That’s me. Ted Arehart. The Lowly Intern of Swan Solar Lake Forest. Ok, it’s really not that bad. I have a chair so that when my boss and I sit in the shared cubicle, I can feel like we are on the same level. But Brett [my boss and supreme god] and I are definitely not on the same level. He is a wizard (in addition to being a supreme god) at AutoCAD, the system I am striving to master this summer. Luckily, the mastery, so far, is not a Sysiphian task. I am making progress. Today, I have taken a solar project from scratch and had it ready to send out, with all the bells and whistles, at the end of the day. The paper doesn’t actually have bells and whistles on it… just thought I would clarify.
It has taken about three weeks to get to that level of expertise; if that is what you want to call it. Three work weeks, that is. One and a half of those weeks, Brett [Oh Captain, my Captain] was gone on a cruise to Alaska. Lucky dog left me to my devices after two days of training. I managed to get 5 projects out, so not terrible. A different week (which I did not count as one of the work weeks) I went to Kaua’i. You can look on my page, if you really want to know more about that. Anyway, Brett has really helped me along my path to becoming an AutoCAD master. Before my time here at Swan Solar, I attempted a little CAD on my home computer. A plethora of operator errors caused me to become less than pleased at my progress. I gave up. Not the best idea for a would-be engineer. I was 16 at the time, so I figured I had plenty of time to learn. Now, at 18, I got a crash course from Brett, some practice on other people’s solar arrays (don’t worry, I made sure that Brett [Enlightened One] looked over my work, so if I designed your array, you are just fine) and at least now have a base from which to build.
I hope to keep you updated regarding my adventures here with a bona fide solar energy contractor, at Swan Solar; there will be plenty.
Signed,
Ted Arehart
The Lowly Intern
