Getting a handle on this blogging thing.

Hi again!

So I've been away... obviously. Thinking of interesting and witty things to say on a weekly basis is kind of difficult!

So I have awesome news! Brian has already started working in Bangor on those properties I plotted on Google Earth a few weeks ago! He's been up there twice so far and things are coming together. I'll have to ask if I can post the specifics of this job on here. It would be a great surprise!

Other things I've done lately?

I completed naming and categorizing the choice job photos. Believe it or not that took all of my time last week. It got to be a little tedious looking through hundreds of images and in some cases not finding what I needed to represent. I sense a road trip somewhere in my future.

I also had to tone down my designers eye and go for images that showed the larger picture in most cases. There are a couple of amateur photographers in our outfit and they've snapped some amazingly beautiful shots. Maybe I'll do an artsy fartsy book for giggles in my down time :P

This week I designed the layout for our site visit books (with Jen Albee and John Luft) and completed those in the Adobe program InDesign. Currently there are books for Roof Mounted Solar Hot Water(SWH), Non-Roof Mounted SHW, Mixed Systems (consisting of SHW and Photovoltaics (PV)), and Commercial Systems (which are large scale installations like the array on the Oakhurst Dairy). Now I'm just waiting on a list of PV jobs so I can pull those photos and name them to create that book.

I presented what I created so far to John before I left on Wednesday and he has already found some points that need to be tweaked so he and Jen have a to do list. Their feedback and the PV book will be the next tasks to complete on my long list.

On a fun note, it was my big boss Bill's birthday on Wednesday and I had my first Moose chili! It was actually my first Moose anything... but it was SUPER delicious! I would have never guessed it was Moose had I not been told so. Lee did an awesome job with it! He showed Hans, John and I the slideshow of the hunt and it was a 600lb Moose? I think? Maybe it was 900lbs. Something like that. The thing was HUGE!!!! Shot out by the Bigalows a couple weeks ago.

Have I said how much I LOVE working at my internship?

:D

Welcome to ReVision Energy!

Hey all,


My name is Heidi Kowalski (I'm the 'other' Heidi on campus) and I'm a senior in the new Sustainable Design and Technology B.S. Degree program offered here at Unity. I will be the first student to graduate from this new program! Woot!!
This semester (and perhaps next if things continue to go well) I am working with ReVision Energy, LLC in the Liberty office. I'm the first intern in Liberty! I'm breaking new ground everywhere!!! But I digress... ReVision is a full-service renewable energy company (with an office in Portland as well). They help people and businesses transition away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy. They design, install, and service solar hot water systems, grid-tied solar electric systems and high-efficiency wood boilers. They also, conveniently, have 5 or 6 Unity Alumni working for them!


Here's their website if you're interested. Tell them Heidi sent you :P http://www.revisionenergy.com/


Some of the things I've done in the four days I've been there are the usual meeting and greeting of my coworkers and bosses, general shuffling of office materials to make a niche for myself, and getting to work! I already have a laundry list of jobs I need to complete including: creating new site visit books, cataloging the job photo's and renaming them, creating Power Point presentations, and plotting a new clients properties on Google Earth. I completed that job last week, there were 38 (or so) properties that I cataloged.

On Tuesday I met and sat down with Brian and showed him around Google Earth (he had never used it) and the list of buildings I had tagged last week. We took snapshots using a program called MWSnap (which allows you to take more advanced screen shots, he taught me how to use this program) and printed the aerial and street views of the properties. At some point in the coming weeks Brian will be heading up to the Bangor area to visit the sites and make a game plan for designing and installing photovoltaic arrays on these buildings.

Yesterday I finished slogging though all the job pics and cataloging them according to residential and commercial sites. This coming week I'll be renaming (or naming) all the pictures so they are easier to research and find on the shared drives. There are hundreds of images so this will take a while but I'm optimistic!

So far everyone has been great to work with (one of the benefits of working for a small company) and I feel like I'm accompishing a lot. They also let me manage my own time which is awesome. Things are very cooperative but you can also be off and running with your own projects once you know what you're doing.

I can't wait till next week!