Grand Junction

Now I don't have as big a workload, I've decided to update this blog. Not like I think it matters, but I feel like it anyways.

Well, as mentioned before, I was having some crazy hours. The 8-9AM leave hotel, 12-1AM return to hotel followed by analysis and reporting, continued for 19 days straight, except for canadian thanksgiving where I took it easy (only about 6-8 hrs work). Got pretty used to it, and as I mentioned it wasn't so bad; if I was in the office doing those kind of hours it would totally suck. But out in the hangar it's not so bad, and in the evenings and on weekends when there's hardly anyone around it's kindof relaxing (as long as work is going smoothly of course).

So with those hours, I didn't really do much other than work-eat-sleep, so not many stories. But a few little things.

On the thanksgiving, I drove out to Colorado national monument. A nice drive through interesting rocky scenery, big canyons and rock formations. Would have been fun to hike around more. As it was, I was stopping at most of the lookouts and jumping out of the car and running along the paths like a little kid... partially cause I'd had no physical activity for a week, partially cause I was in a hurry to be back before Paul returned from Calgary. But it was fun. Went along some slightly longer paths too. I think in the evening of that same day, since there wasn't much to do, we cruised around town, saw a soccer game and stopped for it, even though Paul hates soccer. It was a high school game, and ended the moment we showed up. But it would have been fun to hang around. I like the big green field and bright stadium lights.

Other stories... was in the bar/restaurant one night and there was a flames-colorado game on, that would have been funny, us cheering for the flames and the locals cheering for colorado. But of course the locals don't care. One of the aircraft mechanics happened to be there so he cheered colorado just to tease us. It was 3-0 for flames when we entered, 4-0 by the time we sat down, but flames still managed to lose. First three colorado goals were reflections off skates... I don't care much about hockey, but that was just sad to watch.

Between the hotel and the airport there was Fuji "oriental therapy" massage... We were joking, wondering if our company health plan would cover that. I think it's only "licensed massage therapists". This place seemed to always be open, even when we'd be going home after midnight. Actually, one time it was closed around 1:30 am.

Speed limits... It wasn't like I was unaware of their existance, or like I chose to ignore them... It was more like because they were in mph, it was like they were in another language and I had no idea what they meant. Could have been some Thai squiggles for all it meant.

Had one lousy day. When you're reminded that you're pretty unqualified for the job you're doing. Had to cut the power to a set of inverters, and run a wire from a different pin in the plug. First, I cut a 4 to 1 solder. Discovered the one I cut was ground not power. Had to put in a new wire to the ground pin and resolder it all. Next, I cut the AC out instead of the DC in. Some pins were backwards from what I expected. So I had to fix that as well. Finally, I cut the right wire and soldered it to a wire to the right pin. But it made a 20 minute job into a multi-hour job, and felt kindof crappy.