Sorry Miss Hcatty...

Well, ok...so I missed an entire month. Guess Miss Hcatty's 'mandate' that I post at least 5 words a month has been broken. Oops. Oh well, like she's one to complain about me not posting (Hello, Kettle? It's Pot...)...

I'm sure I could find a plausible (and true) excuse for not posting last month, but what does it matter? It's not like it would be something 'exciting' like we had a tornado that knocked-out power for 31 days (which we didn't). I mean, if it were something absolutely impossible like Sandra Bullock showing up on my front door insisting that she take me away for a 31-day 'vacation', that would be one thing.

But of course, it's nothing even remotely like that.

So no excuses here...for now anyway.

*****

I'm down in Arcata, CA for my last scheduled start-up this year. Things are not going well. I show up on Wednesday, expecting (well, hoping, really) for them to be ready for me and of course they weren't. They should have been done by end of day, but they weren't. They should have been done by Noon on Thursday, but they weren't. They should have been done by end of day Thursday, but they weren't.

I finally got to start the stuff I needed to do Friday, mid-morning. Unfortunately, we discovered that our Operator Interface Terminal (OIT) "touchscreen" was 'dead'. So I jump on the phone right away to get a replacement - and managed to scramble one up to be delivered the next day, Saturday (today). Then in the afternoon, I discovered that some of the components used in our control panel are the wrong type and aren't working. So once again I scramble to get replacements shipped out for delivery the next day (today).

Unfortunately, although the parts DID arrive today, they were the wrong parts, so I can't finish what I need to do to get things up and running until I get the right parts, which probably won't happen until Tuesday, unless I can find a local distributor with sufficient stock that I can pick up on Monday.

Which is unlikely.

So, instead of being able to leave Tuesday morning to head back home, I will most likely be delayed at least two days. Of course, the upside is that if I do get delayed and don't head back home until Thursday, I won't go into the office on Friday.

I'd still rather be heading home on Tuesday...

*****

STARTUP UPDATE...

Sadly, the parts I was waiting for didn't arrive Tuesday...the UPS plane broke-down in Dallas-Fort Worth. Still, they were shipped "overnight, early morning" delivery - you'd think they would have more than ONE FREAKIN' PLANE in D-FW...

Apparently not.

So they didn't arrive until yesterday (Wednesday) morning, which means I couldn't finish up what I needed to do until yesterday, which means that my departure was delayed again.

THEN I couldn't do any of the testing I needed to do because for some reason the guys working on the ducting didn't want to have the possibility of being sucked-up through the system (we have some really big fans on this project). That and there were some problems last night. But finally got to 'finish' testing today (we delayed the duct workers so I could test), but I still need to run and test when they are finished with the duct work. Which was supposed to be today, but probably won't be until end of day Friday, which means that my departure got delayed...yet again.

I should be headed home Saturday...