Friday, December 11, 2009

Vendredi

Corps of Engineers makes an American "Impenetrable Underground Wall" the Laughing Stock of the World
~Ann Wright, Col. US Army Ret.


Divert blame on shoaling near Pilottown: an editorial

Nearly $2 million sent to Louisiana for Water Cleanup
~The Lens


Jindal highlights $400 million in Terrebonne coastal work
~Daily Comet


Jindal Urges Corps To Build Levees Around Houma ~WDSU

Destrehan pump station goes out for bid~Matt Scallan

Time for a new Two Lakes commission~Wyatt Emmerich

Insurance: Still the issue on the Coast~Clarion Ledger

Frankly I’m at a loss for words ~slabbed

Mayoral forum Tuesday 12/15
~Adrastos


Age of Naginism
~Library Chronicles


~"Politics in New Orleans is the dominant industry, so I decided to get in."



Hell to the....hmmmmmm???
~American Zombie


One new candidate for Mayor of New Orleans
~Jonah Bascle, a wheelchair-bound comedian, announced his candidacy for the 2010 election to choose a new city mayor.
On his website, Bascle wrote, "We need a more honest, transparent, and accountable government! Starting today, I am rolling up my sleeves and stepping up to the challenge of running for Mayor of this great city. "

Bascle said he was prompted to run for the office after "years of frustration involving the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar Line's lack of access for the disabled."

The Missing Word in Obama's Nobel Speech~Harry Shearer

Obama: Eeeeyeah It's Just (silly'ol) ‘War’... 44 Times In Nobel Peace Prize Speech
~Glynnis MacNicol
~To contrast he mentioned ‘peace’ 29 times. Sound like a strange tone to strike whilst accepting a peace prize? Well, maybe just imagine if he had he not chosen to address the elephant in the room...ass backwards!
That said, for a Nobel Peace Prize speech the president spoke an awful lot about war—‘just war‘ appears to be the main takeaway.

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Smoke'not'em if Ya'got'em

Gas, Power and Yield
~Roger Conrad

eGreens~Alex Woodward

Abita Christmas Ale
~Danner Kline

~Abita produces some very solid middle-of-the road beers. Turbo Dog, Abita Amber and Purple Haze are all good, non-threatening “gateway” beers that can seduce drinkers of macro lagers into the world of small-batch craft beer.
The flavor of their flagship year-round beers tends to be mild and easy drinking for just about anyone.
With Abita Christmas Ale, they have produced something special as a treat for those of us who are already True Believers in craft beer. Like some more famous winter beers (such as Anchor Our Special Ale) Abita Christmas features a different recipe every year. So this year is your only chance to try this exact brew.

Beef Vegetable Soup
~The Mosquito Coast


JFSJ Food Justice Trip To NOLA!
~The Jew and the Carrot


Get'yer Poo Chi from PWALLY!

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NOLA weekend literary events through Dec. 13
~Whose shoes are these anyway?


Lunasea
The moon drips
tears of silver
that mingle with my own
glowing rivers
down my face I
yearn for my soul's home
moon shines in the desert
will you rescue me?
will you share my
absolution
in the safe womb of
the sea?
forever with me
Charlotte Hamrick, New Orleans

Blood and Thunder
~Reviewed by Neal Weaver


Archive Watch: NOLA Stomp ~Chronicle of Higher Education

Is It Time For Divas to Get in on the “WWE Studios” Action?
~Diva Dirt


Don't miss the DesCours design exhibit~Doug MacCash

Music Review: Plunge
- Dancing on Thin Ice
~Jordan Richardson


~Most of the music, from field and church recordings to studio sessions, has never been issued on CD. Golden Stars, the Shaw Singers, Brother and Sister W.B. Grate, Grant & Ella, Theotis Taylor and many more deliver earthy, lively and devotional performances. A portion of proceeds go to the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund.

~The New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund, a 501(c)3 grass roots charity founded by displaced New Orleans musician Jeff Beninato over four years ago, is hosting a FREE concert series with CC's Coffee House throughout the holidays as a gift to the community (showtimes click above).

NoLA Rising Teams With Tipitina's and the US Marine Corps for Toys for Tots IYTI Art Exchange~Humid Beings

I Believe – The ‘saintly’ voice behind the song
~Geraldine Wyckoff


Adjunct Instructor of Music ~Delgado

Paul Sanchez, Susan Cowsill, John Boutte and more host 'A Very Threadhead Holiday' house party~Keith Spera

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Jeudi

New Orleans a test case for global warming?~Tom Darden
~Tom Darden is executive director of the Make It Right Foundation, the organization founded by actor Brad Pitt to build 150 affordable, green, high-design homes in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Two years ago this month, the Make It Right Foundation was launched to help the families of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward rebuild their lives and community. That was already two years after Katrina, and the once-vibrant neighborhood was still in ruins, failed by government and frustrated by a lack of progress.
Working with the Lower 9th Ward community, with families who lost everything in Katrina, with cutting-edge architects and inventive builders, we learned some truths and made some discoveries we would like to share with the climate change negotiators in Copenhagen.
~Editilla Crow'tellas~ We are hoping someone can get on the horn to Brad and have this stupid clueless man fired from Make It Right, for Miss-Framing the flood of New Orleans 8/29/05 and thus dragging that fine endeavor of building flood- safe housing into the muck of Global Warming Politics.
Here is their phone number. 1 (888)-647-6652
Please call them right now and ask if Make It Right is now a Political Advocacy Group.
Seabrook surge gate's potential flooding effects discussed as Corps threatens to bust dredging budget~Mark Schleifstein

Cost to maintain outfall canal pumps could fall on city
~Maya Rodriguez


~Fix the Pumps has the most detailed and critical series of Engineering Explanations on these Pumps issues --and the Corps "Falsehoods" (not Editilla's choice of word).
Please go there and make sure to fang back down the posts.
Not only is the data presented pristine, but as well the Engineer author, and Our Big Herolero, Matt McBride, lays it all out with almost sardonic poignancy, rapier wit and Drew Brees' accuracy.

Sandy Sayz ~Sandy Rosenthal, Executive Director of Levees.Org founded in December 2005 after the flood.
~Editilla Rotellas~ Everyone knows we love levees.org but are not a "member" of that group. I mean, uhg really, we wouldn't want to taint they skins don't'cha know. But in the course of hanging this Ladder every morning we employ Dozens of different aggregate search engines to trawl for Nola News across the country, not just in the City the Corps Forgot.
I study the flow of Nola Info through news aggregates like the wind through spider webs in rain forests, perturbations along our nervous systems, or in the case of ASCECORPS the smell of fresh roadkill if you will. So this item popped up on our 2nd cup of coffee from NJ.com, which is part of the same Corporate Family Affair that now holds nola.com by its genitalia like Big Rufus up on Cell Block #9, to wit: Advanced Internet.
It lists all of Mrs. Rosenthal's comments on that "Network".
If you follow the article links there you will of course find yer'oh'so humble Editilla too, tossing jarts from the back hand path, ranting, raving, drooling pithy retart. But Mrs. Rosenthal's comments when taken over time like this fall consistently, tenaciously on the side of patience and accuracy.
So here's the deal:
If Y'all want to Ax Sandy A Question, then leave it in the Comments Section here on da'Ladder.
Bet yer'Sweet Ass I will moderate the questions, so any of your typically sticky nola.com Corps'ass'troll turfer'spew will never see the light of day.
However, if we do get Real Inquiries then I will forward them to Mrs. Rosenthal and see if she responds.
If she does respond then we will hang it here under a New Post Thingy: Ask Sandy.
Doesn't that sound like fun?!?!!
She may not respond, ya'neva know, especially since we haven't run this little game show by her and don't know if she follows your New Orleans Ladder. It could be kinda like writing to the Dear Abby of Safe Levees .
Yeah! That's the Ticket!

~Corps meeting tonight to discuss Caernarvon floodwall in St. Bernard Parish
~A corps news release said plans for the Caernarvon Floodwall are discussed in Individual Environmental Report 9.
Please click to enlarge pic.

Money to help replace Terrebonne water structure
~Nikki Buskey

~The repair project may solve two problems for the Terrebonne Levee District. The fix will restore a gate that keeps salt water from intruding and killing wetlands in the Pointe-aux-Chenes Wildlife Management Area. But with a beefed-up design, the gate also will be one of the first environmental structures added to the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane-protection system that will allow water to flow through the wall of levees. Thirteen of the structures will be added throughout the levee system.

Charity Hospital arbitration evidence ruling aids state
~Jan Moller


White Knight takes issue with author of King of Torts ~slabbed

What's your personal Who Dat theme song?






Last Stop Shop Thursday Dec. 17

~Get all your last-minute gifts from your favorite local artists and crafters, who’ll be offering a wide assortment of one-of-a-kind, handmade items made right here in New Orleans.

Music preview: New Iberians share zydeco sound at
Cafe Culture~Phil Reser


Music's Political Future
~offBeat


A Slice of NOLA in the A-T-L
~Alejandro de los Rios


Acclaimed trumpeter Marsalis composes Blues Symphony
~Mathew Bigg

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Mercredi

Corps of Engineers: It’s Your Bill, Not Ours
~David Winkler-Schmit

~Editilla Co'tellas~ Well, I also watched the entire Council Committee Live Stream meeting with the Corps Colonel and I have to say: we're fucked. Yep, good and truly corn'boned.
It is a good thing to have so informed Public Participation as we saw today from the Citizen Questions. But it is a very bad thing when that Public seems so much More Informed than the Corps of Engineers and indeed our own Levee Board (who we find out now uses IPET people to Peer Review the Corps who wrote the IPET...yeah, they said that and poor Editilla was seized by the most vicious dark deja vu all over again).
Regarding the Law which governs our Flood Safety Structures, this Corps Colonel was clueless. All questions, each very thoughtful and well researched, were left UnAnswered by this Corps Colonel or his weird looking side-kick Dark Man Bradly.
Questions about Option 2 and 2a over Option 1, $10 Million/Year Pump Maintenance Fees, Shifting Safe Water Levels in the Outfall Canals, Project Funding Priorities, Contract Delays and Bidder Protests. NOTHING BUT BOO'RAH and PRETTY PICTURES.
The Corps tried once again to use this important Legislative Time as a Public Relations Soiree, replete with a slick OPP-produced (with PR Cruise Ship Music) Snappy Graphic Video Presentation Opening on the MRGO Closure Structure and ambled through other Public Relations accomplishment-getting stuff.
A real Pony Show, I mean, this was 3 hours of absolute Bull Shit. No Freaking Answers Not One. Even when Sandy Rosenthal of Levees.org directly contradicted him with The Law stating that our outfall canals are the responsibility of the Federal Hurricane Protection System, this Clod-head Colonel did not get it.
After 3 hours of this I can't see how anyone could feel safe moving back to invest in New Orleans over then next 10 years.
The people building our Flood Protection can't answer questions, direct question, cogent questions, Tax Payer Questions.
Fix the Pumps
Update - 12-8-09~ The Corps' appearance has been moved to Wednesday, December 9th, at 2 PM CST as part of a joint Recovery/Public Works City Council Committee meeting.
The Corps is the only item on the agenda here.
The meeting will be streamed on the City Council's website here.
~Editilla Notellas~Please review Fix the Pumps "Story So Far".
Leslie Jacobs may step out as Landrieu's late entry throws a curve ball into mayor's race
~"Advisers" "privately" (??) said Jacobs, who reportedly met with Landrieu before she got into the race last month to gauge his intentions, was surprised by his eleventh-hour decision
--and may take her name out of contention before the ballots are printed.
~Editilla Po'Tellas!~ Truism takes a Leak!

Katrina cottage financing not going to waste, Louisiana Recovery Authority reports
~Bill Barrow


Cost panel says dissolve Citizens Insurance~Michelle Millhollon

Slabberator expansion in the works? ~slabbed

LA Lawmakers look at surplus of storm funds~Sarah Chacko

La. Indian village holds out against plea to move~WVUE

Teamwork on coastal restoration ~T-P Editorial

Textron $46 M contract to build armored vehicles for Colombia

Deja Vu All Over Again: TX plan for Ike money draws 2nd complaint
~The state’s plan for spending $1.7 billion in federal disaster recovery money has drawn a second legal complaint, this time from an advocacy group for public housing residents. Specifically in Galveston, the housing authority proposes to rebuild 569 units of public housing on sites that are “highly vulnerable to future extreme weather conditions, and in neighborhoods that are hyper-segregated, rather than develop housing in neighborhoods with greater opportunities for residents,” the complaint states

More than $1 billion spent in Iowa for disaster recovery
~Lynda Waddington


CONSOL to lay off 500 miners …but who is to blame?
~Ken Ward Jr.


Will Dave Eggers Save Journalism?~Max Fisher

Perfect hostiliday gift for those who got nothing: Bailout For Santa

Reality breaks in on theater

OffBeat's 2009 Best of the Beat

Traditional Jazz Clarinetist Ralph Johnson Passes at 71
~Jay Mazza

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Mardi

Dark Christmas~expoobident
Landrieu to run for mayor
-ambulance return Tiger's House
~Clancy Dubos

~This just in~A spokesman for insurance executive
Leslie Jacobs also sent out a statement during the press conference saying Jacobs will qualify tomorrow, despite rumors that a Landrieu candidacy may cause her to drop out.
~Your Right Hand Thief~Good gracious.
I had discounted the recent polling he was doing, and didn't think he would jump in. Is it wrong to be attracted to Sarah Palin if she wears Maoist gear?

~Slabbed~Offers us this special tome to cover all the current Mayoral Offings like a crib blanket in a brothel, from Ray Davies --who knows his who'dats and loves New Orleans so much as to get himself shot here and still pen this lovely love song: Nola.

~A little mo'lagniappe from Clancy @ Gambit

Leslie Jacobs says we haven't got time to waste: Stephanie Grace

Coastal restoration meeting
becomes venue for venting
frustration with federal agencies
~Mark Schleifstein

~Terrence "Rock" Salt, who oversees Corps operations as principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army, warned that it will take time to change the way the corps does business.
"The corps is able to adjust to different directions when people give them those directions," said Rock Salt. "There's some inertia, of course. It's going to take a while for them to learn."
~~Salt has spent much of his career on restoring the Kissimmee River and the Glades, holding key posts for both the Corps and the Department of Interior, agencies that have often clashed over plans.~Paving Paradise

Lakefront concerns as Corps plots flood protection projects
~Sabrina Wilson, WVUE


Proposed lakefront pumping station draws flood of complaints
~Paul Murphy, WWL


Poundfoolish, Part 1
~Fix the Pumps


We could see more flooding
~Listen Live to WWL now for caller updates
~Photos

New Orleans Flood Control Infrastructure Contracts Keep Coming~Defense Industry Daily

ASCE 2009 Report Card grades
America's Infrastructure: D


FEMA flood maps for north Sutter won't arrive until 2011
~Editilla Notellas~Perchance they need a Map like This?

New Orleans, Metairie, Bogalusa combined statistical area

Striking Visualization of Hurricane Katrina

Climate Issues; and Crop Insurance~Keith Good

USA Rice Outlook Conference

Is there more than one Gray Ghost in New Orleans
~David Winkler-Schmit


FBI informant who stung RNC 2008 anarchists connected to ‘firebomb plot’ on Brave New Books and “suicided” Palestinian activist Riad Hamad
~Aaron Dykes


Work the New Digital Sweatshop
~Jonathan Zittrain


Good Boy, by Nisi Shawl (part 1)
~“As out of several hundreds of thousands of the substrate programs comes an adaptable changing set of thousands of metaprograms, so out of the metaprograms as substrate comes something else….In a well-organized biocomputer, there is at least one such critical control metaprogram labeled I for acting on other metaprograms and labeled me when acted upon by other metaprograms. I say at least one advisedly….”
Feels like floatin. Wrong smells come under the right ones, like the last few times. She got the table polished with lemon oil, or somethin similar, but what is that? Stronger than before, what is it, fish? Also stinks like Fourth a July, after all the firecrackers set off. I look around but only thing burnin is the candles, big circle of ’em, waverin on the table in front a me.

Queer and Loathing in America

Homemade cane syrup takes whole family~Laura McKnight

Song From Movie, Hurricane Season, Helps Rebuild NOLA

Scott Galloway Reviews Sade's Soldier of Love Single

Monday, December 7, 2009

Lundi

We Are Contenders.
We Are New Orleans.
We Are America.
~Melissa Smith
Who Dat Say!? 12-0 Babies!!!
~Canal Street Chronicles

~Twitter~
jeffduncantp Mike McKenzie is injured. Don't know what it is but he's on the sideline with a stocking hat on. It's Jenkins, McAlister & Prioleau at CB. lholder_cbs_nba If the Saints aren't a team of destiny, I don't know who is. saints83 Ok now I need to ice my knee and Achilles from jumpin up and down!! NFC champs baby!!!! reggie_bush One word: WOW!!! usama_young28 Saints fans are incredible! Thanks for all the love yall. Jus said hey to everybody at the airport. Stay focused LanceMoore16 And before I forget, thank u Saints fans.....the best in the world!!!

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Accidental release of toxic chemicals, polluted water by local plants cited in report
~Mark Schleifstein

~Frequent accidents at 10 of the state's biggest refineries resulted in the release of millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air and millions of gallons of polluted water into state water courses between 2005 and 2008, according to a report to be released this morning by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.
Almost a third of the 2,116 accidents at the 10 plants in four years occurred as the result of hurricanes or other bad weather events, according to the report.

California's Rep. Darrell Issa has nerve attacking Louisiana
~Rep. Issa also is ignoring an important fact about the health care needs in New Orleans. The reason the city needs ongoing federal assistance is because the levees the federal government built to protect us failed catastrophically.

Wow! This is working!
~On Levee Failures and a Weather Event


Consistency is the hobgoblin of Louisiana coastal policy ~LaCoastPost

Coastal restoration projects to get fresh look from feds this week~Jonathan Tilove

Drilling Rigs and Drilling Ships
~The Oil Drum


Shakesville: It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...~NOLA radfem

State archaeologist says bones found in Gibson are a link to the past~John DeSantis
The house that all the fuss is about appears to sit on a hill — two hills actually — on a quiet bayouside road. Last month, about 100 human bones were found within its walls. How they got into the house, and why, remains a mystery, although interviews and research over the past week support theories that they are related to American Indian mounds on the property.

New Orleans: Jewish history exhibit~Tracing the Tribe

Arabi's Maumus building to get new life as science center, Katrina museum
~Bob Warren


IFLA Talk by Anders Dahlgren and Jeffrey Scherer
~This is the text of the presentation that Mr Dahglren and Mr Scherer gave in Turn, Italy at the annual conference of the International Association of Library Associations.

Band changes tune to attract revenue~Steven Malony
~While most New Orleans musicians remain rooted in the business model that relies on constant touring to support new albums, local brass band Bonerama is taking a different path by selling access to the group. The band’s new Boner Donor program is designed to get fans directly involved in financing the band on all levels, from buying digital copies of the new album on thumb drives for $30 to financing Bonerama’s 2010 tour with a $100,000 donation.

John Prine, caroling in the Marigny and Kelly Thing highlight the week ahead

Trombone Shorty, plus Elliott Cohn's Cosmic Sweat Society @ Scipper's Smokehouse

Lagniappe: Cincinnati's only Cajun/New Orleans/Gypsy Band

Sunday, December 6, 2009

WHO'DAT? WHO'DAT? WHO'DAT SAY THEY GONNA BEAT THEM SAINTS??? 12-0 Baby!

New Orleans Saints beat the Washington Redskins 33-30 in overtime!!!!

Dimanche

T-P/nola.com Hacks Dr. Robert Bea's Editorial Response!
~Editilla Explodellas~This is why it is such a bad thing that Optimal Process Partners works for the Corps, and designs and places their Flash Adverts in this outlet (indeed placed right here on this page with this Letter to the Editor?) and writes and places the articles you read here about the Corps.
This is why it is so dangerous to have such a Subject/Advertiser Financial Conflict of Interest at this news outlet. Rather than employ a Real Editorial Board, they do the cost-saving thing instead, with an Advertising/Sales Editorial Office at the T-P/nola.com facebook glory'hole.
Thus we get this article, not simply ax-hacked from the original letter, not only dumbed-down to pass muster with the nola.com Ad/Sales Dept, but a correspondence which has had its testicles removed, completely castrated of any meaning or salient retort to that Lying Carpet-Bagger Spin to which our inestimable Engineer refers, that this paper published in full Editorial form.
Those non engineer from somewhere else, Corps Mouthpieces, got a whole article, while the Eye Witness and Actual Civil Engineer on the ground in New Orleans immediately after the Levees and Floodwalls failed got 6 small paragraphs... 280 words!

Wow. I mean... dayum. Here is but one statement from Dr. Bea that the interested public might have been denied,
--but for yer'oh'so humble Editilla, talk about Brass Balls:
"The authors suggest a correlation between corps funding and “bad engineering, bad science, and project failure.”
For me
(five+decades of engineering practice), there is no excuse for such incompetence.
As a first priority, the engineering code of ethics
requires us to protect the safety of the public – to do no harm.
Sloppy or shoddy engineering—which caused the flooding of Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish...
--is simply not acceptable."

I'd say Dr. Robert Bea's got'em, big ones, talkin'Real, Cajones.
(And I say) Who'dat say they gonna flood them Saints?

This behavior by the T-P/nola.com leaves me with the same Reality Hardness which saturated our hearts upon learning that our damnation of 8/29/05 was In Fact Caused By "easily avoided Corps of Engineers mistakes" ILIT. There is nothing colder than the blood running thought my veins right now.
To witness such newspeak "advertorial" placement from this outlet's attempt at such gamesmanship, such pig rendering of the truth, informs a Deeper Reality, a scene of Dirt Corruption much akin to Concrete Debris in our earthen Levees --or Newsprint Debris in our concrete flood walls.
It is far worse to have your sole daily newspaper actually Support the Corps with Public Relations "Newsmedia" than it would be for them to say nothing at all, mum amidst continued malevolence...
--the latter of which they remain Equally Fowl, Guilty As Sin.

I know very old people who learned how to read as a child with the T-P Sunday Comics section, people who have saved issues of this noble press through generations of their family and even after the Corps flooded their City with paper mache levees.
This is not the same paper that covered Hurricane Betsy.
This is Not the same News Paper that I saw submerged during that 1st week of the Federal Flood of 8/29/05, and Jon Donley so bravely kept online in the sky in the aftermath of the disaster.
This glory'hole press wouldn't even rate as spent kitty litter in Pulitzer Prize winning Mark Schleifstein's bathroom.
But, this certainly Is the same "PR Newspeak" Info'tell Tanker from which their real journalists are now jumping ship as if it were a burning, stinking, sinking tabloid rat trawler. Sinn Féin!

~Incredible Update~ We received this email from The Man his very bad ass self, Dr. Robert Bea, with permission to share.
Thanks Editilla.
Great follow up! Thank you for preserving the unacceptable shoddy engineering observation.
This shoddy engineering aspect really bothers me - because I am an engineer. My experience with this mess clearly indicates that the shoddy engineering is not the result of some 'evil empire' plot. It is the result of hubris, arrogance, ignorance, and indolence. Unfortunately, within the USACE, I am still finding the same causative factors at work....but, now 'dampened' in some cases by the external contractors working for the Corps.....if they are able to successfully challenge the Corps without loosing their contract or future contracts.
The Corps has reached and is reaching deep within our profession of Civil Engineering to spin the truth, reward those who helped cause the failures, and punish those who were victims and do not 'toe the Corps line.'

During one of my very early trips to New Orleans after Katrina, I met with a 42 year veteran of the Corps - "Jim".
Jim came from the Corps Vicksburg office. He had joined the Corps in the early 1960s as a young engineer. During our one-on-one discussion, Jim said: "Bob, the Corps is not like it was in the 1950s when you and your father were with us.
We have taken engineering out of the Corps of Engineers."
I will never forget that statement because from all I had learned it was 'right on'. The Corps had become preoccupied with Project Management and divested itself of its world leading engineering. At the same time, the Corps stopped building with its own people and equipment. Thus, it not only surrendered superior engineering (and research), it surrendered superior construction and maintenance.
It could no longer lead the way in either engineering, construction, or maintenance.
~~Please read more here.