be 17.623 ft, which might be an even number
in metric (I was lazy and didn’t do the math). Then, the Recreation Road
overpass will be too low next to the reconstructed railroad bridge.
Therefore, for many years to come, we will likely drive along
highways with mismatched sets of bridges, some higher, some lower.
The new spans conform to current codes and represent the unfulfilled
dreams of engineers.
It’s not only that the specified clearance has increased with time.
The trucks are getting taller as well. With trucks getting taller faster than
the minimum clearance increases, bridges are hit more often.
Vertical clearance jams are not limited to highway vehicles. Bridges
crossing active waterways are also subject to collision. In May 2012, the
top funnel of a cruise ship clipped a cable-stayed bridge in Wenzhou City,
China (http://www.crew-center.com/cruise-ship-crashes-wenzhou-bridge,
November 2015). A video recording of the crash shows the bridge later-
ally vibrating from the collision as vehicles continued to cross it. The
inherent flexibility of cable-stayed bridges may have helped in the colli-
sion. The lateral movement could absorb some energy of impact, where-
as a more rigid structure might have sustained more damage.

Cruise ships are big to begin with, and they are getting bigger. The
ships are the equivalent of small cities. New vessels are the equivalent of
midsized cities, with thousands of residents and decks that pop above
the waterline for hundreds of feet.

The mother of all bridge-raising projects is currently under way in
Bayonne, New Jersey (http://www.panynj.gov/bayonnebridge/, accessed
November 2015). Kill Van Kull, a tidal strait that separates Bayonne
from Staten Island, New York, is spanned by the magnificent Bayonne
Bridge. It is a long-span, overdeck arch. When it opened in 1931, it was
the longest arch span in the world. Today, it is still No. 5 on the list (Fig-
ure 1).
Kill Van Kull is an arm of New York Harbor separating Bayonne
from Staten Island. The Kill provides a passage for boats from the harbor
and the Atlantic to port facilities in Newark Bay. When the bridge was
first built, it provided 151 ft of clearance above the Kill, and that was
enough for more than 80 years. But now another project is under way to
widen the Panama Canal. With the canal widened, it will be possible to
Figure 1. Bayonne Bridge

Source: Photo by Jim Henderson, <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bayonne_Bridge_Collins_Pk_
jeh.jpg> (Feb. 27, 2015)

float taller and wider boats. The only limitation would be at port facili-
ties. Ports that don’t provide the room won’t be able to berth the bigger
ships, and they will lose out to facilities that can. The Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey decided that to remain competitive, boat
transit on Kill Von Kull could not be restricted.
A bridge type study considered construction of a new, higher
bridge along with doing nothing. It concluded that raising clearance on
the existing bridge was the best option. It’s a billion-dollar-plus project
with unique technical and staging challenges. Engineers and construc-
tors must work around the limitations of the existing structure and traf-
fic to raise the suspended deck. The result is likely to be an engineering
marvel, but it may be a little disappointing in terms of aesthetics. Today,
the bridge and arch profile seem to be scaled about right. The origi-
nal bridge design called for constructing ornamental post structures at
the beginnings of the arch, similar to the Hell Gate Bridge in New York
and Sydney Harbor Bridge in Sydney, Australia. To save money during
the Great Depression, the ornamental structures were never built. The
resulting structure is sleek and modernistic for its time.
But with the proposed raising of the deck, a cost of improved clear-
ance will be a change in the balance of proportions. In elevation, the deck
will appear to ride high on the arch, with a smaller segment extending
above. If the bridge were designed today (and Othmar Ammann were
still alive to do it), maybe a taller arch would be selected to match the
new clearance.
At a certain point, it makes sense to build a new bridge instead of
raising the old one. There are no set of black and white rules for this
decision, only engineering evaluation supported by judgment. The
clearance debate seems poised to continue into the future. Maybe there
is some correct ultimate clearance that will eventually be selected. This
will be humanity’s optimum minimum vertical clearance for bridges.
Until then, the code clearance gradually increases, trucks and boats con-
tinue to lose their tops, and low-slung legacy bridges gamely live on to
be crashed into another day.

The Short List

After intense work on a proposal for a new project, the reports are com-
piled, the documents are printed, the disks are burned, and the boxes are
carted off to a prospective client. Then it’s time to wait. In some cases,
the client’s decision may be almost immediate. In others, it may take
several weeks to learn about the proposal’s fate. The odds being what
they are, most proposals don’t make it much further than the initial
stage. But every now and then, initial pay dirt is struck and the client
announces that you have made it to the short list.
At this point, the baying herd is whittled down to a select handful
of competing firms. Winning the job is still not assured. But the odds are
greatly improved. Once you’re on the short list, the job is now starting to
be possible and not just wishful thinking.
After a brief respite for kudos, the proposal team reconvenes and
works at a furious pace to assemble the final documents. Unlike the
qualification phase, this final proposal typically requires much more
detailed engineering and planning. If it’s a design-build project tender,
a tremendous amount of design must be completed quickly, and many
more boxes will be filled and delivered before the work is done.
But there is one more event to address after making the short list.
In most cases, project teams present their work at an oral interview. For
many engineers, the prospect of a live presentation is a cause of intense
fear. At the interview, it is necessary to get up and speak in front of a
critical audience.
At my firm, making the short list triggers a series of events for
planning the presentation. There are PowerPoint shows to power up,
presentation scripts to write and perfect, and late-night pizzas to be

eaten. Many clients require the presentation to be completed within a
specified time limit. So we practice the timing over and over again to get
it right. Each presenter has an allotted number of minutes. Those who
are uncomfortable with public speaking may ramble on too long, and
then we need contingency plans to cut back on the overall time. Some
presenters mumble, and others speak too softly. Some are nice people
in real life, with good personalities, a flair for fashion, and admirable
grooming habits. Unfortunately, these same colleagues may be deadly
dull presenters on the podium. Granted, it’s an engineering project and
perhaps the topics overall are not that exciting. But the client will listen
to many presentations that day and will appreciate being entertained,
even a little bit, instead of feeling like it’s an endless day at a really bor-
ing dentist.
After weeks of practice, the fateful day arrives. Interview Day is a
thing of ritual for many engineers. There are rigid customs and tradi-
tions to be followed before the show. Some offices avoid practice the day
of the presentation. Others go through a few more dry runs. Depend-
ing on the time of the interview, the Last Meal may be eaten. For an
afternoon interview, the team gets together for lunch. Engineering
team members, not often the most socially adept bunch to begin with,
nervously attempt small talk and nibble on cold sandwiches as a silent
clock loudly ticks off the seconds. Eating too much food is not a good
idea at this point. Indigestion or worse does not add to the luster of the
presentation.
After the meal, it is time. The team leaves in a caravan with pro-
jectors, laptops, display boards, and other paraphernalia. In the Middle
Ages, a group leaving for battle would carry swords, picks, and other
weapons, ready to slay the competing firm. It’s funny how many times
I’ve had that vision of preparing for battle when leaving for a presenta-
tion. The city is teeming with life, and the sidewalks are packed, but
strangely it’s like High Noon. We cross the busy streets, and there is
not a soul in sight. A cold wind blows in July, tossing forlorn tufts of
tumbleweeds.
Grimly, our group assembles outside the conference room. A pre-
vious team is leaving, and because everyone knows everyone else, we are
all friendly and chatty. But of course they have their game faces on. Their
body language communicates to us that they slayed ’em in the aisles. It

was a superb performance, a flawless presentation. Probably the client
decided to pick them on the spot, so now there is no need to bother with
us. We smile politely, not pointing out that their project manager has
gross, smelly dark rings of sweat dripping from his armpits, or that one
of their lead presenters has a visibly congested nose.
Inside the conference room, the client’s evaluation team sits stone-
faced as we assemble our paraphernalia. In the distant past, a slide pro-
jector would be assembled. Dinosaur that I am, I still remember the
time when the tray malfunctioned and slides popped into the air each
time they were changed. It was a funny way to make a presentation, but
it was a little distracting. Today we have no slide trays. We rely on our
modern technology: the laptop, projector, and PowerPoint presentation
all must perform. We bring one or more backups for each component,
depending on the prospective job’s importance.
The tension is thick as we engineers prepare to engage. Finally,
the talking begins, and process takes over. We introduce ourselves and
engage our audience. The presentation that seemed to take a day in
practice is oddly over in a flash. Our speakers stick to the scripts, more
or less, the timing works, the graphics and animations are of startling
clarity and brilliance.
In a moment, our prepared talks are done, and then it’s time for
some questions and answers. We engineers dread this too, of course,
but for many this part is little bit easier than the timed, canned per-
formance. Fortunately, the client often has some softballs for us, and
the hitters smack each question pitch deep into the outfield. After a few
more questions, it’s all over. The client thanks us for our time. We thank
the client for the opportunity. We shake sweaty, clammy hands. Then we
pack up the laptop, projector, and boards, and soon we’re back on the
street.
Over a few beers, we relive the excitement: smiles from the cli-
ent (if any), jokes told, opportunities realized, opportunities lost. The
postmortem is often deflating. After all that nervous worry and adren-
alin, it’s time for reentry back into real engineering life. The next day,
we hover over our computers for calculations and analysis. Our special
presentation suits are sent to the dry cleaners, and we’re back in our
mismatched daily engineering garb. The final results will be provided
some time in the immediate but seemingly distant future. For now, we
engineers have survived the short list.

Return to Dulles
The winter of 2014 may be remembered as one of the worst ever for air
travel. A series of monumental blizzards raked all parts of the United
States. Something called a “polar vortex” spun its evil in the nation’s
midsection, pumping excessively cold air down to New Orleans and all
locales in between. Airlines lost millions of dollars in canceled flights,
and thousands of people were trapped at airports—no hotels, nowhere
to go. Being trapped in an airport is an experience in travel purgatory.
You can’t leave because maybe they’ll call your flight. You have nowhere
to go except a bench with stale peanuts as the winds howl outside and
civilization comes to an end.
I’ve mostly lucked out in winter air travel. Last year, we were going
for a long weekend in San Juan, Puerto Rico. A blizzard was forecast to
rake the U.S. East Coast. It was a grim forecast: many feet of snow and
zero visibility. Once the storm began, planes would be grounded. Anx-
iously, we read the weather reports, each one worse than the next. The
meteorologists were excited: This was a big storm! We grasped at straws:
Maybe a cold front would push the snowstorm; maybe the atmospheric
low would nudge ever so slightly to the east.
As it turned out, our prayers were answered. The start of the bliz-
zard was slightly delayed. Our flight was the second to last to escape
from Logan Airport before the intense snow began. A few hours later,
we chuckled as a soft breeze ruffled the palm leaves and gently frothed
the warm azure surface of the Caribbean.
Over the years, I’ve been lucky, never trapped at an airport, ever—
except once. During the winter of 1996, we had assembled a large Boston
contingent to attend the Transportation Research Board conference in

January. As we prepared to travel to Washington, D.C., a big nor’easter
barreled up the coast. Logan was paralyzed. Of the 20 or so engineers
going, only two made it out: me and another not-so-lucky flyer. Some-
how, we canvassed the forlorn airport and found the one flight leaving.
The trip there took four days, or something like that. In the air it wasn’t
so bad, but then it was time to land in Washington. Snow had blasted the
D.C. area as well as Boston. But unlike Boston, which has some experi-
ence with snow, it only takes an inch or two for Washington to be dis-
abled. This storm provided more like a foot of snow. When we landed
and skidded to the gate, the airport ran out of tow trucks. So they used
large huskies.
That was the trip there. The conference itself was pleasant but very
different from previous years. This was because about half the attend-
ees didn’t attend. When it was done, somehow I made it back to the
Dulles Airport terminal for the return. Once at the terminal, we were
snowed in. No planes in, no planes out. It really was the end of civiliza-
tion. It was me, trapped with 2,000 other people. The terminal ran out
of food. At one point, an attendant announced that he had found a bag
of nuts. I don’t think this next part actually happened, but I remember
that a matronly woman dressed in what looked like a black potato sack
approached the attendant with an oversized umbrella. She raised the
umbrella in a threatening way, and in a dark guttural voice she com-
manded, “Give me the nuts!”
For me, when it comes to travel to Dulles Airport, I will be scarred
for life. It’s that image, which I probably imagined anyway, of the woman
in the black potato sack. Based on my fear of Dulles, I scheduled subse-
quent trips to the downtown Reagan National Airport.
But a few years ago, the only arrangement that made sense was a
trip via Dulles Airport. It was time for me to return to Dulles. Ironi-
cally, it was during another bitter, oversnowed winter, but my travel day
turned out to be sunny and calm, one of the few that season. I landed
without incident, purchased two large bags of cashews to honor the
memory of 1996, and set out to ride the old mobile bus from the satellite
to the main terminal.
To get back and forth between the Dulles terminal pods, you used
to have to ride a clunky, uncomfortable bus. These custom-built vehicles
were advanced in their day, but by the 21st century, they were becoming

seriously outdated. Among other problems, the buses had to wend their
way through active taxiways and maneuvering jets. To address these
problems, an underground people mover had been planned and was
under construction for many years. Luckily for me, the facility opened a
few days before I arrived.
The new underground train connects satellite terminals A–C to the
main terminal. It is an architectural and engineering success, at least in
its finished form. The train connects to terminals via soaring under-
ground stations. The stations are cathedral-like shafts, naturally lit by
sun and skylight that streams down to track level. Passengers ascend
and descend via escalators that are suspended like ribbons in the shafts.
The structural framing for this elaborate underground space includes
beautiful, exposed cable-supported beams. The overall construction is
well detailed and graceful.
The new underground trains were not built easily. One tunnel
collapsed during construction. Also, the current design in some ways
seems incomplete. Not all terminals or stops are connected. The design
was planned before September 11, 2001, for a future airport expansion
that today may not come to pass. So some layout decisions that may
have made sense then don’t seem as logical today.
The next big improvement at Dulles will be the arrival of the Metro,
which is expanding west from Tysons Corner, Virginia. Before leaving
to go to my meeting, I spent an extra few minutes surveying the beauti-
ful new underground stations and future connections. After many years
of bad Dulles memories, the triumphant spaces glistened in the under-
ground sunlight. There were no blizzards this trip, but just in case I pur-
chased two more bags of cashews.

Riverside
Most of Massachusetts would not be confused with Orlando, Florida. In
that flat, sunbaked city, vast stretches of urban sprawl are interrupted by
vast “theme” amusement parks. Disney World, Universal Studios, and
Sea World evolved from the old trolley amusement parks of centuries
past. Many of the original amusement parks were created by urban trol-
ley companies to generate weekend business for the trolleys. By today’s
standards, these were bare-bones, honky-tonk establishments with car-
nival midways and crude antecedents of today’s rides. The roller coast-
ers were made out of wood and didn’t have special effects or music.
There were shows but no animatronic talking bears because animatron-
ics hadn’t been invented yet.
Today’s amusement theme parks use the same fundamental
approach. But the parks have become bloated. They are marketed not
just as amusement parks but as resort destinations. They charge up to
three figures per person for daily admission. To enter, you are required
to provide two major forms of credit.
In Massachusetts, the closest you can get to a theme park is Six
Flags, New England. This park is the reincarnation of the former River-
side Park, an old-school, traditional trolley-line-type amusement park
built on the banks of the Connecticut River just south of Springfield in
Agawam. The park started out with modest amusements, and riverboats
transported guests from across the Connecticut River in Springfield. In
that sense, it wasn’t really a trolley-line park but a riverboat-line park.
But the idea was the same.
When it was Riverside, the park gradually added rides and attrac-
tions. In its day, Riverside Park was a very New England type of place.
It was distinctive, old school, dowdy, and sort of rambling. The midway

had skeet shooting and carnival games like Whac-A-Mole. It had all of
the typical midway rides as well as some big old roller coasters, includ-
ing a recreation of the Cyclone wood roller coaster from Coney Island
in New York.
Riverside Park was a survivor from the time when dozens of little
amusement parks dotted the New England landscape. When trolley lines
closed and amusement parks morphed into giant theme parks, the little
mom-and-pop operations couldn’t compete. One of my first dates with
my wife, Lauren, was riding the roller coaster at Nantasket Beach. The
park has long since closed, and the site has been converted to oceanfront
condominiums. Likewise, most of the older New England parks did not
survive to become theme parks. The White City amusement park, in
Shrewsbury, was the place to go for residents of Worcester. Today it is
a shopping plaza, retaining the old name of the park but nothing else.
Riverside is one of the few older New England parks that has made
the transition to the modern, theme park era. I was a fan of the old Riv-
erside, when it was creaky and had more thrills and less theme. Then I
grew up, and the park slowly changed to its current Six Flags incarna-
tion. In the years immediately before its metamorphosis, you could tell
something was up. The park owners were getting ready to sell out, so
they started adding all sorts of doodads, bloat, and features in keep-
ing with the theme park theme. The rides were painted, the honky-tonk
reigned in. Six Flags is not exactly Disney, but it does have higher aspira-
tions than an old carnival midway.
At Six Flags New England, there are different lands to visit, like the
Wild West and an idealized 1950s town. Main Street at Six Flags still
has some of the old Riverside charm, with a sky-ride and carnival mid-
way games. At one booth, a teenager was in charge of guessing the ages
of patrons. This seemed wildly inappropriate in many ways, and it was
hard to understand how the park could make money at such a booth.
But on the other hand, the prize was a 20-cent stuffed animal. At a fee of
$5 per guest, the house couldn’t lose.
The engineering of the rides is very impressive. Six Flags has kept
several of the classic Riverside wooden roller coasters. The park has
added several steel coasters. One has a 221-ft drop with acceleration to
almost 80 mph. While waiting in line, I got to see some of the bolting
details, especially for the turns. The coaster has no-nonsense support
pads with deep anchor bolts. Whereas the wood coasters appear to get

by on redundancy, and in some cases prayer, the steel coasters seem to
apply a brute force design approach. Wood coasters of the past were
designed with slide rules and drafted by hand. For today’s steel coasters,
it’s finite elements and detailed dynamic analysis.

Many of the newer rides have themes added to the themes. The new
steel coasters are named after superheroes and comic book characters.
The thinking is that today’s ADHD kids are too distracted and devoid of
imagination to go with a simple name like “Cyclone.” The coasters must
compete with all sorts of distractions. Waiting in a 45-minute line for
the 90-second ride, you can see all the kids playing and texting on their
smart phones. So at least they’re not as bored waiting in line.
Across the United States, new steel coasters have continued an
upward march to bigger and badder. The new steel coasters are not
reined in by the physical limitations of wood framing. The controlling
design element seems to be how much acceleration and twisting the
human body can take. It is desirable for patrons be able to function and
to walk away from the ride after it’s complete. Therefore, the new coast-
ers are designed to provide accelerations within human physiological
limits. But every now and then, something sadly goes wrong—a belt
doesn’t work, a rider is not properly secured. Then a fun day at the park
turns to tragedy.
Theme parks seem to be caught in a “bigger is better” upward tra-
jectory. In transforming from Riverside to Six Flags, the old, dowdy
amusement park doubled in size. A water park was added, as were
new roller coasters and new shows. It is bigger, better, and with a new
improved entrance fee to match. Every year something new needs to be
added because of the risk that people will get tired of the old version.
Where this trend leads us is not clear. Present-day kids are over-
informationed, overstimulated, and overmedicated with drugs to con-
trol their overstimulation. It may be that the future Six Flags won’t be
able to build enough new attractions to compete with couch-based vid-
eo games.
If you look carefully, you can see scraps of the dowdy old park
hidden in the midway. When I walk around Six Flags (I am perhaps a
decade or two older than the median age in attendance), I see the old
park in its past glory. In my mind’s eye, I’m still a kid imagining the old
amusement park. The other kids don’t see it because they are busy tex-
ting each other as the world flows by.

The Red and

the Blue
Nathaniel Philbrick’s book, Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution
(2013, Penguin Books), describes events at the start of the American
Revolutionary War. Most of us have learned about Paul Revere’s ride
and other events in glowing, black-and-white terms. Our lessons from
grade school taught us that the British were bad, the colonial Patriots
were angelic, and thus the battle was fought. Philbrick’s historical treat-
ment uses a revisionist approach. In his description, things were not so
simple. His description of events and people’s behavior is in the real time
of the day, without much 20–20 commentary. In his description, the
rose color is taken off the glasses.
According to Philbrick, it was not a battle between good and evil.
Most participants were ambivalent and had conflicted motivations. The
supposedly angelic colonists fought for freedom and democracy. But
many colonial groups, such as black slaves and members of different
religions, weren’t included in the fight for liberty. Some colonial settlers
considered themselves English subjects. They remained loyal to Eng-
land and were bullied into the conflict. An interesting aspect was the
time lag. With today’s smart phones, Skype, and constant data overload,
we avail ourselves of instant communication on demand. But this was
not the case in the 18th century. It could take two months or more for
word and instructions to go back and forth from the colonies to Eng-
land. Apparently, the King and the colonists did not tweet. Even with
instant communication and too much information, conflicts proceed in
a fog, but 250 years ago, the fog was a denser morass of confusion and
misinformation than today.
The Revolutionary War was preceded by a series of small battles
and brushfires. But the conflict began in earnest during the British

march to Lexington and Concord. A contingent of British soldiers set
out from Boston to capture stores of gunpowder and arms in Concord.
The first skirmish was on the Lexington Green, where several colonial
militia men died under fire. The British soldiers then marched on to
Concord. West of town, at the Old North Bridge, the developing battle
turned when the Patriots fired and routed the British soldiers.
The bridge was a multispan timber-framed structure crossing the
Concord River. Like most bridges, it was an anonymous structure, a
backdrop in the countryside. Up until the fateful battle, it peacefully
served its function facilitating commerce and travel. It had little effect in
political affairs until it was thrust to the forefront of history.
Usually, the role of a bridge is to span and connect and to do so qui-
etly without much notice or notoriety. But every now and then, a bridge
pokes its way into the political narrative. Bridges are positive, excel-
lent structures, but unfortunately they can be thrust into the spotlight
and receive unwanted notoriety. For decades, few people knew about
the Dike Bridge, crossing an inlet to Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick
Island in Massachusetts. The bridge is a short, multispan timber trestle
on a quiet back road near the beach. It is not much of a bridge. In the
summer of 1969, the trestle had no safety guardrails. It was essentially
deck planking over the narrow inlet. One evening in July, when young
Senator Kennedy drove off the bridge, it was anonymous no more.
The Dike Bridge has a structure similar to that of the Old North
Bridge. But unlike the Old North Bridge, there are no visitor centers at
the site. Since 1969, sturdy timber rails have been added on the sides.
The bridge is a popular tourist destination, although it is out of the way
and not so easy to get to.
A recent bridge imbroglio occurred in the fall of 2013, involving
the George Washington Bridge in New York City. The beautiful suspen-
sion bridge is one of the most heavily traveled spans in the world. For
a few days, a “study” was performed in which several toll lanes in Fort
Lee, New Jersey, were closed. Approaches to the bridge from the west
do not flow so well in the best of circumstances. Traffic jams of an hour
or more on some approach highways are typical, and that’s with all the
scheduled toll lanes open. When the toll lanes were closed, traffic Arma-
geddon ensued. Commuters trying to escape flooded the streets of Fort
Lee, paralyzing the city.

Months later, it was revealed that the “study” was a political ploy.
The mayor of Fort Lee declined to support New Jersey’s governor’s reelec-
tion campaign. In retribution, some of the governor’s aides arranged to
have the toll booths closed. One aide e-mailed that it was a good time for
a traffic jam. With this revelation, a scandal ensued. Before the scandal,
the governor was thought to be potentially a major presidential candi-
date. The bridge scandal may have altered those plans.
Bridges are not thought to be things of conflict. With a few military
exceptions, bridges are inherently peaceful. The design and construc-
tion of a bridge is in keeping with the highest aspirations of humankind.
To varying degrees, bridges require long-term planning, marshaling of
resources, complex coordination, and a period of painstaking construc-
tion. It can take many years for a bridge to appear after the decision
is made to build it. Building a bridge is like planting a tree. The pay-
off from today’s hard work is not immediate. Implied in the decision
is the hopeful thought that future people will prosper and benefit from
the present day’s hard work. The resulting structure provides not just
physical connection but also symbolic connection as well. We think of
“bridging the gap” and see that bridges bring us together.
So it is startling when every now and then, a poor unfortunate
bridge is thrust into the political fracas. Given the choice, bridges are
content to span and connect, peacefully forming a backdrop in our lives
while staying out of human conflicts.

Aging and
Infrastructure
U.S. infrastructure is designed for drivers. A few areas have walkable
streets and facilities. Some locales have serviceable mass transit. But the
majority of the population lives in spaces that are sprawling and not easy
to get around without a car. Even in these places, maybe bus lines are
available. But rides by bus would take two hours in comparison to 15
minutes by car. The reality is that if you can’t drive, you can’t get around.
On Christmas Day and on some other holidays, my synagogue
takes responsibility for food delivery as part of a local Meals on Wheels
program. This program, supported by volunteers and donations, pro-
vides hot meals for the indigent and aging population in the suburbs
south of Boston. Over the years, I’ve gotten to meet some of the regular
clients. It is an opportunity to not just deliver food but also to provide
some contact and comfort to a group of people who are shut in and
isolated. Many of the program’s clients live in impoverished conditions.
Suburban Boston is probably one of the most well-heeled places on
Earth. It is startling to see pockets of deprivation in the midst of relative
prosperity. There are many complex and interwoven issues contribut-
ing to this condition, but I want to comment on one in this essay: bad
infrastructure design.
To participate and function in suburban Boston, and in suburbs all
over the United States, you have to be able to drive. The Boston area pro-
vides above-average public transportation. But outside a relatively nar-
row urban belt (mostly within Route 128), transportation is pretty much
exclusively via automobile. If you can’t drive, you don’t have access. For
the aging population scattered around the suburbs, loss of driving capa-
bility leads to isolation and loss of independence and function.

In past societies, the elderly were part of communities and not iso-
lated from them. Densely built communities of the past included senior
citizens instead of separating them. Older citizens could walk to stores
and facilities.
Suburban sprawl is mostly a U.S. invention, spurred on by a land
use pattern prompted by the automobile. The American dream includes
the idea of personal transportation at will, and overall it is a good thing.
But we all get older, and senior citizens lose the ability to drive. The
result in many cases is separation and isolation.
Getting old is not easy, but as the aphorism goes, it’s better than the
alternative. A better alternative for infrastructure design would be to
recapture some of the benefits provided by greater density and to reign
in the sprawl. Improved design should be considered apolitical. Bad
infrastructure is not conservative or liberal. It’s just bad.

Number One,
Baby!
At the Moose Hill Creamery in Sharon, Massachusetts, it seemed like
most of the town was celebrating. It was just after sunset. The crickets
were out in force, providing a summer evening din. Happy customers of
all ages were lining up at the windows awaiting their scoops. Out on the
pasture, the usually sedentary cows were unusually frisky. They playfully
tussled and wrestled beyond the picket fence. Maybe they thought that
the people couldn’t see them play in the fading light. But if so, they were
mistaken. Happy grade-schoolers gobbled their ice cream and pointed
to the playful cows. In the background, someone played a Red Sox game
on the radio. It was late summer, and the Sox were making an improb-
able run for the pennant.
All in all, it was hard to imagine a more placid and satisfying sum-
mer night in New England. The patrons at the creamery seemed to agree
and were reveling in the postdusk. There was even more to celebrate in
addition to the some of the world’s best ice cream. The town of Sharon
had just been named the number one best place to live in America by
Money magazine (http://www.magazine.org/node/26485).
In deciding which was the best small town, the August 2013 arti-
cle weighed such criteria as employment opportunities, quality of the
schools, the town’s physical infrastructure, and other parameters. For
residents of my hometown, the positive attributes are well known and
appreciated. Sharon is about halfway between Boston and Providence.
Both cities can be reached by a short and reliable commuter rail train
ride. So working in either downtown offers the option of an easy and
pleasant, noncar commute. By car, the Route 128 and 495 hi-tech cor-
ridors provide many other work opportunities. Pretty much the entire
Boston metro job market is reasonably accessible from town.

The article noted that for a suburban town, Sharon has a remote
feel because much of the town’s land is preserved. Lake Massapoag is
near the town’s center. It is a sparkling, mile-long spring-fed lake with
two beaches, a bandstand, and a small yacht club for the sailboats. Also
within town boundaries are the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary and Bor-
derland State Park. Moose Hill is a Massachusetts Audubon Society pre-
serve with hundreds of acres of woods, marshes, and hilly, forested paths.
Its namesake is the highest point in the area south of the Great Blue Hill.
The state park preserves the former estate of Blanche and Oakes Ames.
It is a beautiful property with large expanses of woodlands, ponds, and
paths for mountain biking. In addition to the sanctuary and state park,
Sharon has many acres of preserved town forests and meadows.
The town’s infrastructure overall is small scale and inviting. Sharon
has a compact town center on a hill top near the train station. Surround-
ing the small commercial area is a 19th-century grid of tree-lined streets
and old, attractive Victorian homes. Adjacent to the tiny downtown
is the Wilbur School. This old former high school building had sadly
lain abandoned and derelict for many years. But recently, the building
was successfully redeveloped as an apartment complex. The historic
old building was sensitively expanded. The resulting apartments and
grounds are beautiful. The architecture includes many whimsical details,
like rows of refinished former school lockers in the building corridors.
In general, the town has kept its eye on the prize over the years,
successfully completing a series of smart projects, such as the replace-
ment of the bridge across the railroad tracks and demolition of the old
Sacred Heart School building, an eyesore that has been converted into
parkland.
In addition to its convenience and accommodating terrain, Sharon
has some of the best public schools in the state. Real estate agents com-
ment that this detail alone contributes greatly to the town’s popularity.
On top of that, Money magazine pointed out the town’s diversity. The
town supports many churches and synagogues and one of New Eng-
land’s largest mosques. There are probably few places in the world with
a similar population where the residents live harmoniously together
instead of trying to kill one another.
So there is a lot to love in Sharon, Massachusetts. Sharon is number
one, baby, according to Money magazine. Good schools, beautiful ter-
rain, accessible jobs, diverse and accommodating residents. What’s not
to love?

Well, maybe a few things. Understanding the town’s problems and
how they have been addressed is helpful, overall, for understanding the
U.S. infrastructure development pattern in place after World War II.
How Sharon has or has not succeeded provides useful commentary on

the overall issues.
A concern for town residents, not noted in the glowing article, is
the local real estate tax rate. Sharon has one of the highest residential tax
rates in the state.
The largest chunk of the town budget goes to support the excel-
lent school system, followed by outlays to the fire department, police
department, and other town functions. In late 20th century–early 21st
century America, suburban U.S. towns have basically two ways of foot-
ing the bill: via real estate taxes on the local residents and via business
taxes on commercial establishments. There are other sources of funds,
such as local aid provided by the state, but these are comparatively small
amounts that can also be hit or miss depending on the political whims
of the times. Of the two big choices for tax revenue, business taxes are
more profitable because businesses pay in, but they don’t consume town
services (as much as residents do). Unlike residences, businesses do not
add children to the school system. So a suburban town with extensive
commercial areas tends to be in better shape financially than towns
without commercial areas.
Unfortunately, Sharon does not have much business. All of that
excellent preservation land represents lost opportunity for financially
desirable, tax-paying office parks and light industry. The town fathers
made a key decision in the 1960s and 1970s after construction of inter-
state highway I-95 on the western edge of town. At the Main Street exit,
many acres of land could have been zoned for industry. This area was
largely shielded from the rest of town. But the decision was to, instead,
zone for residential. Today, the area is the site of Sharon Woods, which
is not woods but a large subdivision with high-quality homes and many,
many children.
Sharon does have a small industrial area along sprawling Route 1 on
the west side of I-95. The town layout is such that this area hardly seems
like a part of Sharon because it is geographically separated and buffered
from the main part of town by the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary. The
Route 1 industrial parks provide some tax relief, but not enough. As a
result, unlike neighboring Foxboro, which hosts the huge, tax-paying

Gillette Stadium complex and much light industry, Sharon is top-heavy
with residents on that part of the land that is not preserved. So to fund
the superb schools and other town services, tax rates are much higher
than in surrounding towns.

For U.S. suburban towns struggling with sprawl, it is a Faustian
bargain: build strip malls with Walmarts and BJ’s to pay the school bills,
or preserve a few acres of woods while taxing residents up the wazoo.
At about the same time that industry was zoned out, Sharon made
another fateful decision. The federal government was providing sup-
port for sewers and treatment plants. Sharon’s town government did not
apply, with the general thinking that avoiding sewers would help keep a
lid on undesirable growth. With few exceptions, most areas of the town
rely on private septic systems. The town is also served by a good, town-
owned water system with local wells. This combination of local wells
and private septic is, perhaps, more feasible for a rural development
pattern. In a midsize suburban town, such an arrangement can lead to
long-term problems. Some concerns have surfaced more recently as the
state adopted more stringent rules for septic systems. In 2006, new laws
regulating septic system use were enacted (http://www.mass.gov/eea/
agencies/massdep/water/wastewater/septic-systems-title-5.html). The
rules covering new and existing systems are known under the moniker,
“Title 5.” The combination of the new laws with aging systems has led
to the need for a lot of replacement. As a result of Title 5, one can drive
around town and see several mini-excavation sites at homes for sale.
Digging of the leaching field has become a local rite of spring, like the
start of the Red Sox campaign.
Paradise aside, Sharon suffers from other bumps and bruises that
are symptomatic of 21st century American suburbia. But overall, the
town is wonderful, and (overtaxed) residents know it. Until the small
town beauty pageant article in Money magazine, it used to be a quiet
knowledge. Then the town burst into national consciousness, at least
for a year.
It’s not clear exactly how Money magazine decided that Sharon
was No. 1. It was an analytic process but maybe not completely analytic.
Similar to a beauty pageant, the town wears its crown royally, until the
sun sets and a new place becomes No. 1. Back at the creamery, the crick-
ets chirp on a warm summer night. The cows moo, the kids slurp their
frappes, and the Red Sox score. Number one, baby!

The Bridges
of Dallas
The TV show Dallas takes place in Dallas. The show chronicles the adven-
tures of the Ewings, a fictional wealthy Texas oil family. There are two
versions of the show. The first was filmed in the 1980s. It was a popular
and culturally iconic show for its time. Everyone watched it, and epi-
sodes were discussed at the water cooler the next day. The plot culmi-
nated in the shooting of J. R., Jock Ewing’s dastardly son. In addition to
the soap-operatic proceedings, the show featured an interesting opening
montage with some nice aerial views of the city’s landscape. A sweeping
view of the Trinity River is shown. The area around Dallas is relatively
dry. For most of the year, the Trinity River is not much of a river but
more of a soggy ditch. In periods of drought, it is not even soggy. The
river and surrounding floodplain are situated just west of downtown.
Bridges that cross the floodplain, such as it is, do not require grandeur
or long spans. At least in terms of engineering design, short, nonde-
script spans atop short piers will do. These modest, functional crossings
are what appear in the 1980s Dallas opening montage.
Decades later, the TV show was revived. The second version of
Dallas, named Dallas, takes place about 30 years after the first series
ended. It chronicles the same fictional family, with similar overblown
soap opera plots. In the new show, the kids are all grown up and are
responsible for their own bad behavior, as opposed to just being born
into a family of bad behavior. Several of the original actors appear,
including the late Larry Hagman, who played J. R. and sadly passed
away in 2013. Although the soap opera comings and goings are about
the same, the show has been updated to feature such current concerns
as global warming and renewable energy.

In real life, the Trinity River bridge crossings have also been updat-
ed for the new century. The old, modest bridges are being replaced by a
series of showy bridges designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Cala-
trava. The overall project in Dallas was to feature three separate cross-
ings. Based on budget limitations, one is currently not funded. Of the
other two, one bridge is complete and the other under construction.
The first of the new bridges completed is the Margaret Hunt Hill
Bridge. This bridge supports Woodall Rodgers Freeway (Spur 366)
across the river and floodplain. It is a cable-stayed, long-span bridge fea-
turing two spans suspended off a center pylon. The bridge is designed to
be a freeway extension with no pedestrian or bicycle access. It has been
criticized as a “bridge to nowhere” because the freeway dead-ends just
beyond the western abutment (http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/
north-south-dallas-project/editorials/20130412-editorial-hope-blooms-
at-west-end-of-dallas-margaret-hunt-hill-bridge.ece) (Figure 1).
The center pylon has an unusual design. Unlike most other cable-
stayed bridges with single towers, frames, or tuning fork shapes, this
Figure 1. Margaret Hunt Hill

Bridge in Dallas, Texas
Source: Photo by DMHinIrving, <http://www.
flickr.com/photos/dmh_irving/6742443989/
in/photostream/> (Feb. 27, 2015)

tower is formed out of a circular half arch. Cables are fastened to the
arch and down to the center of the suspended deck. The overall effect is
startling and beautiful in a sculptural sort of way.
But as a bridge structure, when considered in terms of “form fol-

lows function,” the load path is somewhat convoluted. The structure
achieves visual notice, or one could argue, notoriety, by its size and star-
tling array of cables. In general, a cable-stayed bridge is a good choice
for span lengths in the range of this bridge. But it’s not clear that such
span lengths were even needed at the site. The previous older bridges,
with their short spans, worked fine for many decades.
The second new crossing, under construction, is the Margaret
McDermott Bridge. This new bridge replaces the existing Interstate 30
bridge over the Trinity River. The original design included a series of
four above-deck, long-span thrust arches. Plans were scaled back to
address funding shortfalls. The center arches were deleted, and only the
two fascia arches remain. As part of a redesign, pedestrian paths have
been added. The pedestrian bridges are supported by the fascia arches.
But without the center arches, the interior highway portion of the bridge
is supported by more modest, shorter spans with interior piers.
Renderings of the new bridge emphasize the towering beauty of
the fascia arches and supports. The arches include some signature Cala-
trava details, such as leaning cables out of plane and interruption of the
arch structures at the thrust points. A closer inspection of the render-
ings indicates the unfortunate placement of piers underneath, clutter-
ing the floodplain. The overall effect is an amalgamation of a long span,
“startle” bridge grafted onto a more modest, functional multispan girder
bridge. Unlike the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, which at least has true
long spans, even if they are not really needed at the site, the second new
bridge doesn’t even proceed under that fiction. The middle, highway
portion is a standard girder bridge. The pedestrian bridge is supported
by a long spanning arch. The overall effect is of a standard girder bridge
with some arches pasted onto the fascia.
The Trinity River project was to have a trinity of new signature
bridges. The third structure was a new crossing of I-35. Based on more
limited funding, the architectural exuberance for this span has been
scaled back a bit.
World War II resulted in a period of European bridge building dur-
ing reconstruction. The new European bridges were often innovative

and daring. The recent cable-stayed form was largely developed in Ger-
many. These new bridges featured new shapes and forms, but they, over-
all, still addressed the concept of “form follows function.” Long-span
bridges were built where long-span bridges were needed. Construction

of major bridges has proceeded on to Asia and, in particular, China. The
Yangtze River has been spanned by a series of long-span arches, sus-
pension, and cable-stayed bridges, one more spectacular than the next.
Many of these bridges have also advanced the practice with new details
and approaches. But the motivation for the bridges is to cross something
that needs to be spanned, such as an actual wide river (with flowing
water) or an actual deep canyon.
What to make of bridges that are built mostly for sculptural, visu-
al effect? The new bridges of Dallas are visually beautiful. Already the
Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge has become an infrastructure icon for the
area. But on the flip side, such artistic imagery is expensive. The first
Dallas bridge cost in the neighborhood of $182 million. The second,
scaled-back bridge is budgeted at $115 million. Maybe the total amount
of close to $300 million could have been invested in other causes, and
more modest but well-detailed structures could have been designed
instead. The startling Trinity River bridges support the idea that if you
want bridge aesthetics, you have to pay for it—a lot. This perception is
unfortunate.

A Human Bridge
at the Super Bowl
July 4 is a celebration of independence. Memorial Day is a celebration of
those who have fallen in service. The Super Bowl is our national holi-
day celebrating consumption. Officially, it’s about football, but in reality,
not so much. The most popular moments often occur not during the
game itself, but during the TV commercial breaks. Super Bowl com-
mercials are a big deal for advertisers. Because of the enormous expense
and exposure, the ads are subject to much critical thought and scrutiny
by dedicated professionals. After these experts pore over the material
and perform intense studies and review, the resulting ads feature talking
chimps, beer, and a heart-tugging ministory with Clydesdales. I think
the Clydesdales are in the beer commercials, but they are not drink-
ing beer. The chimps are not drinking beer, but they are working in an
office. After work, maybe they go to get a beer.
One year, Betty White played the part of a 20-year-old man who
was in a pickup football game. I think this ad also had Abe Vigoda in the
role of another 20-year-old. Both actors were too old to play the parts of
20-year-olds, and this was ironic. Also, Betty White was not a man. The
overall theme involved beer. There were no chimps.
Another ad, this one also selling beer, depicted the sad plight of a
delivery truck. It was heading to town, but unfortunately it couldn’t get
there. A bridge at the outskirts of the town had collapsed. The towns-
people were distraught—without a bridge, the truck couldn’t complete
its route, and then, no beer. So the villagers all joined together to build a
bridge using their own bodies. To do so, the townspeople stacked up on
one another to form a pier and the bridge deck.

When the human structure was complete, it was ready for the
truck. The drivers were perplexed. It was not clear that a bridge made
out of human beings would be strong enough to support the beer truck.
But even so, they proceeded down the road and across the bridge. As
the truck crosses, the human structure deflects downward but does not
break. Maybe calculations were prepared before the actual load applica-
tion. Deflections could be estimated based on material parameters and
values of moment of inertia for people.
The advertisement provides a realistic depiction of what would
happen if a truck loaded with beer crossed a makeshift bridge made
out of human beings. Well, probably the word “realistic” in this context
is not so realistic. There are several problems with the bridge design.
To begin with, the applied tire pressure probably exceeds the bear-
ing capacity of the material used for the deck. Also, tension and com-
pression strengths are likely exceeded under live loading, even before
accounting for impact from the moving truck. Therefore, I’m guessing
that what was shown in the commercial was not an actual truck driving
across actual live human bodies, but some sort of computer animation.
If it was a real truck with real human beings, the people would have
been “gished,” and the bridge would have turned into a bloody pulp. But,
at least then everyone could go get a beer.
This is not to say that human structures are not possible. Cheer-
leaders construct elaborate human pyramids at football games. There is
a practical and physiological limit to how tall the pyramid can go. For
design and construction of the Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth in
Scotland, a well-known illustration helped to demonstrate the cantilever
method. Two men were assigned the role of the main piers, and another
(smaller) man was suspended in a chair between them (Figure 1).
Models of bridges made of people have been popular in the past. A
bridge can be not just a structure, but a metaphor for connecting things.
In this way, bridges are probably the most outgoing and approachable
of civil engineering facilities. For example, Budweiser probably wouldn’t
have filmed a commercial showing the townspeople banding together
to make a human sewage treatment plant—even if the beer supply was
threatened. Clearly, sewage treatment plants, which are important, do
not serve well as metaphors.

Figure 1. Demonstration of the cantilever principle used in the

Forth Bridge by three engineers at Imperial College in 1887
Source: Photo by Evelyn Carey (National Archives of Scotland ref: BR/FOR/4/34/161)
I thought that the Super Bowl bridge commercial was great, but I
was a little bit disappointed. At the beginning of the ad, it is announced
that the bridge is out. At that moment, no one in town bats an eyelash.
Then, the announcer states that it’s not just that the bridge is out, but
that a beer truck is trapped on the other side. Now all hell breaks loose.
A mob runs down Main Street, trampling supermarket carts and run-
ning over small children. All that hysteria because they couldn’t have
beer! I wish they had been upset because of the broken bridge.

You Need
Brain Surgery
You need brain surgery. Two surgeons are available.
Doctor A is a renowned specialist, one of the world’s best. She has
an almost flawless record in performing the type of surgery you need. It
is a difficult, dangerous procedure, but if it is done well, your chances of
full recovery are excellent.
Unfortunately, Doctor A’s bedside manner is as poor as her techni-
cal skills are reported to be excellent. Doctor A is known to be almost
incapable of maintaining a conversation on any topic other than that of
her technical expertise. She is brusque and unpleasant. She appears to
be a poor manager, not capable of maintaining finances. Once, Doctor
A almost had to declare bankruptcy even though she is extremely well
compensated. Doctor A is not much of a team player, and she is rather
incompetent when it comes to personal relationships. Although well
known at the hospital, Doctor A does not have many contributions to
speak of in the wider community. Doctor A has a laser focus, and that
focus is on her technical competence.
Doctor B, in comparison, is a real “people” person. Doctor B has
a terrific bedside manner. He is personable and empathetic. People
gravitate toward Doctor B because of his warmth, his energy, and his
sense of humor. Doctor B is a community leader outside the hospital
and has been married for more than 30 years, with many children and
grandchildren.
Doctor B has a reasonably solid reputation in the operating room—
quite good, although perhaps not outstanding. There is no discussion or
documentation about Doctor B being not completely up to the grade in
terms of his technical skills as a surgeon. At least, there is no discussion

that you are aware of. But really, who would say such things anyway,
since he is such a great guy?
This comparison between hypothetical Doctors A and B is, of
course, an exaggerated, black-and-white description without any

nuance.
A similar exaggerated presentation of this theme is shown on the
TV show House, which is also ostensibly about doctors. The main char-
acter is patterned after Doctor A. Each episode begins when an average
person succumbs to some bizarre malady. After the opening credits, the
poor sap is whisked off to a nondescript hospital in New Jersey. The case
is sad and desperate. No one has a clue what to do until Dr. House and
his team are invited to participate.
Dr. House has a team of doctors whose role is to be browbeaten
by him. Most of the discussion involves the team’s review of various
obscure illnesses, with Dr. House proving each doctor wrong until he
miraculously comes up with the cure. Dr. House is a technically brilliant
physician who knows every ailment and every drug. Somehow he solves
the most difficult medical cases, about which his colleagues are largely
clueless.
Dr. House is also depicted as an obnoxious, offensive person. He
snarls, he insults, he battles the administration, and he belittles the
patients. He pits doctors in his group against one another for his own
amusement. He is an SOB. Calling him on his obnoxiousness is ineffec-
tive because he revels in being obnoxious. He gets a charge out of the
conflict. Other than the fact that he saves lives better than anyone else,
Dr. House seemingly has no redeeming traits.
House is fun to watch, in part because it is amusing to experience
the antics of an asocial jerk from a safe distance. Actually dealing with
such a person is not as much fun.
In the real world, we don’t accept the premise of making a choice
between Doctor A and Doctor B. We don’t recognize that such a choice
needs to be made in the first place. We demand to have Doctor C, who
is both brilliant and empathetic. The discussion and simplistic compari-
son between Doctors A and B is objectionable because it implies that
we have to assign importance and choose between two sets of skills. The
comparison is somewhat apples and oranges: technical skills and the
nontechnical group of capabilities, which I’ll label the “soft” skills.

For an individual to be deemed successful, we assume—well, stron-
ger than that—we demand that our professionals have both technical
and soft skills. We also rationalize that no trade-offs are required and
that there is no contradiction in ensuring success at both technical and

soft skills. The doctor must be brilliantly capable and have good bedside
manner. It’s not apples and oranges. We want fruit salad.
But should one have to decide, when it comes down to it, is one
category more important than the other? In the life-and-death arena of
brain surgery, when it’s your life, which category is more important to
you? In the selection of a professional to save your life, which category of
skills can you not do without, and which category, while still important,
fits more in the “nice to have but not essential” slot?
You have a bridge to design. There are two engineers available,
Engineer A and Engineer B.

Proposing
on a Bridge
I was excited when I heard about a book named The Bridges of Madison
County. I thought it was about bridges in Madison County. Probably it
focused on a few standard beam bridges, but if we were lucky, maybe
there were a few longer bridges, some historic spans, and a suspension
bridge or two.
Then I learned about the plot, and it wasn’t about bridges. It was a
romance novel. So I was less excited.
One plot summary describes the novel in this way: “The path of
Francesca Johnson’s future seems destined when an unexpected fork
in the road causes her to question everything she had come to expect
from life” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112579/plotsummary, May 11,
2015).
Even if it wasn’t about bridges, it would be hard to resist reading a
book with a plot like that. Anything that has an unexpected fork in the
road couldn’t be all bad.
Overall, romance novels and bridges don’t make for a good mix.
Romance novels feature emotions and descriptions of forlorn, bare-
chested cowboys. Bridge documents have calculations, drawings, and
specifications. Maybe there could be inclusion of bare-chested engineer
images in the bridge specifications. But in many cases, that would not
be all that appealing to romance novel readers and would in general not
facilitate construction of the bridge.
But let us not despair about a perceived lack of romance among
engineers. It turns out that bridges are very romantic, at least for bridge
engineers. In fact, it can be argued that the site of a nice-looking bridge
is the most romantic place in the world. Therefore, it makes sense that

a bridge would be the perfect setting for one to propose marriage. I was
curious about this possibility, so I contacted one of my friends on Face-
book, the Capilano Suspension Bridge. The Capilano Bridge, or “Cappy”
as I call her, is a daring, slinky bridge spanning high across a canyon

north of Vancouver, British Columbia.
Here is what she had to say:
Me: Is it common for people to propose marriage on the bridge?
Capilano Suspension Bridge: We do see many engagements occur
at Capilano Suspension Bridge. Many of them happen around Christ-
mas time during our Canyon Lights event. The bridge is strung with
beautiful twinkling lights, and it is quite dark below. The entire park is
very festive for the holidays, and it makes it a truly lovely place to get
engaged.
Many engagements happen without us knowing, so we do not have
any statistics.
Me: Any interesting stories or complications?
Capilano Suspension Bridge: We had one couple who would attend
Canyon Lights every year. Every time they came at Christmas they
would make a glass ornament ball with our glass blower. One year, the
gentleman called our glassblower in advance of Christmas and made a
special ornament that said, “Will you marry me?” The gentleman and
his girlfriend decorated their tree as they always had, and the gentleman
placed the “Will you marry me?” ball in front of her! It is quite a cute
story.
Me: When proposing on the bridge, has the swaying of the bridge/
height above the river been a factor? Any times when the ring was
dropped over the side?
Capilano Suspension Bridge: Not that I know of. The bridge does
sway, and some individuals are afraid of heights, but I have never heard
of a ring dropped over the side, luckily.
Me: Is this a popular thing for engineers to do?
Capilano Suspension Bridge: I am not sure if anyone who has been
engaged here was an engineer.
Me: What about the bridge makes it a suitable place to propose
marriage?
Capilano Suspension Bridge: People love the natural beauty of
the area and the thrill of being 230 ft above a beautiful river. It is quite

amazing to be in a West Coast rainforest, high above a canyon asking
the person you love to marry you.
My ASCE editor, Betsy Kulamer, was actually proposed to on a
bridge. How excellent is that? She described the day as follows:

I think my birthday was involved, because my boyfriend and
I were dressed to the nines. He wore a white linen suit with a
cappuccino-colored shirt and an oatmeal-colored tie. Need-
less to say, he did not grow up to be an engineer. [Author:
Kulamer is referring to the concept that engineers are not well
known for their expertise in fashion.] I wore a frilly pink organ-
dy dress. He took me to a beautiful, expensive restaurant on
the southern bank of the Monongahela River and at the south-
ern side of the Smithfield Street Bridge, which, as you know,
is my all-time favorite bridge. After dinner, we strolled out
across the bridge and stopped to look downriver at Pittsburgh
and the Point. It was a lovely, warm starry night, and my boy-
friend—who had the gift of drama—turned to me, kissed me,
and asked me to marry him. Caught up in the moment, I said,
“Yes!” A few breathless moments later, my practical self add-
ed, “but not yet.”
As an important aside, we should note that the Smithfield Street
Bridge is a historic lenticular truss. If statistics were kept on such mat-
ters, they would indicate a high degree of success for proposals made on
these bridges, marriage or otherwise. Lenticular trusses have sensuous,
sinusoidal shapes, all historically proper, of course, in a Victorian bod-
ice kind of way. Lenticular trusses are known to be the aphrodisiacs of
bridge structures (Figure 1).
Other bridge types do not have this effect. For example, if you
are considering ending a relationship, consider a visit to an old, icky
through-girder railroad bridge. These structures are considered a suit-
able backdrop for ending relationships in addition to Mafia murders
(Figure 2).
An engineer who goes to the trouble and effort of proposing on
a bridge will almost certainly achieve success. After all, the significant
other is likely to be impressed by both the proposal and the bridge. This
assumes that sufficient care went into selection of the bridge.

Figure 1. Smithfield Street Bridge in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania
Source: Federal Highway Administration, <http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/eihd/
smithfld.htm> (Feb. 27, 2015)
Figure 2. Icky, old through-girder railroad bridge in Branford,

Connecticut
Source: Photo by Pedro Xing, <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Branford_Steam_
Railroad_over_US_1_083.jpg> (Feb. 27, 2015)

Figure 3. Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Italy

Source: Photo by Bernard bill5, <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Venice%28Bridge_of_Sighs%29.jpg> (Feb. 27, 2015)
But, unlikely as it seems, it is possible that success may not be

achieved. For this unfortunate circumstance, some engineers retire to
the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Lord Byron wrote in Childe Harold:
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structure rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Look’d to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
(http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/childe-harolds-
pilgrimage-i-stood-venice)
It is rumored that at sunset while riding a gondola beneath the
bridge, if you kiss your lover, you get to live happily ever after. So if a
prior proposal didn’t work, Plan B would be to invite an alternate signifi-
cant other for a boat ride in Venice (Figure 3).

Most engineers have not proposed marriage on a bridge. But almost
all engineers must deal with a particularly challenging holiday called
“Valentine’s Day.” This holiday occurs once a year in February, and it is
dedicated to issues of romance. Often, engineers are not quite sure how
to proceed, because aspects of the celebration are irrational and not rule
based. But I can provide assistance. Please refer to Eq. (1) below:
BL = ± FL ± CA ± CD (1)
Where BL = Bliss; FL = “Flowers,” where “Flowers” are preferably a
bunch of long-stem roses; CA = Box of Candy, preferably chocolate with
no disgusting nougats or caramel creams; and CD = “Card,” a printed,
folded document including romantic phrasing and imagery.
See Table 1 for commentary on attributes of “Card.” Selection of a
“Card” with positive imagery attributes is preferred to one that has less
positive imagery attributes.
To maximize the value of Equation 1, consider maximizing values
for each component term.
On Valentine’s Day, I hope that you will have a chance to drive to
your favorite bridge. Walk over to the bridge with your significant other
and say, “This is a beautiful bridge. Look at that excellent abutment.”
There is something about the word “abutment,” said slowly and with an
appropriate tone of appreciation, that does the trick.
Table 1. Card Imagery Attributes

Positive attributes Puppies
Kittens
Mist-covered mountains
Less positive attributes Bolted connections
Slump test
Select backfill

Slope Stability
of Pretzel Bags
When it was time to water the plants, I went to fill the jug. There was a
bag of pretzels in the sink blocking the spigot. I moved the bag to the
edge of the sink, filled the jug, and started off in the direction of the
plants.
But then I got distracted. The pretzel bag started to shift, ever so
slightly. It was a flexible cellophane bag filled with mini pretzels. The bag
was hanging over the edge of the sink, and it was not in a stable position.
Inside the bag, the individual pretzels rested on a precarious slope. A
few pretzels at a time dislodged from the unstable slope edge inside the
bag and rolled to the bottom. This changed the overall center of gravity
of the bag. With the added weight at the bottom, the bag shifted a little
bit farther down the side of the sink. Its precarious position grew more
precarious. This further movement dislodged a few more pretzels from
the pretzel slope. The movement resulted in a creeping pretzel slope sta-
bility failure.
I was mesmerized as I watched the pretzel bag support condition
gradually fail. It was a slow-motion failure, taking several minutes. A
few pretzels would plummet, the whole bag would gain a little momen-
tum down the side of the sink, and the global shifting would stop. But
the interior pretzel slope was unstable, more pretzels would plummet,
and then the process would repeat itself.
Every few moments, the pretzel mass experienced a much bigger
failure mode. A substantial clump would dislodge from the side of the
pretzel slope, and the bag would drop toward the bottom of the sink.
There were no warnings or indications for the bigger failure mode. But
even with the larger movement, the overall process was pretty much a
slow burn of individual plummeting pretzels and a rolling bag.

I was curious about the engineering implications of this slope sta-
bility failure. How would one go about analyzing it and estimating dura-
tions? At any one moment, it might be possible to calculate the states of
equilibrium for all the particles that comprised the pretzel mass. Con-
ceptually, one could develop and mathematize hundreds of equations,
determine weak points, calculate movement, and iterate. One could
evaluate interpretzel friction and determine appropriate coefficients.
For this calculation, a key factor would be salted or unsalted. Unsalted
pretzels tend to be smoother, whereas unsalted pretzels can be expected
to latch on to each other and provide additional stability.
With a perfect model based on perfect geometry, perfectly defined
boundary conditions, and flawless understanding of behavior, the exact
lurch of the bag could be precisely calculated and timed with perfection.
But, of course, therein lies the rub. It would be impossible to deter-
mine perfect data and model the relationships perfectly. In the old days,
engineers without computers made broad assumptions about behavior
based on the constitutive relationships. These assumptions, applied with
care, were typically good enough. No engineer could evaluate the pre-
cise movement of the pretzel bag subfailures and how long it would take.
But the overall conclusion of the event—a pretzel bag at the bottom of
the sink—could be determined with reasonable accuracy.
It’s not clear that it will ever be possible to precisely measure and
model the behavior of pretzel bags perched at the edge of a sink. It’s also
not clear that we need or want to. In the meantime, in many projects we
have thousands of pages and zillions of data bits of computer analyses
that precisely report on data that are not so precise. You can see this
trend in bridge calculation sets. Some have multiple volumes of com-
puter printouts that replace what used to be done on a few manually
printed pages.
After a few minutes of pretzel slope stability failure, the bag finally
crept to the bottom of the sink. There were some remnant pretzel flakes
and dust floating in the bag, but the incident was essentially over. I was
satisfied to have witnessed such an interesting behavior, and I left to go
to work with a smile on my face. Later, I realized I forgot to water the
plants.

Horizontal versus
Vertical
Construction
Structural engineers sometimes debate what is more interesting and fun
to work on: horizontal or vertical construction. “Horizontal” construc-
tion generally refers to bridge design, and “vertical” construction refers
to design of buildings.
To address this issue, I sent a detailed survey request to some of my
structural engineering colleagues:
1. Who has more fun: engineers working on vertical projects
or horizontal projects?
2. Any short commentary you would like to add related to
question 1 above.
Okay, maybe the survey wasn’t so detailed. Of the responders,
almost all responded that horizontal construction is more fun. Some
responded that horizontal and vertical construction are equally fun.
Because most of my structural engineering colleagues are bridge engi-
neers, it is possible that the results were skewed.
Here is a sampling of commentary. An engineer whom I’ll call
“Bob” said,
Usually don’t have to take direction from contractors or archi-
tects (although that seems to be changing fast). Also, when
testing safety components such as a bridge rail, an actual truck
is rammed into it which is pretty awesome. Vertical engineers
use shaking tables in labs. What’s the fun in that?

“Mark” noted,
I would assume both types of engineers have their share of
fun on any given day … However, vertical engineers create

destinations while horizontal engineers create the pathways
to the destinations. One is much more readily appreciated
and noticed than the other until a road is closed or a bridge
collapses. Therefore, I would say vertical engineers are more
in the public eye (vertical) while horizontal engineers lie low
(horizontal).
“Wayne” stated,
When responding to a question such as who has more fun:
vertically oriented or horizontally oriented engineers I just
say yes—engineers have fun. I would be equally happy in
working on either type of project.
How can you not have fun when either delving into resolving
a highly specialized bearings, joints, and device problem or
in resolving complicated spatial coordination issues between
mechanical and structural engineers and architects? The real
pleasure is working in engineering—resolving technical prob-
lems using fundamental concepts learned in school.
The ability to leverage knowledge gained 30 or more years

ago in chemistry, physics, math, strength of materials, stat-
ics, dynamics, soil mechanics, and materials cause[s] a gleeful
feeling when this is used creatively in solving problems and
I celebrate my geekdom. I would say that I am most satisfied
in the company of other engineers of all ilks attempting to
resolve difficult issues collaboratively.
“Wayne” (if that is in fact his actual name) is a terrific gentleman and a
great colleague. But as stated, he is a geek.
“Creg” commented,
Electrical engineers on vertical projects have more fun.
There are more challenges. Having done both, I find that the

horizontal projects are the same with very little variation. A
few different lights and the project is done.
As a side note, apparently my survey quality control was a little off that
day, because I let an electrical engineer slip in.
An engineer who can be referred to as “John” provided a detailed
response:
Engineers have more fun working on horizontal projects
because
• They don’t have to work with architects.
• They play a larger role and have more control with respect
to the details of the structure.
• Their work is not covered up by drywall, siding, or interior
designers.
• The MEP (mechanical/electrical/plumbing) guys do not
put holes through our load-carrying members or change
the designs (much) in the field.
• Did I mention that they don’t have to work with architects?
Trying to see the other side of the coin, engineers may have
more fun on vertical projects because:
• They may not get bogged down in the minutiae of the
design details.
• They may get to pawn off connection design and other
details to someone else.
• They didn’t have to learn LRFD if they didn’t want to.
• They can still use whatever design references they happen
to like best (AISC steel manual, 7th Ed., ACI 318-63, etc.).
A common theme in response was antipathy, to an extent, to work-
ing with architects. Horizontal engineers usually don’t have to deal
with architects and thus are in the driver’s seat. Most bridge projects
don’t have architects. Often, the overall project manager is a structural
engineer.

Figure 1. Dragon Bridge over the Hàn River in Da Nang,

Vietnam
Source: Photo by Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:C%E1%BA%A7u_R%E1%BB%93ng_2.jpg> (Feb. 27, 2015)
Sometimes a large, signature bridge may have an architect. This

can lead to architectural designs that don’t really flow from structural
requirements. Architectural bridges can have startling shapes: leaning
pylons, arches out of plane, and elements that seem like they are about
to tip over. The architectural effect may be profound and noteworthy.
But for the mundane structural engineers looking for loads to get from
point A to point B, such additional architectural fuss may be startling in
a not-good way (Figure 1).
For buildings, structural analysis and design is a smaller overall
component of the work. Buildings need to stand up, but they also have
mechanical and electrical designs, furnishings, all sorts of utility con-
nections, and many other components. Structural engineers working on
the vertical team are used to architects running the show.
Another difference, which didn’t really come out in my detailed,
scientific survey, is related to the types of clients and the construction
procurement approaches. Most bridge owners are public agencies.
A larger percentage of building clients are private owners. This situa-
tion results in different requirements. For example, public agencies are

governed by laws for environmental review, which are not as detailed as
the review applied to private owners. For building project procurement,
private owners (in the past) had greater flexibility in selecting either
traditional design-bid-build or design-build and its variations. In the

United States, most public agencies were required to construct a bridge
project via design-bid-build, although that is now changing. Designers
working in design-bid-build contracts have much different experiences
and expectations than other approaches.
A Federal Highway Administration report takes the comparison
one step further (actually, about 300 steps further). The report, “Innova-
tion in Vertical and Horizontal Construction: Lessons for the Transpor-
tation Industry Final Report,” has suggestions on how innovations in
vertical construction can be applied to the horizontal world. The execu-
tive summary notes,
It is a common perception in the highway construction indus-
try that new ideas and technologies are rather slow to be
adopted and widely used. Meanwhile, skyscrapers get taller,
and buildings significantly larger and more complex—lead-
ing to the appearance that the vertical construction industry
innovates and adopts new practices much more rapidly in
order to achieve these major advances.
(http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/pubs/if05025/,
May 12, 2015)
This report is a few years old, and by now it is a bit of a cliché to conclude
that while buildings soar into the sky, bridge technology is behind the
times. For example, many states, including Massachusetts, are innovat-
ing old construction methods, for example, using more prefabrication
and rapid bridge construction techniques. Applying a bunch of new
technologies and construction equipment, old bridges are removed and
replaced over long weekends.
Apparently there is a scientific method for survey preparation that
I have utterly ignored in researching this essay. There are ways to write
survey questions to glean more and better information. For example, if
you wanted to survey the prevalence of ax murderers in society, perhaps
a poorly designed question would be, “Are you concerned that your
mother may be an ax murderer?” Data provided from such a survey

question would likely be uniform but may not be helpful in addressing
the overall survey goal. Likewise, the population of survey responders
is important.
Overall, it is preferred to avoid surveying only your friends (and in

this case, mostly bridge engineers except for that wacky, stray electrical
engineer).
Through better design, surveys may provide more balanced, objec-
tive results. Keeping that in mind, let me conclude with what I consider
the best and most accurate response to my survey, a response that edu-
cates us, sheds appropriate light on the topic, and helps to put every-
thing in proper perspective. This response was provided by an engineer
to whom I’ll refer as “Nick.”
Commenting on the question of which engineer has the most fun,
“Nick” stated, “If you’re working with Brian Brenner, you’re the engineer
having more fun.”

Giant Pumpkin
We were biking down the road on a brilliant fall afternoon, and we
encountered a giant pumpkin. The monstrous gourd was being loaded
onto a trailer behind a pickup truck. At first we didn’t recognize what
it was and continued biking. Then I did a double take and braked to a
sudden stop. My friends were puzzled.
“Why did you stop?” Mark asked.
“There’s a giant pumpkin,” I said. “We have to see it.” We backtracked.
The pumpkin’s owners had entered a Rhode Island pumpkin con-
test, and they were loading their massive vegetable to take it to the fair.
(Residents of tiny Rhode Island appreciate giant pumpkins and things
that are, in general, oversized. It provides comfort and assuages hurt
egos.) Pumpkins would be weighed and judged. The winners would
receive fabulous prizes, such as cash and a monthly supply of zucchinis.
This giant pumpkin must have been 10 ft long. Had it been in space,
it would have qualified as an asteroid or a small planetoid. Astronomers
would call for a press conference and lavish praise on their new celestial
discovery. Perhaps they would name it after a faux-Roman deity, like
Pumpkinupiter or Pumpranus.
The pumpkin was so outlandishly big that it had outgrown the
typical pleasant orange pumpkin color; instead, it had taken on a garish
whitish gray hue. It was Frankenpumpkin.
I unclipped my toe clips and hobbled over to the owners.
“What have you got there?” I asked, displaying my enlightened
obliviousness.
“It’s a pumpkin,” said the pumpkin’s father. Its mother was lovingly
wrapping her child in blankets to avoid a chill for the ride down I-95.

The blankets would have fit back when the pumpkin was small. But now
as a precocious adolescent, the gourd had outgrown its britches and
needed bigger blankets.
“That’s a big pumpkin,” I cheerfully commented. My friends rolled

their eyes.
“It is indeed,” said the pumpkin’s dad.
“How much does it weigh?” I asked.
The dad responded with a figure. I don’t remember the exact num-
ber, but it was probably something like 40- or 50,000 pounds. How to
get to market with a pumpkin that big clearly posed special concerns.
The transit route required careful study, for both geometric constraints
should the gourd not fit under an overpass, and weight considerations.
You would expect that most interstate highway bridges could handle
pumpkin loading, but still these things should be checked. Back in the
Eisenhower days, pumpkins did not grow to be 10 ft long and weigh
tens of thousands of pounds. So early highway planners did not include
criteria suitable for modern pumpkin transport. You can imagine the
interstates regularly being pounded by vehicles lugging today’s giant
pumpkins.
The interstate highway program’s lack of early foresight did not
only fail to consider the weight of giant future pumpkins. The inter-
state system today carries far more traffic than expected, and trucks are
longer and heavier, with or without vegetables. As a result, bridges are
being pounded to a pulp, and many are becoming structurally deficient
at about the same time. This is perhaps good news for bridge engineers,
where business is brisk, but not so good for everyone else.
Regarding vegetable size, you may be curious about what has
changed between the 1950s and today. How have pumpkins mutated
from the pleasant jack-o’-lantern types of the past to today’s behemoths?
One answer, which is not regularly discussed or even acknowledged
in vegetable-growing circles, is the rampant use of PEDs (pumpkin-
enhancing drugs). Apparently, genetics also come into play. Through
selective pumpkin breeding, the chances of growing a giant specimen
are increased.
Pumpkin growers can find advice at several online sites (see, for
example, http://bigpumpkins.com). One discussion thread instructs
how to apply different types of manure. Growers may apply poultry,

beef, and swine manure, but the effectiveness varies. Probably these
types of manure work best for carnivorous pumpkins. Other threads
describe additional types of fertilizers, how to avoid growing hazards,
pumpkin contests, and all sorts of advice of interest to the pumpkin-

growing community. Some areas on the website even have a premium
section, where, for a fee, you could get premium advice. I assumed that
that’s where the PED secrets were revealed, in addition to displaying all
the good pumpkin pictures that are NSFW.
The pumpkin parents entertained us for a few more minutes as we
gawked at their specimen. Then it was time to go to market. They still
had a few extra minutes, but scheduling transport of a giant pumpkin
is no easy thing, and clearly sufficient float in the transport schedule is
important. The truck groaned as it slowly, painfully accelerated down
the road with massive weight in tow. In awe and appreciation, we biked
away, glancing back every few seconds to watch the giant gourd reced-
ing in the distance. It was interesting that we could see the pumpkin
still for a few more minutes even at a distance, but then the curvature
of the Earth imposed itself on our view. Like a setting sun, the pumpkin
dipped below the horizon.
We didn’t learn the fate of the contest and the giant pumpkin. We
assume that the bridges on I-95 held and the growers made it to the fair.
Probably after the weighing and award of the fabulous prizes, there was
enough pumpkin pulp and seeds to feed a small city, like Providence.
After the feast was complete, the fair was over and the tents would fold.
A cold northwest wind would blow from Quebec, and the manure-
enhanced fields would lie fallow over the winter, until the following
spring, when it was time to plant seeds and once again tempt fate and
the faux-Roman gods.

When You
Don’t Know
Enough to Google
Back when I was a kid, my parents used to tell us stories about back when
they were kids. Some of those stories involved their grandparents, who
used to tell stories about back when they were kids (the grandparents,
that is). Following this thread to its logistical conclusion, you would
return to the Stone Age/cave people/the dawn of time and/or the Gar-
den of Eden, depending upon your religious and/or secular beliefs.
But let’s not go back quite that far. Back when I was a kid, we didn’t
have cell phones. We did have telephones, but they were attached to the
wall. They weren’t smart in those days, and they couldn’t talk back to
you. There was interior plumbing that worked reasonably well, although
that was not a very new development, because the ancient Romans also
had interior plumbing of a sort.
Back in the day, we also didn’t have Google. But we did have Star
Trek (the first one, and not the movie). The first Star Trek series was
shown on network TV at a fixed time each week. You had to make an
appointment to watch it at that specific time because there was no tap-
ing or DVR or Hulu. The original Star Trek was a visionary show, in part
because of its technological predictions. The distant future of the 1960s
portrayed in the original Star Trek featured many outlandish, inconceiv-
able innovations, such creations as electronic diagnostic hospital beds,
automatic language translators, and small, handheld communication
devices. These “communicators” had a cover case that flipped open and
beeped when it was time to talk. They could be used to contact people
remotely in real time across amazing distances. But the communicators
did not include visuals because this was beyond the imagination of even
Star Trek. In the 1960s version of the future, no one could conceive of
Skype.

Maybe Star Trek’s most astonishing creation was the computer. Of
course, there were computers in the 1960s, but Star Trek’s computers
were different from the room-filling, card-punching monsters at the
time. Star Trek’s computers also filled a room, but instead of communi-
cation via punch cards, you could talk to these computers and get instant
answers. Star Trek’s computer had a voice and, seemingly, a personality.
If we fast-forward from the 1960s to the distant future of the pres-
ent, we find a world blessed with innovations that were science fiction
dreams in Star Trek (the original series, not the sequels). In the distant
future that is now the present, you can chat with your communicator
(iPhone), and it will talk back with advice and even offer wisecracks.
Today we now take advantage of Google. You can type anything into
Google and, in seconds, references for most of humanity’s knowledge
are available at your fingertips.
The younger generation has become Google-jaded and takes
this capability for granted. But for those of us old enough to remem-
ber things like “libraries,” “encyclopedias,” and the drudgery of manual
research, it is hard to understate the astonishing changes wrought by
Internet search engines. Don’t know something? No problem—just type
it in, and instant references appear on the screen. Google has gotten
increasingly clever, thus allowing us to be increasingly lazy. Not only do
you type something in, but now Google guesses what you want as you
type it, and it is usually right. The list appears before you finish, along
with thousands of accurate references that would make the librarians of
ancient Alexandria both drool and weep.
My spelling ability was not so great to begin with. It didn’t improve
with the word processors and automatic spell correction. But even then,
the computer usually needed a typed spelling close enough to the cor-
rect version, which required even some rudimentary spelling skill. If
you wanted the word “defenestrate,” you couldn’t type “denominate” and
hope that the computer would get it right.
Lately, I have realized that if I don’t know enough to spell an
approximation of something, I can still Google it. Google guesses what I
want and even shows me the correct spelling. This additional capability
further limits what’s left of my ability to spell. When I’m teaching my
college classes, I usually solve problems on the blackboard using chalk.
This pre-1950s technology is effective because it forces me to go slowly
and gives the students a chance to solve problems as we proceed. But

the chalkboard is not smart enough to draw an instant squiggly red line
under my misspellings. Should that capability be added to chalkboards,
along with intelligence check, math check, and formula check, I will be
all set.
Spelling, by itself, has no intrinsic intellectual value. It is rote
knowledge. So the technology permits and encourages the avoidance of
learning rote knowledge. But at a certain point, you have to know some-
thing, even rote knowledge. What if you don’t know enough to Google
something close enough to what you’re looking for?
The other day, I wanted to write about “au d’oeuvres.” After several
tries in MS Word, I couldn’t get close to the correct spelling. So I went
with Plan B and typed “whors derves” in Google, thinking that it would
quickly show me the error of my spelling ways. It did, but not the way
I thought. Unfortunately, when I hit “enter,” smoke started coming out
of the machine, and I got a list of suggested references much different
than what I wanted. Therefore, I need to be able to spell “hors d’oeuvres”
in future writing, at least in a close enough version. Otherwise, I’ll just
refer to “snacks.”
The astonishing capabilities of Google, smart phones, and the web
lead to new educational challenges. In the past, school curricula at all
levels relied on memorization. Without spell check, you needed to learn
how to spell. Embedded in the old manual rote methods were kernels of
higher learning. For example, assignments that require memorization of
lists and details also result in learning aspects of the information being
memorized: how the lists are formed, what the connections are, what
some underlying concepts are, and other higher learning aspects. Today,
it may not be necessary to memorize anything, but it is important not to
throw the knowledge baby out with the rote bathwater.
Structural engineers may remember the days of moment distribu-
tion. Those studying for the PE exam are still encouraged to use this
hoary old manual method for solving indeterminate structural frames.
But in practice, almost no one uses moment distribution. A computer
frame analysis can solve the problem in a few seconds, in comparison
to a few hours of moment distribution. That’s good news, except that in
the painstaking process of moment distribution, an engineer learned,
by default, how a structure might behave under different conditions and
with different assumptions. Such embedded knowledge can be lost in
the age of structural video game analysis and design.

The educational challenge is to have our instant knowledge cakes
and eat them, too. Young adults must be smart enough to process and
interpret Google. Or said another way, they need to have a broad educa-
tion to appreciate the power and foibles of Google. Bing, Google, and
Yahoo are great tools, but they are still tools. You can use a tool to help
build your house. You cannot use a tool to make higher-order decisions
about the type of material, the size of the house, and so on—at least, not
yet.
Likewise, the democratization of knowledge access has not neces-
sarily led to good quality control. Wikipedia has an article about almost
anything. But the contents of Wikipedia do not undergo the same scru-
tiny as more tightly controlled, peer-reviewed publications. It is prob-
lematic to assume otherwise.
A digression: In a future life, I want to name the next big search
engine. After Google, Bing, and Yahoo, mine will be called “Binyaga-
zoogle.” A future discussion might go something like this:
Daughter: “Dad, can you help me with my homework? What is the
fourth largest city in Uzbekistan?”
Dad: “Daughter, I’m not sure. Did you try Binyagazoogling it?”
There is a danger that as the technology gets more capable and we
get less so, our civilization will devolve. We could end up in one of those
science fiction stories where people in a future society are surrounded
by incredible technology that responds to their every wish. But the peo-
ple become incompetent and forget how to maintain the technology or
even understand what it does. Of course their civilization collapses. The
survivors become savages. Next, there are dinosaurs, and after a long
Stone Age, people eventually return to libraries and start reading books
again. Then the process repeats itself.


199
Acknowledgments
For a cycling enthusiast, the next best thing to biking cross-country is
getting to hear about other riders’ trips. I am grateful to Joe Anthony,
Jim Hoburg, Don Dudley, and Danny McGee for sharing the details of
their 1971 and 2009 rides. I enjoyed a terrific visit to Jim’s house on the
lake, where the 1971 riders shared and relived their experiences. In our
era of smart phones and way too much information, it was incredible to
watch old movie reels (using a projector with “film”) that the riders, then
a few decades younger, were able to record. Unfortunately, they did not
tweet or post on Facebook.
Many thanks to Ryan Marshall, who did the graphic editing for
this book and contributed several original illustrations, including the
beautiful art for the cover. Ryan listened to my stories about “bridge
road trips,” which are just like college fraternity road trips, except with
bridges instead of alcohol (to be clear, there are other differences, so this
is a bad analogy). Ryan liked the idea so much that he arranged his own
trip, and I got to experience that vicariously as well.
I am deeply grateful to my crew of excellent bridge engineers at
Fay, Spofford & Thorndike: in addition to Ryan, Nick Scenna, Ed Laracy,
Peter Moser, Guy Ford, Joe Tierney, Josh Dennison, Karl Gaebler, and
Geoff Webster. Not only are they terrifically talented, they also provide
continuous inspiration for my writing (and we all know who we are
referring to, Karl). Thanks also to my other colleagues at Fay, Spofford &
Thorndike and to my boss, Len Dzengelewksi. He makes up for having
an unpronounceable last name by being a great boss. I think that came
out as a compliment.

ASCE acquisitions editor Betsy Kulamer did a great job editing
and organizing the technical reviews. Being asked to provide a review
for this type of book, which perhaps is not a standard ASCE techni-
cal manuscript, can be a challenge. Betsy found some good reviewers.

The reviews were both helpful and at times funny (and I included some
comments in the text).
Professionally, there is nothing better to do in life than bridge
design, with the possible exception of teaching. Many thanks to my
students at Tufts for providing both inspiration and a regular (captive)
audience. Thanks to my research colleague, Dr. Masoud Sanayei, for our
ongoing collaboration on long-term bridge design. One of my favorite
surreal moments was when we needed to get Internet access for our
research bridge and had to explain to the provider that the access was
for a bridge.
My wise and wonderful son, Daniel, found a bride (side note:
“bride” and “bridge” are almost the same word—coincidence?). So now
along with my wise and wonderful daughter, Rachel, I have a wise and
wonderful daughter-in-law, Esty.
But the story gets better. Readers of Bridginess may remember my
lament about when I turned 16. During that fateful birthday, I got sick
and needed to stay home in bed. But my family went out to dinner to
celebrate anyway. My birthday dinner, which I never had, was at a res-
taurant named the Palisadium. Fast-forward several decades, and we
arrive at a moment when Dan called his mother to tell her that he found
what seemed like a perfect place for his wedding. It was a beautiful facil-
ity high up on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River, named the Pali-
sadium. Dan had forgotten the name of the legendary restaurant, and
Lauren couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes. Eventually she caught
her breath and filled me in on Dan’s discovery. Then I couldn’t stop
laughing as well.
The wedding was a glowing, luminous evening. I may be biased, but
it was the best wedding yet conducted by humankind . And yes, it was
at the Palisadium. As a bonus, I finally got to eat dinner there, and the
chef even prepared a special version of the dessert that I missed out on
many decades ago. I have told the story of my 16th birthday many times.
Many, many, many, many times. Often to complete strangers. Because
I’ve finally gotten my dinner, the deal with my family and friends is that

the tale is now complete, and I am never to mention the story again. So
this is it. I’m done. No more telling of the story. It’s over.
The most thanks go to Lauren, for listening to the story over and
over again. Also for going on bridge dates and in general being the one
for whom I most want to write.
Family, friends, and colleagues, and ASCE Press, thanks for the
opportunity to write another book. I hope you like it.
There was this time when I was 14 and caught a shark—big shark;
big, big shark—and you should hear what happened then…

Publishing
Credits
Versions of the following essays first appeared as part of my blog, Cross-
ing That Bridge When We Come To It, on the Engineering News-Record
website, enr.com: “A Bridge Offer You Can’t Refuse,” “A Human Bridge
at the Super Bowl,” “Disco Bridge,” “Giant Pumpkin,” “Googling Your-
self,” “Holy Spanning Function, Batman,” “Horizontal Versus Vertical
Construction,” “Inappropriate Variables,” “Infrastructure and Aging,”
“It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” “MathCAD and S-E-X,” “My
New Snow Blower,” “No Borders,” “Pomelos,” “Proposing on a Bridge,”
“Return to Dulles,” “Roll the Maps,” “The Engineer’s Check,” “The Trou-
ble with Invasive Species and Tribbles,” “When You Don’t Know Enough
to Google,” “Who’s on First, Bridge Edition,” “You Do It and Then It’s
Done,” “You Need Brain Surgery,” and “Zip It.”
The following essays first appeared in Journal of Leadership and
Management in Engineering: “Engineering Valentine’s Day,” “School’s
Out,” “Slope Stability of Pretzel Bags,” and “The Short List.”
The following essays first appeared in the Civil Engineering Prac-
tice and are reproduced with permission from the Boston Society of
Civil Engineers Section: “September 12,” “Friended by a Bridge,” and
“Jeopardy.”

About the Author

Brian Brenner, P.E., is a vice president and structural engineer with Fay,
Spofford & Thorndike in Burlington, Massachusetts. His work includes
bridge design projects throughout New England and the New York met-
ropolitan area. He has contributed as design manager for replacement of
the Burns Bridge, spectacular multispan twin arch bridges in Worcester,
Massachusetts. Brenner also holds the post of Professor of the Practice
at Tufts University, where he teaches the bridge and concrete design
classes and advises students on research projects.
Foreground: (Left to right) Nicholas A. Scenna, P.E.,

Karl O. Gaebler, E.I.T., Ryan Marshall, E.I.T., and
Brian Brenner, P.E.
Background: Lake Champlain Bridge, Crown Point,
New York

Brenner is active with several ASCE and Boston Society of Civil
Engineers committees. He is editor emeritus of ASCE’s Journal of Lead-
ership and Management in Engineering and of ASCE’s Journal of Profes-
sional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice. He has published

more than 90 articles on structural analysis and design, engineering
education, and other topics. His previous collections of essays (pub-
lished by ASCE Press), Don’t Throw This Away!, The Civil Engineering
Life, and Bridginess: More of the Civil Engineering Life, have set the stan-
dard for civil engineering humor books. Exactly what that standard is,
no one can tell.
Brenner lives south of Boston with his beautiful wife of 30 years,
Lauren. He is thrilled to welcome to his family his son’s wife, wonderful
daughter-in-law, Esty. With this addition, he is proud to report a 25%
increase in the number of kids (Dan, Rachel + Esty) available to listen
to stories about bridges. Or, if one goes by total immediate family mem-
bers, the captive audience increase is calculated to be 33%. Either way,
it’s awesome!
Ryan Marshall is an engineer-in-training with Fay, Spofford & Thorndike

and earned his engineering degree from Tufts University. He records the
following experiences working with the author:
As I walked into my first class my freshman year at Tufts
University, doe-eyed and somewhat apprehensive, I had no
idea what to expect. The course was Introduction to Bridge
Design, and the professor stood awkwardly at the front of
the room while sipping a can of Diet Coke. He looked to be
about the same age as my dad (late forties), had glasses typi-
cal of an engineering professor, and was likely wearing khaki
pants and a blue button-down shirt. He placed the soda can
down on the podium in front of him, and he began fumbling
around with the computer. It looked like he was arbitrarily
mashing buttons, trying desperately to get the projector to
display his PowerPoint presentation, but to no avail. He finally
achieved his goal, and he began an impassioned, yet hilarious-
ly awkward and bloviated, speech about bridges. He stopped
for digressions many times along the way, often to make an

uncomfortable joke that no one laughed at. At the end of the
lecture, I turned to my friend and said, “Holy s#!t, this profes-
sor is like a real-life Michael Scott.” (That’s the over-the-top,
absurdly ridiculous protagonist of the satirical comedy show,

The Office.) And that was how I met Brian Brenner.
Fortunately (?), my exposure to Brian Brenner didn’t stop at
the end of the semester. I proceeded to take multiple other
courses with him throughout college, and upon my gradua-
tion, I was hired as an entry-level engineer at Fay, Spofford &
Thorndike, where Brian happened to work as a vice president.
He has now been my boss for more than two and a half years.
Brian has been a mentor to me throughout the years, both as
a professor and as a boss. He has taught me invaluable les-
sons over the past six and a half years, ranging from technical
bridge design to the proper ways of establishing yourself in
the professional engineering world. I realized early on that he
had an extremely large breadth of knowledge to share with
me, so I began writing down some of his most memorable
quotes and lessons. It is now my utmost pleasure to share
these Brian-isms with you in a segment I like to call, “S#!t My
Professor/Boss Says.”
My Professor Says …
Professor Brenner demonstrating that engineers need to not only be good
at math, but also excellent verbal communicators:
“I … um …this, eh, uh … but you can … yeah, … arggg, I
need English here! [shaking his fists in the air] English, help
me out!”
Professor Brenner demonstrating his wide-ranging and historically accu-
rate trivia knowledge:
“Interestingly enough, the same person who discovered
you could eat lobster also discovered slurry walls.”

Professor Brenner demonstrating his take on philosophy:
“If there was an advanced-advanced concrete, would you
want to take that knowing what you know about advanced

concrete? Would you wonder what topics would be covered
in advanced-advanced concrete? I think that’s what other
schools would call ‘advanced2 concrete.’”
Professor Brenner demonstrating that you should always be confident in
your knowledge:
1: “Question? Try to make it one that I can answer.”
2: “If I don’t know the answer and can’t fake it … Well, I
will answer it sometime after class.”
3: Guest visiting from museum: “My job is strange because I
get to teach people about things that I know absolutely
nothing about.”
Professor Brenner: “Kind of like me.”
Professor Brenner demonstrating that you should always strive to exceed
expectations:
“I’m not promising a high-quality lecture tonight, but you
set the bar low, and you never know what might happen.”
Professor Brenner demonstrating how engineers should cope with their
demanding work lives:
“I’ve been working for 17 hours straight. Let’s drink to that.
[takes a sip] And you all think there’s soda in this Diet Coke
can.”
Professor Brenner demonstrating that he believes all his students are des-
tined for greatness:
“I take this pretty seriously because I want you all to be
great bridge engineers … or in some cases, just adequate.”

Professor Brenner demonstrating his dedication to education, as well as
honesty:
“I’m not going to have a full class tonight because I just

don’t feel like teaching. Am I not supposed to admit that?
Okay, well that concludes tonight’s lecture.”
My Boss Says …
Brian demonstrating the importance of positive client relations:
“No one ever dies at [the client’s company] either. … They’re
like vampires … That’s why you only see them at night.”
Brian demonstrating that you should always be confident in your work:
“Speak now, or drive across it.”
Brian demonstrating that the best way to start your work week is with
laughter:
Ed [in regard to shop drawings]: “I’m just waiting on the
rebar shop drawings.”
Brian: “You need reinforcement?”
Ed: “Yeah.”
Brian: “That was a structural joke.
[silence]
Brian: “It’s Monday morning; I’m trying.”
Brian demonstrating how to make your employees feel welcome through
an open-door management style:
Brian [during a meeting in Brian’s office]: “And the ‘dead fish
rule’ is now in effect.”
Ryan: “What’s the dead fish rule?”
Brian: “If the fish is dead, you want to get it out of your
office as quickly as possible.”

Brian demonstrating that managers should treat all their employees
equally:
“Welcome back to another week at FST. It is great to see you

all again, with just a couple of exceptions.”
Brian demonstrating the necessity of getting things accomplished in order
to avoid great snark:
Brian: “What about Field Design Change No. 13?”
Nick: “Yep, that’s on my list.”
Brian: “That’s where it was last week, too.”
Brian demonstrating that engineers can effectively communicate by talk-
ing like Dr. Suess:
“We designed the pump for the sump, which should get us
over the hump.”
Brian demonstrating the importance of honesty in the workplace:
Brian: “Is everyone tired—don’t really want to be here?”
[Karl nods]
Brian: “At least you’re honest. If it makes you feel any better,
we’re not very happy to have you here either.”
Brian demonstrating that confidentiality in the workplace doesn’t exist:
“Please forward the email around to anyone I forgot to
include on the CC list. It’s not secret stuff. Nothing is secret
stuff … except the secret stuff.”
Brian demonstrating that older engineers should stay privy to texting jar-
gon in order to win job proposals:
“This would be like the O-M-G of bridges.”
Brian demonstrating that managers should treat their employees as equals
because humility truly goes a long way:
“You should all put your sunglasses on, because of my
glow.”

Brian demonstrating that a boss should always be very subtle when
informing his employee of a wardrobe malfunction, so as to protect him
from embarrassment and ridicule from coworkers:
[to Josh after noticing Ryan’s fly is down]: “What do they say
in Maine? The moose is on the prowl? The potatoes are out
of the shed?”

Civil Engineering
If you use a MathCAD analogy to explain the birds and the bees to your teenager…
If you are so steeped in structural parameters that you chortle over inappropriate
variables…
If you watched The Sopranos just for the bridges pictured in the opening montage…
… you are a candidate for Brian Brenner’s latest collection of humorous essays that
celebrate life as a practicing civil engineer. In this book you’ll learn valuable skills,
like egosurfing and how to use tribbles in a meeting to tell the engineers from the
contractors. You’ll ponder what bridges would be like if they could sing, and you’ll
discover friendships you never knew bridges could have through social media.
Brenner also invites you to consider serious subjects, like the transition from student to
professional engineer and the growth in girth of engineering standards. He speculates
on what will happen when, one day, some researcher determines that the current
amount of information is good enough. Until then, Too Much Information: Living the Civil
Engineering Life will entertain you even while it shows just how well civil engineering
can explain life.
Praise for Don’t Throw This Away! The Civil Engineering Life
“Brenner’s honest, assured voice, brainiac populism, and bite-sized essays make this a
quirky, addictive winner that should bring out the ‘inner civil engineer’ in a wide cross-
section of readers.” —Publishers Weekly
Brian Brenner, P.E., is a vice president and structural engineer with Fay, Spofford and
Thorndike in Burlington, Massachusetts. His work includes bridge design projects
throughout New England and the New York metropolitan area. As a professor at Tufts
University, he teaches the bridge and concrete design classes and advises students on
research projects. He is the author of Don’t Throw This Away! The Civil Engineering Life
and Bridginess: More of the Civil Engineering Life, both published by ASCE Press.
ISBN 978-0-7844-1394-4

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Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Texas at San Antonio on 09/16/15. Copyright ASCE.

For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Brian Brenner, P.E.

Also by Brian Brenner

Don’t Throw This Away:

Bridginess: More of the

Too Much Information

Published by American Society of Civil Engineers

Photocopies and permissions. Permission to photocopy or reproduce material from ASCE

Errata: Errata, if any, can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/9780784413944.

Copyright © 2015 by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Cover credit: Illustration by Ryan Marshall, E.I.T.

of excellent bridge dates

Foreword, by Stephen Ressler ix

Roll the Maps 1

Somehow, in this little book of essays, Brian Brenner has managed to

—Stephen Ressler, P.E., Ph.D.

Roll the Maps

Living the Civil Engineering Life 1

2 Too Much Information

Figure 1. Laviolette Bridge, Quebec

Living the Civil Engineering Life 3

Figure 2. Canso Causeway

4 Too Much Information

mainland northeast of Quebec) seemed to be mostly populated by seals

Figure 3. High Five Interchange, where U.S. Highway 75 intersects with

Living the Civil Engineering Life 5

Incredibly enough, distant, underpopulated Newfoundland had

6 Too Much Information

growing up in this vibrant Newfoundland town must be like. It must be

Living the Civil Engineering Life 7

much of a boob to follow such simple, childish directions.

8 Too Much Information

The Story of Dlsiuerlibug, Newfoundland, and Labrador

Figure 5. Official sign of Dlsiuer­

Living the Civil Engineering Life 9

residents. It is a very scenic place located on a beautiful inlet, Dlsiuer­

10 Too Much Information

Living the Civil Engineering Life 11

12 Too Much Information

and an orthopedic surgeon in California. I was pleased to learn that

As I was doing research, I encountered some interesting Brian

Some questions: What is “HEROES”?

Brian Brenner (the student): HEROES (Health and Education

Living the Civil Engineering Life 13

bers involved in things like educating young people on proper

Brian Brenner (me): What are you planning to do with your

Brian Brenner (the student): I have plans on attending medi-

Brian Brenner (me): Even though you are not an engineering

Brian Brenner (the student): I do appreciate the Sunshine Sky-

14 Too Much Information

Living the Civil Engineering Life 15

The Trouble with

16 Too Much Information

Living the Civil Engineering Life 17

18 Too Much Information

Living the Civil Engineering Life 19

Up until that moment, I had only disdain for those mechani-

According to experts in the field of psychology, this is what

(James Preller <http://www.jamespreller.com/2009/01/13/

20 Too Much Information

Living the Civil Engineering Life 21

22 Too Much Information

Figure 5. Official sign of Dlsiuer

residents. It is a very scenic place located on a beautiful inlet, Dlsiuer