Work Stuff

I am responsible for updating the spill prevention and counter control (SPCC) plans for 26 power stations scattered throughout Ohio and one in West Virginia. This involves me going to each of those stations, looking to see what equipment has changed, documenting said changes and updating the site map. I decided that I would work on these all week and see how many I could wrap up. I got my self a rental car (our version of a fleet vehicle) and took off first thing Monday morning.

When we get to the station, we have to call in to the dispatching office and log in before we go inside. There are many reasons for this, mainly safety related. If the control room decides to do some switching remotely and it could be dangerous for someone to be standing around while they do so, they'll know I'm there. Also, some stations are armed with remotely controlled alarms and the dispatcher will turn those off before we go in.I called in and logged in to one of my stations, unlocked the gate, went in, turned around to lock the gate back and promptly lost my hearing when a splitting alarm went off. I called the dispatcher, very annoyed that they forgot the alarm and was informed that there was no alarm there. I assured him that there was indeed an alarm and he said he would call security to look into it. Twenty minutes later I give up and decide to just do what I came there to do and hope that I didn't get arrested by the police. Now for some reason I had ONE earplug, which I used and shoved my finger into the other ear while I tried to work. Then the alarm just stopped. The dispatcher called me back to tell me that this was an alarm that couldn't be controlled remotely, gave me two codes and told me to try one to reset the alarm. I told him it was already off, which confused him, but he told me that it would go off again if I didn't use the code when I left. Ok, I did what I needed to do, plugged in the code and ran away.

I go to the next station, call in and inform them that I see the same security system here, which they didn't know about either. They tell me to try the same codes and see what happens. Okay, but the security box was very, very far away from the gate and nobody knew how much time I had. So, I lined the car up perfectly, unlock the gate push it open, run back to the car and gunned it just in time for the gate to swing back and slam into the rental car leaving a very nice dent. But I did just make it to the security box in time and averted triggering the thing.

My mean old boss made me fill out an incident report for the dent, which annoyed me. But not as much as the actual report did. They don't really care about little dents, just accidents that are serious. Therefore, the report is very lengthy. One amusing thing came out of the station inspection, see picture below.

I can't imagine one of our station guys drawing a face on an oil filled circuit breaker, but that would mean that some kid snuck into the station and did this. Perhaps that annoying alarm is a good idea after all.

Hello, Stranger

It's been awhile since I've posted, eh? What's happened in all that time you ask? Well......

We lost power for 4 days due to hurricane Ike. Yes, we still live in Ohio. Haven't you heard of those oh so common midwestern hurricanes? Wait, YOU lost power? Don't you work for the electric company? Yes, I do and during that week I really wished that I didn't. My boss was very conveniently on vacation during this time, so it left me in charge of dealing with his staff who were trying to deal with all those transformer spills. I spent a lot of time on the phone with them and a day out in the field looking at downed transformers and power lines and trying not to fry myself on those that were still live. It was a real mess around here. I got grouched at by everyone, including one of Max's teachers who went on and on for half an hour. People kept assuming that I had some sort of special powers and could really get their electricity on if I wanted to, never mind the fact that I didn't have any power at my house either. The neighbors kept asking me for the scoop and I didn't know any more than them. They always looked at me like I was hiding something.

Wilson and Mia's daycare didn't have power either, but they stayed open. They brought in gas grills to cook food and warm water with, and it seemed to work out well. Max's school closed for three days. He spent a day with me at work camped out under my desk, a day with Beth at work watching movies on the laptop and eating popcorn and a day at the back up daycare center. I felt really bad for him since the drastic change in routine was really upsetting him. I later found out that the school never lost power, they just closed. I can't tell you how angry that makes me. The poor kid was all stressed out and could have really benefited from going to school during the day and they just closed for no good reason. Not to mention, I pay a lot of money to send him there and I want him to go. The board will be getting a rather nasty letter from me on the subject.

Well, that's the update. I'll try not to be gone so long this time.

Batmiton

Last night I was vegging on the couch and Beth went downstairs with a load of laundry. Within seconds I heard her running, and I mean running, back up the stairs and then silence. I thought she must have heard something, so I was all quiet trying to listen for whatever she heard. Then a very quiet voice informed me, "There's a bat in the basement."

Now, you might remember the previous bat incident earlier this summer. That was kind of funny. We were able to lock the cats in the basement, open the doors and wait for the bat to fly out, which it promptly did. This situation presented some interesting challenges. First, no doors to the outside in the basement and only glass block windows. Second, a low ceiling made even lower by acoustic tiles. Third, nowhere to lock up the cats. And finally, Max was still awake and would freak out if we closed his door.

I told Beth to stand at the end of the hall and keep a look out for the bat, which she didn't look very happy about. Then I opened the garage door that is across from the basement door, grabbed a couple of towels and headed to the basement.

Our basement lighting is screwy. There are 5 different lighting areas all controlled by separate switches. When I went downstairs, only one dim light was on at the foot of the stairs and the rest of the basement is pitch black. The bat would fly towards me and I couldn't see it until it almost touched me. I was not okay with that. I also was having a problem getting off of the stairs since I couldn't see the bat and with the close quarters, was getting way too close to it. So, I sat on the last step and debated what to do. I kept hearing the poor thing scrambling against the walls and ceiling in the dark part of the room, and that didn't help my nerves much. The poor bat was desperate to get out, and I think it knew that up the stairs was how to escape since they can sense temp changes, but the way the ceiling and stairs are set up the bat would have to fly towards the stairs and then shoot up at the last minute to make it out. I'm guessing the sonar was telling it that this was a wall, just like everywhere else.

I finally realize that I'm not going to get the bat out of the house by sitting on the stairs. I ended up crawling on all fours to the nearest switch in the dark part, waiting for the bat to fly over my head and then popping up to flip the switch and sit back down. Now, I could see most of the area the bat was flying in, and Emma who was down there trying very hard to help me catch the flying rodent!

I tried to throw a towel on the bat a couple of times and that just wasn't going to work. It was way too fast for that. So, I sat down and looked around to see what else I could use and landed on my racquetball rackets. I crawled over to those and selected the old, crappy one. I didn't know what might happen if I actually hit the bat and decided I didn't want bat goo on my good racket! I stood up and waited for it to get close. Unfortunately, the little bugger kept coming at me in a way that required the use of my backhand, which anyone who's ever played racquetball with me will tell you sucks. But he finally made a mistake and I got him with a nice solid overhand, a loud "P-twang" and the poor bat was knocked half way across the basement onto the floor. I promptly ran over and covered it with the racket, even though it didn't look like it was going to go anywhere soon.

I needed to pick up the bat somehow and decided that a container would be the best choice to avoid being bitten or scratched. I went up the stairs and told Beth to grab me a tupperware thing. As I rounded the doorway at the top of the stairs, I saw that she had created a barrier that consisted of a baby gate at the ceiling, a card table on the floor and her peeking between the two. I almost fell over laughing. Below is a picture of the top part of the barricade.


We grabbed a container and headed back down. Beth wanted to see what I had done and couldn't believe I actually hit the bat. I told her I didn't really have much choice, the way I saw it. So, we go over and look at it and it's in the same position that I had left it in. I thought I had killed it, but then I saw that it was breathing. I moved the racket a smidgen and that set the bat off! It started squeaking and squirming all around the place, and trying to bite through the strings. I had to mess around with it to get it in the right position to lift off the racket and cover it with the container, which I actually managed to do the first time. Then I slid the lid under the container. The bat really got loud and Beth was yelling, "It's foot! It's foot!" I had it's little foot pinched in the lid, and it wasn't happy. Finally, I got all the bat bits enclosed and took it upstairs. It was running in circles around the container just yelling at me. If you looked closely at it, it was bearing each one of it's pointy little teeth at me. I made Beth take a couple of pictures and a video (see below) and then went outside, tossed the container in the air and the bat flew away.

After our first bat incident I found some statistics that a bat in the house means there are bats living in the house about 90% of the time. I chose to ignore that the first time. Now, I guess I'm gonna have to figure out where they are roosting. I've looked everywhere from the ground and can't find any place they could get in or any evidence of bats. That means I need to go on the roof and look. If I can't figure it out, I might have to hang out on the roof and wait for them to fly out. Otherwise, I've got to get a pest control person out here to check out the attic. I am NOT going into the attic if there's possibly a colony of bats living up there. They might seek revenge for the whole racquettball thing.....

I have no idea how long that bat was flying around in the basement, but I will tell you that poor Anubis was absolutely terrified to go back down there last night. I think that flying rodents are not something she's okay with. I hope none of the cats actually tangled with that thing.