Interesting pics or stories from your job.

A look at one of the largest ASRS distribution centers in the US.

 

In a former life this shipwright was demasting a 25' sailing vessel, on his own, as the mast foot needed replacing because it was rotten, so I started out fairly gingerly! One of those cheap and nasty deck mounted jobbies that shouldn't be allowed, the boat obviously thought so too because just as I was about to lift the mast up me and said mast ended up on the keelson. Luckily no harm was done to me, I told the owner to go f*** himself and burn the piece of junk. Repairing boats when they break without ongoing maintenance is a great way to kill yourself at sea.
For the non-floaty types trying to work out what I just said - Me and a mast went through the deck and ended up in the bilge, which is the proper place to seat a mast.

 

I'll try to make this as short as possible. Building I'm in was built in 99/00, has a 300k gallon pool.

2014ish- They knock a hole in the side of the building to replace the pool HVAC system. Old system had pumps/piping to utilize the pool as a heat sink for heating(this is important later).
New system is installed and starts running 100% from day 1. Staff HVAC tech tells them it's not right and gets brushed off.
Later that year we have a swim meet where someone passes out because it's nearly 100 degrees on the pool balcony. Now we have an issue according to management.
Proceed to install 2 22ft Big Ass Fans over the pool, and UV filtration system in the pool piping to 'help'

2016ish- Realize the HVAC system was undersized. Knock a hole in the wall again and scrap the 2 year old system, install a new one for the tune of approximately $1 million. Runs great, except for the fact they skipped A/C on this one because "Humidity shouldn't be an issue with 50% outside air" but we exist on a lake so May-September it's humid as all get out.

2018 - They decide to replace the dinosaur pool boiler with 2 separate 3 stage ones to provide a backup. Great. New ones are installed and keep erroring out over low flow. Old boiler had a circulation pump in the pool pump room but they decided it was unnecessary and it was removed. The 'solution' is to throttle a valve off the 8" 950gpm pool pump to slow the water flow so the boiler mounted pumps can pull enough water.
Now we've fought with these 2 boilers for 3 years and NEVER been able to get both of them to fire at the same time without tripping high limits or error out over low flow.

2021 - Factory rep comes in tells management that the engineers screwed up the plumbing and it'll never work. He's ignored and we keep fighting with it. Later that year one dies and the below is what we find.



Factory rep is called because "This is a warranty issue" rep says nah clearly this thing has been overheating for awhile.

Remember when I said that extra piping for the air handler would be important. The pool piping has provisions for 2 sets of 2" outlet and returns, complete with mounts/electric/controls/valves for 2 circulation pumps.
So the original engineer decided to run 2 boilers with 2" piping into ONE set of those 2" pipes, without any additional circulation pumps and cap off the unused set. So as of right now we have one working boiler that is limited to running 1 of 3 stages because it will overheat due to low flow.

2023 - I just heard they are starting a new project for this so I can't wait to see what sort of shenanigans take place this time.

 

There's never money to do it right but there's always money to do it over.

 

I am working as a conservation tech and my boss likes to light stuff off for habitat management but most times he would just decide to burn stuff he shouldn’t in to much wind.
Im on the backside of the fire putting out spot fires and then the fire just decides to run and next thing you know I am looking at 15 foot flame lengths with my boss yelling on the radio. “You got that right”
3 hours later we get it contained after about 5 spot fires. What a day lol

pic is from before it narrowed into a corridor of death

 

Exactly. I've lost count of how many times we've said things aren't working correctly after install and get 'Well it's installed the way it was engineered' and they sign off and then get pissy when shit breaks 2 years later.

 

Completely different and the same in my building. We got almost 300k of sqft and originally 6 boilers for 2 loops. Well the 2 boilers for the small loop died a couple of years ago and the temp repair was to connect the two loops together with high pressure HOSE. Well the in-house guys (like me) kept reminding them of the temp repair that needed replacing. Well two years later hose shit the bed and flooded large areas on the morning of biggest most important night of the year. Well the temp repair was now redone in copper for 50k. STILL on the 4 boilers instead of it own 2 boilers. Well now 1 dead and two dying with faults all the time, struggling to get loops over 120. Now out on engineering reviews for replacing in the next couple years.

 

Big fundraiser gala in my building today and this is parked outside, on display. Got to say it looks sharp.

 

Temporarily permanent.

My new favorite is value engineered meaning we'll take the lowest bidder.

 

Sea stories!!! Have hundreds I couldn't tell in various ports around Japan/Korea/Guam/Thailand/Okinawa/Australia ... you get the idea. Any way this reminded me of a time I yelled at an officer on the flight deck and lived to tell about it.haha

We were recovering our birds after flight ops were done one night. Our last aircraft had just started flying along the port side and pulled the circuit breaker for the position lights and killed the smacks. A friend and I were standing next to the Harriers that were already tied down on the aft starboard side of the boat. A couple of ordinance Seaman or Marines had come up from their shop on the port side of the ship. Unbeknownst to them our CH53E had just started sliding over the side of the ship for their landing. Somehow these two made it across the deck without being blown off by the rotor wash. The white coat came running over to me and my buddy and tried to chew our asses as he thought it was us. My buddy and I at the same time reached down with our outer hands and grabbed the pad eyes, took the usual stance, and proceeded to slam him to the deck. At about that time, our aircraft was just about on the deck and this guy realized he almost got blown overboard. In fact, the toolbox that we took up with us was sliding toward the net. Once the aircraft was done shutting down and this guy stood up, he took his cranial and NVG's off and thanked us for saving his life. We then told him where the other two people had gone...I am sure their night got real bad.

That same buddy of mine from above was running across the quarter-deck after requesting permission to come aboard(at port and we were hammered drunk) and tried to jump over a rope barrier(like the ones at the bank that form the little maze). Well he misjudged the height and distance and the rope tripped him. He had no time for reflexes and to get his hands down. Luckily that thick nonskid and his face broke his fall. We thought for sure he lost teeth, and was gonna need stitches. Nope! He stands up, runs his tongue across his teeth, and says" I still have all my teeth". He had special sleeping arrangements that night.

Last sea story for now. One night I was running down to where our parts were stored. This was like three decks below the flight deck. Normally nobody would be there unless they were looking for gear in a huge container. I came running around the corner and there was our MEU Commanding Officer and he was practicing with his samurai sword. I almost ran right into it. I remember trying to stop running while simultaneously popping to the position of attention and screaming"Good morning Sir". He was just as shocked as me. He quickly returned his sword and had a short conversation with me. Pretty cool experience for almost dying

 

Had a boiler in another building let loose yesterday, somehow the black water tank had pressure, not good. So today it was a mad rush to pull the heat exchanger, and black water tank, and then strip this one in a basement and take it over to put into the old shell. The black water exchanger weighs close to 400lbs.
We got it up and running though!

 

I was on the toilet. Someone turned off the lights while I was still in there

 

I've worked through that city, they don't F around there

 

Old.. this lightning bolt caused some issues.


New.. I almost died about 5 minutes after taking this.

 

Im glad I’m retired and don’t do that crap anymore

 

The food in that area was outstanding though.

 

Not my everyday job, but got picked for the lottery to bottle at Stranahan’s… it’s delicious. Check out the blue label bottle if you haven’t already!

 

Seen the AN-224 give birth to multiple British Apache helicopters for a detachment. Got an inside tour too, aircraft had crystal clear radios from 200miles away. So clear you would think they were 20 feet away.

 

Ah the ignorance of "budgetary constraints" of the decision makers.

 

Meh

 

Yep, that town's got quite the reputation. If you live close by you know or heard some of it.

It's gotten better over time but workmates still mention not go across the railroad tracks in that town especially if you have no business there....

 

Bridge City was worse. It just never made the news. There’s still has a ‘presence’ over there. Bored-ass people man.

 

I accompanied my wife to Orange one time and we made sure to not go to certain areas of town....

 

This was over 30 years ago.

 

I am not sure if there is a 224 or 225 or both or if people are using them synonymously.

I'm pretty sure we will never see the 225 fly again. Destroyed in the Ukraine/Russia conflict.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGGNNrLBSHQ

 

Yeah, I saw that, sad day for aviation. I was pretty sad to see it destroyed, unfortunately when military hides equipment within close range it becomes that target's collateral damage.

 

Cool old incinerator at work, no longer in useback in the day when they used brass fittings, so cool!

 

Back when I was training in the tower, we got a chance to see a Kodiak, AK. The C130 come in with a call sign of Skier01. After a brief discussion among the 3 of us (local, ground and me) about what it meant, I put 2 and 2 together and was like snow, so I let it go, the ground guy didn't though. Once this C130 is taxiing out to the customs ramp, the ground controller called for a question. So conversation went a little like this:

Controller: Skier01, ground do you have time for a question?
Skier01: Go ahead ground.
Controller: Skier01, I see you have skiis attached to your landing gear, are those for skiing on the water, like surfing?
Skier01: Yeah, we absolutely can, but it will be a 1 time deal.
Controller: Roger that, thanks.

At this point I looked at him and was thinking, he didn't just ask him that, after this discussion. There is a reason it's white with orange and not typical grey anyway. Dude looked at me looking at him and so was the local controller. He took a break and took the rest of the day off.. lol..

 

Can you elaborate for those of us who know nothing about aviation?