Friday, April 15, 2005

TMO diary! & The Grunt of the Year!

TMO was a great learning opportunity! On the first day I was panicking about fellows from Metso and looking forward to meet the Steiner group. Anyway, there were a lot of foot shuttling between AFL and PMs throughout the day between the analyzers. After lockout chaos, PM update meeting, samplers’ un- attachment chaos in the afternoon, I was in my jumpsuit and harness, getting ready to dive into the chip rocket, being dripped and covered with black liquor. Quite an adventure. More great news coming my way as the Finnish Metso specialist cured the tumor that has been hurting Cati for months. It was all about the defected circuit board. On the other hand, Kappa has 3 error messages, erratic reading and a contaminated level sensor.
I gotta talk to Margaret too. She is from corporate. (Saw SU from SP and had dinner with him).

Confusion and panicking continued on the second day of TMO as Metso work continued. Teflon tape and light issues were causing some bums. By 2, I almost had a nervous breakdown since my vendor has a tendency to play hide and seek with me. He was nowhere in sight. After attending update meetings of PMs and AFL, I chased him down and got an update. More panicking set in as I was finding out how I was failing my project. He was running out of time and out of parts and I felt I was being cheated out of my service contract (rebuilt 2 samplers and analyzers). I wanted the job done. I learned a lot about the rocket though, esp. the lower screens and I got to visit with some of my fave AFL operators. So after all, the day was another A+. After work, I visited the carriage house.

Third day, I changed my battlefield from AFL to PMs. The very hectic day took my mind off of some VERY unpleasant family time. Meanwhile, I was hoping that Kappa would be fully serviced. I did not get the actuator for Kappa. I guess I will wait. My day was all about headboxes and graphite sheets. Horace and I were checking out all the cool blisters on the sheets, but blisters are not really desirably cool. I also got to learn a lot about apron and slice lips from the Steiner group. They even enjoyed my oriental style chili with the Mexican twist for lunch. Also, my Barbie outfit was well received. Those were the jokes of the day. At the end of the day. I was told that I will be going to Memphis TN for a week in May. HEE_HAW. Oh.. Oh Oh … and my new name of the day is GRUNT or the assistant of another assistant!

Fourth day, I spent time in trip-planning (TN and CA), PMs and recovery. In the morning, I was at PMs, doing blister counting. (Scott stopped by to talk to me about red river, a mystery will be revealed shortly.) In the afternoon, I was able to climb inside the fire box, the 7th and the 12th deck of the recovery boiler, not to forget about the lime kiln. That was pretty awesome. (I had dinner with SU again. It was a lot of fun.)

The fifth day was all about harmony and good news (NC called back). Everyone is ready to go home and be happy. “This is a friendly mill.” Quote SU. Horace liked that. What SU should have said but didn’t is: “I like to work with you all, fine ppl”. Bright and early, I was hanging with SU in the lime kiln. It was awesome to be inside one of those, checking out the bricks, lime mud and the chains. Then he came and visited at 10:15 AM. (oops he had a little run-in with the lab ppl, I hope it was just a misunderstanding) Then I had lunch with SU, Horace and a bunch of maint folks. I even got him to hang out with me till 1. In the afternoon, it was all about start up and just trying to survive.

The weekend is around the corner and let see what kind of torments are waiting of me.
I am physically exhausted and emotionally strained. White top (brightener, white fiber), Metso, PI are all coming my way, and Oh I forgot ‘the fixer-upper” . When will I be on a sandy beach?

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