Better Find a "Throw Down Buzzard"

I was awakened at 0645 this morning by a loud boom followed immediately with a total loss of electricity.
Entergy, the local power company,  was on the scene within 45 minutes and had the power back.  As I watched the Electrical Journeyman replace the blown breaker, I noticed he knocked something off the transformer.  Upon further review it was the critter in the photo that caused the short and he paid dearly for his unfortunate wandering. 

Notice the black tail that was burned

The incident brought back memories of my DuPont days when you conducted "Root Cause Failure Analysis"  to learn of causes and prevent future failures.  We have investigated power outages of many causes.  Snakes have been culprits before, but usually in substations where electrical leads are crossed on floor surfaces, not fifty feet in the air.  One similar incident occurred when a mother raccoon gave birth to three babies on the top of a substation.  One of the cute, cuddly critters fell into the "Hot" part of the apparatus and shut down half of the entire plant.  The two surviving siblings were rescued and later released into the wild. 

Anytime an electrical outage occurred, you immediately begin looking for some sort of cause.  Lightning was often the reason, but not always.  Some causes were difficult to identify such as failing lightning arrestors that seem to fail only on coastal locations after twenty years of service or dirty insulators that were a result of extended droughts and not getting rinsed with normal rainfall. 

Birds were a common suspect.  You would find a charred spot on a pole or cross arm and a dead bird nearby.  This was always a preferred "root cause" as it was considered more of an "Act of God" and did not require elaborate investigations and expensive fixes to prevent recurrence. Sometimes it was necessary to ask for help from the experts.  One such expert was a company consultant, Ed Wharton.

Ed was a very intelligent Electrical Engineer that was eager to help and always provided practical analysis and solutions.

It was on one such incident that my Power Distribution supervisor, Paul Pool, had called Ed to help with an investigation of an outage that caused significant production loss.  After numerous time in the field, studying systems, prints and computer reviews, they were not coming up with any possible causes.  With tongue in cheek,  Ed turned to Paul and said,  "You need to get a 'throw down buzzard'"! 

Considering the state of current affairs where too many people don't take responsibility for their actions, it is time for our current leader to set the example. put away his "Throw down buzzard" and take responsibility for his actions and quit blaming others.

Let's Play Two

Baseball, You Bet!  When I first started following baseball the major league baseball teams played games in the classic parks like Ebbets Field, The Polo Grounds, Comiskey Park, Yankee Stadium, Crosley Field, Fenway Park, Forbes Field and Wrigley Field.  Today, only Fenway and Wrigley remain.

I had the opportunity to see a game in Fenway, the old Yankee Stadium and Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. This winter one of my friends brother in law organized a trip to Wrigley Field and George Fortune and I managed to get on the invite list.  Twelve of us made the trip.  Other than two hour flight delays going and coming due to record rains in Chicago the trip was well worth the effort. 

I had set three goals for the trip.  One, see a game in Wrigley, two, eat a Chicago deep dish pizza and three, eat a Chicago Dog at the ball park.

The night of our arrival we piled into two cabs and went to Lou Minalti's for pizza.  We ordered five large deep dish pizzas.  We ate three and a half and carried the remaining one back to the hotel desk clerk that recommended the place.  I have to say it was probably the best pizza I have ever eaten.

Saturday was game day. First pitch was at 12:05.  We arrived at the park around 0730am.  A nostalgic setting for a classic park.  There is no parking.  We walked around the entire park.  The first 10,000 fans would be given a key chain.  At exactly 1005am they opened the gates.  We were in the first 10 in the park.

 I must have heard the words from various members of our group, including myself, "We're at Wrigley Field" The park was old.  It didn't have the amenities of the new ones.  No "Jumbotron".  Not an abundance of concession stands. But what an atmosphere!  The fans were nice and the help was courteous.

The Cubs beat the Astros 7-2.  I could have been a Cubs fan.

Do You Remember Where You Were When....?

As America was reminded this weekend of the Terrorists attack on the WTC ten years ago, many people reflected on where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the Terrorists attacks on our soil.  I was in a meeting in a DuPont conference room when the HR manager broke in and said a plane had hit the Twin Towers.  Most of us spent the rest of the day catching up on the events as they unfolded. 

Many of us recall similar situations on other historical events.  For my generation, most everyone can tell you where they were when President Kennedy was shot.  I was coming out of a class in the Engineering Building at Lamar University when Bobby Kinnear stopped and told me.  I also recall that I was visiting the Safety Supervisor in the Chambers Works, NJ plant when I learned of the Challenger exploding. 

The more I thought about these events, the more events I began to recall details. 

In 1956 Buster Coats told me in the court yard at Bingman Elementary School that Don Larsen had pitched a perfect game.  I didn't like the Yankees and I didn't want to believe this bit of information.

I also remember the first time I met George Fortune.  It was on a sand pile between our houses when we were both seven years old.  I remember when I first met Bobby Katz.  It was in Mrs Fore's fourth grade class.  He was wearing brown shoes while the rest of us went barefoot.  I thought he was a strange kid to wear shoes to class.

Do you remember where you were, when...?