I'M IN EDINBURG!!!!

just not the right one. instead of having a week of vacation then heading to egypt, i was assigned to edinburg, TX, 15 miles from the mexican border in the southern-most part of the state. you can see the plant and location in my "location updater" there in the right sidebar.

it seems the tips of some of the hard steel blades have come off while the unit it running at 3600RPM. this usually doesn't lead to pretty things unless you consider this pretty (you know, by now, you can click on those for big and perty pix). i don't. this means a long outage. fixing the rotating parts usually isn't an issue, we can turn the rotor to get the blade to the top, and "blend" the edges smooth. problem is, there are non-moving blades (stator) as well. upper half and lower half. upper half is no problem because we remove the upper half and fix them on the ground. there is no access to the lower half ones with the rotor in place. if there were no stator damage, this is a 7-day outage, tops; but we see stator damage. that means pulling a bunch more casings, and i MIGHT get done in time for christmas. the good thing is, IF i'm done around christmas, i should be able to see jules for maybe my birthday and/or christmas and/or new years. my revised need date in egypt is now 2-january-08, which should work out quite well, but as you all know, nothing goes as planned in this field with this manager.

that's enough of the technical. sorry about that, maybe it's too much for a personal blog, but that's where i stand. at least i'm finally on dayshift. the only shitey thing about that is there's not really anyone onsite to go out with after work AND it's a bit tought to talk to jules online. because of the time difference, our schedules are almost completely out of sync.

texas is kinda of a weird place, at least this part of texas, since i shouldn't generalize, despite generalizing this PART of the state by the few people i've talked with. so, from the people i've talked to, they hate bush (WOW!!!) and can't wait to get a democrat in office. that really blew my mind, since bush was governor here. they kinda hate mexicans, a bit, even though they are so close to mexico. these are "right to bear arms, pry my gun from my cold dead hands" kinda people. "americans are americans and should speak american (english)" kinda people. one of the guys has a sticker on his hardhat that says "if i shot you when i first wanted to, i'd be out by now". yeah, those kinda people. they talk about guns and big trucks and arm-wrestling and breeding dogs strong enough to bite your head off. pretty much anything manly and violent. i kinda just don't fit in. i own a .22 rifle (basically a BB gun to these guys) that i haven't shot in years, i just bought a big truck but my tires are too little for these guys (and it doesn't have a winch), the only thing i know about arm-wrestling is from sly stallone's "over the top"... when i turn this hat around, it's like a switch, and dogs... i can take 'em or leave 'em. they're nice enough, they tell me to "cowboy up" a lot, though i know their making fun of the yankee. every time us yanks come to the south, we get hazed a bit.

quick story, last night i was at hooters watching the oregon ducks go down in flames to an unranked arizona (better for OSU), when one of the guys from site saw me at the bar. he came up and we talked for a bit, actually maybe an hour and a half or so. there was an attractive hooters girl, TheNaomi, behind the bar very much in earshot, and at one point i was talking about TheYoungerSister complaining about having to be on her feet for 8 hours a day at work, the guy said "well, it's better than working 8 hours on your back!" i couldn't quit laughing and neither could TheNaomi. it was so... just, WOW! she agreed that 8 hours on your feet would be better than working 8 hours on your back, but the pay on your back would definitely be better. then she went on how she doesn't understand how any woman could ever go hungry or be homeless. she's like "we have the power" (gesturing netherly). i couldn't believe it. it was hilarious. i mean, i think a lot of guys would agree but only around other guys. girls would shoot us for talking like that, and when she said it on top of his comment... well, let's just say my ribs were hurting by the time i got finished laughing. TheNaomi, you are cool!

good times, good times. well, back to work, lunch is over.