The four letter "W" word

I have been working a bunch. It is what we refer to as "outage season" in the power plant biz. The plants in my region need to shut down at least twice a year for maintenance. Typically the work is accomplished in 8 to 10 days. The schedules are aggressive and work is done around the clock. I recently was in Oahu. Usually after stating this everyone says "NICE". But.... when you are working 13 to14 hours a day from dark to dark it really does not matter where you are. As long as the bed is decent and the food OK I could be in the middle of a desert.

If you have any interest in power boilers read on.... else Emily will be loading up some new pictures of the midget soon.

The picture below was a good find. You can barely see the cracks running horizontally across the weld repair that was done years before. We ground the crack out and this tube was extremely close to failing. Finding these is equivalent to a needle in a hay stack. There are 54,000 linear feet of boiler tube and this problem is only 6" long. Compound this to the fact that I have only 48 hours to find these problems so that they can be repaired quickly to stay on schedule makes for a challenge to say the least.


Frequently there are large areas of tubes that require repair. Below is a picture of a swath of tubes 22 wide and 8 feet tall that were in rough shape. Already repaired once several years ago by building up the thickness of the tubes with weld beads. The white marks are thickness readings and there was no way these were going back in service. Some were thin as a pop can. In fact the boilermakers worked all night trying to weld on these and made about 20 holes in them. Went to plan B and replaced the whole section.


There will be five boilers down for repair over the next two weeks. Requiring 350 mile night drives between a couple. Off to Minnesota again as well. Minneapolis is a nice city. More for those technically orientated later, will be safe. Life in a respirator, ahhhhh, bliss.

Walking

Liv's really cruising now... Here is a short clip of her outside the shop while we waited for UPS this afternoon. There's nothing super cute or funny or impressive... but an idea of how she's getting along!

Here's what is going on around her: first she points at the flowers (next to where I'm sitting). Then she gets distracted by a low flying helicopter (which you can hear). Then she's looking past me to a person who is walking up the sidewalk towards us & behind me.

Finally! New Olivia Pics! :)

Here's Livvy Helping at KWS

A good helper!

ok...
maybe we're not quite ready to self-spoon feed yet.

Thinking we might have a couple more teeth on their way.



Happy Kid, playing outside!

I'm hoping to get some video of her charging around posted up here for everyone. Her balance has improved enough that she was "dancing" at sing-a-long the other day!! WHAT A HOOT!!!

Strawberries!

Sorry it's been so long... our little girl is keeping me running!!

She had her first Strawberry at the Farmer's Market on Tuesday! (Yay, Spring!) Wasn't too sure at first... they are a little bit sour, but after that first bite, she was hooked! Here are a couple shots of her enjoying one at home.

liv pics.

Cute shots from the other day. (reminder: you can often click on the image for a full-size view)

We're coming up on one year!!
I can hardly believe it!!!

Boat Ride!

Today Liv & Emily took the ferry over to SF to have lunch with Jody. What a fun adventure. Unfortunately, in my haste... I left my camera on the dining room table - (fat lot of good it does us there!!!!) AND my cell phone battery reached end of life early on in the trip. (pretty poor batting average, so far!)

But aside from those minor missteps. We did well & had a great time. We made it to the ferry dock on time! (even beat the boat, for once! - impressive, hunh Jeff?) Liv was fed, rested, clean, dressed - ditto Mommy!!! WOW!

Liv had a phenomenal time walking around the benches out on the deck, they make a great noise when you bang on them - did you know that? She could fit BEHIND some of them & see me through the slats - great fun!! I tried to teach her "one hand for the ship" but I don't think it really sunk in & when the boat changed speed or rocked a bit and her feet went out from under her a couple times she it found so puzzling - the LOOK she gave me! :) It was a great day to be out, relatively flat water, sunny, not too many folks on the boat: mid-day, mid-week. It was a fun ride!

Jody met us at the pier! We had tacos at the Ferry terminal: convenient, yummy, outdoor tables, lots for Liv to look at! Then went for a stroll down the embarcadero. It was great to talk with Jody & so good of her to take the time from her day!! She had to go back to the office & Liv and I hung out for another hour until the next ferry back to Alameda.

She was active & engaged the whole time! Charming everyone who'd meet her smile. It's a little startling for some people to see someone so tiny charging around. Seriously, she's the size of a housecat (albeit a pretty big house cat - but still, well under 20 pounds). And just stumbling along (granted, she walks like someone after a 3-martini lunch: listing a little left... then right.... then stopping or sitting down for no aparent reason, standing up & heading off in a completely different direction). She's becomming a really fun kid.

She again, really enjoyed being out on deck for the ride home... but was getting so tired. She fell way more frequently! And stuck a lot closer to me. I ended up putting her in the backpack & walking around deck with her up there! When we got off the boat, she was asleep in her carseat in less than 5 minutes. It was a big adventure!

More soon!

G'nite, Liv!

Just back from a walk before bed... We miss you, Jeff.