Power Plant Spider Wars II — The Phantom Menace
Favorites Post #26
Originally posted February 7, 2015
I suppose we are all born with certain phobias. Some people are scared of spiders. Some people can’t stand the sight of snakes. When I was young just speaking to a girl was the most terrifying thing I encountered. I never liked spiders, but I didn’t have a great fear of them. But there were times in my life when faced with an overwhelming spider army, I wondered if I should fear spiders a little more than I did. This is one of those stories my children would want to hear when they were in the mood for a horror story.
If you are terrified by spiders, then stop reading this post now. I don’t want to be responsible for any injuries that may occur when you fly backward off of your chair while reading this post.
I wrote a Power Plant man post three years ago called “Power Plant Spider Wars and Bugs in the Basement“. I began that story by mentioning that there were two distinct times in my life when I went Head-to-Head with a horde of spiders. The second time I fought side-by-side with my trusty friend and carpooling buddy, Scott Hubbard. This post is about the second Power Plant Spider War.
I believe it was the beginning of an overhaul during October, 1997 at the Coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. Scott Hubbard and I knew where we would be working. It was the Precipitator. The big structure that sat between the boiler and the smoke stacks. It took the ash out of the boiler exhaust before blowing it out of the stack. Scott and I always worked on the precipitators during overhauls. No one else ever wanted to volunteer for that job. It was a dirty, thankless job that the rest of the plant tried their best to ignore. Yet, if not maintained properly, would waste more power than all the other equipment in the plant combined.
Anyway, it was a Monday morning at the beginning of the overhaul and Scott and I decided to carry some tools to the enclosed Precipitator roof to prepare for the next three weeks of work ahead of us. It was an hour earlier than we would normally begin working because overhauls meant working long days. So, we usually came to work in the dark, and left for home in the dark.
Scott Hubbard
Scott and I climbed the ladder to the precipitator roof from the walkway just below. When we did, we were confronted with a site we were not expecting to see, and one that we will never forget. In the previous Spider Wars post, when I walked into the basement below the main switchgear, I was confronted with a black moving mass of bugs, spiders and snakes…. This time, we were standing, staring what looked like a snow storm had blown through the precipitator transformers.
There are 84 eight foot tall transformers on the precipitator roof in 3 rows of 28. Each row has the transformers staggered back and forth like the black squares on two rows on a checker board. The row of transformers we were facing was completely covered in spider webs. — Let me say it again…. Completely covered in spider webs! Not just spider webs strung between the transformers…. No….. It was a solid net of spider webs from the ground to the top of the entire row of transformers.
Spider Webs covering the ground in Australia gives you a little idea of our problem, only our spider webs stretched 8 feet tall from the transformer stand to the top
Scott and I were going to be spending the next three weeks on this precipitator roof working on all of the transformers. I don’t remember exactly how long we stood there staring at this “Kingdom of Spiders”. It seemed like a long time, but I suspect it was actually about 15 seconds. We decided right away that we couldn’t even begin to ground out all the transformers (which was required before opening the precipitator doors) until we had cleared out the spiders.
The spiders that were in these webs were not your typical garden variety. They were a special kind of Daddy Long Leg called a Cellar Spider.
Cellar Spider
They are also known as “Invisible Spiders” because when they are disturbed, they vibrate so fast that they seem to disappear. We were easily facing well over 200,000 of these spiders.
So that you can see what we were going against, here is a short video I found on You Tube:
For those who are not able to view YouTube videos directly from the picture, here is the link: Pholcidae Vibrating
Scott and I decided to go the the tool room and pick up 4 propane torches (or propane accessories for King of the Hill fans) and some extra propane bottles. The only thing we could think to do was to burn them out.
Power Plant Propane torch
We went straight to work knowing that this was going to be a long slow process. I began on one row of transformers and Scott took the next one over. I began from the walkway with a propane torch in each hand, I began burning away the spider webs which quickly melted away in the flames. Spiders went crazy. They were scurrying throughout the mass of webs. Not necessarily trying to get away, they were more interested in standing their ground and trying to intimidate me into leaving them alone. As you can see in the video above, these spiders shake rapidly when disturbed.
After clearing the ladder that led down into a section of transformers, I descended down. into the mass of webs, burning them away as I went. I was wearing my Carhartt coveralls, leather gloves, safety glasses and my hard hat.
Carhartt Coveralls
Once down between the transformers, I had to burn away the webs over my head. Massive amounts of spiders were being burned. Many of them were dropping on me from all directions. I knew that even though these spiders are poisonous, they are not able to bite a human because of the shape of their mouth. I just hoped that the spiders knew that, so they wouldn’t try just in case there was a wide-mouthed spider in the bunch.
I could feel spiders crawling down my neck, inside my hardhat, up my pant legs, around my safety glasses and the sleeves of my coveralls. Talk about getting the Willies. I could take one hand and wipe off 10 or 20 spiders from one arm at a time. I would just point the propane torch at my coverall sleeve and they would all quickly turn to crisp.
As I was working my way down the row of transformers, if someone else had entered the precipitator roof and seen me in there, it would look as if I had been caught by the spiders and wrapped up alive. There were times when I looked a lot like this picture, only with Cellar Spiders….
Person covered in spider webs from the movie “Kingdom of Spiders”
While I was in this situation, I kept having a feeling of claustrophobia, as if I was being smothered by the spider webs crawling with massive amounts of spiders. I did my best to fight this feeling by concentrating on the task. I pretended in my mind that I was back in my bedroom as a child cleaning my room.
When I was young my bedroom would be so messy you couldn’t walk across the floor. I would start in one corner of my room and clean it systematically by expanding out from that one spot, making sure that everything behind me was clean. That’s what Scott and I were doing. As we moved through the thick mass of webs, we made sure that we had a clear path back to the ladder.
Another thought that entered my mind was “What would happen if this massive ball of spider web were to all go up in flames at once?” Luckily that never happened. The webs just melted. The spiders were so thick that the burning flesh from the spiders gave off the same odor as any other burning flesh, which is a very unpleasant smell.
As I pointed out, when Cellar Spiders are agitated, they vibrate up and down very quickly, so as I was burning my way through the webs, the webs were shaking every which way. There is a good video that shows a cellar spider in India vibrating so fast that it appears to become invisible. Watch this:
Here is the direct link: Vibrating Cellar Spider
After a day and a half, we had completely wiped out the spider population on the roof of the precipitator and were ready to go to work. I had also taken a few of these spiders home with me. Some had climbed down into my clothes, so that when I was home and took off my shirt and pants, out came some spiders. It wasn’t long before we had our own colony of cellar spiders at our house. They tried taking over my garage.
A few years later when I moved to Texas to work for Dell, some came along with me. I would find them in my garage, and various places around the house. I don’t think they liked living in Texas though. It was probably too hot for them. They eventually died out, so that I haven’t seen a cellar spider in my house for many years (since originally posting this post, cellar spiders have once again showed up at my house. I suppose they heard about me being spider-less and decided to help me out with that).
One day in 2003 when I was working at Dell on a project, and was sitting in a small team room, a cellar spider crawled out of my laptop bag and climbed up the wall next to me. When I saw it, I pointed it out to the consultant with me and showed him how the spiders vibrate when you disturb them. I also told him this story about the day when we went to battle a solid wall of Daddy Long Legs that had taken over the precipitator roof at the Power plant where I used to work. That spider stayed in the team room with us for about a week until I think it died of boredom.
It was clear why the spiders had invaded the roof of the precipitator. It was always full of flying bugs because the lights were always on. At night, moths, gnats and flies would fly around the light fixtures. It was a warm protected environment. We had worked to clear the pigeons out of the enclosed roof area, so they weren’t going to keep the spider population down.
I think there was another reason the Cellar Spiders liked the Precipitator roof. I suspect that these spiders use their vibrating skills when they are mating to attract each other. Well. The roof of the precipitator has 168 vibrators that are used to shake the ash off of the wires inside precipitator. Vibrators are always buzzing on the precipitator roof.
I suppose to a little Cellar Spider brain (I know… they don’t really have brains), the precipitator roof must have seemed like a Holy Temple to them with all those vibrators buzzing constantly.
For years after this event I would occasionally wake up in a sweat suddenly in the middle of the night, throwing the sheets off my bed in a panic because I felt spiders crawling all over me. My wife would wake up wondering if I was all right. I would realize that it was just a dream (or was it?) and go back to bed.
Ok. I have a side spider story about this:
When I was in the second grade, occasionally, I would wake up at night after having a dream where I picked up a spider in my hand, only to feel a spider really sitting in my hand. I would yell for my parents who would come running to my room (which I shared with my sister and brother). I would tell my parents that a big spider was on my hand. My dad would pull my mattress away from the wall and look under my sheets and under the mattress, but would never find a spider. So, then I would go back to bed.
This happened about three times during a 3 month period. The same thing. I would wake up feeling like there was a big spider in the palm of my hand. Each time, my dad would come and check it out, but never find a spider.
Then came the day that we moved out of the “Married Student Housing” where we lived in Columbia, Missouri to move into a real house where I only had to share my bedroom with my brother. I was in my bedroom when my dad took my bed apart to load it into the U-Haul. As he pulled my bed away from the wall, there was a very large wolf spider on the wall. I yelled out, “There! That’s the spider that has been crawling on me at night!
Wolf Spider
End of Side Spider Story
I would like to point out one more thing before I end this post. It was always an honor to work alongside my friend Scott Hubbard. I could not have had a better partner during this Spider War. He had my back throughout this conflict. Those that work around Scott every day may not realize the amount of bravery and outstanding character that he possesses. Scott is truly one of the best Power Plant Men I was ever blessed to work with.
Elvin Power Plant Tool Room Adventures With Bud
Originally posted September 27, 2014, added a picture of Bud
When I say that Bud Schoonover is known as “Elvin”, I don’t mean to imply that he was Elvin in nature. What I mean to say is that he did not necessarily possess the qualities of an elf. Well, except for his smile, which is somewhat Elvish-like. Bud’s smile was usually more like a look of warning for those who didn’t know him well. I have always said that he reminded me of a six foot, 5 inch tall, white Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son, and about 75 to 100 pounds heavier.
Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son smiling like Bud Schoonover
What I mean by saying that Bud is known as “Elvin” is that is what his Mother called him when he was born. Though somewhere along the line he became known as Bud; Not from his middle name… because I think that was Floyd. Bud was my good friend and carpooling buddy (See the post “Carpooling with Bud Schoonover“). Maybe that was why people called him Bud. Because he was everyone’s “buddy”.
I don’t mean to make it sound like Bud has passed away, because as far as I know, he is still an active Republican voter living on South Palm Street in Ponca City. I also don’t want you to think that I was only friends with Bud Schoonover because he was a good carpooling buddy. No. Bud had all sorts of talents. He gave great weather reports each morning when we would gather to take our trek to the Power Plant some 20 miles away, as I mentioned in the other post about Bud (since first writing this post, Bud has passed away. See the post: Dynamic Power Plant Trio – And Then There was One).
I don’t think that there was anyone at the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma that didn’t like Bud. There was just something naturally likable about him. Bud worked in the tool room and the warehouse ever since the day I first arrived at the plant in 1979. — Well, the warehouse wasn’t much of a warehouse back then. It just had stuffed piled up against the walls. No shelves, No storage racks. No drawers and bins full of parts.
Bud is four years and 26 days younger than my own father, and four years and 18 days younger than Elvis Presley.
The King
He will be 76 years old this January. Needless to say, Bud retired from the Power Plant in 1994 after having just turned 55. At his going away party, some guys at the plant fixed up a Wal-Mart shopping cart with a bunch of accessories attached to it so that he would be properly equipped when he went to work at Wal-Mart as a Greeter. — For those of you who don’t know…. Wal-Mart used to hire elderly people to greet people when you walked into the store. They might pull a cart out of the stack of carts and give it to you if you looked like you were in need of a cart.
Wal-Mart Shopping Cart
Bud was extra careful when working in the warehouse. He wanted to make sure that he was getting everything right, so he would check, and double check, and then check again…. just to make sure everything matched. One good example of this was when he was tasked with ordering a half set of coal burner nozzles and tips for the boiler.
There were 24 of these Coal burner nozzle and tips in the boiler. The nozzles costing about $13,000 and the tips ran somewhere around $4,000 each.
Coal Burner Nozzle
There was another assembly that attached to the end with the hole on the side that allowed the nozzle to change the pitch it was called the Tip.
So, Bud wanted to make sure he created the order correctly. So, when Bud placed the order with the supplier, he not only included the Supplier’s part number, but he also included the manufacturer’s part number. Just to make sure they knew they were sending the correct part, he even sent them the old manufacturing part number that they used a few years before they changed their part numbering system. — So, when he sent the order, it had all three part number for the 12 nozzles. He did the same thing with the smaller piece for the end of the nozzle.
To Bud’s surprise, one bright sunny morning in December, 1989 (well, it may not have been that sunny that day), guess what showed up at the loading dock? 12 nozzles with the suppliers part number, 12 nozzles with the manufacturer’s part number, and 12 more nozzles with the manufacturer’s old part number! Yeah…. Didn’t count on that one.
I think I know how Bud must have felt when that happened. Probably the same way I felt the morning I was summoned to the front office to pick up my mail, only to find a stack of a couple hundred envelopes from all over the company after printing something out on all the printers in the company (See “Power Plant Customer Service Team Gone Wild“). I think Bud took these things in more in stride than most people might. His reaction to finding out that the order he had created for $156,000 had suddenly turned into $468,000 was probably something like…. “Oh Geez. I sure don’t want to do that again!”
During the “We’ve Got the Power” program (see the post “Power Plant We’ve Got the Power“), the HR and Warehouse director, Linda Dallas asked us if we would put in a proposal to scrap the extra nozzles since these nozzles were very big. She didn’t think it would look good if her own team created the proposal since she was already responsible for the warehouse. We had two people from the warehouse on our We’ve Got the Power team, Dick Dale and Darlene Mitchell, so she thought we could do something out the conundrum. Two nozzles fit on a pallet, taking up space all over the warehouse.
The nozzles with the Tips attached
We could save money just by scrapping it because we wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the parts. It cost too much to return them to the supplier because the restocking fee was too high. — And E-Bay didn’t exist back then.
Instead of accepting our proposal, it was decided that instead of just changing out half of the nozzles during the next outage, they would just replace all of the nozzles. This reduced the number of nozzles left in the warehouse to a more manageable number. So, Bud’s Faux Pas, may have just helped increase the efficiency of the boiler significantly with the replacement of the nozzles which may have translated into savings of unknown millions of dollars, of which Bud received no credit… But that’s okay. Bud wasn’t one to seek credit for his ingenious accidental idea of triple ordering boiler Nozzles.
One of the favorite stories I would tell my children as they were growing up when they would ask me to tell them a Bud Schoonover story was the story about the last tool in the tool room. — This is Bud’s own special way of handling the restocking of the tool room. It goes like this…. For instance….
If you went to the tool room to ask for a yellow flashlight and it happened to be the last yellow flashlight in the tool room, and it was Bud Schoonover’s week to man the tool room, then you would hear something like this:
Yellow Flashlight similar to the one I carried
“I can’t give you a yellow flashlight, because I only have one left.” — You may want to respond with something like, “But Bud, if there’s one left, then why can’t I have it?” Bud’s reply would be, “Because if I give you the last one, then I’d have to order more.”
At this point, you may want to start over asking if you can have a yellow flashlight, with the hope that Bud may have forgotten that he was down to his last yellow flashlight…. You might even phrase it a little differently… You might say something like, “Well… Can I just borrow a yellow flashlight for a few hours? At least for as long as I have to do some work in the dark?” — I have seen this approach almost work. He would stop and think about it like Andy Griffith in “No Time For Sergeants” trying to answer questions being asked by the Psychiatrist:
Andy Griffith talking to the Psychiatrist in No Time for Sergeants
Then the next question you may ask (I know, since I asked it more than once) is: “So, Bud, how about ordering some more yellow flashlights.” Bud would reply with something like, “No. I don’t really want to order anything this week.”, as he nods in the direction of the computer monitor sitting on the desk just to his left… — Oh…. computer shy…. that’s why. Not comfortable ordering stuff on the computer (especially after ordering all those coal burner nozzles).
I can understand that. He is the same age as my own father, and my dad at that time would literally call me at least one time every single day to ask me a computer question. Like…. “How do I move a paragraph from one part of a document to another part?” — “Um… Yeah Dad, (for the hundredth time), you do it like this….”
There’s something about every one of my friends and family that were born between December 30, 1934 and January 27th 1939. They all had the same problem with computers. Must be that particular generation born within that four year period. I’m sure Elvis, who was born right in the middle of that time frame (on January 8, 1935), would have had the same trouble with the PC if he had lived long enough. — I know… I know… I just saw him the other day myself.
Only he had gained some weight
Anyway, there was one sure fire way to get that tool that I needed from the tool room while Bud Schoonover was manning the front gate, and that was to volunteer to go to the warehouse and pick up a box of the parts yourself and carry them back and hand them to Bud, while taking one out for yourself. — And the time I needed a flashlight, I did just that.
One time I went to the tool room in the middle of the winter when we had water pipes that were frozen and I needed a propane torch to heat the pipe to melt the ice. Bud told me that he couldn’t give me a propane torch because he only had one left. I looked up two racks over from the gate and could see at least two boxes of propane bottles on the top shelf.
I told Bud that I wouldn’t be taking his last bottle of propane, because there was at least two bottles right up there on that shelf. Bud insisted that he only had one bottle of propane left and he couldn’t give it to me. So, while smiling at Bud and explaining that I could see the two bottles right up there on the top of the shelf,… with one hand on his shoulder (which was about a whole foot taller than my head), and the other hand unlocking the gate, I told him I would show him.
So, I stepped into the tool room, and said, “It’s ok Bud, I won’t take your last bottle of Propane, but I do have to take this bottle here, because we have a water pipe that is frozen solid, and I need to use the propane torch to warm it up. Here… I”ll just take this one, and you can keep this other one here….”
Power Plant Propane Torch
As I walked back out the tool room smiling all the time at Bud, who was just staring at me with a worried look finally lowered his shoulders which had been creeping up closer to his ears as I had sidestepped him to get to the propane bottle.
The funny thing was that by the end of the week, there would be a whole list of parts and tools that only had one left in the tool room. Bud would consider it a successful week if he could make it through the week without having to get on the computer and order some more parts. He knew that next Monday, when Dick Dale
My Dear Friend Richard Dale
or Darlene Mitchell
Darlene Mitchell another dear friend
arrived, they would restock the shelves, and he would be in the warehouse filling the orders and bringing them over on a two wheeler to the tool room. And the world would be right once again.
As I mentioned above, since originally posting this post, Bud Schoonover had joined Dick Dale in the warehouse of Paradise. Here is the latest picture of Bud:
Bud Schoonover
Comments from the Original post:
Power Plant Spider Wars II — The Phantom Menace
I suppose we are all born with certain phobias. Some people are scared of spiders. Some people can’t stand the sight of snakes. When I was young just speaking to a girl was the most terrifying thing I encountered. I never liked spiders, but I didn’t have a great fear of them. But there were times in my life when faced with an overwhelming spider army, I wondered if I should fear spiders a little more than I did. This is one of those stories my children would want to hear when they were in the mood for a horror story.
If you are terrified by spiders, then stop reading this post now. I don’t want to be responsible for any injuries that may occur when you fly backward off of your chair while reading this post.
I wrote a Power Plant man post three years ago called “Power Plant Spider Wars and Bugs in the Basement“. I began that story by mentioning that there were two distinct times in my life when I went Head-to-Head with a horde of spiders. The second time I fought side-by-side with my trusty friend and carpooling buddy, Scott Hubbard. This post is about the second Power Plant Spider War.
I believe it was the beginning of an overhaul during October, 1997 at the Coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. Scott Hubbard and I knew where we would be working. It was the Precipitator. The big structure that sat between the boiler and the smoke stacks. It took the ash out of the boiler exhaust before blowing it out of the stack. Scott and I always worked on the precipitators during overhauls. No one else ever wanted to volunteer for that job. It was a dirty, thankless job that the rest of the plant tried their best to ignore. Yet, if not maintained properly, would waste more power than all the other equipment in the plant combined.
Anyway, it was a Monday morning at the beginning of the overhaul and Scott and I decided to carry some tools to the enclosed Precipitator roof to prepare for the next three weeks of work ahead of us. It was an hour earlier than we would normally begin working because overhauls meant working long days. So, we usually came to work in the dark, and left for home in the dark.
Scott Hubbard
Scott and I climbed the ladder to the precipitator roof from the walkway just below. When we did, we were confronted with a site we were not expecting to see, and one that we will never forget. In the previous Spider Wars post, when I walked into the basement below the main switchgear, I was confronted with a black moving mass of bugs, spiders and snakes…. This time, we were standing, staring what looked like a snow storm had blown through the precipitator transformers.
There are 84 eight foot tall transformers on the precipitator roof in 3 rows of 28. Each row has the transformers staggered back and forth like the black squares on two rows on a checker board. The row of transformers we were standing in front of was completely covered in spider webs. — Let me say it again…. Completely covered in spider webs! Not just spider webs strung between the transformers…. No….. It was a solid net of spider webs from the ground to the top of the entire row of transformers.
Spider Webs covering the ground in Australia gives you a little idea of our problem, only our spider webs stretched 8 feet from the transformer stand to the top
Scott and I were going to be spending the next three weeks on this precipitator roof working on all of the transformers. I don’t remember exactly how long we stood there staring at this “Kingdom of Spiders”. It seemed like a long time, but I suspect it was actually about 15 seconds. We decided right away that we couldn’t even begin to ground out all the transformers (which was required before opening the precipitator doors) until we had cleared out the spiders.
The spiders that were in these webs were not your typical garden variety. They were a special kind of Daddy Long Leg called a Cellar Spider.
Cellar Spider
They are also known as “Invisible Spiders” because when they are disturbed, they vibrate so fast that they seem to disappear. We were easily facing well over 200,000 of these spiders.
So that you can see what we were going against, here is a short video I found on You Tube:
For those who are not able to view YouTube videos directly from the picture, here is the link: Pholcidae Vibrating
Scott and I decided to go the the tool room and pick up 4 propane torches and some extra propane bottles. The only thing we could think to do was to burn them out.
Power Plant Propane torch
We went straight to work knowing that this was going to be a long slow process. I began on one row of transformers and Scott took the next one over. I began from the walkway with a propane torch in each hand, I began burning away the spider webs which quickly melted away in the flames. Spiders went crazy. They were scurrying throughout the mass of webs. Not necessarily trying to get away, they were more interested in standing their ground and trying to intimidate me into leaving them alone.
After clearing the ladder that led down into a section of transformers, I descended down. into the mass of webs, burning them away as I went. I was wearing my Carhartt coveralls, leather gloves, safety glasses and my hard hat.
Carhartt Coveralls
Once down between the transformers, I had to burn away the webs over my head. Massive amounts of spiders were being burned. Many of them were dropping on me from all directions. I knew that even though these spiders are poisonous, they are not able to bite a human because of the shape of their mouth. I just hoped that the spiders knew that, so they wouldn’t try.
I could feel spiders crawling down my neck, inside my hardhat, up my pant legs, around my safety glasses and the sleeves of my coveralls. Talk about getting the Willies. I could take one hand and wipe off 10 or 20 spiders from one arm at a time. I would just point the propane torch at my coverall sleeve and they would all quickly turn to crisp.
As I was working my way down the row of transformers, if someone else had entered the precipitator roof and seen me in there, it would look as if I had been caught by the spiders and wrapped up alive. There were times when I looked a lot like this picture, only with Cellar Spiders….
Person covered in spider webs from the movie “Kingdom of Spiders”
While I was in this situation, I kept having a feeling of claustrophobia, as if I was being smothered by the spider webs crawling with massive amounts of spiders. I did my best to fight this feeling by concentrating on the task. I pretended in my mind that I was back in my bedroom as a child cleaning my room.
When I was young my bedroom would be so messy, you couldn’t walk across the floor. I would start in one corner of my room and clean it systematically by expanding out from that one spot, making sure that everything behind me was clean. That’s what Scott and I were doing. As we moved through the thick mass of webs, we made sure that we had a clear path back to the ladder.
Another thought that entered my mind was “What would happen if this massive ball of spider web were to all go up in flames at once?” Luckily that never happened. The webs just melted. The spiders were so thick that the burning flesh from the spiders gave off the same odor as any other burning flesh, which is a very unpleasant smell.
As I pointed out, when Cellar Spiders are agitated, they vibrate up and down very quickly, so as I was burning my way through the webs, the webs were shaking every which way. There is a good video that shows a cellar spider in India vibrating so fast that it appears to become invisible. Watch this:
Here is the direct link: Vibrating Cellar Spider
After a day and a half, we had completely wiped out the spider population on the roof of the precipitator and were ready to go to work. I had also taken a few of these spiders home with me. Some had climbed down into my clothes, so that when I was home and took off my shirt and pants, out came some spiders. It wasn’t long before we had our own colony of cellar spiders at our house. They tried taking over my garage.
A few years later when I moved to Texas to work for Dell, some came along with me. I would find them in my garage, and various places around the house. I don’t think they liked living in Texas though. It was probably too hot for them. They eventually died out, so that I haven’t seen a cellar spider in my house for many years.
One day in 2003 when I was working at Dell on a project, and was sitting in a small team room, a cellar spider crawled out of my laptop bag and climbed up the wall next to me. When I saw it, I pointed it out to the consultant I was working with and showed him how the spiders vibrate when you disturb them. I also told him this story about the day when we went to battle a solid wall of Daddy Long Legs that had taken over the precipitator roof at the Power plant where I used to work. That spider stayed in the team room with us for about a week until I think it died of boredom.
It was clear why the spiders had invaded the roof of the precipitator. It was always full of flying bugs because the lights were always on. At night, moths, gnats and flies would fly around the light fixtures. It was a warm protected environment. We had worked to clear the pigeons out of the enclosed roof area, so they weren’t going to keep the spider population down.
I think there was another reason the Cellar Spiders liked the Precipitator roof. I suspect that these spiders use their vibrating skills when they are mating to attract each other. Well. The roof of the precipitator has 168 vibrators that are used to shake the ash off of the wires inside precipitator. Vibrators are always buzzing on the precipitator roof.
I suppose to a little Cellar Spider brain (I know… they don’t really have brains), the precipitator roof must have seemed like a Holy Temple to them with all those vibrators buzzing constantly.
For years after this event I would occasionally wake up in a sweat suddenly in the middle of the night, throwing the sheets off my bed in a panic because I felt spiders crawling all over me. My wife would wake up wondering if I was all right. I would realize that it was just a dream (or was it?) and go back to bed.
Ok. I have a side spider story about this:
When I was in the second grade, occasionally, I would wake up at night after having a dream where I picked up a spider in my hand, only to feel a spider really sitting in my hand. I would yell for my parents who would come running to my room (which I shared with my sister and brother). I would tell my parents that a big spider was on my hand. My dad would pull my mattress away from the wall and look under my sheets and under the mattress, but would never find a spider. So, then I would go back to bed.
This happened about three times during a 3 month period. The same thing. I would wake up feeling like there was a big spider in the palm of my hand. Each time, my dad would come and check it out, but never find a spider.
Then came the day that we moved out of the “Married Student Housing” where we lived in Columbia, Missouri to move into a real house where I only had to share my bedroom with my brother. I was in my bedroom when my dad took my bed apart to load it into the U-Haul. As he pulled my bed away from the wall, there was a very large wolf spider on the wall. I yelled out, “There! That’s the spider that has been crawling on me at night!
Wolf Spider
End of Side Spider Story
I would like to point out one more thing before I end this post. It was always an honor to work alongside my friend Scott Hubbard. I could not have had a better partner during this Spider War. He had my back throughout this conflict. Those that work around Scott every day may not realize the amount of bravery and outstanding character that he possesses. Scott is truly one of the best Power Plant Men I was ever blessed to work with.
Elvin Power Plant Tool Room Adventures With Bud
Originally posted September 27, 2014, added a picture of Bud
When I say that Bud Schoonover is known as “Elvin”, I don’t mean to imply that he was Elvin in nature. What I mean to say is that he did not necessarily possess the qualities of an elf. Well, except for his smile, which is somewhat Elvish-like. Bud’s smile was usually more like a look of warning for those who didn’t know him well. I have always said that he reminded me of a six foot, 5 inch tall, white Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son, and about 75 to 100 pounds heavier.
Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son smiling like Bud Schoonover
What I mean by saying that Bud is known as “Elvin” is that is what his Mother called him when he was born. Though somewhere along the line he became known as Bud; Not from his middle name… because I think that was Floyd. Bud was my good friend and carpooling buddy (See the post “Carpooling with Bud Schoonover“). Maybe that was why people called him Bud. Because he was everyone’s “buddy”.
I don’t mean to make it sound like Bud has passed away, because as far as I know, he is still an active Republican voter living on South Palm Street in Ponca City. I also don’t want you to think that I was only friends with Bud Schoonover because he was a good carpooling buddy. No. Bud had all sorts of talents. He gave great weather reports each morning when we would gather to take our trek to the Power Plant some 20 miles away, as I mentioned in the other post about Bud.
I don’t think that there was anyone at the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma that didn’t like Bud. There was just something naturally likable about him. Bud worked in the tool room and the warehouse ever since the day I first arrived at the plant in 1979. — Well, the warehouse wasn’t much of a warehouse back then. It just had stuffed piled up against the walls. No shelves, No storage racks. No drawers and bins full of parts.
Bud is four years and 26 days younger than my own father, and four years and 18 days younger than Elvis Presley.
The King
He will be 76 years old this January. Needless to say, Bud retired from the Power Plant in 1994 after having just turned 55. At his going away party, some guys at the plant fixed up a Wal-Mart shopping cart with a bunch of accessories attached to it so that he would be properly equipped when he went to work at Wal-Mart as a Greeter. — For those of you who don’t know…. Wal-Mart used to hire elderly people to greet people when you walked into the store. They might pull a cart out of the stack of carts and give it to you if you looked like you were in need of a cart.
Wal-Mart Shopping Cart
Bud was extra careful when working in the warehouse. He wanted to make sure that he was getting everything right, so he would check, and double check, and then check again…. just to make sure everything matched. One good example of this was when he was tasked with ordering a half set of coal burner nozzles and tips for the boiler.
There were 24 of these Coal burner nozzle and tips in the boiler. the nozzles costing about $13,000 and the tips ran somewhere around $4,000 each.
Coal Burner Nozzle
There was another assembly that attached to the end with the hole on the side that allowed the nozzle to change the pitch it was called the Tip.
So, Bud wanted to make sure the created the order correctly. So, when Bud placed the order with the supplier, he not only included the Supplier’s part number, but he also included the manufacturer’s part number. Just to make sure they knew they were sending the correct part, he even sent them the old manufacturing part number that they used a few years before they changed their part numbering system. — So, when he sent the order, it had all three part number for the 12 nozzles. He did the same thing with the smaller piece for the end of the nozzle.
To Bud’s surprise, one bright sunny morning in December, 1989 (well, it may not have been that sunny that day), guess what showed up at the loading dock? 12 nozzles with the suppliers part number, 12 nozzles with the manufacturer’s part number, and 12 more nozzles with the manufacturer’s old part number! Yeah…. Didn’t count on that one.
I think I know how Bud must have felt when that happened. Probably the same way I felt the morning I was summoned to the front office to pick up my mail, only to find a stack of a couple hundred envelopes from all over the company after printing something out on all the printers in the company (See “Power Plant Customer Service Team Gone Wild“). I think Bud took these things in more in stride than most people might. His reaction to finding out that the order he had created for $156,000 had suddenly turned into $468,000 was probably something like…. “Oh Geez. I sure don’t want to do that again!”
During the “We’ve Got the Power” program (see the post “Power Plant We’ve Got the Power“), the HR and Warehouse director, Linda Dallas asked us if we would put in a proposal to scrap the extra nozzles since these nozzles were very big. She didn’t think it would look good if her own team created the proposal since she was already responsible for the warehouse. We had two people from the warehouse on our We’ve Got the Power team, Dick Dale and Darlene Mitchell, so she thought we could do something out the conundrum. Two nozzles fit on a pallet, taking up space all over the warehouse.
The nozzles with the Tips attached
We could save money just by scrapping it because we wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the parts. It cost too much to return them to the supplier because the restocking fee was too high. — And E-Bay didn’t exist back then.
Instead of accepting our proposal, it was decided that instead of just changing out half of the nozzles during the next outage, they would just replace all of the nozzles. This reduced the number of nozzles left in the warehouse to a more manageable number. So, Bud’s Faux Pas, may have just helped increase the efficiency of the boiler significantly with the replacement of the nozzles which may have translated into savings of unknown millions of dollars, of which Bud received no credit… But that’s okay. Bud wasn’t one to seek credit for his ingenious accidental idea of triple ordering boiler Nozzles.
One of the favorite stories I would tell my children as they were growing up when they would ask me to tell them a Bud Schoonover story was the story about the last tool in the tool room. — This is Bud’s own special way of handling the restocking of the tool room. It goes like this…. For instance….
If you went to the tool room to ask for a yellow flashlight and it happened to be the last yellow flashlight in the tool room, and it was Bud Schoonover’s week to man the tool room, then you would hear something like this:
Yellow Flashlight similar to the one I carried
“I can’t give you a yellow flashlight, because I only have one left.” — You may want to respond with something like, “But Bud, if there’s one left, then why can’t I have it?” Bud’s reply would be, “Because if I give you the last one, then I’d have to order more.”
At this point, you may want to start over asking if you can have a yellow flashlight, with the hope that Bud may have forgotten that he was down to his last yellow flashlight…. You might even phrase it a little differently… You might say something like, “Well… Can I just borrow a yellow flashlight for a few hours? At least for as long as I have to do some work in the dark?” — I have seen this approach almost work. He would stop and think about it like Andy Griffith in “No Time For Sergeants” trying to answer questions being asked by the Psychiatrist:
Andy Griffith talking to the Psychiatrist in No Time for Sergeants
Then the next question you may ask (I know, since I asked it more than once) is: “So, Bud, how about ordering some more yellow flashlights.” Bud would reply with something like, “No. I don’t really want to order anything this week.”, as he nods in the direction of the computer monitor sitting on the desk just to his left… — Oh…. computer shy…. that’s why. Not comfortable ordering stuff on the computer (especially after ordering all those coal burner nozzles).
I can understand that. He is the same age as my own father, and my dad at that time would literally call me at least one time every single day to ask me a computer question. Like…. “How do I move a paragraph from one part of a document to another part?” — “Um… Yeah Dad, (for the hundredth time), you do it like this….”
There’s something about every one of my friends and family that were born between December 30, 1934 and January 27th 1939. They all had the same problem with computers. Must be that particular generation born within thatfour year period. I’m sure Elvis, who was born right in the middle of that time frame (on January 8, 1935), would have had the same trouble with the PC if he had lived long enough. — I know… I know… I just saw him the other day myself.
Only he had gained some weight
Anyway, there was one sure fire way to get that tool that I needed from the tool room while Bud Schoonover was manning the front gate, and that was to volunteer to go to the warehouse and pick up a box of the parts yourself and carry them back and hand them to Bud, while taking one out for yourself. — And the time I needed a flashlight, I did just that.
One time I went to the tool room in the middle of the winter when we had water pipes that were frozen and I needed a propane torch to heat the pipe to melt the ice. Bud told me that he couldn’t give me a propane torch because he only had one left. I looked up two racks over from the gate and could see at least two boxes of propane bottles on the top shelf.
I told Bud that I wouldn’t be taking his last bottle of propane, because there was at least two bottles right up there on that shelf. Bud insisted that he only had one bottle of propane left and he couldn’t give it to me. So, while smiling at Bud and explaining that I could see the two bottles right up there on the top of the shelf,… with one hand on his shoulder (which was about a whole foot taller than my head), and the other hand unlocking the gate, I told him I would show him.
So, I stepped into the tool room, and said, “It’s ok Bud, I won’t take your last bottle of Propane, but I do have to take this bottle here, because we have a water pipe that is frozen solid, and I need to use the propane torch to warm it up. Here… I”ll just take this one, and you can keep this other one here….”
Power Plant Propane Torch
As I walked back out the tool room smiling all the time at Bud, who was just staring at me with a worried look finally lowered his shoulders which had been creeping up closer to his ears as I had sidestepped him to get to the propane bottle.
The funny thing was that by the end of the week, there would be a whole list of parts and tools that only had one left in the tool room. Bud would consider it a successful week if he could make it through the week without having to get on the computer and order some more parts. He knew that next Monday, when Dick Dale
My Dear Friend Richard Dale
or Darlene Mitchell
Darlene Mitchell another dear friend
arrived, they would restock the shelves, and he would be in the warehouse filling the orders and bringing them over on a two wheeler to the tool room. And the world would be right once again.
Since originally posting this post, Bud Schoonover had joined Dick Dale in the warehouse of Paradise. See the post: “Dynamic Power Plant Trio – And Then There Was One“. Here is the latest picture of Bud:
Bud Schoonover
Comments from the Original post:
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Great story on Bud. He was a might tight. Thanks for the photos of Dick and Darlene. Great memories.
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That a funny story. Bud must have been fun to work with.
When we have an bad experience, we often learn the wrong lesson. Lots lots people learn to distrust computers, but they are just machines. Like any machine, we have to learn to use a computer properly.
Apparently, Bud just filled out a form incorrectly. Did it really make any difference whether the form was on a computer? Would he have filled in a paper form correctly?
What I find weird is that someone could place $468,000 order, and no one on the other end would look at the order carefully enough to wonder why Bud had used three different numbers to order the same part. Was it advantageous to the folks receiving the order to overlook the obvious? Why didn’t they call and confirm the order?
Power Plant Spider Wars II — The Phantom Menace
I suppose we are all born with certain phobias. Some people are scared of spiders. Some people can’t stand the sight of snakes. When I was young just speaking to a girl was the most terrifying thing I encountered. I never liked spiders, but I didn’t have a great fear of them. But there were times in my life when faced with an overwhelming spider army, I wondered if I should fear spiders a little more than I did. This is one of those stories my children would want to hear when they were in the mood for a horror story.
If you are terrified by spiders, then stop reading this post now. I don’t want to be responsible for any injuries that may occur when you fly backward off of your chair while reading this post.
I wrote a Power Plant man post three years ago called “Power Plant Spider Wars and Bugs in the Basement“. I began that story by mentioning that there were two distinct times in my life when I went Head-to-Head with a horde of spiders. The second time I fought side-by-side with my trusty friend and carpooling buddy, Scott Hubbard. This post is about the second Power Plant Spider War.
I believe it was the beginning of an overhaul during October, 1997 at the Coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. Scott Hubbard and I knew where we would be working. It was the Precipitator. The big structure that sat between the boiler and the smoke stacks. It took the ash out of the boiler exhaust before blowing it out of the stack. Scott and I always worked on the precipitators during overhauls. No one else ever wanted to volunteer for that job. It was a dirty, thankless job that the rest of the plant tried their best to ignore. Yet, if not maintained properly, would waste more power than all the other equipment in the plant combined.
Anyway, it was a Monday morning at the beginning of the overhaul and Scott and I decided to carry some tools to the enclosed Precipitator roof to prepare for the next three weeks of work ahead of us. It was an hour earlier than we would normally begin working because overhauls meant working long days. So, we usually came to work in the dark, and left for home in the dark.
Scott Hubbard
Scott and I climbed the ladder to the precipitator roof from the walkway just below. When we did, we were confronted with a site we not only were expecting to see, but one that we will never forget. In the previous Spider Wars post, when I walked into the basement below the main switchgear, I was confronted with a black moving mass of bugs, spiders and snakes…. This time, we were standing, staring what looked like a snow storm had blown through the precipitator transformers.
There are 84 eight foot tall transformers on the precipitator roof in 3 rows of 28. Each row has the transformers staggered back and forth like the black squares on two rows on a checker board. The row of transformers we were standing in front of was completely covered in spider webs. — Let me say it again…. Completely covered in spider webs! Not just spider webs strung between the transformers…. No….. It was a solid net of spider webs from the ground to the top of the entire row of transformers.
Spider Webs covering the ground in Australia gives you a little idea of our problem, only our spider webs stretched 8 feet from the transformer stand to the top
Scott and I were going to be spending the next three weeks on this precipitator roof working on all of the transformers. I don’t remember exactly how long we stood there staring at this “Kingdom of Spiders”. It seemed like a long time, but I suspect it was actually about 15 seconds. We decided right away that we couldn’t even begin to ground out all the transformers (which was required before opening the precipitator doors) until we had cleared out the spiders.
The spiders that were in these webs were not your typical garden variety. They were a special kind of Daddy Long Leg called a Cellar Spider.
Cellar Spider
They are also known as “Invisible Spiders” because when they are disturbed, they vibrate so fast that they seem to disappear. We were easily facing well over 200,000 of these spiders.
So that you can see what we were going against, here is a short video I found on You Tube:
For those who are not able to view YouTube videos directly from the picture, here is the link: Pholcidae Vibrating
Scott and I decided to go the the tool room and pick up 4 propane torches and some extra propane bottles. The only thing we could think to do was to burn them out.
Power Plant Propane torch
We went straight to work knowing that this was going to be a long slow process. I began on one row of transformers and Scott took the next one over. I began from the walkway with a propane torch in each hand, I began burning away the spider webs which quickly melted away in the flames. Spiders went crazy. They were scurrying throughout the mass of webs. Not necessarily trying to get away, they were more interested in standing their ground and trying to intimidate me into leaving them alone.
After clearing the ladder that led down into a section of transformers, I descended down. into the mass of webs, burning them away as I went. I was wearing my Carhartt coveralls, leather gloves, safety glasses and my hard hat.
Carhartt Coveralls
Once down between the transformers, I had to burn away the webs over my head. Massive amounts of spiders were being burned. Many of them were dropping on me from all directions. I knew that even though these spiders are poisonous, they are not able to bite a human because of the shape of their mouth. I just hoped that the spiders knew that, so they wouldn’t try.
I could feel spiders crawling down my neck, inside my hardhat, up my pant legs, around my safety glasses and the sleeves of my coveralls. Talk about getting the Willies. I could take one hand and wipe off 10 or 20 spiders from one arm at a time. I would just point the propane torch at my coverall sleeve and they would all quickly turn to crisp.
As I was working my way down the row of transformers, if someone else had entered the precipitator roof and seen me in there, it would look as if I had been caught by the spiders and wrapped up alive. There were times when I looked a lot like this picture, only with Cellar Spiders….
Person covered in spider webs from the movie “Kingdom of Spiders”
While I was in this situation, I kept having a feeling of claustrophobia, as if I was being smothered by the spider webs crawling with massive amounts of spiders. I did my best to fight this feeling by concentrating on the task. I pretended in my mind that I was back in my bedroom as a child cleaning my room.
When I was young my bedroom would be so messy, you couldn’t walk across the floor. I would start in one corner of my room and clean it systematically by expanding out from that one spot, making sure that everything behind me was clean. That’s what Scott and I were doing. As we moved through the thick mass of webs, we made sure that we had a clear path back to the ladder.
Another thought that entered my mind was “What would happen if this massive ball of spider web were to all go up in flames at once?” Luckily that never happened. The webs just melted. The spiders were so thick that the burning flesh from the spiders gave off the same odor as any other burning flesh, which is a very unpleasant smell.
As I pointed out, when Cellar Spiders are agitated, they vibrate up and down very quickly, so as I was burning my way through the webs, the webs were shaking every which way. There is a good video that shows a cellar spider in India vibrating so fast that it appears to become invisible. Watch this:
Here is the direct link: Vibrating Cellar Spider
After a day and a half, we had completely wiped out the spider population on the roof of the precipitator and were ready to go to work. I had also taken a few of these spiders home with me. Some had climbed down into my clothes, so that when I was home and took off my shirt and pants, out came some spiders. It wasn’t long before we had our own colony of cellar spiders at our house. They tried taking over my garage.
A few years later when I moved to Texas to work for Dell, some came along with me. I would find them in my garage, and various places around the house. I don’t think they liked living in Texas though. It was probably too hot for them. They eventually died out, so that I haven’t seen a cellar spider in my house for many years.
One day in 2003 when I was working at Dell on a project, and was sitting in a small team room, a cellar spider crawled out of my laptop bag and climbed up the wall next to me. When I saw it, I pointed it out to the consultant I was working with and showed him how the spiders vibrate when you disturb them. I also told him this story about the day when we went to battle a solid wall of Daddy Long Legs that had taken over the precipitator roof at the Power plant where I used to work. That spider stayed in the team room with us for about a week until I think it died of boredom.
It was clear why the spiders had invaded the roof of the precipitator. It was always full of flying bugs because the lights were always on. At night, moths, gnats and flies would fly around the light fixtures. It was a warm protected environment. We had worked to clear the pigeons out of the enclosed roof area, so they weren’t going to keep the spider population down.
I think there was another reason the Cellar Spiders liked the Precipitator roof. I suspect that these spiders use their vibrating skills when they are mating to attract each other. Well. The roof of the precipitator has 168 vibrators that are used to shake the ash off of the wires inside precipitator. Vibrators are always buzzing on the precipitator roof.
I suppose to a little Cellar Spider brain (I know… they don’t really have brains), the precipitator roof must have seemed like a Holy Temple to them with all those vibrators buzzing constantly.
For years after this event I would occasionally wake up in a sweat suddenly in the middle of the night, throwing the sheets off my bed in a panic because I felt spiders crawling all over me. My wife would wake up wondering if I was all right. I would realize that it was just a dream (or was it?) and go back to bed.
Ok. I have a side spider story about this:
When I was in the second grade, occasionally, I would wake up at night after having a dream where I picked up a spider in my hand, only to feel a spider really sitting in my hand. I would yell for my parents who would come running to my room (which I shared with my sister and brother). I would tell my parents that a big spider was on my hand. My dad would pull my mattress away from the wall and look under my sheets and under the mattress, but would never find a spider. So, then I would go back to bed.
This happened about three times during a 3 month period. The same thing. I would wake up feeling like there was a big spider in the palm of my hand. Each time, my dad would come and check it out, but never find a spider.
Then came the day that we moved out of the “Married Student Housing” where we lived in Columbia, Missouri to move into a real house where I only had to share my bedroom with my brother. I was in my bedroom when my dad took my bed apart to load it into the U-Haul. As he pulled my bed away from the wall, there was a very large wolf spider on the wall. I yelled out, “There! That’s the spider that has been crawling on me at night!
Wolf Spider
End of Side Spider Story
I would like to point out one more thing before I end this post. It was always an honor to work alongside my friend Scott Hubbard. I could not have had a better partner during this Spider War. He had my back throughout this conflict. Those that work around Scott every day may not realize the amount of bravery and outstanding character that he possesses. Scott is truly one of the best Power Plant Men I was ever blessed to work with.
Elvin Power Plant Tool Room Adventures With Bud
Originally posted September 27, 2014, added a picture of Bud
When I say that Bud Schoonover is known as “Elvin”, I don’t mean to imply that he was Elvin in nature. What I mean to say is that he did not necessarily possess the qualities of an elf. Well, except for his smile, which is somewhat Elvish-like. Bud’s smile was usually more like a look of warning for those who didn’t know him well. I have always said that he reminded me of a six foot, 5 inch tall, white Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son, and about 75 to 100 pounds heavier.
Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son smiling like Bud Schoonover
What I mean by saying that Bud is known as “Elvin” is that is what his Mother called him when he was born. Though somewhere along the line he became known as Bud; Not from his middle name… because I think that was Floyd. Bud was my good friend and carpooling buddy (See the post “Carpooling with Bud Schoonover“). Maybe that was why people called him Bud. Because he was everyone’s “buddy”.
I don’t mean to make it sound like Bud has passed away, because as far as I know, he is still an active Republican voter living on South Palm Street in Ponca City. I also don’t want you to think that I was only friends with Bud Schoonover because he was a good carpooling buddy. No. Bud had all sorts of talents. He gave great weather reports each morning when we would gather to take our trek to the Power Plant some 20 miles away, as I mentioned in the other post about Bud.
I don’t think that there was anyone at the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma that didn’t like Bud. There was just something naturally likable about him. Bud worked in the tool room and the warehouse ever since the day I first arrived at the plant in 1979. — Well, the warehouse wasn’t much of a warehouse back then. It just had stuffed piled up against the walls. No shelves, No storage racks. No drawers and bins full of parts.
Bud is four years and 26 days younger than my own father, and four years and 18 days younger than Elvis Presley.
The King
He will be 76 years old this January. Needless to say, Bud retired from the Power Plant in 1994 after having just turned 55. At his going away party, some guys at the plant fixed up a Wal-Mart shopping cart with a bunch of accessories attached to it so that he would be properly equipped when he went to work at Wal-Mart as a Greeter. — For those of you who don’t know…. Wal-Mart used to hire elderly people to greet people when you walked into the store. They might pull a cart out of the stack of carts and give it to you if you looked like you were in need of a cart.
Wal-Mart Shopping Cart
Bud was extra careful when working in the warehouse. He wanted to make sure that he was getting everything right, so he would check, and double check, and then check again…. just to make sure everything matched. One good example of this was when he was tasked with ordering a half set of coal burner nozzles and tips for the boiler.
There were 24 of these Coal burner nozzle and tips in the boiler. the nozzles costing about $13,000 and the tips ran somewhere around $4,000 each.
Coal Burner Nozzle
There was another assembly that attached to the end with the hole on the side that allowed the nozzle to change the pitch it was called the Tip.
So, Bud wanted to make sure the created the order correctly. So, when Bud placed the order with the supplier, he not only included the Supplier’s part number, but he also included the manufacturer’s part number. Just to make sure they knew they were sending the correct part, he even sent them the old manufacturing part number that they used a few years before they changed their part numbering system. — So, when he sent the order, it had all three part number for the 12 nozzles. He did the same thing with the smaller piece for the end of the nozzle.
To Bud’s surprise, one bright sunny morning in December, 1989 (well, it may not have been that sunny that day), guess what showed up at the loading dock? 12 nozzles with the suppliers part number, 12 nozzles with the manufacturer’s part number, and 12 more nozzles with the manufacturer’s old part number! Yeah…. Didn’t count on that one.
I think I know how Bud must have felt when that happened. Probably the same way I felt the morning I was summoned to the front office to pick up my mail, only to find a stack of a couple hundred envelopes from all over the company after printing something out on all the printers in the company (See “Power Plant Customer Service Team Gone Wild“). I think Bud took these things in more in stride than most people might. His reaction to finding out that the order he had created for $156,000 had suddenly turned into $468,000 was probably something like…. “Oh Geez. I sure don’t want to do that again!”
During the “We’ve Got the Power” program (see the post “Power Plant We’ve Got the Power“), the HR and Warehouse director, Linda Dallas asked us if we would put in a proposal to scrap the extra nozzles since these nozzles were very big. She didn’t think it would look good if her own team created the proposal since she was already responsible for the warehouse. We had two people from the warehouse on our We’ve Got the Power team, Dick Dale and Darlene Mitchell, so she thought we could do something out the conundrum. Two nozzles fit on a pallet, taking up space all over the warehouse.
The nozzles with the Tips attached
We could save money just by scrapping it because we wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the parts. It cost too much to return them to the supplier because the restocking fee was too high. — And E-Bay didn’t exist back then.
Instead of accepting our proposal, it was decided that instead of just changing out half of the nozzles during the next outage, they would just replace all of the nozzles. This reduced the number of nozzles left in the warehouse to a more manageable number. So, Bud’s Faux Pas, may have just helped increase the efficiency of the boiler significantly with the replacement of the nozzles which may have translated into savings of unknown millions of dollars, of which Bud received no credit… But that’s okay. Bud wasn’t one to seek credit for his ingenious accidental idea of triple ordering boiler Nozzles.
One of the favorite stories I would tell my children as they were growing up when they would ask me to tell them a Bud Schoonover story was the story about the last tool in the tool room. — This is Bud’s own special way of handling the restocking of the tool room. It goes like this…. For instance….
If you went to the tool room to ask for a yellow flashlight and it happened to be the last yellow flashlight in the tool room, and it was Bud Schoonover’s week to man the tool room, then you would hear something like this:
Yellow Flashlight similar to the one I carried
“I can’t give you a yellow flashlight, because I only have one left.” — You may want to respond with something like, “But Bud, if there’s one left, then why can’t I have it?” Bud’s reply would be, “Because if I give you the last one, then I’d have to order more.”
At this point, you may want to start over asking if you can have a yellow flashlight, with the hope that Bud may have forgotten that he was down to his last yellow flashlight…. You might even phrase it a little differently… You might say something like, “Well… Can I just borrow a yellow flashlight for a few hours? At least for as long as I have to do some work in the dark?” — I have seen this approach almost work. He would stop and think about it like Andy Griffith in “No Time For Sergeants” trying to answer questions being asked by the Psychiatrist:
Andy Griffith talking to the Psychiatrist in No Time for Sergeants
Then the next question you may ask (I know, since I asked it more than once) is: “So, Bud, how about ordering some more yellow flashlights.” Bud would reply with something like, “No. I don’t really want to order anything this week.”, as he nods in the direction of the computer monitor sitting on the desk just to his left… — Oh…. computer shy…. that’s why. Not comfortable ordering stuff on the computer (especially after ordering all those coal burner nozzles).
I can understand that. He is the same age as my own father, and my dad at that time would literally call me at least one time every single day to ask me a computer question. Like…. “How do I move a paragraph from one part of a document to another part?” — “Um… Yeah Dad, (for the hundredth time), you do it like this….”
There’s something about every one of my friends and family that were born between December 30, 1934 and January 27th 1939. They all had the same problem with computers. Must be that particular generation born within thatfour year period. I’m sure Elvis, who was born right in the middle of that time frame (on January 8, 1935), would have had the same trouble with the PC if he had lived long enough. — I know… I know… I just saw him the other day myself.
Only he had gained some weight
Anyway, there was one sure fire way to get that tool that I needed from the tool room while Bud Schoonover was manning the front gate, and that was to volunteer to go to the warehouse and pick up a box of the parts yourself and carry them back and hand them to Bud, while taking one out for yourself. — And the time I needed a flashlight, I did just that.
One time I went to the tool room in the middle of the winter when we had water pipes that were frozen and I needed a propane torch to heat the pipe to melt the ice. Bud told me that he couldn’t give me a propane torch because he only had one left. I looked up two racks over from the gate and could see at least two boxes of propane bottles on the top shelf.
I told Bud that I wouldn’t be taking his last bottle of propane, because there was at least two bottles right up there on that shelf. Bud insisted that he only had one bottle of propane left and he couldn’t give it to me. So, while smiling at Bud and explaining that I could see the two bottles right up there on the top of the shelf,… with one hand on his shoulder (which was about a whole foot taller than my head), and the other hand unlocking the gate, I told him I would show him.
So, I stepped into the tool room, and said, “It’s ok Bud, I won’t take your last bottle of Propane, but I do have to take this bottle here, because we have a water pipe that is frozen solid, and I need to use the propane torch to warm it up. Here… I”ll just take this one, and you can keep this other one here….”
Power Plant Propane Torch
As I walked back out the tool room smiling all the time at Bud, who was just staring at me with a worried look finally lowered his shoulders which had been creeping up closer to his ears as I had sidestepped him to get to the propane bottle.
The funny thing was that by the end of the week, there would be a whole list of parts and tools that only had one left in the tool room. Bud would consider it a successful week if he could make it through the week without having to get on the computer and order some more parts. He knew that next Monday, when Dick Dale
My Dear Friend Richard Dale
or Darlene Mitchell
Darlene Mitchell another dear friend
arrived, they would restock the shelves, and he would be in the warehouse filling the orders and bringing them over on a two wheeler to the tool room. And the world would be right once again.
Since originally posting this post, Bud Schoonover had joined Dick Dale in the warehouse of Paradise. See the post: “Dynamic Power Plant Trio – And Then There Was One“. Here is the latest picture of Bud:
Bud Schoonover
Comments from the Original post:
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Great story on Bud. He was a might tight. Thanks for the photos of Dick and Darlene. Great memories.
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That a funny story. Bud must have been fun to work with.
When we have an bad experience, we often learn the wrong lesson. Lots lots people learn to distrust computers, but they are just machines. Like any machine, we have to learn to use a computer properly.
Apparently, Bud just filled out a form incorrectly. Did it really make any difference whether the form was on a computer? Would he have filled in a paper form correctly?
What I find weird is that someone could place $468,000 order, and no one on the other end would look at the order carefully enough to wonder why Bud had used three different numbers to order the same part. Was it advantageous to the folks receiving the order to overlook the obvious? Why didn’t they call and confirm the order?
Power Plant Spider Wars II — The Phantom Menace
I suppose we are all born with certain phobias. Some people are scared of spiders. Some people can’t stand the sight of snakes. When I was young just speaking to a girl was the most terrifying thing I encountered. I never liked spiders, but I didn’t have a great fear of them. But there were times in my life when faced with an overwhelming spider army, I wondered if I should fear spiders a little more than I did. This is one of those stories my children would want to hear when they were in the mood for a horror story.
If you are terrified by spiders, then stop reading this post now. I don’t want to be responsible for any injuries that may occur when you fly backward off of your chair while reading this post.
I wrote a Power Plant man post three years ago called “Power Plant Spiders Wars and Bugs in the Basement“. I began that story by mentioning that there were two distinct times in my life when I went Head-to-Head with a horde of spiders. The second time I fought side-by-side with my trusty friend and carpooling buddy, Scott Hubbard. This post is about the second Power Plant Spider War.
I believe it was the beginning of an overhaul during October, 1997 at the Coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. Scott Hubbard and I knew what we were going to be working on. It was the Precipitator. The big structure that sat between the boiler and the smoke stacks. It took the ash out of the boiler exhaust before blowing it out of the stack. Scott and I always worked on the precipitators during overhauls. No one else ever wanted to volunteer for that job. It was a dirty, thankless job that the rest of the plant tried their best to ignore. Yet, if not maintained properly, would waste more power than all the other equipment in the plant combined.
Anyway, it was a Monday morning at the beginning of the overhaul and Scott and I decided to carry some tools to the enclosed Precipitator roof to prepare for the next three weeks of work ahead of us. It was an hour earlier than we would normally begin working because overhauls meant working long days. So, we usually came to work in the dark, and left for home in the dark.
Scott Hubbard
Scott and I climbed the ladder to the precipitator roof from the walkway just below. When we did, we were confronted with a site we not only were expecting to see, but one that we will never forget. In the previous Spider Wars post, when I walked into the basement below the main switchgear, I was confronted with a black moving mass of bugs, spiders and snakes…. This time, we were standing, staring what looked like a snow storm had blown through the precipitator transformers.
There are 84 eight foot tall transformers on the precipitator roof in 3 rows of 28. Each row has the transformers staggered back and forth like the black squares on two rows on a checker board. The row of transformers we were standing in front of was completely covered in spider webs. — Let me say it again…. Completely covered in spider webs! Not just spider webs strung between the transformers…. No….. It was a solid net of spider webs from the ground to the top of the entire row of transformers.
Spider Webs covering the ground in Australia gives you a little idea of our problem, only our spider webs stretched 8 feet from the transformer stand to the top
Scott and I were going to be spending the next three weeks on this precipitator roof working on all of the transformers. I don’t remember exactly how long we stood there staring at this “Kingdom of Spiders”. It seemed like a long time, but I suspect it was actually about 15 seconds. We decided right away that we couldn’t even begin to ground out all the transformers (which was required before opening the precipitator doors) until we had cleared out the spiders.
The spiders that were in these webs were not your typical garden variety. They were a special kind of Daddy Long Leg called a Cellar Spider.
Cellar Spider
They are also known as “Invisible Spiders” because when they are disturbed, they vibrate so fast that they seem to disappear. We were easily facing well over 200,000 of these spiders.
So that you can see what we were going against, here is a short video I found on You Tube:
For those who are not able to view YouTube videos directly from the picture, here is the link: Pholcidae Vibrating
Scott and I decided to go the the tool room and pick up 4 propane torches and some extra propane bottles. The only thing we could think to do was to burn them out.
Power Plant Propane torch
We went straight to work knowing that this was going to be a long slow process. I began on one row of transformers and Scott took the next one over. I began from the walkway with a propane torch in each hand, I began burning away the spider webs which quickly melted away in the flames. Spiders went crazy. They were scurrying throughout the mass of webs. Not necessarily trying to get away, they were more interested in standing their ground and trying to intimidate me into leaving them alone.
After clearing the ladder that led down into a section of transformers, I descended down. into the mass of webs, burning them away as I went. I was wearing my Carhartt coveralls, leather gloves, safety glasses and my hard hat.
Carhartt Coveralls
Once down between the transformers, I had to burn away the webs over my head. Massive amounts of spiders were being burned. Many of them were dropping on me from all directions. I knew that even though these spiders are poison, they are not able to bite a human because of the shape of their mouth. I just hoped that the spiders knew that, so they wouldn’t try.
I could feel spiders crawling down my neck, inside my hardhat, up my pant legs, around my safety glasses and the sleeves of my coveralls. Talk about getting the Willies. I could take one hand and wipe off 10 or 20 spiders from one arm at a time. I would just point the propane torch at my coverall sleeve and they would all quickly turn to crisp.
As I was working my way down the row of transformers, if someone else had entered the precipitator roof and seen me in there, it would look as if I had been caught by the spiders and wrapped up alive. There were times when I looked a lot like this picture, only with Cellar Spiders….
Person covered in spider webs from the movie “Kingdom of Spiders”
While I was in this situation, I kept having a feeling of claustrophobia, as if I was being smothered by the spider webs crawling with massive amounts of spiders. I did my best to fight this feeling by concentrating on the task. I pretended in my mind that I was back in my bedroom as a child cleaning my room.
When I was young my bedroom would be so messy, you couldn’t walk across the floor. I would start in one corner of my room and clean it systematically by expanding out from that one spot, making sure that everything behind me was clean. That’s what Scott and I were doing. As we moved through the thick mass of webs, we made sure that we had a clear path back to the ladder.
Another thought that entered my mind was “What would happen if this massive ball of spider web were to all go up in flames at once?” Luckily that never happened. The webs just melted. The spiders were so thick that the burning flesh from the spiders gave off the same odor as any other burning flesh, which is a very unpleasant smell.
As I pointed out, when Cellar Spiders are agitated, they vibrate up and down very quickly, so as I was burning my way through the webs, the webs were shaking every which way. There is a good video that shows a cellar spider in India vibrating so fast that it appears to become invisible. Watch this:
Here is the direct link: Vibrating Cellar Spider
After a day and a half, we had completely wiped out the spider population on the roof of the precipitator and were ready to go to work. I had also taken a few of these spiders home with me. Some had climbed down into my clothes, so that when I was home and took off my shirt and pants, out came some spiders. It wasn’t long before we had our own colony of cellar spiders at our house. They tried taking over my garage.
A few years later when I moved to Texas to work for Dell, some came along with me. I would find them in my garage, and various places around the house. I don’t think they liked living in Texas though. It was probably too hot for them. They eventually died out, so that I haven’t seen a cellar spider in my house for many years.
One day in 2003 when I was working at Dell on a project, and was sitting in a small team room, a cellar spider crawled out of my laptop bag and climbed up the wall next to me. When I saw it, I pointed it out to the consultant I was working with and showed him how the spiders vibrate when you disturb them. I also told him this story about the day when we went to battle a solid wall of Daddy Long Legs that had taken over the precipitator roof at the Power plant where I used to work. That spider stayed in the team room with us for about a week until I think it died of boredom.
It was clear why the spiders had invaded the roof of the precipitator. It was always full of flying bugs because the lights were always on. At night, moths, gnats and flies would fly around the light fixtures. It was a warm protected environment. We had worked to clear the pigeons out of the enclosed roof area, so they weren’t going to keep the spider population down.
I think there was another reason the Cellar Spiders liked the Precipitator roof. I suspect that these spiders use their vibrating skills when they are mating to attract each other. Well. The roof of the precipitator has 168 vibrators that are used to shake the ash off of the wires inside precipitator. Vibrators are always buzzing on the precipitator roof.
I suppose to a little Cellar Spider brain (I know… they don’t really have brains), the precipitator roof must have seemed like a Holy Temple to them with all those vibrators buzzing constantly.
For years after this event I would occasionally wake up in a sweat suddenly in the middle of the night, throwing the sheets off my bed in a panic because I felt spiders crawling all over me. My wife would wake up wondering if I was all right. I would realize that it was just a dream (or was it?) and go back to bed.
Ok. I have a side spider story about this:
When I was in the second grade, occasionally, I would wake up at night after having a dream where I picked up a spider in my hand, only to feel a spider really sitting in my hand. I would yell for my parents who would come running to my room (which I shared with my sister and brother). I would tell my parents that a big spider was on my hand. My dad would pull my mattress away from the wall and look under my sheets and under the mattress, but would never find a spider. So, then I would go back to bed.
This happened about three times during a 3 month period. The same thing. I would wake up feeling like there was a big spider in the palm of my hand. Each time, my dad would come and check it out, but never find a spider.
Then came the day that we moved out of the “Married Student Housing” where we lived in Columbia, Missouri to move into a real house. I was in my bedroom when my dad took my bed apart to load it into the U-Haul. As he pulled my bed away from the wall, there was a very large wolf spider on the wall. I yelled out, “There! That’s the spider that has been crawling on me at night!
Wolf Spider
End of Side Spider Story
I would like to point out one more thing before I end this post. It was always an honor to work alongside my friend Scott Hubbard. I could not have had a better partner during this Spider War. He had my back throughout this conflict. Those that work around Scott every day may not realize the amount of bravery and outstanding character that he possesses. Scott is truly one of the best Power Plant Men I was ever blessed to work with.
Elvin Power Plant Tool Room Adventures With Bud
When I say that Bud Schoonover is known as “Elvin”, I don’t mean to imply that he was Elvin in nature. What I mean to say is that he did not necessarily possess the qualities of an elf. Well, except for his smile, which is somewhat Elvish-like. Bud’s smile was usually more like a look of warning for those who didn’t know him well. I have always said that he reminded me of a six foot, 5 inch tall, white Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son, and about 75 to 100 pounds heavier.
Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son smiling like Bud Schoonover
What I mean by saying that Bud is known as “Elvin” is that is what his Mother called him when he was born. Though somewhere along the line he became known as Bud; Not from his middle name… because I think that was Floyd. Bud was my good friend and carpooling buddy (See the post “Carpooling with Bud Schoonover“). Maybe that was why people called him Bud. Because he was everyone’s “buddy”.
I don’t mean to make it sound like Bud has passed away, because as far as I know, he is still an active Republican voter living on South Palm Street in Ponca City. I also don’t want you to think that I was only friends with Bud Schoonover because he was a good carpooling buddy. No. Bud had all sorts of talents. He gave great weather reports each morning when we would gather to take our trek to the Power Plant some 20 miles away, as I mentioned in the other post about Bud.
I don’t think that there was anyone at the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma that didn’t like Bud. There was just something naturally likable about him. Bud worked in the tool room and the warehouse ever since the day I first arrived at the plant in 1979. — Well, the warehouse wasn’t much of a warehouse back then. It just had stuffed piled up against the walls. No shelves, No storage racks. No drawers and bins full of parts.
Bud is for years and 26 days younger than my own father, and four years and 18 days younger than Elvis Presley.
The King
He will be 76 years old this January. Needless to say, Bud retired from the Power Plant in 1994 after having just turned 55. At his going away party, some guys at the plant fixed up a Wal-Mart shopping cart with a bunch of accessories attached to it so that he would be properly equipped when he went to work at Wal-Mart as a Greeter. — For those of you who don’t know…. Wal-Mart used to hire elderly people to greet people when you walked into the store. They might pull a cart out of the stack of carts and give it to you if you looked like you were in need of a cart.
Wal-Mart Shopping Cart
Bud was extra careful when working in the warehouse. He wanted to make sure that he was getting everything right, so he would check, and double check, and then check again…. just to make sure everything matched. One good example of this was when he was tasked with ordering a half set of coal burner nozzles and tips for the boiler.
There were 24 of these Coal burner nozzle and tips in the boiler. the nozzles costing about $13,000 and the tips ran somewhere around $4,000 each.
Coal Burner Nozzle
There was another assembly that attached to the end with the hole on the side that allowed the nozzle to change the pitch it was called the Tip.
So, Bud wanted to make sure the created the order correctly. So, when Bud placed the order with the supplier, he not only included the Supplier’s part number, but he also included the manufacturer’s part number. Just to make sure they knew they were sending the correct part, he even sent them the old manufacturing part number that they used a few years before they changed their part numbering system. — So, when he sent the order, it had all three part number for the 12 nozzles. He did the same thing with the smaller piece for the end of the nozzle.
To Bud’s surprise, one bright sunny morning in December, 1989 (well, it may not have been that sunny that day), guess what showed up at the loading dock? 12 nozzles with the suppliers part number, 12 nozzles with the manufacturer’s part number, and 12 more nozzles with the manufacturer’s old part number! Yeah…. Didn’t count on that one.
I think I know how Bud must have felt when that happened. Probably the same way I felt the morning I was summoned to the front office to pick up my mail, only to find a stack of a couple hundred envelopes from all over the company after printing something out on all the printers in the company (See “Power Plant Customer Service Team Gone Wild“). I think Bud took these things in more in stride than most people might. His reaction to finding out that the order he had created for $156,000 had suddenly turned into $468,000 was probably something like…. “Oh Geez. I sure don’t want to do that again!”
During the “We’ve Got the Power” program (see the post “Power Plant We’ve Got the Power“), the HR and Warehouse director, Linda Dallas asked us if we would put in a proposal to scrap the extra nozzles since these nozzles were very big. She didn’t think it would look good if her own team created the proposal since she was already responsible for the warehouse. We had two people from the warehouse on our We’ve Got the Power team, Dick Dale and Darlene Mitchell, so she thought we could do something out the conundrum. Two nozzles fit on a pallet, taking up space all over the warehouse.
The nozzles with the Tips attached
We could save money just by scrapping it because we wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the parts. It cost too much to return them to the supplier because the restocking fee was too high. — And E-Bay didn’t exist back then.
Instead of accepting our proposal, it was decided that instead of just changing out half of the nozzles during the next outage, they would just replace all of the nozzles. This reduced the number of nozzles left in the warehouse to a more manageable number. So, Bud’s Faux Pas, may have just helped increase the efficiency of the boiler significantly with the replacement of the nozzles which may have translated into savings of unknown millions of dollars, of which Bud received no credit… But that’s okay. Bud wasn’t one to seek credit for his ingenious accidental idea of triple ordering boiler Nozzles.
One of the favorite stories I would tell my children as they were growing up when they would ask me to tell them a Bud Schoonover story was the story about the last tool in the tool room. — This is Bud’s own special way of handling the restocking of the tool room. It goes like this…. For instance….
If you went to the tool room to ask for a yellow flashlight and it happened to be the last yellow flashlight in the tool room, and it was Bud Schoonover’s week to man the tool room, then you would hear something like this:
Yellow Flashlight similar to the one I carried
“I can’t give you a yellow flashlight, because I only have one left.” — You may want to respond with something like, “But Bud, if there’s one left, then why can’t I have it?” Bud’s reply would be, “Because if I give you the last one, then I’d have to order more.”
At this point, you may want to start over asking if you can have a yellow flashlight, with the hope that Bud may have forgotten that he was down to his last yellow flashlight…. You might even phrase it a little differently… You might say something like, “Well… Can I just borrow a yellow flashlight for a few hours? At least for as long as I have to do some work in the dark?” — I have seen this approach almost work. He would stop and think about it like Andy Griffith in “No Time For Sergeants” trying to answer questions being asked by the Psychiatrist:
Andy Griffith talking to the Psychiatrist in No Time for Sergeants
Then the next question you may ask (I know, since I asked it more than once) is: “So, Bud, how about ordering some more yellow flashlights.” Bud would reply with something like, “No. I don’t really want to order anything this week.”, as he nods in the direction of the computer monitor sitting on the desk just to his left… — Oh…. computer shy…. that’s why. Not comfortable ordering stuff on the computer (especially after ordering all those coal burner nozzles).
I can understand that. He is the same age as my own father, and my dad at that time would literally call me at least one time every single day to ask me a computer question. Like…. “How do I move a paragraph from one part of a document to another part?” — “Um… Yeah Dad, (for the hundredth time), you do it like this….”
There’s something about every one of my friends and family that were born between December 30, 1934 and January 27th 1939. They all had the same problem with computers. Must be that particular generation born within thatfour year period. I’m sure Elvis, who was born right in the middle of that time frame (on January 8, 1935), would have had the same trouble with the PC if he had lived long enough. — I know… I know… I just saw him the other day myself.
Only he had gained some weight
Anyway, there was one sure fire way to get that tool that I needed from the tool room while Bud Schoonover was manning the front gate, and that was to volunteer to go to the warehouse and pick up a box of the parts yourself and carry them back and hand them to Bud, while taking one out for yourself. — And the time I needed a flashlight, I did just that.
One time I went to the tool room in the middle of the winter when we had water pipes that were frozen and I needed a propane torch to heat the pipe to melt the ice. Bud told me that he couldn’t give me a propane torch because he only had one left. I looked up two racks over from the gate and could see at least two boxes of propane bottles on the top shelf.
I told Bud that I wouldn’t be taking his last bottle of propane, because there was at least two bottles right up there on that shelf. Bud insisted that he only had one bottle of propane left and he couldn’t give it to me. So, while smiling at Bud and explaining that I could see the tool bottles right up there on the top of the shelf,… with one hand on his shoulder (which was about a whole foot taller than my head), and the other hand unlocking the gate, I told him I would show him.
So, I stepped into the tool room, and said, “It’s ok Bud, I won’t take your last bottle of Propane, but I do have to take this bottle here, because we have a water pipe that is frozen solid, and I need to use the propane torch to warm it up. Here… I”ll just take this one, and you can keep this other one here….”
Power Plant Propane Torch
As I walked back out the tool room smiling all the time at Bud, who was just staring at me with a worried look finally lowered his shoulders which had been creeping up closer to his ears as I had sidestepped him to get to the propane bottle.
The funny thing was that by the end of the week, there would be a whole list of parts and tools that only had one left in the tool room. Bud would consider it a successful week if he could make it through the week without having to get on the computer and order some more parts. He knew that next Monday, when Dick Dale
My Dear Friend Richard Dale
or Darlene Mitchell
Darlene Mitchell another dear friend
arrived, they would restock the shelves, and he would be in the warehouse filling the orders and bringing them over on a two wheeler to the tool room. And the world would be right once again.
Power Plant Men 
Great story on Bud. He was a might tight. Thanks for the photos of Dick and Darlene. Great memories.
That a funny story. Bud must have been fun to work with.
When we have an bad experience, we often learn the wrong lesson. Lots lots people learn to distrust computers, but they are just machines. Like any machine, we have to learn to use a computer properly.
Apparently, Bud just filled out a form incorrectly. Did it really make any difference whether the form was on a computer? Would he have filled in a paper form correctly?
What I find weird is that someone could place $468,000 order, and no one on the other end would look at the order carefully enough to wonder why Bud had used three different numbers to order the same part. Was it advantageous to the folks receiving the order to overlook the obvious? Why didn’t they call and confirm the order?