Flying Leap off of a Power Plant Hot Air Duct
I was standing in the elevator on my way to the control room from the electric shop the morning of October 11, 1995 when a strange call came over the radio. It sounded like Danny Cain, one of the Instrument and Controls Technicians on my team (or crew, as we used to call them before the reorganization). Most of what he said was garbled, but from what I could catch from Danny’s broadcast was that there was a man down on a unit 2 hot air duct. Danny’s voice sounded as if he was in a panic.
About that time, the elevator door opened and I stepped out. I thought to myself… “Hot Air Duct?” Where is a hot air duct? I had been running around this plant since 1979 when they were still building the plant, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where a hot air duct was at that moment. I may have been panicking myself. So, I did the only thing I could think of at the time….
I walked briskly into the control room and asked the Unit 1 Control Room operator… “Where is a hot air duct?” It must have sounded like a pretty stupid question coming from someone who rarely admitted that they didn’t know everything, but I have asked my share of stupid questions in my lifetime and most of the time, after the blank stare, someone gives me the answer. This time, the answer was “In the bottom ash area under the boiler.”
I quickly left the control room without saying another word. I’m not sure why I didn’t yell something out like, “Help! Help! There’s a man down on a Unit 2 Hot Air Duct!” I guess it didn’t even occur to me. I just darted out the door and down the stairs to the ground level (six flights of stairs). I kept saying to myself… “Hot Air Duct… Hot Air Duct…” I jogged across the Turbine-Generator basement floor and into the breezeway between the T-G building and Unit 2 Boiler. I picked up my pace once I was out in the open, and quickly made through the door to the spot where years before in 1983 I had seen Bob Lillibridge being swallowed alive by the Boiler Ghost (See the post: “Bob Lillibridge Meets the Boiler Ghost“).
Once inside the boiler enclosure, I realized that the Hot Air Ducts were the ducts that came from the Primary Air Fans into the Bowl Mills where the coal is ground into powder and blown into the boiler. The air is heated first by going through the Air Preheater which gets it’s heat from the exhaust from the boiler. It was pretty dark around the Hot Air Ducts.
Diagram of a boiler. you can see the Hot Air at the very bottom. That’s going through the Hot Air Ducts
As I approached I yelled out for Danny who immediately yelled in the same stressed far off voice “Help!” His voice came from the top of the second Hot Air Duct. I could hear a struggle going on up there, so I ran over to the ladder and quickly climbed up. When I reached the top of the ladder, I saw Danny Cain and Alan Kramer also, wrestling with a man that I had never seen before.
Danny Cain
Alan Kramer
Alan was behind him with his arms wrapped around the man’s arms and his legs wrapped around his chest (I’ll call this guy Michael, since that turned out to be his name…. Michael Hyde) as the man flailed his arms kicking his feet. The three of them were rolling around on the top of the Hot Air Duct (which is a coal dusty dark place). Oh. Did I mention that it was hot? Michael was a contract worker and this was his first day on the job.
I didn’t wait to see who was winning before I picked sides. I decided that whoever this Michael Hyde person was, if he was wrestling with Danny and Alan, he wasn’t getting much sympathy from me. I grabbed the man’s legs even though I was still standing at the top of the ladder.
I wrapped one of my legs through the rungs of the ladder so that it weaved through one rung, around the next rung, and into the third rung. At this point, even if I was knocked unconscious, I wasn’t going to fall off of this ladder. We were 25 feet above the concrete floor. Danny said, “Hold him down! He’s trying to jump off the Duct!” So, while Alan and Danny wrestled with Michael’s upper torso, I decided to take care of his legs.
About that time, others started showing up down below. Jimmie Moore was one of the first to arrive. I yelled down to him that we needed our rescue gear. A stretcher and rope. Jimmie quickly coordinated getting our safety bags down to the bottom ash area. More people arrived. I remember seeing Jasper Christensen looking up at me.
About that time, Michael pulled one of his feet from my grip and gave me a swift kick on the right side of my head with the heal of his boot. I was knocked back and my hardhat went flying off into space. Jasper said something like “Don’t fall off of there!” Shaking my head to get rid of the pain, I assured Jasper that I couldn’t fall off of the ladder if I tried. I had my leg locked in the rungs.
I decided at that point that the best thing I could do to keep from being kicked in the head again was to remove this guy’s boots. So, I grabbed both of his legs and squeezed them as hard as I could so that he would feel a little bit of the pain he had just inflicted on me. At the same time, I began unlacing his work boots and dropping them to the floor.
Danny explained that Michael had had some kind of seizure. He had fallen down and was wobbling all over the place. Then when it was over and he came to, he tried to jump off of the duct.
Michael continued to struggle. He wasn’t yelling or saying anything other than grunts. It was as if he was in a total panic. His eyes were filled with fear. After I had removed his boots, I continued to have one arm wrapped around both of this legs squeezing as hard as I could to keep him from pulling one away and taking another kick at my head.
At this point, an interesting idea came into my head… I suddenly thought it would be a good idea to tickle his feet. I had two reasons for doing this… First… It was pay back for leaving a boot heel impression across the side of my face and Second…. I thought it would distract him some from his panic. Sort of as a counter-irritant.
More of the rescue team had arrived and Jimmie threw a rope up to me that I threw over a pipe so that a stretcher could be raised up. Either Jimmie Moore or Randy Dailey or both then climbed up the ladder and made their way around me to the duct so they could put Michael in the stretcher. At this point, Michael was still panicking. He was still trying to escape our grasp.
Jimmie Moore, Plant Electrician
Randy Dailey, known as Mr. Safety to Real Power Plant Men
The stretcher was placed alongside Michael, and with a “one two three” we raised him up and set him down in the stretcher. We started winding the rope in and out of the stretcher to tie him down. As soon as the ropes went around his arms, Michael stopped struggling and became calm.
Rescue Stretcher
It appeared that the moment Michael felt safe, the struggle was over. We raised him up from the hot air duct and then lowered him to the ground. As soon as he was on the ground, the Ambulance from Ponca City, Oklahoma arrived. Evidently, as soon as the Shift Supervisor had heard “Man Down” on the radio, he called 911 in Ponca City 20 miles away to have an ambulance sent. The timing couldn’t have been better. Just as we were untying Michael, the EMTs arrived.
The EMTs from the ambulance put him on their own stretcher. I picked up his boots from the ground and placed them alongside him on the stretcher and he was carried away. After all that panic, I just wanted to go back to the Electric Shop office and calm down.
This was a happy ending to what could have been a real tragedy if Michael had been able to jump off of the air duct. We heard about an hour later that when Michael Hyde had arrived at the hospital in Ponca City, he insisted on having a drug test taken to show that he had not taken any kind of illegal drug that would have led to his bizarre behavior. He said that nothing like that had ever happened to him before. There must have been something about the heat and the dark and the smell (and maybe listening to Danny talk about donuts) that must have triggered a seizure.
To our surprise, a few months later, Michael Hyde showed up at our plant again. This time, he came with a couple of other people. They were from the Oklahoma Safety Council. During our monthly safety meeting, many of us were presented with an award for rescuing Michael. Even though my part in the rescue was rather small, I was very proud to have been recognized that day. We were each given a plaque. Here is mine:
Plaque given to me for my part in the rescue
Alan Kramer and Danny Cain had both been invited to Oklahoma City to receive their awards as they were directly involved in saving Michael’s life. Here is the plaque that Alan was given:
Alan Kramer’s Plaque for his Safety Award
A plaque was also given to the plant from the Oklahoma Safety Council which as far as I know is still mounted by the office elevator on the first floor:
Plaque from the Oklahoma Safety Council
Michael said he wanted to thank each of us personally for rescuing him that day. I shook his hand. I told him that I was the one that was squeezing his legs so hard and tickling his feet. I don’t think he remembered much of that moment.
I have a side story to this one and I wonder if I this is the place to tell it. I suppose so, as long as I keep it short….
A number of months after this incident occurred, I began to develop a sore throat on the right side of my throat. I thought at first that it was Strep Throat because it hurt quite a lot. I just waited around for it to either go away or develop into a full blown cold, so I didn’t do anything for a few months. The pain was localized at one spot in my throat.
Then one day, my right ear began to hurt and I decided it was time to go see the doctor about it. When I visited my family doctor, he took a throat culture and surprisingly it came back clean. No strep throat. I explained that it was a constant pain, and now it had moved up to my ear as well. So, he sent me to Tulsa to an Ears Nose and Throat Doctor who was supposed to be real good.
When I went to him, after a couple of examinations, he came to the conclusion that I had a TMJ problem (TMJ is Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction). So, he sent me to a TMJ person in Stillwater. I went to him, and he x-rayed my head and gave me some medicine to try to stop the pain, but nothing worked.
At times the right side of my face would hurt real bad, and at work if we took the temperature gun and pointed it at the right side of my face, we would find that it was about 2 or 3 degrees colder than the left side.
I went to a good TMJ person in Enid Oklahoma, and he made a mouthpiece for me to wear which seemed to lower the number of times each day that I would feel intense pain up and down the right side of my face…. all along, the pain continued to get worse.
To make a longer story shorter, through the years, the pain continued to grow until each time (about 6 times each day) my head would hurt, it would hurt from the top of my head down to my throat on the right side.
I never knew for sure if this was a result of being kicked in the head during our struggle that day, along with a combination of a bad dentist in Stillwater named Doctor Moore who wrestled with my teeth one day to the point that I wanted to punch him back. After going to many types of doctors (Neurologists, Endocrinologists, Oral Surgeons, etc) and dentists, having root canals, and medications and mouthpieces, nothing seemed to help. The pain continued to grow.
I finally had a name for my condition after many years, my dad pointed out to me that according to my symptoms, in the Merck Manual, my condition would be called: Trigeminal Neuralgia. I told that to the Neurologist and he agreed. There really wasn’t any treatment for it, only medication to cut down on the pain.
After 14 years, I decided I had taken enough pain medication and just decided to let the pain happen. It would only last for 10 minutes at a time, and medication didn’t really help that much anyway.
This past summer the pain became so frequent that every hour I was having 10 minutes of terribly excruciating pain that was leaving me almost immobile. So, I called the doctor to make and appointment. I had decided that this was too unbearable. On Tuesday, July 8, 2014 I called the doctor and made an appointment for July 17, the Thursday of the following week. On July 10, the pain was so bad that for the first time since I had this pain, I actually stayed home from work because I was not able to get any sleep.
July 11, 2014, After sitting up all night in a chair, I prepared to go to work. That morning, to my surprise, the pain had stopped coming every hour. That day at work, I had no pain. When I came home that evening, as i prepared to go out to dinner with my son Anthony, I felt the pain coming back. Anthony could tell, so we just waited a few minutes, and it was over. The pain wasn’t as harsh as it had been….. That was the last time I ever had an attack of pain on my face. It just went away and never came back.
It has now been over 6 months and I have not had one attack of pain on my face. After 16 years of pain, it just went away in one day. Could there have been a reason? I think so… You see, my mom had been doing something on the side. She had sent my name to a group to have them ask their founder to pray for me to God.
For years, my mom had supported a Catholic mission group called: Pontifical Institute For Foreign Missions. This organization was founded 164 years ago and the group was trying to have the Bishop who founded the Mission canonized as a Saint. In order to do that, they needed to have at least three miracles associated with his intercessory prayers. His name is Bishop Angelo Ramazzotti.
Bishop Angelo Ramazzotti
What this means is, that as a group, we ask that (pray to) Bishop Angelo Ramazzotti (who we believe is in Heaven with Jesus) ask Jesus to heal us (or something miraculous for a good cause). If the person (me, in this case) appears to have been miraculously and instantly healed, then an investigation is done to determine if it can be certified as a miracle.
If three such miracles have been certified after intercessory prayers have been asked of Bishop Angelo, then he could be Canonized as a Saint. To be Canonized means that he is more or less “Recognized” as someone that is in Heaven with God. It doesn’t mean in anyway that everyone in heaven has to be canonized. It just means that if you want to ask a Saint in Heaven to pray for you to God, then you can be pretty darn sure, this guy is good friends with God. Just like asking your own family to pray for you. You would be more inclined to ask someone that you know is more “Holy” if you really need to see some results.
Well, that is what my mom had done the week before the pain suddenly went away.
If the pain that I had for the past 16 years was caused in part by the kick in the head in 1995, and this condition I had is somehow used to help Canonize Bishop Angelo Ramazzotti, then I am glad to have been a part of it. All along, I figured that something good would come out of all that pain, I just never imagined what that might be. Now that it’s gone, it’s sort of like missing an old friend…. only….. NOT.
Sometimes it just takes a good kick in the head to get things moving.
Relay Tests and Radio Quizzes with Ben Davis
Originally posted January 24, 2014:
Reorganizations naturally shuffle things around. People are generally resistant to change and don’t like to find that their routine has been changed without having their input on how to make things better. When the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma went through a downsizing and reorganization in the latter part of 1987, my job changed slightly. Personally, I was grateful for the changes.
Before the reorganization, I had inherited both the precipitators (the large boxes at a power plant that take the ash out of the exhaust from the boiler). This meant that every overhaul, I knew what I was doing. I was working on and in the precipitator. This was generally a dirty and thankless job.
The plant has a similar electrostatic precipitator, only it is twice as long
After the reorganization, however, Terry Blevins was assigned to work on the Unit 2 precipitator, while I worked on Unit 1. I will go into this in more detail later, but for this post, I’ll just point out that this meant that when Unit 2 was on an overhaul (that means the unit is taken offline for one to three months in order to fix and repair things that can only be done while it is offline) I wasn’t automatically assigned to the precipitator. So, I could work on other things.
Before the reorganization, Sonny Kendrick had the title “Electric Specialist”. After the reorganization we no longer had a specialist. I’m not sure exactly why. I know that at Muskogee, they still had a specialist in the electric shop. — I will talk about him next year (the specialist at Muskogee). Anyway, I know that Sonny, at the time, was not too happy about his change in job title. I don’t blame him. I would be too.
One of the things that the Electric Specialist did during overhauls was test tripping relays. Now that we no longer had a specialist, that was left up to whomever…. The first electricians, besides Sonny, that were assigned to relay testing was Ben Davis and myself. I had started doing it on my own and after about a week, Ben Davis was assigned to help me out.
Ben Davis
We were on a major overhaul on Unit 2 and it had been decided that we were not only going to test the regular super-high voltage breaker relays, we were also going to test all the 480 volt switchgear relays for Unit 2, as well as the intake and coalyard switchgears. I don’t remember if we made it to the river pump switchgear, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Once we started, there was no stopping us.
When I first was told to test the relays, Bill Bennett (our A foreman) told me to have Sonny tell me how to do them. So, I walked into the lab and told Sonny that Bill had told me to ask him to help me learn how to test the protective relays on the switchgear. Sonny, not looking too happy, grabbed a small stack of manuals, walked out into the main switchgear with me, and said, “Here is the relay set. Here are the manuals that tell you how to hook up the test set and test them.” He turned and walked away…. I was sort of hoping for a more intimate lesson…
I knew the reason Sonny was so upset. Later I learned why he would be as upset as he was to not be able to test the protective relays. It was because when you test, clean and adjust protective relays you have an immediate rush of satisfaction that you have just done something very important. Let me just say quickly (because in another post I will expound upon this), a protective relay is what keeps motors from blowing up. It is what prevents blackouts from happening across the nation. Without properly calibrated protective relays, a power company is just asking for a disaster (or… well….. their insurance company is, because they are the ones that usually end up paying for the damage — which I will also talk about in a later post).
I thought the relay test set that Sonny showed me was the neatest thing I had seen so far in the electric shop. There were two boxes that hooked together with an umbilical cord. They had dials, switches, connectors, meters and a digital readout down to the millisecond. That is, you can read the time to trip a relay down to the one thousandth of a second.
AVO Multi-Amp SR-76 Relay Test Set
I only wish that I had a bigger picture of this relay test set so that you could admire it as much as I did. Even today it gives me goosebumps! Ok. I can imagine those relay technicians that read this blog are looking at this and thinking…. “What kind of piece of junk is this?” Hey (as Mark Fielder used to say), this was my “baby” (only he was referring to the precipitator).
So, back to the story at hand…
Even though I was having a heck of a fun time trying to figure out how to perform these relay tests by reading these manuals about the different kinds of relays, I was glad when Ben Davis was assigned to work with me. I don’t know if he had worked on relays before, but he seemed to know just what to do to hook up the test set and make things easier.
A panel of Protective Relays
The best suggestion that Ben had right off the bat was that we should be listening to the radio while we were working. This might have been a preventative measure after the first couple of days to prevent the same situation from occurring that happened to Ed Shiever when he and I were trapped inside a confined space for a couple of weeks (See the post: “Ed Shiever Trapped in a Confined Space with a disciple of Ramblin’ Ann“). Either way, it was a great idea.
You wouldn’t think that inside a switchgear 20 miles from the nearest town with a radio station, that we would have any reception on a little transistor radio, but we were able to manage. It seemed that we had to be a little creative at times with the antenna in certain locations, but, like I said. We managed.
My perception of Ben Davis up to this point was that he was a “Good-ol’ boy”. That is, a country music type Oklahoman that had grown up in Shidler, Oklahoma where the major attraction in the town was the High School. To my surprise, I quickly found out that he was a connoisseur of Rock and Roll.
It wasn’t until I was in college before I realized that the easy listening station I had been listening to on our family radio at home while I was growing up was playing rock and roll songs using an orchestra with violins and clarinets instead of electric guitars. I learned from my dorm mates all about groups like Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles (yeah… can you believe it? I mean. I knew “Hey Jude”, “Let it Be” and a few others, but most of the Beatles I thought were instrumentals normally played on violins with a man waving a wand) and many others. When I found out about “Rock and Roll”, I had to go out and buy dozens of 8-track tapes, as fast as I could find them.
A stack of 8 Track Tapes
So, here was Ben Davis. Even better than the “Good Ol’ Boy” that I already thought he was. And he loved classical rock and roll. I can only say that the next month and a half while we tested relays all over the plant, were one of the best times I have ever spent in my life! He knew all the 60’s and 70’s rock and roll bands.
As each song would come on the radio, we would guess (well, I was guessing most of the time…. most of the time Ben already knew), what the name of the song was and the name of the band. So, not only were we doing one of the most satisfying jobs at a power plant, but I was also have a lot of fun with Ben listening to the radio! Who would have thought it? No wonder Sonny was upset he wasn’t testing relays this overhaul.
I could go on about all the different bands and their backgrounds that I learned from Ben during that overhaul, but (unlike me), you probably already know all that stuff. It never ceases to amaze me how many holes I have in my education until one is staring at me in the face.
This reminds me of a side story, and I apologize if I have told this before…. I don’t think I have….
After the Reorganization, and after I moved to Stillwater from Ponca City, Scott Hubbard (and Toby O’Brien) and I began carpooling. One morning as we were listening to NPR, Scott Hubbard mentioned something about a “cur”. I asked him, “What’s a cur?” Well, he had the exact same reaction when 11 years earlier I had asked my friends in college at Oklahoma University, Tim Flowers and Kirby Davis, “What’s an orgasm?” — See how little holes in your education can make a big impact?
Just so you don’t get caught in the same predicament… A “Cur” is a mongrel dog. Scott Hubbard couldn’t believe that someone that read the dictionary for fun wouldn’t know what a “cur” was. What the heck? I didn’t grow up in Oklahoma! — end of side story… which really isn’t a side story, since it was about a Power Plant Man — Scott Hubbard. He probably knew what a “cur” was before he could walk. — I know I haven’t told that story before! I would have remembered that.
I’m not going to go on about all the fun that I had with Ben Davis testing protective relays. I enjoy my memories, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear all about how much I looked up to this Power Plant Hero. The only thing I will add is that the time I spent with Ben during that overhaul has been etched into my memory as one of the most enjoyable times of my life. So, I’ll go onto the next step in our Protective Relay story….
A few years later, in 1993, Sonny Kendrick and Ben Davis and I were sent to “Advanced Protective Relay Maintenance” training in Dallas, Texas. I remember this time so well, I remember the address where we were went. It was at 4271 Bronze Way, Dallas, Texas. It was hosted by the same company that made that wonderful test set I pictured above. The AVO Multi-Amp Corporation.
I brought my wife Kelly and my three year old daughter Elizabeth with me. They stayed at the hotel during the day and played in the swimming pool, while I went to class.
The classes lasted four days, Monday through Thursday. That was where I learned that even though I thought our relay test set was the coolest piece of equipment in the electric shop, it turned out to be archaic by “Protective Relay Maintenance” standards. Not that it didn’t do the job…. So, in order to train us properly, they let us use our own old test set during the training so that we could see how to properly test really advanced relays such as Distant Relays, Syncro-verifier relays, Negative Sequence Relays,directional distance relays and Pilot Wire relays. — These are relays that are found in a large substation that trips high voltage lines that run long distances across the country. — I can tell you’re jealous. — Well.. I imagine it anyway. Knowing what I know now.
So, why drag you all the way to Dallas for this story? There’s a reason.
time for a second side story:
You see. Tim Flowers, whom I mentioned above, knew not too long after he met me that I have the knack of running into people that I know (or should have known in this case), would love this story. You see, I met Tim and Kirby at Oklahoma University and they drove with me to Columbia Missouri in 1979 (along with my brother Greg) when I went to register for classes at Missouri University when I decided to go back to school in my home town.
When we arrived in the town, we were hungry after driving for 8 hours straight from Stillwater, Oklahoma to Columbia, Missouri… so we stopped at Godfather’s Pizza. As we walked in, there was a girl and a guy standing at the counter ordering a pizza. The pretty girl (Pamela Ramsey) with long red hair turned and saw me. She immediately came toward me saying “Kevin Breazile!!!! You owe Me!!! Slightly shocked and pleased, I said, “What for?” She reminded me that I never gave her the pictures that were taken during the Senior Prom. You see. I had taken her to the Senior Prom.
Later I explained that this happens to me a lot. I meet people that I know in the oddest places (even though this wasn’t so odd, since I had grown up in Columbia). It was just that this was the first person we had seen since we entered town. From that point on, Tim (who later worked as a summer help at the power plant) expected that everywhere we went we would run into someone I knew….
End of the second side story. I’m sorry that this is making the post a little longer than usual. I know you have to get back to work….
So, back to the relay training course in 1993 that Ben Davis, Sonny Kendrick and I were taking in Dallas…. On Wednesday night during the training there was a dinner held in a small banquet room in the hotel. Well… of course I had to take my wife and my daughter. So here we were sitting around this table at dinner with the rest of the class of about 10 other non-Sooner Plant employees….
I decided to talk to the guy next to me. He said something back and my wife Kelly asked him, “Where in New Jersey are you from?” She had picked up on a New Jersey accent. He said, Well.. I work in the east for a company called Ebasco, but I’m really from the Midwest. (oh. That was my territory). So I asked a follow-up question. “Where in the Midwest are you from?” He said, “From Missouri.” — Oh. I thought. This is interesting. So am I.
I asked a follow-up question. “Where in Missouri are you from?” He answered…. “Columbia, Missouri.” (What? Where I had grown up?)…. So, I asked a second follow-up Question…. “What High School did you go to?” With a curious look the man answered….. “Rockbridge High School…” (Man!!! the same one as me!!!)…. The third follow-up question….. “What year did you graduate?” Now, looking really suspicious… he said, “1978”. Trying to maintain my excitement… I replied….. “Oh… so, you graduated from Rockbridge High School the same year I did….”
What are the odds? There were 254 students in our graduating class. This guy who currently lived somewhere in the east is sitting next to me at a dinner of about 10 people attending Advanced Protective Relay Training in Dallas, Texas where neither of us are from, and we both graduated from the same school back in Columbia, Missouri 15 years earlier! His name is Randy Loesing. He was working for a company called Ebasco at the time. He said, “I thought I recognized you! I just wasn’t sure.” I didn’t recognize him at all.
It turned out that he kept in touch with two of my oldest friends from the second grade, Mark Schlemper and Brent Stewart. So we talked about them. What an incredible coincidence. Like I may have mentioned before. It happens to me all the time. It turns out that an old friend of mine from the 3rd grade in Columbia, Missouri that I used to go to his house when we were stamp collectors and had a stamp collecting club, lives 5 miles south of me today in Round Rock Texas (He’s in Pflugerville).
Russell Somers lives in the same direction and just about the same number of miles as when we were kids. Not only that, but he worked at Dell while I was working at Dell (though I didn’t know it at the time). He has an older daughter and a younger son, just like me only younger. The same is true for another 3rd grade friend that I graduated from Rockbridge Highschool and the University of Missouri with, Caryn Lile (now Caryn Iber) who lives in Wisconsin. She has a daughter and a son the same age as my kids. She was living in Tulsa when I was living in Stillwater, Oklahoma. — Like I said… happens to me all the time.
Tim Flowers realized this odd phenomenon in college. I had told him earlier that my father told me that if I was every stranded somewhere that I could look up the local Veterinarian and tell him that I was the son of Dr. James Edward Breazile, and they would help me. So, when we were hiking in the mountains in Colorado and we met a man walking along a trail in the middle of nowhere above Estes Park near the Great Divide, when I told him who I was, he gave us a curious look…. then divulged his most intimate secrets of his life and where he had stashed his most values possessions, Tim told me later. “I really thought he was going to know who you were when he gave us that funny look.” I replied. “I think he did..”
I again apologize for the length of this post. It is rare that I ramble on this long. I can thank Ramblin’ Ann for the ability to Ramble so well. I can thank Ben Davis for recognizing a rambling situation and replacing it with a rock and roll learning opportunity. As I said earlier. One of the most enjoyable times I have spent in my entire life is the time I spent with Ben Davis testing Protective Relays! Bless you Ben and I pray for you, your wife, your son and your daughter on the way to work each morning.
Today when I hear any of the hundreds of roll and roll songs come on the radio that we listened to that month and a half, I can see us testing the relays, looking off into space saying, “Rolling Stones?” “No. Steve Miller Band?” Really? I thought Browneyed Girl was sung by the Rolling Stone! It turned out that the version that we listened to was from the creator of the song, Van Morrison. It was like a “One Hit Wonder”. Who would have thought that he would sound so much like Mick Jagger. I can see Ben saying… I see what you mean… it kind of sounds like Mick Jagger.
Rivers and Rose in the Power Plant Palace
Originally posted January 25, 2013:
When is the appropriate time to call 911? Calling 911 in the Power Plant is when you call the Shift Supervisor to report something important. As Randy Dailey, our Safety Trainer extraordinaire, always taught us, first tap the person on the shoulder and say, “Are you all right?” Then you point you finger at someone and say, “Call 911!” That’s called “Activating the EMS” (Emergency Medical System). Besides medical emergencies, there are other reasons to call the Shift Supervisor.
I learned early on to ‘fess up when you have done something wrong.” People appreciate it when you tell them up front that you goofed. That way the problem can be dealt with directly. Dee Ball was that way. Any time he wrecked a truck, he didn’t hesitate to tell his boss. So, even as a summer help I had developed this philosophy. Never be afraid to expose your blunders. It works out better in the long run.
One example of someone not following this philosoply was Curtis Love. As I mentioned in the post Power Plant Spider Wars and Bugs in the Basement, Curtis didn’t want to tell anyone that he had been bitten by a brown recluse for the third time because he was afraid of losing his job.
The Oklahoma house spider — The Brown Recluse
His philosophy came back to bite him a year and a half later when he was on the labor crew when he was the designated truck driver. I had moved on to the electric shop by this time.
A red crew cab like this only the bed of the truck was longer
He was backing up the crew cab around a corner under the Fly Ash hoppers up at the coalyard when the side of the crew cab came into contact with one of those yellow poles designed to protect the structure from rogue vehicles. Unfortunately. This created a dent in the side of the truck.
An example of yellow poles protecting an area
Curtis, already on probation. worried that he would be fired if he told anyone about this mishap, failed to tell Larry Riley about this incident. Larry, on the other hand, was standing in front of the Coalyard Maintenance shop (the labor crew home), and saw the entire incident. At that moment, he turned to one of the labor crew hands and said, “I hope Curtis comes over here and tells me about that.” Unfortunately, Curtis decided to act as if nothing had happened. This resulted in his termination. As much as I cared about Curtis, I must admit that the Power Plant scene was probably not the best location for his vocation.
I had seen Dee Ball do the same thing over and over again, and he always reported his accidents immediately. He was never punished for an accident, though, for a number of years, he was banned from driving a truck. You can read more about this in the post: Experiencing Maggots, Mud and Motor Vehicles with Dee Ball.
One day during the summer of 1984 just after lunch, 1A PA fan tripped (PA stands for Primary Air). When this happened, number one unit had to lower it’s output from over 500 Megawatts down to around 200. The trip indicator on the 6900 volt breaker said that it had been grounded. Being grounded means that one of the three phases of the motor or cable had made a circuit with the ground (or something that was grounded). The trip circuits shut the fan down so fast that it prevents an explosion and saves the fan from being destroyed.
Diana Lucas (later Diana Brien), Andy Tubbs and I were given the task of finding the ground and seeing what we could do to fix it. We unwired the motor, which was no easy task, because the motor is about the size of a large van, and about 10 times heavier.
This is about 1/2 the size of the PA fan motor which is 1000 horsepower
So, we spent the rest of the day unwiring the motor (in the rain), and unwiring the cable to the motor from the breaker in the main switchgear and testing both the motor and the cable with various instruments looking for the grounded wire or coil that caused the motor to trip. We used a large “Megger” on the motor. It’s called a Megger because it measures Mega-Ohms. So, it’s technically called a Mega-Ohm meter. Ohms is a measurement of resistance in an electrical circuit. We usually use a small hand cranked megger, that is similar to an old hand crank telephone that generates a high voltage (good for shocking fish in a lake to make them rise to the surface). In the case of the hand cranked Megger, it would generate 1,000 volts.
A Hand cranked Megger made by the same company, only newer than the ones we had
The Megger this size would have been useless with this large motor. Instead we used one that was electric, and you ran the voltage up over 10,000 volts and watched the mega-ohms over a period of 1/2 hour or so.
For the cables, we hooked up a Hypot (or Hipot). This stands for High Potential. Potential in this case is another word for “Voltage”. It would charge up and then you pressed a button and it would send a high voltage pulse down the cable, and if there is a weak spot in the insulation,The Hypot will find it. So, we hooked a Hypot up to the cable and tried to find the grounded wire. No luck.
After spending 4 hours looking for the grounded cable or motor, we found nothing. We spent another hour and a half putting the motor and the breaker back in service. The Fan was put back into operation and we went home. As I was walking out to the car with Bill Rivers, he told me, “I knew they weren’t going to find anything wrong with that fan.” He had a big grin on his face.
At first I thought he was just making an educated guess as Rivers was apt to do on many occasions (daily). It was raining and I could see where water may have been sucked into the motor or something and had momentarily grounded the motor. Just because we didn’t find anything didn’t mean that the breaker didn’t trip for no reason.
When we were in the car and on our way to Stillwater, Oklahoma with Yvonne Taylor and Rich Litzer, Bill explained that he knew why the motor tripped. He had been walking through the main switchgear with Mike Rose, and Mike, for no apparent reason other than curiosity, had opened up the bottom door to the breaker for 1A PA fan. He looked at it for a moment and then slammed the door shut. When he did this, the breaker tripped.
So, the ground relay happened to be the one that tripped. It might as well been an over-current or a low voltage trip. It just happened to trip the ground trip. Bill said that he told Mike that he should call the Shift Supervisor and let him know so they could restart the motor. Mike on the other hand told Bill that he was already on probation and was afraid of losing his job if he reported that he had slammed the door on the breaker and tripped the fan.
If there was ever a reason to call 911, it was then. All he had to do was tell them, “I accidentally tripped the PA fan when I bumped the breaker cabinet.” They would have told him to reset the flag, and they would have started the fan right back up. No questions asked… I’m sure of it. And they wouldn’t have lost their generating capacity for the remainder of the afternoon and we wouldn’t have spent 4 hours unwiring, testing and rewiring the motor in the rain with a plastic umbrella over our head.
Bill wasn’t about to tell on Mike. If Mike didn’t want to report it, Bill wasn’t going to say anything, and I understand that. I probably would have kept it to myself at the time if I was in Bill’s shoes (I’m just glad I wasn’t because I probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep soundly for the next year). But 30 years later, I might write about it in a Blog. Even though I wouldn’t have looked to Mike to teach me much about being an electrician (he was more of an Air Condition man anyway), I still loved the guy.
Mike died almost two years ago on May 29, 2011. He was from England and had lived in Canada for a time. He used to work on trains. Trains, even though they are diesel, are really electric. The Diesel engine really runs a generator that generates electricity that runs the train. I know that Mike was a good man at heart. He loved his family with all his heart. Here is a picture of the Limey:
Mike Rose. A fair plant electrician, but a great family man!
Ok. So I know what you are thinking…. There must be a story about myself in here somewhere. Well, you would be right. First of all. I always ‘fessed up to my mistakes, as my current manager at Dell knows well (yes. I still mess up after all these years). I told my current manager the other day that CLM was my middle name. (CLM means “Career Limiting Move”). So here is my power plant “mess up” story (well one of them):
In January 1986, I returned from my Honeymoon with my new wife Kelly when I found that we had hired a new electrician. Gsry Wehunt was replacing Jim Stephenson who had left the plant on February 15, 1985, which is a story all it’s own. We had just started an overhaul on Unit 1.
I remember the first Monday I spent with Gary. It was January 6, 1986 and we were working on cleaning out the exciter house on the end of the main power generator with Diana Brien (formerly Diana Lucas). We were discussing salaries and Gary was surprised to find out that I was making more than he was. Well… I had been an electrician for over 2 years and had been promoted regularly…. so I didn’t think there was anything strange about it, except that I still looked like I was only about 18 years old (even though I was 25) and Gary was about 34. I had already been promoted 4 times and my salary had gone from $7.15 to over $12 an hour.
Anyway, when that first Friday rolled around, Gary and I were assigned to Substation Inspection. Some later time I may go into the details of what “Substation Inspection” entails, but for now, let’s just stick with my “911 call.” It is enough to say that we were in the main plant substation relay house on Friday January 10, 1986 at 9:00 am. One of our jobs was to call other substations and perform a test called a “Transfer Trip and Carrier Test”. We had called Woodring Substation (Woodring is a town in Oklahoma and we had a 345 KV line going there), and I was talking to the man in the substation on the other end of the phone line.
At the same time I was showing Gary just how experienced I was at being an electrician. People had told me that you had to be a plant electrician for 5 years before you really became a “first class” electrician. Well. Here I was at 2 years, and I thought I was so good that I could do anything by now…. — Yeah… right. I told the guy on the other end of the line as I turned a switch…. Amber light… Back to Blue…. and I wrote down the value on the meter (paperwork… oh yes…. it’s that important. Like A-1 sauce).
Then I reached for the second switch. I said, “Carrier test”, then turned the switch. The lights in the relay house went out and we were in the dark. I told the guy on the other end of the line….. “Well. That’s not supposed to happen.” Then as I let go of the switch and it returned to it’s normal position, the lights turned back on. Okay……
I wrote the numbers down from the meter and said goodbye to the other faceless substation man on the other end of the line that I talked to over 100 times, but never met in person. He sounded like a nice guy. Then I headed for the gray phone. I heard the Shift Supervisor paging Leroy Godfrey (The Electrical Supervisor) on line 2 (we had 5 Gray phone lines. The Gray Phone was our PA system).
When I picked up the line I heard Leroy pick up the phone and the Shift Supervisor tell Leroy that we just lost station power in the main substation and it had switched over to Auxiliary power. I immediately jumped in and said, “Jim (for Jim Padgett, the Shift Supervisor), I did that. I was performing a Carrier test with Woodring and the moment I performed the carrier test the lights went out.” Leroy chimed in by saying, “That wouldn’t cause you to lose station power.”
Well, in my ‘inexperienced’ plant electrician way, I responded, “Well. All I know is that when I turned the switch to perform the carrier test, the lights went out, and when I let go of the switch, the lights came back on.” Leroy reiterated, “That wouldn’t cause you to lose station power.” I replied with, “I’m just saying….” and left it at that. I had done my job. They knew I was out here. They knew I had called 911 right away. I explained what I was doing…. they could take it from there.
I had hoped that I had showed Gary upfront that it doesn’t hurt to report your mistakes (even though I hadn’t made one as far as I could tell), but I was 100% sure I had done something to cause the relay house to lose power. Though, I couldn’t figure out why.
After lunch, Bill Bennett, our A foreman came down to the shop to tell me that they figured out how the substation lost station power. He said that a road grader had been grating the road down by the Otoe-Missouri reservation (which is actually called “Windmill road” I guess because there is a windmill down that road somewhere), and had hit an electric pole and knocked it over and had killed the power to the substation.
Substation Power Interrupting Road Grader
It turned out that the substation relay house was fed by a substation down that road where we have a radio tower. So, think about this. The exact time that I turned that switch in the substation, a road grater 2 1/2 miles away hits a telephone pole accidentally and knocks it to the ground and kills the power to the substation at the exact same time that I am performing a transfer-trip and Carrier test with Woodring Substation, and the time it takes to switch to auxiliary power is the exact time it took me to let go of the switch.
Don’t tell me that was by accident. I will never believe it. I think it was for the soul purpose of teaching me a useful lesson or two. First….. don’t be afraid to tell someone when you do something wrong. Second…. If you think you have control over the things that happen to you in your life… well, think again…… Third….. God watches you every moment, and if you let him, he will guide you to do the right thing when the time comes.
God bless you all.
COMMENTS FROM THE ORIGINAL POST:
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Monty Hansen January 26, 2013
I had a similar thing happen to me, I was upgrading to shift foreman & system called to remove a tag in the switchyard & put the switch back to auto. The tag on the pistol grip was attached with a plastic zip tie & the previous operator had put it on real tight, as I was wrestling it off with my leatherman, the pliers slipped & I banged my elbow into the control panel, at that very instant there was a loud BANG as several 345 KV breakers opened simultaniously in the swithyard, I had the phone pinched between my shoulder & ear as I was wrestling with this switch & talking to the system control operator, he said a few bad words – gotta go – & hung up. The power plant lost all power & went in the black, I, of course was just sick in the pit of my stomach, after we got power restored, the plant back on etc. I called system back to see if they found the cause & fess up to causing the trip (I figured I must have caused a trip relay to close when I hit the panel) – anyway a crane at a plant down the road had got it’s boom tangled in the power line & went to ground – AT PRECISELY THE INSTANT MY ELBOW SLIPPED & HIT THE PANEL!!
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Ron Kilman January 26, 2013
Some great illustrations of the truth in Proverbs 28:13 “He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion”.
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justturnright January 28, 2013
CLM: I can relate.
My first boss 30 years ago once told me he was going to officially nickname me “I’m sorry” (and make me wear it for a name badge) if I said it one more time.
Hey, there’s worse things.
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Roomy January 29, 2013
I had not thought about Mike Rose in years. He was a good guy to work with, now Rivers was a different story!!!
Sub checks, I used to love to do sub checks. I performed pilot wire & transfer trip checks for years. I hated it when they went to being done by automation.
Thanks for brining back old memorys.
Power Plant Safety As Interpreted by Curtis Love
Original posted on January 28, 2012:
I vividly remember four events while working at the power plant where I was at the brink of death. I’m sure there were many other times, but these four have been etched in my memory almost 30 years later. Of those four memorable events, Curtis Love was by my side (so to speak) to share the wonder of two of those moments. This is a story about one of those times when you are too busy at the time to realize how close you came to catching that ride to the great power plant in the sky, until the middle of that night when you wake up in a cold sweat trying to catch your breath.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, safety is the number one priority at the power plant. But what is safe and what isn’t is relative. If you are the person that has to walk out onto a plank hanging out over the top ledge on the boiler in order to replace a section of boiler tube before the boiler has cooled down below 160 degrees, you might not think it is safe to do that with only an extra long lanyard tied to your waist and a sheer drop of 200 feet to the bottom ash hopper below (which I incidentally didn’t have to do as an electrician, but had to hear about after some other brave he-man had the privilege), you might not think that this is safe. But the Equipment Support Supervisor who has spent too many years as an engineer behind his desk doesn’t see anything wrong with this as long as you don’t fall. So, he tells you to do it, just don’t fall.
Safety is also relative to the date when something occurs. In 1994 OSHA implemented new rules for confined spaces. A confined space is any place that’s hard to enter and exit, or a place where you might be trapped in an enclosure because of converging walls. So, before 1994, there were no safety rules specific to confined spaces.
No rules meant that when I was on labor crew it was perfectly safe to crawl into a confined space and wind and twist your way around obstacles until the small door that you entered (18 inches by 12 inches) was only a distant memory as you are lying down in the bottom section of the sand filter tank with about 22 inches from the bottom of the section to the top requiring you to lie flat as you drag yourself around the support rods just less than 2 feet apart. Oh. and wearing a sandblast helmet…
Sand Blast Helmet
and holding a sandblaster hose…
Sand Blast Hose
with a straight through Sandblast Nozzle….
Sand Blast Nozzle
Which means, the person sandblasting has no way of turning off the sand or the air on their own. If you wanted to turn off the sand, you had to bang the nozzle against the side of the tank and hope that the person outside monitoring the sandblaster was able to hear you above the roar of the Sandblaster and the Industrial Vacuum.
Sandblasting machine. Would run about 15 minutes before it would run out of sand.
You also had a drop light that left you all tangled in wires and hoses that blew air on your face so that you could breathe and a vacuum hose that sucked the blasted sand and rust away, while the sandblaster blasts away the rust from all things metal less than a foot away from your face, because the air is so full of dust, that’s as far as you can see while holding the drop light with the other hand next to the sandblast hose. The air that blows through the sandblaster is hot, so you begin to sweat inside the heavy rain suit that you wear to protect the rest of you from sand that is ricocheting everywhere, but you don’t feel it as long as cool air is blowing on your face.
The week I spent lying flat trying to prop up my head while sandblasting the bottom section of both sand filter tanks gave me time to think about a lot of things…. which leads us to Curtis Love…. Not that it was Curtis Love that I was thinking about, but that he enters the story some time in the middle of this week. When I least expected it.
Similar to these Sand Filters only about twice the size. If you look closely you can see the seam around the bottom. Below that seam is where I was lying while sandblasting
Curtis Love was a janitor at the plant when I first joined the Sanitation Engineering Team after my four summers of training as a “summer help”. Curtis was like my mother in some ways (and in other ways not – obviously). He was always looking for something to worry about. For instance, one Monday morning while we were sitting in our Monday Morning Janitor safety meeting and Pat Braden had just finished reading the most recent safety pamphlet to us and we were silently pondering the proper way to set the outriggers on a P&H Crane, Jim Kanelakos said, “Hey Curtis. Don’t you have your mortgage at the Federal Bank in Ponca City?” Curtis said, “Yeah, why?” Jim continued, “Well I heard this morning on the news that the bank was foreclosing on all of their home mortgages.”
Curtis said that he hadn’t heard that, but that as soon as it was 9:00 am he would call the bank to find out what he needed to do so that he wouldn’t lose his house. About that time I gave a report on the number of fiddleback spiders I had killed in the main switchgear the previous week. It seemed like no one was listening to my statistics as Doris Voss was still pondering the P&H Crane hand signals, and Curtis was shuffling his feet in worry and Ronnie Banks was staring off into space, as if he was stunned that Monday was already here again, and Jim Kanelakos was snickering under his breath.
When the meeting was over and we were standing up, Jim told Curtis, “Hey Curtis. I was just kidding. The bank really isn’t foreclosing on their mortgages.” Curtis replied, “I don’t know. I better call them to check anyway.” Jim replied, “Curtis, I just made that up! I was playing a joke on you.” Curtis said, “I better check anyway, because it still is possible that they could be foreclosing on their mortgages”. So Jim just gave up trying to explain.
I know you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at me now, but there were only two of us at the plant that were small enough to crawl through the portal into the Sand Filter tanks (Ed Shiever and myself), because not only was it very tight, but the entry was so close to the edge of the building that you had to enter the hole by curving your body around the corner and into the tank.
I have tried to paint of picture of the predicament a person is in when they are laying in this small space about 20 feet from the small portal that you have to crawl through. with their airline for the sandblast helmet, the sandblast hose, the drop light cord and the 4 inch vacuum hose all wound around the support rods that were not quite 2 feet apart in all directions. Because this is where I was when without my giving the signal (by banging the sandblast nozzle on the tank three times), the sand stopped flowing from the nozzle and only air was hissing loudly. This meant one of two things. The sandblast machine had just run out of sand, or someone was shutting the sandblaster off because it was time for lunch. I figured it was time for lunch, because I didn’t think it had been more than 10 minutes since the sand had been refilled and amid the roaring blasts and the howling sucking vacuum hose, I thought I had caught the sound of a rumbling stomach from time to time.
Industrial Vacuum used to suck out the sand as I was sandblasting
The next thing that should happen after the sand has blown out of the sandblast hose, is that the air to the sandblaster should stop blowing. And it did…. but what wasn’t supposed to happen, that did, was that the air blowing through my sandblast hood allowing me to breathe in this sea of rusty dust shut off at the same time! While still pondering what was happening, I suddenly realized that without the air supply to my hood, not only could I not breathe at all, but my sweat-filled rain suit that I was wearing suddenly became unbearably hot and dust began pouring into my hood now that the positive pressure was gone.
I understood from these various signs of discomfort that I needed to head back to the exit as quickly as possible, as I was forced by the thick dust to hold my breath. I pulled my hood off of my head and everything went black. I had moved more than a foot away from the drop light. I knew that the exit was in the direction of my feet, so I swung around a row of support rods and dragged myself along by the rods as quickly as I could. Working my way around the cable, the air hose, the sandblast hose and the vacuum hose as I pulled myself along trying to make out where the exit could be. Luckily, I had figured correctly and I found myself at the exit where in one motion I pulled myself out to fresh air and the blinding light of the day gasping for air.
Furious that someone had turned off my air, I ran out of the sand filter building to the sandblast machine where I found Curtis Love of all people. Up to this point, Curtis had never had the privilege to operate the sandblaster and was not aware of the proper sequence to shutting down the machine…. without shutting off the air to my hood. Incidentally, both the sandblaster and the air hose to the sandblast hood were being fed from the same regular plant air supply (which OSHA might have frowned upon back as far as 1983, and which caused you to blow black oily stuff out of your nose for a few days).
Needless to say, about the time that I came bolting out of the sand filter building Curtis had figured out that he had shut off the wrong valve. He was apologizing profusely in one long drawn out sentence….. “Kevin, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry….” I stopped myself short as my hands were flying toward the area where his neck would have been, if Curtis had had a neck. I looked over toward the crew cab parked nearby. It was full of hungry labor crew “he-men in training” all smiling and chuckling. At that moment I knew that both Curtis and I had been on the receiving end of what could be construed as a “power plant joke” (refer to the post about Gene Day to learn more about those: “Power Plant Humor and Joking with Gene Day“). So, I spent the next 30 seconds as Curtis and I piled into the crew cab telling Curtis that is was all right, he didn’t have to feel bad about it. Evidently, someone had told Curtis how to shutdown the sandblaster, but failed to tell him exactly which valve to turn off when turning off the air to the sandblaster.
Needless to say. Lunch tasted extra good that day. Possibly the rusty dust added just the right amount of iron to my sandwich.
Final Battle for the Illusive Power Plant Safety Pizza
The Electric Shop had tried for three years to win the Safety Slogan of the Year award. Not because we thought we were safer than any of the other teams at the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma, but because we really liked pizza (see the post: “When Power Plant Competition Turns Terribly Safe“) . When the plant was downsized in 1994, the electric shop no longer existed as it had before. We had become cross-functional teams (See the post: “Crossfunctional Power Plant Dysfunction“). It looked as if our dream of winning the Power Plant Safety Pizza was no longer in our grasp.
My carpooling buddy, Toby O’Brien had moved from our plant as a Plant Engineer to the Safety Department in Oklahoma City. He was working with Julia Bevers and Chris McAlister. Chris had also moved from our plant as a labor crew hand to the Safety Department (This was a great opportunity for Chris!).
Power Plant Engineer and Good Friend – Toby O’Brien
Bill Green our new plant manager introduced a jar of beads during his first safety meeting. We each picked a bead randomly from the jar through a small hole in the top. Then Bill Green pointed out that the color of bead represented the result of doing something unsafe.
The green color meant that nothing happened. The other colors reach represented a different type of accident that occurred. The ratio of beads in the jar represented the likelihood of each type of accident happening. There was one black bead in the jar. That meant that you died when you did something unsafe. I used to keep the number of each color of marble in my wallet, but that piece of paper disintegrated over the years.
The types of accidents were something like: First Aid Case, Reportable Accident, Lost Work Day Accident, Hospitalized, and Death.
Bill Green
A couple of months after the downsizing, the Safety department announced that they were going to have a Safety contest. The contest would be held at each plant and it involved each of the supervisor’s computers. The prize for the contest was that the winning team would be able to eat a free lunch with complements from the safety team.
Great! Shortly after the electric shop is busted up and we were scattered to the wind, we finally had one last chance to win the ever illusive Power Plant Safety Pizza! Only, how were we going to do it? I was working on Alan Kramer’s team. My old foreman Andy Tubbs (not old in the sense that he was an old man… old in that he was my former foreman) was now one of the other supervisors with only my old bucket buddy (you know what I mean… not “old” old) Diana Brien as the electrician on his team.
My Bucket Buddy Diana Brien
Before I go further to explain my conflict during this contest, let me explain how the contest worked.
The supervisors had new computers that ran using Windows 3.1. Back then, the screensaver on the computer didn’t just shut down the monitor like most of them do today. Instead, they showed some kind of message, or picture or something animated that kept moving around so that your monitor didn’t get burned in with an image that was constantly on your screen, such as your wallpaper and your icons.
The Safety Department said that each team should come up with some way to display the idea of “Safety” using a screensaver. They suggested using the screensaver that let you type in a message that would scroll across the screen when the screensaver was turned on. That was a simple built-in screensaver that came with Windows 3.1.
Then the Safety Department would come to the plant on a particular day and judge each of the computer’s screensaver and announce the winner. Sounds simple enough.
We first heard about the Safety Slogan Screensaver contest in our Monday Morning Meeting with our team. Alan Kramer said we should come up with a good slogan that we could put on our scrolling message screensaver. I kept my mouth shut at the time, because I didn’t know exactly how to proceed. I was having a feeling of mixed loyalty since my old Electric Shop Team with Andy Tubbs as our foreman had written over 300 safety slogans and had purposely been blocked from winning the Prized Pizza each year.
Andy Tubbs – True Power Plant Electrician
Not long after the morning meeting, Andy Tubbs came up to me in the Electric Shop and said, “We have to win this contest! That Pizza should be ours! I need you to come up with the best screensaver you can that will blow the others away.” I gave him my usual answer when Andy asked me to do something (even when he was no longer my foreman). I said, “Ok, I’ll see what I can do.”
I went down our list of safety slogans looking for the best slogan I could find. Here are a few of them:
“Having an accident is never convenient, So always make Safety a key ingredient.”
“Take the time to do it right, Use your goggles, save your sight.”
“To take the lead in the ‘Safety Race’, You must pay attention to your work place.”
“Unsafe conditions can be resolved, If we all work together and get involved.”
After thumbing through the entire list, I knew we really needed something else. So, I began to think of alternate screen savers. One caught my attention. It was called “Spotlight”. It came with the “After Dark 2.0 Screensavers” (best known for the “Flying Toaster” screensaver). I had found a freeware version that did the same thing. You can see how the spotlight works at 7:15 on the video below (just slide the time bar over to 7:15):
For those who can’t view YouTube videos directly through the above picture, here is the direct link: “After Dark Screensavers“.
The spotlight screensaver basically turns your screen dark, then has a circle (or spotlight) where you can see the background screen behind it. It roams around on your desktop showing only that portion of your wallpaper at a time. You can adjust the size of the circle and the speed that it moves around the screen.
Taking our safety slogans, I began creating a wallpaper for the computer screen by filling it with little one liner safety slogans. I also added yellow flags to the wallpaper because that was a symbol for safety at our plant (for more information why see the post: “Power Plant Imps and Accident Apes“).
See the Yellow Flag Before the Accident Happens
With the help of Charles Foster and Scott Hubbard (both Power Plant electricians), when I was finished the wallpaper looked like this:
Safety Slogan Wallpaper
I printed this out in black and white, but the slogans were written in different colors.
I arranged Andy’s icons on his desktop so they were around the edge of the screen. That way they didn’t cover up the safety slogans. I set the speed of the spotlight to very slow and and the size of the spotlight so that it was just big enough to see each safety slogan. The effect worked out real well. Imagine a dark screen with a spotlight moving randomly around the screen exposing each safety slogan (and yellow flag… don’t forget about those) as it went.
Besides the electricians, no one else knew that I was working on this for Andy. As far as Alan Kramer knew, I was on his side in this contest. I even kept Toby O’Brien in the dark about it, because I knew that he was going to be one of the judges and even though he knew how much winning the Safety Pizza meant to me. I didn’t want to influence his decision. Besides, this Safety Screensaver was going to win. It was the coolest screensaver around. The trick was to keep it hidden from the other teams until it was time for the Safety Department to judge it.
I had the impression from Toby that he had purposely talked the Safety Department into this contest to give me a chance to win the Safety Pizza at our plant. Scott Hubbard and I had carpooled with Toby throughout the years we were trying to win that pizza, and I think he just felt our pain enough that when he was in the position, he was trying to pay us back for our effort.
The screensaver judging was done during the morning, and was going to be announced that afternoon during the monthly safety meeting. A short time before the Safety Meeting began, Toby O’Brien came up to me and in an apologetic manner told me that the safety slogan winner probably wasn’t going to be who I thought it was. I figured that was because he thought I was hoping Alan Kramer’s team was going to win since that was my team. I just smiled back and told him that it was all right.
It was announced during the safety meeting that Andy Tubbs’ team won the contest, and all the electricians were happy. I think it was at that point that Alan Kramer realized that I had helped Andy with his screensaver. He looked at me as if I had betrayed him. I said something like, “Andy Tubbs has been trying to win a safety contest for years. It’s about time.”
Alan Kramer
The following week, when Andy’s team was given their prize for winning the safety screensaver contest, he brought two pizzas to the electric shop and we all sat around the table relishing in the pepperonis. We had finally received our Power Plant Safety Pizza! Even though I really like pizza anytime, the pizza that day tasted especially good.
Power Plant Pepperoni Pizza
I don’t know if we ever told Toby that when Andy Tubbs team won, we all won. Maybe some day he will read this story and know…. “The Rest of the Story”.
In case you can’t read all the little safety slogans on the wallpaper, here is a list of them:
Safety First. Be Safe. Safety begins here. Watch your step. Check your boundaries. Have Good Posture. Haste makes waste. Bend your knees. Avoid Shortcuts. Be Safe or Be Gone. Know your chemicals. Check O2 before Entry. Use Safety Guards. Know your limit. Report Spills. Safety is job #1. Beware of Pinch Points. Buckle up. Safety is no accident. Impatience kills. Strive to Survive. Protect your hearing. Use the right tool. Keep your back straight. Drive friendly. Keep Aisles clear. Don’t take chances. Prevention is the cure. Safety is your job. Communicate with others. Always tie off. Don’t cut corners. Wear your glasses. Act safe. Barricade Hazards. Use your respirator. Be responsible. Lock it out. Plug your ears. Stay fit. Safety never hurts. Don’t block exits. Be aware of your surroundings. Safety is top priority. Don’t be careless. Pick up your trash. Think Ahead. Slippery When Wet. Think Safety. Don’t hurry. Report Hazards. Wear your gloves. Save your eyes. No Running. Wear your Safety Belt. Plan Ahead. Avoid Backing. Use your Safety Sense. Good Housekeeping. Get Help. Keep Cylinders Chained. Protect your hands. Don’t improvise. Beware of hazards. Get the Safety Habit. Be Prepared. Gear up for Safety. Use your PPE. Do not litter. Zero Accidents. Don’t be a Bead (a reference to Bill Green’s jar of beads). Eat Right. Keep Floors clean. Watch out. Safety Pays. Drive Safely. Take Safety Home. Know Safety, use Safety. Read the MSDS. Cotton Clothes Prevents Burns. Follow the rules. Wear your hard hat. Watch out for your buddy. Test your Confined space. Remember the Yellow Flag. Safe Mind, Sound Body. Clean up your spills. Don’t take risks. Beware of Ice. Watch out for the other guy. Obey the rules. Don’t tailgate. Circle for safety. Safety Me, Safety You. Protect your Toes. Knowing is not enough. When in doubt, Check it out. Falls can kill. Be Alert! Avoid slick spots. Safety is a team event. Almost is not enough. Avoid the Noise. Give Safety your all. And finally… This Space for Rent.
Dick Dale and the Power Plant Printer Romance
Originally posted January 17, 2014. I added more to the story:
When I first moved to Ponca City I carpooled each day to the Coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma with Dick Dale, Jim Heflin and Bud Schoonover (See the post: “Carpooling Adventures with Bud Schoonover“). Dick Dale had moved to Ponca City a couple of years earlier after his divorce. He didn’t want to continue living in Stillwater where he felt as if everyone knew about his tragic situation. We had been friends from the first day we met when I was a summer help working out of the garage and he worked in the tool room and warehouse.
I wrote about Dick Dale this past Christmas, when I talked about his situation (See the post: “Harmonizing with Dick Dale on Power Plant Christmas Harmonicas“). I knew that even though it was a few years later, Richard was still feeling the impact from this emotional trauma. One day I found the opportunity to play a “Power Plant” joke on him that I thought might help lift his spirits.
I recently wrote another post about how I had installed dumb terminals around the plant so that regular workers would be able to access the mainframe computer downtown in Corporate Headquarters in order to see their work orders, or look up parts in the warehouse, etc. (See the post: “Working Smarter with Power Plant Dumb Terminals“). In most places where I installed terminals, I also installed large IBM printers that printed using continuous feed paper.
IBM Dot Matrix Network Printer
For those of you who remember, at first most dot matrix printers would feed paper from a box underneath them. they had holes down both sides of the paper where the sprockets would rotate and paper would come rolling out the top of the printer.
Dot Matrix paper with holes so the printer can feed the paper through. The holes sections with the holes were perforated so you could tear them off easily.
Ok. Here is a quick one paragraph side story…
One day when my son was about 6 years old, we had to wait a while in an airport. We were sitting in a row of seats at the gate waiting. My son kept popping up slowly, jerking as he rose, from behind the row of seats and would lay over the seat back and end up head down on the chair. After doing this a few times, my wife Kelly asked him what he was doing. He said, “I’m paper coming out of the printer”. Of course, this cracked us all up.
Anyway, back to the story. By the time I had to add the dumb terminals and printers to the Garage and Warehouse, I had already been playing around on the mainframe learning all sorts of ways to get into trouble. — Well, what else was I going to do during lunch while Charles Foster and I talked about movies and stuff? I had a personal user account on the mainframe that basically gave me “God Access”. They didn’t really have anything like “Network Security” back then. — This was 1988.
Back then, we also didn’t have anything called “Email” either. It wasn’t until 1989 that CompuServe first offered real Internet e-mail to its users. When we wanted to send something to someone in the company, we either printed it out and put in an intra-company envelope and sent it by “snail” mail, or we could find out what printer they used and get the ID for the printer and send it to them. It was a code like: P1234.
Well. I had been playing with this text editor on the Honeywell mainframe called FRED. This stood for FRiendly EDitor. For those of you who know UNIX, this was pretty much the same as the VI Editor found on UNIX mainframes. The commands were the same. Today, users of Microsoft Word would be horrified to find out what you had to go through to create a document back then.
I had been practicing using this editor, and found that by using the special escape codes for the printer, I could create documents that would come out looking pretty neat. So, I had created some templates that would make it look like I was printing a Memo from some mainframe program. That was about the time that I installed the printer in the garage.
So, I created a big long document that would print out on the garage printer as soon as I connected the printer to the network. It went on and on about how the printer wasn’t happy about being placed in such a dusty environment and how it refused to be cooperative until it was moved to a cleaner place. It would spit out a bunch of sheets of paper, printing protest after protest.
Then it ended up by saying that if it wasn’t moved right away, it was going to shut down in 10 minutes and it started counting down by 30 second intervals. Then at the last minute, it counted down by 15 seconds until it counted down the last 10 seconds by feeding a sheet of paper for each second while it was counting… then it paused at the last second. Finally, it printed out at the end a concession that since it was obviously not going to be moved to someplace cleaner, it might as well give up and be cooperative.
When I installed the printer in the office in the automotive garage, I knew it would take about 30 seconds to connect the first time, and by that time, I was outside making my way back to the electric shop. By the time I made it back to the electric shop Charles Patten was calling me on the gray phone. The gray phone is the plant PA system:
Gaitronics Gray Phone
Of course, I knew why. I answered the phone and Charles told me that something was wrong with the printer. It kept shooting paper out of it and wouldn’t stop. He had even turned it off, but when he turned it back on, it still kept feeding paper out. I told him that sounded pretty strange to me and I would be right over to see what was going on. I took my time returning to the garage giving the printer time to throw it’s tantrum.
By the time I returned, the printer had stopped ranting about being installed in a dirty environment and had given up it’s protest. Charles said that it finally stopped. I walked over to the printer and took the pile of hundred or so pages that it had printed out, and tore them off the printer and walked out with them. I don’t even know if Charles had paid any attention to what the printer was saying.
I think I was the only person that knew that I had just “attempted” to play a joke on Charles. After all, as the paper was feeding out. It was carefully collecting into a nice stack in front of the printer on the floor, and unless someone picked up the stack and looked at it, they wouldn’t know that anything was even printed on it. So, in this case, the joke may have been on me. But then again, Power Plant Men are like that. If they figure a joke is being played on them, then they figure out how to turn it around so that the joker is the one that has the joke played on them. Maybe that was the case here. Charles Patten was probably one of the most intelligent foremen at the plant, so it was possible.
Anyway, back to Dick Dale. I installed the printer in the warehouse and Dick Dale, Darlene Mitchell, Mike Gibbs and Bud Schoonover were happy to be connected to the Inventory program on the mainframe….. um… yeah. sure they were…… especially Bud.
Bud Schoonover was the person that when it was his turn to run the tool room would not give you something if it was the last one. So, if I needed a flashlight and it was the last one, and I asked Bud for a flashlight, he would say that he couldn’t give it to me. Why? You might ask. Well, he would explain that if he gave the last one away, he would have to order some more. Bud didn’t like ordering things on the computer. So, in order to keep from having to order anything he simply didn’t give away the last one of any item.
Anyway. I decided one Monday during my regular lunch time computer educational moments to send a letter over to the warehouse printer addressed to Dick Dale. It was from an anonymous woman. The letter sounded like it was from someone that really had a thing for Richard and remembered how they used to work together. It also mentioned other people, like Mike Gibbs and Pat Braden and about how they used to hang around each other.
Since this was a fictitious character, I could say anything I wanted, but I wanted to put it in a time period back when I was still a summer help. Well… It wasn’t long before Dick Dale called me on the gray phone (no. I won’t post another picture of the gray phone here. I think you get the idea). He asked me to come over to the warehouse.
When I arrived, Richard showed me the letter. He was excited about it. He was trying to figure out who it could be. He thought about the people that had moved from the plant to Corporate Headquarters and wondered if it was one of them. I thought for a little while, and I couldn’t come up with who it might be (obviously), since it was me.
The next day at lunch I sent another letter to his printer. I mentioned more about the “old days” working at the plant. On the way home Richard showed it to me. I could tell that he was really excited about this. I held back my smile, but inside it felt real good to see that Richard had finally come back to life. For the past couple of years, he had been so down. Now some woman was paying attention to him, and actually was telling him that she had always liked him.
Darlene Mitchell sent a letter to the printer ID I had sent in the letter to Richard, saying the following:
Dear Ghost Writer,
This has been the most exciting thing that’s happened in the warehouse in a long time. We await your messages. Dick is really trying hard to figure this out, and if you don’t give him a little hint, his little old brains are going to get fried.
He also requests that you send his messages to his printer only, that way I won’t be able to send my message back. He takes all the fun out of everything. P)24 is his number, and if you can’t get a response out of him, I’ll be glad to put my two cents in.
I’m sure Dick would like to see you too. Maybe we can get him headed in your direction, if you tell me where that is.
So, long, see you in the funny papers.
<end of message>
On Thursday Richard called me and asked me to come over to the warehouse. He showed me the letter he had received that day. He said he was too excited. He just had to find out who it was that was sending him these letters. He said that since I knew everything there was to know about computers (a slight exaggeration), he asked me to see if I could find out where the letters were coming from.
I told him I would do what I could to see if I could track down who was sending the letters. On the way home that day, he asked me if I had any luck. I told him I was still looking into it. I told him I thought there might be a way to find a log somewhere that would tell me.
So, after lunch on Friday I walked over to the warehouse. When I entered, I signaled to Richard that I wanted to talk to him. — Remember. Richard and I had developed facial signals while carpooling with Bud Schoonover so that all we had to do was glance at each other and we instantly knew what each other was saying…
Richard and I stepped outside of the warehouse where we could be alone. He asked me if I had found the person sending him the letters. I told him I had (I knew I had to do this right or I would lose a good friend, so I said), “Yes. I have.”
I could see the look of excitement in his face. So I looked straight at him and I said, “I have been sending these letters to you.” He was stunned. He said, “What?” I said, “Richard. I have been sending them to you.”
I could see that he was very disappointed. After all. No two people could read each other’s expressions better than me and Richard. We practiced them every day. The corners of his mouth went down. The middle went up. Edges of the eyes went down. Eyes began to water. Yep. He as disappointed to say the least.
I told him I was sorry to get his hopes up. I put on the saddest look I could muster. Inside I wasn’t so sad. Actually I was pretty happy. I knew this was a tough moment for Richard, but he had spent an entire week flying high. For the first time in a long time, Richard had hope. A couple of hours of disappointment was well worth this past week.
I patted him on the back and he turned to walk back into the warehouse despondent. I went back to the electric shop.
As for my part, I continued sending Dick Dale printed messages from time to time. Just goofy messages like the following:
Dear Richard,
Sometimes when I type letters I find that the words I use are not always the typical type that I would use if I wrote a letter. The letters that I make when I write a letter aren’t the type of letters that I use when I type a letter. When I write a letter, the letters in the words are sometimes hard to distinguish, but the letters I type when i’m typing a letter are the type of letters that stand out clearly and uniformly. I can’t really say that when I type I’m right, or when I write I’m right, because I usually type a different type of letter than I write when I’m writing a letter. I typically use a different type of words when I’m typing than I use when I’m writing, so I really can’t say that writing is right when a typical typed letter is just as right as writing. That is just the type of person I am.
Typical Typist
After a few more days, Darlene Mitchell and Dick Dale began sending me letters indicating that the warehouse workers had been taken hostage, and they had a list of hostage demands. I would write back to them. The hostage letters and my replies would make up an entire blog post just by themselves.
So, what followed this episode? Well. Within a few weeks Dick Dale had attended an event at the Presbyterian Church in Ponca City where he met a very nice woman, Jill Cowan. He began dating her, and within the year they were married on November 13, 1988.
I like to think that I had given him the kick in the pants that he needed at the time that he needed it. For that one week where he had hope, he believed that someone else really cared for him. If he could believe that, then maybe it could really be true, even if in this case it turned out to only be one of his best friends.
I know that Dick Dale lived happily ever after. As I mentioned earlier, I wrote a post about Dick Dale about a time when I gave a Christmas present to Dick Dale, Christmas 1983. Well. as it turned out, my friend Richard was presented to Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven 25 years later on Christmas Day, 2008, 20 happy years after his marriage to Jill. I don’t really miss him. He is always with me in my heart to this day.
My Dear Friend Richard Dale
Learnin’ ’bout ‘lectricity with Andy Tubbs
Originally posted January 18, 2013:
The day I became an electrician at the coal-fired power plant, I suddenly became an expert in electricity. I think it was on Tuesday, just one day after joining the electric shop that I was walking through the welding shop when someone stopped me and asked me how they would wire their living room with different light switches at different corners and make it work correctly. As if I had been an electrician for years. Luckily I was just finishing a house wiring course at the Indian Meridian Vo-Tech in Stillwater, Oklahoma and they had us figure out problems just like those.
Within the first week, George Alley brought a ceiling fan to the shop that he had picked up somewhere and was wondering if we could get it to work. My foreman Charles Foster thought it would be a good small project for me to work on to help me learn about electrical circuits. After all, this ceiling fan could go slow, medium and fast, and it could go forward or reverse. Only at the moment, all it would do was sit there and hum when you hooked up the power. — So that was my first “unofficial” project, since the main goal was to make George happy so that he would help us out when we needed something special from the mechanics.
When I was a janitor, I had observed the electricians preparing to go to work in the morning, and often, one of them would go to the print cabinets at one end of the shop and pull out a blueprint and lay it across the work table and study it for a while. Then they would either put it back or fold it and put it in their tool bucket and head out the door to go do a job. Now, it was my turn.
Andy Tubbs was one of the two people that played the best jokes on me when I was a janitor. Larry Burns was the other person, and he was the person I was replacing as he had moved to another plant. Andy was the one that had taken the handle off of my push broom the moment I had my back turned so that when I turned around to grab my broom, only the broom head was on the floor, while the broom handle was across the counter by the lab, and Andy was across the other side of the room trying to act like he wasn’t paying attention, but with an expression like he had just played a darn good joke. — I actually had to go back into the bathroom I was cleaning so that I could laugh out loud. I was really impressed by Andy’s ability to play a good joke.
While I’m on the subject, shortly after I became an electrician, I was sitting in the electric shop office talking to Charles when he stopped and said, “Wait…. Listen….” We paused, waiting for something…. A few seconds later, the sound of a hoot owl came over the PA system (what we called the “Gray Phone”). Charles said, It’s an interesting coincidence that the only time the perfect sound of a hoot owl comes over the Gray Phone is when Andy Tubbs is riding in an elevator by himself or with a close friend.
Gaitronics Gray Phone
I had been sent with Andy Tubbs and Diana Lucas (later Diana Brien), to go to the coal yard and figure out why some circuit for the train gate was not working. Andy had pulled out the blueprints and was studying them. I came up alongside him and looked at all the blue lines running here and there with circles with letters and numbers, and what I recognized as open and closed switches….
Here is a simple electric circuit drawn in the style of many of the electric blueprint drawings
Andy stopped and gave me a momentary lecture on the nature of electricity. It was so perfectly summed up, that for years whenever I thought about the nature of electricity, I always began with remembering what Andy told me. He said this:
“Think of electricity like water in a hose. Voltage is the water pressure. Amperage is the amount of water going through the hose. You can have the nozzle on the end of the hose shut off so that no water is coming out and then you have no amperage, but you will still have the pressure as long as it is turned on at the source so you will still have voltage. In these diagrams, you just have to figure out how the water is going to get from one side to the other. These circles are things like relays or lights or motors. When the electricity makes it through them, they turn on as long as the electricity can make it all the way to the other side.”
That was it! That was my lesson in ‘lectricity. All I needed to know. The blueprints were big puzzles. I loved working puzzles. You just had to figure out how you were going to get something to run, and that meant that certain relays had to pickup to close switches that might pick up other relays to close other switches. I found that most of the electricians in the shop were good at working all sorts of puzzles.
Andy went to the cabinet and grabbed one of the Simpson multimeters and a handset for a telephone that had red and black wires wrapped around it.
A telephone handset that looked like this, only it had a battery taped to it, and two leads coming out the bottom
I was puzzled by this at first. I thought I would just wait to see what we did with it instead of ask what it was for. We grabbed our tool buckets (which also doubled as a stool and tripled as a trash can as needed), and put them in the substation truck. The other truck was being manned by the designated electrician truck driver for that week. We needed a truck that we could drive around in without having to hold up the truck driver.
We drove to the coalyard and went into the dumper switchgear. Andy and Diane opened up a large junction box that was full of terminal blocks with wires going every which way in an orderly fashion. They located a couple of wires, and Andy unwrapped the wires from the handset while Diane removed the screws holding the wires to the terminal block. Then Andy clipped one wire from the handset to each of the two wires and handed me the phone.
Diane told me that they were going to drive down toward the train gate where the railroad tracks come into the plant and try to find these wires on the other end. So, what they needed me to do was to talk on the phone so when they find my voice, they will know that they have the right wires. Diane said, “Just say anything.” Then they left the switchgear and I could hear them drive away in the truck.
Well. This was my opportunity to just talk to no one for a while without interruption. How many times do you get to do that in one day? Probably only when you are on the way to work and back again if you aren’t carpooling with anyone. Or you’re sittin’ on your “thinkin’ chair” in a single occupant restroom. So, I just kicked into Ramblin’ Ann mode and let myself go. I believe my monologue went something like this:
“The other day I was walking through a field, and who should I run across, but my old friend Fred. I said, ‘Well, Hi Fred, how is it going?’ and Fred told me that he was doing just fine, but that he had lost his cow and was wondering if I could help him look for it. I told him I couldn’t right now because I was helping some people find a wire at the moment, and if I became distracted, we might not only lose the cow, but we might lose the wires as well, so I better just keep on talking so that my friends on the other end can find the wires they are looking for. After that I went to the store and I picked up three cans of peas. I thought about getting four cans of peas but settled on three and brought them to the checkout counter, and while I was waiting in line I noticed that the little boy in front of me with his mom was looking at me as if he wanted to have one of my cans of peas, so I quickly made it clear to him that I was buying these cans of peas for myself by sliding them further away from him and glaring at him. Luckily the boy wasn’t persistent otherwise I would have broken down and given him a can of peas because he was looking kind of hungry and I was feeling sorry for him, though, I didn’t want him to know how I was feeling, so I put on a grim expression….”
Needless to say… My monologue went on for another 15 minutes. Yes… .15 minutes. I had expected Andy and Diane to have returned earlier, but I didn’t know how hard it was going to be to find the other end of the wires, so I just kept on ramblin’ to the best of my ability. It’s like what it says in the Bible. If we wrote down everything I said, it would have filled many volumes. Being a Disciple of Ramblin’ Ann came in handy that day. For more about Ramblin’ Ann, you can read the following post:
Ed Shiever Trapped in a Confined Space With A Disciple of Ramblin’ Ann
When Andy and Diane returned they said that they had found the wires right away, but that they had sat there for a while just listening to me ramble. They said I was cracking them up. They also mentioned that they thought I was completely crazy. Well. I was glad that they found the wires and that my rambling abilities had come in handy.
Five months after I had joined the electric shop, Andy and I were sent to Oklahoma City to learn about a new kind of electric troubleshooting. It was called “Digital Electronics”. I had just finished my electronics class at the Vo-Tech, and so I was eager to put it into practice. Andy and I went to a two day seminar where we learned to troubleshoot what was basically a PC motherboard of 1984. We used a special tool called a digital probe and learned how the processor worked with the memory chips and the bios. It wasn’t like a motherboard is today. It was simple.
A simple Motherboard like this
It was just designed for the class so that we could use the digital probe to follow the different leads from the chips as the electric pulses turned on and off.
We were using digital probes similar to this
At the time I was thinking that this was a waste of time. I had been learning all about troubleshooting electronic circuits from Bill Rivers and Sonny Kendrick. I couldn’t see how this was going to be useful. I didn’t know that within a couple of years, most of our electronic circuits in the precipitator controls were all going to be replaced with digital controls, and this was exactly what I was going to need to know.
So, Andy and I spent two days learning all the basics of how new computers were going to be working. This was the same year that Michael Dell was beginning his new computer company further down I-35 in Austin Texas. Who would have thought that 18 years later I would be working for Dell. But that’s another lifetime away…
Comments from the original post:
Early in my career at the Seminole Plant I learned when someone paged you on the gray phone, you should always check the earpiece of the phone before you put it on your ear – it might be full of clear silicone calk (or worse). Also, at the end of the day when you reach to pick up your lunch box, you should pick it up gently. Someone could have slipped a full bottle of mercury (like 20 pounds) in it. This prevents you from pulling the handle off your lunch box or hearing it crash to the floor, smashing everything in its path. It’s amazing what Power Plant Men are capable of doing.
-
Plant Electrician January 19, 2013:
We used hand lotion in the electric shop for the gray phone trick. I remember Andy catching an unsuspecting operator in the main switchgear more than once.
Hand lotion is much nicer than silicone caulk!
Bob Lillibridge Meets the Boiler Ghost
This is a repost of a story that was Posted on January 21, 2012. I rewrote it slightly and added a story to the bottom of it. Everything past the poem is new.
When I worked on the labor crew we used to have a lot of fun cleaning out the boiler. Especially the economizer section where we had that three foot crawl space in the middle where you had to lie flat with a the hydraulic spreaders and the four inch vacuum hose trying to suck out the chunks of ash clinkers before the crawl space filled up with ash. After lying around in this wonderful environment for a day or so, one begins to look around for something to break the drone of the sucking sound of the vacuum and the swishing sound of the crosscut saws welded end on end as they rose and fell in a rhythmic beat propelled by Labor Crew He-men ten feet above this large bundle of Economizer tubes.
Bob Lillibridge was never in a bad mood when it came to cleaning the boiler. His thin physique allowed him easy access to the crawl space. The wild glare in his eye and cigarette smile kept everyone guessing what he would do next. The texture of Bob’s face was like those bikers that have spent too many hours riding their Harleys through the desert without wearing a helmet.
Ok. I’m over exaggerating. Bob didn’t have this many wrinkles
He was especially cheerful when we were able to work in the Economizer crawl space with Ronnie Banks. Ronnie Banks, unlike Bob was not wiry. His stature was more like a thin black bear standing on his hind legs. He sort of walked that way too. I developed a song when Ronnie Banks and I worked together that went to the tune of the Lone Ranger theme (the William Tell Overture), that consisted of saying his name rapidly over and over again (like: Ronnie Banks Ronnie Banks Ronnie Banks Banks Banks). It felt good to say, and it seemed to amuse Ronnie Banks.
Bob on the other hand knew that Ronnie was highly claustrophobic. So, he would let Ronnie crawl through the too small hole into the boiler, then would crawl in after him. After they were in the boiler far enough, Bob would grab both of Ronnie’s legs and hug them as hard as he could. This would send Ronnie into a Claustrophobic seizure where he would flail himself around wildly yelling unrecognizable words such as “Blahgruuuee” and “uuunnnhh-ope” and other similar pronunciations. I think Bob Lillibridge just liked to hear Ronnie Banks speaking in tongues. I have to admit it did give you a strange sort of spiritual high when you saw the smile of pure satisfaction on Bob’s face as his body flew by while he was hugging Ronnie’s legs that were spinning and twirling all round a crawl space that was only three feet high.
I think it was these kind of spiritual moments that gave me the dream to write a story about the day that Bob Lillibridge met the Boiler Ghost. It went like this:
The Boiler Ghost
From the darkness of the boiler it came.
The Boiler Ghost, black, enormous, full of hate.
I watched with disbelief as it edged its way along.
Its eyes, red and piercing, with a stare of terror
It glanced first this way and then that.
As its eyes passed through me I was filled with
Such a terrible fright that I felt near the point of death.
The massive head hung down between two pointed
Shoulder blades vulture-like.
The most terrifying thing of all was the gaping mouth
That hung open.
It was full of such a terrible darkness,
So dark and evil as if it were the gates of Hell.
Just then I noticed its eyes had fixed on Bob.
Bob Lillibridge.
He was pressed against the wall by the piercing stare,
His mouth open wide as if to scream.
Eyes bulging out in utter terror.
Mindless with pure fright.
I tried to scream, but felt such a choking force
I could make no noise.
With steady movement the monster advanced toward Bob.
Bob was white as ash staring into that dark empty mouth.
Smoke poured out of a flat nose on that horrid face.
It reached out a vile and tremendous hand
And grabbed Bob,
Who burst into flames at his touch.
In one movement he was gone.
Vanished into the mouth of pure darkness.
The Evil Ghost glanced first this way, then that,
And into the darkness of the boiler it went.
All was quiet,
The roar of the boiler told me I was safe once again.
Until the boiler ghost should decide to return.
I showed this poem to Bob after I had written it down. He chuckled a little, but didn’t seem too amused by it. Actually he looked a little worried.
Some time after I had written this poem and was actually on the labor crew (I had been on loan while I was a janitor when we were cleaning the economizer), we were in the bottom ash hopper at the bottom of the #2 boiler while it was offline. There are two hoppers side-by-side, and we were breaking up some hard clinkers that had built up in there. I had climbed over the one hopper where we were entering the hoppers to check something out, when all of the sudden someone started sandblasting the other hopper.
Now, these hoppers are quite large and you would have thought that someone sandblasting over on the other hopper wouldn’t really bother you if you were over in the other hopper, but I can assure you, that isn’t the case. As I was only wearing a t-shirt and jeans, when the sandblast hose started blowing out sand, before I could climb over the hopper to try to escape, I was being pelted by sand.
It felt as if someone was just aiming the sandblast hose over the top of the hopper toward me. I searched around the hopper to find a place where I was being pelted the least, and then I just crouched there with my face against the side of the hopper to protect it. Finally after 10 to 15 minutes (though it seemed more like an hour), the sandblast hose was turned off, and I was able to climb over the hopper and out the portal to fresh air.
I don’t think anyone even realized I was over in the other hopper when they decided to turn the sandblast hose on. I just climbed out of there and went about my business just slightly bruised all over from being blasted by sand. — It didn’t occur to me until just now that this is the hopper where I had seen the Boiler Ghost climb out, and Bob was there that day, and may have even been the person holding the sandblast hose…
Later Bob was able to move off of the labor crew. I think he went to the welding shop. Then later during the 1987-88 reshuffle, I think he was told that he was going to have to go back to the labor crew, and that was too much for him after being on the crew so long before being able to move off. So, he left the plant. I never knew for certain what happened to Bob. I think he still lives somewhere around Pawnee, Oklahoma.
Black Ops Raid Power Plant — Power Plant Men Ignore Attackers
I don’t know if they called them “Black Ops” in 1994, but when the control room operator David Evans answered the phone that day in October, I don’t think he ever expected to have the person on the other end of the line tell him that a military special forces unit was going to stage a mock raid on the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma some time that night. I’m sure Jack Maloy, the shift supervisor, was equally surprised when David told him about the phone call. I heard later that Jack was pretty upset to find out that a military force was going to be attacking our plant in the middle of the night without his permission!
David Evans waits for Jim Padgett to get a cup of coffee — Thanks Jim Cave for the photo
The first we heard about the call was when Jasper Christensen called a meeting of the entire maintenance department on the spur of the moment in the main break room. He told us about the phone call. He said we didn’t have any more information than that. Though the maintenance department shouldn’t be working that night, Jasper said that just in case we were called out for something, we should know that a group of commandos were going to be performing some sort of mock raid on our plant. If we encountered any soldiers sneaking around the plant in the middle of the night in full military gear, not to be alarmed. Just go on doing what you’re doing and don’t bother them.
Pay no attention to the man behind the mask. Photo from Call of Duty
Now that it is 21 years later (well, almost) the truth can finally come out…. Isn’t that how it goes? When we are sworn to secrecy, isn’t it 21 years before we can finally speak out? I don’t remember us taking an oath or anything, but that’s the way it is with Power Plant Men. They just assume that if the military is staging a mock raid on our plant, it is a matter of national security. It seemed as if our plant sort of matched the layout of a power plant somewhere in Central America where the real raid was going to take place.
The main difference between our Power Plant and the one in Honduras, or wherever it was, is that our plant had recently gone through a downsizing. So, our operators at night now had to perform the duties that had before been done by the labor crew. They had to do coal cleanup throughout the conveyor system.
Coal conveyor carrying coal to the coal silos from the coalyard
This meant that if one of our auxiliary operators happened to run across someone dressed in the outfit above, they would have naturally handed him either a water hose or a shovel and pointed to the nearest conveyor and said something like, “I’ll start on this end, and you can start over there.” After all. He would already be wearing his respirator.
That day on the way home that day, Scott Hubbard and I discussed the significance of such a raid on our Power Plant. A year and a half earlier, Janet Reno had really messed up the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Texas when it burned down and burned everyone to death including women and children. So, it would be good to go into a situation like this more prepared.
I had often thought about the steps that could covertly be taken to single-handed destroy the power plant without using any kind of explosives. Those who understood how all the systems worked together could do it if they really wanted to. Of course, that was just how I might occupy my mind when I was doing a repetitive job, like sweeping out the main switchgear. What better place for those thoughts to drift into your mind.
A picture of a clean switchgear. Picture 6 rows of switchgear like this
Actually, now that I think about it, instead of sending in the Special Forces, just send in a few Plant Operators, Electricians and Instrument and Controls guys and they could totally destroy the plant in a matter of hours if that was their intent. The same thing could be said about putting a few incompetent people in upper management even if it isn’t their intent, only it takes longer than a couple of hours to destroy the plant in that case.
The next morning when we arrived at the plant, our foreman Alan Kramer told us the stories about the raid that happened the night before. This is what I can remember about it (if any Power Plant Men want to correct me, or add some more stories, please do in the comments below).
Alan Kramer
First he said that it appeared as if the commandos had landed in some kind of stealth helicopter out on the north side of the intake because later when the power plant men had investigated the site they could see where two wheels on the helicopter had left an impression in the mud. Dan Landes had been keeping a lookout from the top of the Unit 1 boiler, and he thought for a moment that he saw the flash of a red light…. which… thinking about it now, could have been one of those laser sites taking aim at him and mock assassinating him by shooting him in the eye from about 1/2 mile. You know how good American Snipers can be (my plug for the new movie). Good thing he was wearing his auto-tinting safety glasses.
That’s Dan Landes in the second row with the Gray Shirt – Otherwise known as Deputy Dan
We also heard that one of the operators, Maybe Charles Peavler (Charles is standing next to Dan wearing the pink shirt and carrying something in his lower lip) had stepped out of the office elevator on the ground floor only to come face-to-face with a soldier. When the soldier was seen by the operator, he just turned around and walked out of the door… he evidently was considered a casualty if he was seen by anyone. Either that, or he had to go do coal cleanup the rest of the night.
I think it was Jeff Meyers (front row, left in the picture above) who told us later that the Special Ops forces had left a present for the operators on the Turbine-Generator Room floor. Tracked across the clean shiny red T-G floor were muddy boot prints leading from the Unit 1 boiler entrance to the door to the control room. The tracks ended at the control room door.
The Red T-G floor is always kept clean. The control room entrance is under the grating where this picture was taken. – Thanks Jim Cave for the picture
The tracks were extra muddy as if someone had intentionally wanted us to see that someone had walked right up to the control room door. The tracks did not lead away from the door. They just ended right there.
So, we did have proof that the commandos had actually visited our plant that night, only because one of the operators had come face-to-face with one in the main lobby. If that hadn’t happened, then they would have come and gone and we would have been none-the-wiser… other than wondering about the strange muddy footprints and the impression left in the mud by the stealth helicopter.
Stealth Helicopter
I suppose it was easy for the Power Plant operators to ignore the commandos since for the most part, they never saw them coming or going. The Power Plant Men were happy to play their part in the mock raid. Of all that has been asked of these Power Plant Men over the years, this was one of the more “unique” events. How many Power Plant Men across the country can say that they took part in a Special Ops Commando Raid on their Power Plant?
All I can say is that the commandos sure picked a great bunch of Power Plant Men and Women to attack. We were all honored (even those of us who were at home in bed asleep at the time) to be able to help out the military any way we could.
Bohn’s Boner and the Power Plant Precipitator Computer
Originally posted on January 11, 2014:
Up front, I would like to clarify the title so that those who are quickly perusing articles looking for something salacious won’t have to read too far before they realize this isn’t what they are seeking. The word “Boner” in this headline refers to a “joke” played on a Plant Engineer by the name of George Bohn at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. When I was a boy we had a joke book called the “Omnibus Book of Boners”. Most of my life I never thought about the word “Boner” as having another meaning. Which, after this joke was played might have explained the expression on George’s face.
Joke Book
In an earlier Post “Power Plant Humor and Joking With Gene Day” I explained that when playing a Power Plant joke, the longer it takes to play a simple joke, the better the effect. I think the reason for this is that when the person realizes that a joke has been played on them by a fellow Power Plant Man and even though it was simple, the person went through the effort over a long period of time, just to make you smile for a moment. Then you know that this person must truly be a good friend. Who else would waste countless hours on someone over days, weeks, or even months, just to make someone smile once?
Well…. Bohn’s Boner lasted for over six months! Yeah. Six months, at least.
I saw the opportunity arise one day after we had received a new hard drive for precipitator computer for Unit 2. We had the computers for a couple of years after we went to digital controls in the precipitator before the hard drive crashed. This happened to be a project that George Bohn had managed. He was the project manager and had overseen the installation of the precipitator controls, which included the two precipitator computers in the control room. One for each unit. They sat around behind the big control panel that you see when you watch an older movie about a Power Plant Control Room, like the China Syndrome.
I love this picture!
Anyway, each of the computers had 30 Megabyte hard drives. Yeah. You heard that right! 30 Megabytes. That’s not a typo. Not Gigabytes… nope. Megabytes. Just this morning at Dell, I received an e-mail with a file attached that was over 30 Megabytes in size (Thanks Norma). I’m talking about an IBM AT computer:
IBM PC
Well, the Unit 2 precipitator computer was used to monitor all of the 84 control cabinets in the Precipitator control room. It indicated how much voltage and amperage were on each cabinet, as well as the spark rate, and the setting on each cabinet. It was really a great step up. I’m sure today you can probably do that from your phone while you are sitting in a movie theater just before they tell you to silence your “Cell Phone Now” and stop texting your neighbor. Back then, it was amazing.
All the operator had to do was go over to the computer, pull up the screen (this was before Windows, but the program was running by default), and type the keyboard command to tell it to print and “voila”, it would print out all that information. The operator could look at it to see if there was a problem, and if not, he just saved it with all the other reports he was supposed to create during his shift.
Believe it or not. Before this time, the operator actually walked up to all of the 84 cabinets on each unit and wrote down the voltage and amperage of each cabinet on a form. You can imagine how much happier they were to be able to print it all out in the control room. Hours and hours saved each week.
So, when the 30 Megabyte hard drive crashed George Bohn ordered a new hard drive from the IT department in Oklahoma City. A couple of weeks later, we received the new hard drive from the city. George gave it to me and asked me to install it in the computer.
When I installed the hard drive, I found that it had already been formatted. All I had to do was install the program and we were good to go. I backed up the program from the Unit 1 computer and copied it onto the new hard drive using a floppy disk. Yeah. Programs were a lot smaller then. A 360 Kilobyte floppy disk was all that was needed to hold the entire Precipitator program.
I noticed right away that instead of being the 30 Megabytes we had expected, there was only 20 Megabytes on the drive. That was all right with me. 20 Megabytes would be enough so that we didn’t have to back anything up very often.
As I was installing the program and testing it, and going through the code figuring out how to change Unit 1 to Unit 2, I had an idea…. At the command prompt, I typed “D:” and hit enter. You know what I was checking, right? D colon, and enter…..
sure enough. there was a D drive on this hard drive. Another 20 Megabytes were on this partition. You see. This was actually a 40 Megabyte hard drive that had been partitioned as two 20 megabyte drives.
It was at this point that I thought I would play a little joke on George. I figured he would come and look at this computer and at first he would find that the new hard drive was only a 20 Megabyte drive instead of the 30 Megabyte drive that he had ordered. I also figured that like me, he would think about it for a minute and then check to see if there was an extra partition and would find the extra drive.
So I thought I would leave him a little present. I went to D Drive and at the command prompt (gee… the only thing you had was a command prompt. You didn’t even call it a command prompt then. You called it a DOS prompt) that looked like this: D:> I typed – “label d: Bohns Boner” For all you older DOS people, you know what this did, right? It labeled the D drive volume name “Bohns Boner”. At the time I think we are on DOS 4.0 or something close to that. The volume length was limited to 11 characters and Bohns Boner took exactly 11 characters. The label couldn’t be longer than that.
Now, all I had to do was call up George Bohn, tell him I had installed the hard drive in the precipitator computer and it was up and running and go to the electric shop and wait for him to come down with a smile on his face over the name of the second drive on the computer. So I did. I told Charles Foster and Terry Blevins.
After the reorganization, Tom Gibson, our Electric Supervisor had decided that Terry Blevins would maintain the precipitator on Unit 2, and I would maintain Unit 1, which was great for me, because I was no longer working on both of them by myself. So, Charles and I were waiting for George to arrive in the electric shop office. It didn’t take long.
George came in the office and said, “Did you see that they only gave us a 20 Megabyte hard drive instead of a 30 Megabyte drive. (Oh. So, he hadn’t found the second partition). I replied, “Yeah. I noticed that.” George was a little perturbed that he didn’t get what he ordered. He said he was going to contact them and have them send us a 30 Megabyte drive. We had paid for it. I told him that he should. Especially since we had paid for it (keeping a straight concerned look on my face).
Anyway, a couple of weeks went by and there was no new hard drive, and George hadn’t said anything more about it. I thought he might have eventually found the second drive, but then he would say something like “I can’t believe they didn’t send us the right hard drive” and I would know that he still hadn’t figured it out.
One day the operators came to me and pulled me aside and asked me if there was some way when they were on the night shift if they could use the precipitator computer to create documents. At this time PCs were pretty sparse. The only good computers in the control room were these two precipitator computers and the Shift Supervisor’s office. the Precipitator computers just sat there monitoring the precipitator all the time, even when no one cared.
The plant had purchased so many licenses to use Word Perfect, a word processor that was the “in thing” before Windows and Word came around. So, I installed Word Perfect for them on the extra drive on the Unit 2 precipitator computer. That is, Bohns Boner. I explained to them that they could only use it when George Bohn was not around, because he didn’t know the drive existed and I wanted him to find it himself someday.
Word Perfect for DOS
Everyone agreed. All the Control Room operators that were at all interested in creating documents, like Jim Cave and Dave Tarver and others, knew about Bohns Boner, and knew that it was a secret.
The Control room had a laser printer installed next to the Shift Supervisor’s office so they could print out Clearances and have them look nice. They had some new Clearance system they installed, and this came with it. So, the next question was… Is there a way we can print our documents out using the Laser Printer instead of the clunky Dot Matrix printer tied to the Precipitator computer?
I ordered a 50 foot Printer cable (I paid for it out of my own pocket) and kept it coiled up under the small desk where the precipitator computer sat and explained that they could just disconnect the dot matrix printer on the back of the computer and plug the other end into the Laser Printer and they could print out nice neat looking documents. But… They had to do it at night or when they were sure that George Bohn was not around because he still didn’t know the extra drive existed. Everyone agreed. They would have to string the printer cable across the Control Room floor to reach the laser printer.
50 foot Power Plant Parallel Printer Cable
Like I said earlier. this went on for well over 6 months. It seemed like almost a year. Then one day, George Bohn came down to the Electric Shop office while Charles and I were sitting there for lunch. He said that he had asked Oklahoma City about the hard drive again, and they had insisted that they had sent the correct hard drive to our plant. Then we could see a light go on in his head. He said, “Do you suppose that they partitioned the disk into two drives?” (Bingo! He had figured it out). I said, “Could be.”
Charles and I sat there and looked at him while we ate our lunch. The cherry tomatoes Charles had given me tasted especially good with my ham and cheese sandwich that day. I knew that we were finally only minutes away from the end of the joke we had been playing on George for the past so many months. George leaned back in the chair with his thin long legs stretched out and his hands behind his head. I could tell he was thinking about it.
Then he rose from his chair and headed out the door. Charles and I smiled at each other. We both waited. A few minutes later George came back in the office. He had found Bohns Boner. You see. When you went to a drive back then on the command prompt, the first thing you would see was the volume name. So as soon as he typed the D colon and enter, it would have said “Bohns Boner”.
George sat down in a chair. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there with a straight face as if he didn’t know what to think. I thought…. well, he is an Engineer. Maybe he doesn’t know what to do when Power Plant Men play jokes on them. He looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be upset or glad that we had an even bigger hard drive than he ordered. I don’t know if he ever figured out that the longer the joke takes, the more we liked him.
I guess George felt foolish that it took him so long to find that extra drive. I suppose he might have thought he knew me well enough that if there had been an extra drive on the computer, when he first mentioned it, I would have told him that it was partitioned into two drives, so he didn’t give it a second thought. I guess he didn’t know me as well as he thought.
Anyway, after that, he never said anything about the operators using the computer for other uses than monitoring the precipitator, which was always a problem before. George never mentioned the hard drive again. I don’t remember now if I later changed the volume name on the drive. It seemed like not long after the computers were upgraded from the IBM AT to something like a XT 286.
Oh. I had another joke I played on George. The other one lasted for years, and he never figured it. I will write about that one later. That one wasn’t so much of a joke as it was out of necessity. I won’t say anymore about it now. You’ll have to wait at least another week or two.
Power Plant Men 