Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Shorter Hours

Bay City, Texas

Weather: low 58 degrees, high 84 degrees, mostly clear skies

All the little odds and ends that are required to finish an outage were completed by our project today. At least the ones inside the containment building were finished. We still have some paperwork to review and get sign-offs on, but that should finish in the next day or so, and won’t delay start-up of the plant. We are so close to being done that we’re back on ten-hour days. No more getting up at 0400 hours to get to work by 0500 hours. That doesn’t mean I won’t wake up early.

Now that I have a little more time at home after work each afternoon, I can start doing some of those chores that fill more than a page. I began with inspecting the RV and truck tires for cuts, nails, and other problems. I don’t want to get back on the road and have a tire problem that might have been avoided if I had checked earlier. No problems were found with the tires, and while I was doing something besides working, I decided to check the underside of the RV. Again, no problems noted. One thing I realized I need to do before we leave is make sure the spare tires for the truck and RV are aired up.

After I got those little chores finished, I thought about doing more for about ten seconds, but the thought passed in a hurry. I'm tired from the long hours, so I don't want to push getting back in a normal mode.

Remember in last night's post that I said Carolyn waded in the cold water near Brookings, Oregon? This was one of the two days that were near 90 degrees that we saw along the coast. Don't tell Carolyn I put her in the blog.



Tomorrow will be another short day at work of only ten hours. Okay, so in most jobs that's not short, but compared to the 13-hour days I've been working, it seems short to me. On Thursday, I only have to be there seven hours. Then I find out what it feels like to be retired again. Cool!

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Hot Springs Village, Arkansas: America’s First Resort

Not all who wander are lost.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enjoy your last day in the workforce Thursday. I can tell you are really ready to retire this time. We Synched to the grid yesterday to finish our 1RF14 outage (24 days). Has Kirby left yet, or is he staying to get the last morsel out of the feeder? See you guys when you come to G'town, maybe on the way to the west coast or Alaska.

Tim

Jerald said...

The one thing that made this last job enjoyable was the people. As I've said before, the people in this industry are some of the best to work with. As much as I like them, it's time to do what we like most: traveling and exploring our great country.

The outage here is just about over, and the plant should be in mode 3 by the time I go in tomorrow. Kirby is still here for another week, but he's ready to go now. Bo has another month to go, since he's helping with the project demob. Bo's the one getting the last morsel out of the feeder.

We'll let you know when we're back in town.

Jerald