Colorado Melons

While organizing some files, I came across a directory of the “Insider” newsletters that I published for a couple of years in real paper & sent out to about 3,500 people every 45 days. Those files revived many good memories of our initial transition to Colorado, a transition that many of you helped make a very pleasurable experience.

Having been able to try something new that I’d had no experience with whatsoever in an area where I had no contacts was a daunting experience at first; but the realization that one could do quite well simply by doing the right thing and treating people decorously was another real-time reinforcement of a closely held belief system.

The company in which I had developed many good relationships here has since changed hands and no longer exists, but fortunately some of those relationships continue to grow.

The actual layout may or may not be a bit off depending on your program and/or version, but here’s a sample of a couple of those newsletters:

Volume 03 Issue 01

Volume 03 Issue 03

From the simple, self-taught beginnings of a using the outputs from a PC to drive stepper motors and receive positional feedback through the LPT (what a printer does in 2 dimensions) even an early-90’s hack was able to control three gear-motor drivers to within .001″ by translating an image into G code and then doing little more but sitting back.

We all know that .001 inch isn’t “all that” in the machine industry. The three motors were intended for a gantry table for cutting and welding, but unfortunately, the machine side of that project was never completed due to our unplanned transition to Colorado life almost 8 years ago; but it’s no accident that we’re in the perfect environment to employ that same capacity in our current vocation on a much larger scale.

It’s easily conceivable that certain triggers can be placed into a digital process for specific equipment, taking multiple – seemingly simultaneous – corrective actions quicker than any human individual could process & then physically react. It has become a common practice, whether in aerospace, aviation, your automobile, or processing plants.

I was talking with someone the other day and a statement was made to the effect of,

Whatever the process, computers don’t care what they’re controlling.

That couldn’t be more true. Sending little packets of one’s and zero’s from this server for your computer’s browser to interpret into ciphers and images is the same to a computer as sending them to a valve controller or conveyor belt servo-motor. The end result is different, but the process isn’t.

All that being said, I still enjoy hammering out the code necessary to do these pages. If you don’t already know, this entire site is a database backed – not static html. Your browser interprets what it retrieves and you get the html markup, but it’s all retrieved on my end from a series of databases.

On my end for example, the beginning of this page looks like:

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id=”content_box”>

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/l_sidebar.php’); ?>

<div id=”content”>

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

and so on. I don’t see the actual layout unless I want to. Even without knowing PHP, you can pretty-much interpret it by reading through it. It’s easier than French, “Laissez le bon temps rouler!”

<?php get_header(); ?>
Get the Page Header

<div id=”content_box”>
Everything in the following division of the page should use the criteria listed under the “content box” I.D. section of my separate (and unseen by you) style sheet.

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/l_sidebar.php’); ?>
Then include the left sidebar using the selected template (or “theme”).

<div id=”content”>
Now use the “Content” section of the style sheet for anything from font size and color, to image alignment, etc.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
“IF” there’s a post, do the following – later on there’s an “Else” in case “If” criteria is not met. Since we obviously “have posts”, we continue through in this loop with:

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
While we have posts: Post them!

and so on down the page to the “get footer” php statement. All in milliseconds from me to wherever you are… and the server doesn’t know or care what we do with it and whether someone else sees the back end or not, its there. It’s the foundation and like anything else, should be done to the best of ones ability whether anyone is looking or not. Poorly written code wastes resources in the same way as does you’re inefficient hot-water heater or poorly tuned automobile.

For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse.
~Samuel Richardson

Regarding the Template/Theme:

The “header” will come from whatever “template” is being used and can be changed accordingly, but the “content” will remain the same throughout. I had taken the Theme Switcher out for a while because it was causing some issues with other aspects I’d been working on.

If the layout I’ve been using in the interim has been acting funky with your particular browser or you just like one of the previous ones better, you’ll find that you can again choose one that might suit you better in the sidebar.

Thanks for visiting.

Five weeks of a planned maintenance outage at one of our powerplants crammed into <10 mins of video. It’s how we roll.

Enjoy!

I remember reading in a relatively recent issue of Coal Power Magazine that Powder River Basin (PRB) coal now accounts for about 40% of all the coal fired in the U.S. to produce electricity. Although lower in cost per Btu, PRB is unlike any other coal in that its easily crumbled, dusty nature requires special attention to its safe handling and storage; which can only be the result of thoughtful and deliberate attention paid to the details of operation.

Keeping in touch with some of my old firefighter brothers and now actively involved in the Power Generation Industry, we are learning – unfortunately through passed major industrial explosions involving the accumulation of combustible powder – that accidents have mainly occurred when operators underestimate, or dismiss entirely, the devastating potential of combustible particulate solids.

A mechanical failure within the conveyor system can cause enough heat buildup to start a coal fire. Inadequate lubrication in the bearing of a roller or the friction between a seized roller and the conveyor belt can buildup heat sufficient to ignite a coal laiden belt.

Although many such incipient fires may not have been as widely advertised as Russia’s recent Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro-electric castastrophy, they have occurred. (John Cowdrey will also point out that even this devistating catastrophy hasn’t hit the main-stream U.S. media.) Plant Operators throughout our industry speculate that the frequency of incidents may be rising with small contained fires occurring regularly at many plants. Continue Reading »

As some of you know, I started out my career in the Power Generation Industry at a coal burning electric plant here in Colorado and while many an average Joe or Josephine will immediately transform into some poo-slinging-chimpanzee at the mere mention of "those fossil fuel plants", meeting everyone’s needs for a 24 / 7 electricity demand that’s up more than 53% in the last 20 years is no easy task. To say that it has been "an education" getting an insider’s perspective to this industry and learning how we meet our nation’s grid demand with the current infrastructure (pun intened) would be an understatement to the n^th degree.

Continue Reading »

On shift at Remote Energy Plants without the benefit of other employees or the designated Safety Representative watching over your every move – That’s right, it’s a “benefit” - a non-participant might make the incorrect assumption that it’s easy to make “Safety” a subordinate consideration.

I recall one day on the job with the aforementioned benefit of others – when a mechanic admonished me with, ”How do you get by without sideshields?”. I hadn’t realized that I had gotten up from my computer and walked into the plant while still wearing my regular reading glasses. His “calling me out” for my own good was greatly appreciated and I immediately corrected the situation. I won’t forget it.

In Remote Energy Plants, many of the work areas are out of the main stream (pun intended) and a lot of times we’re working nights/weekends/holidays when others are enjoying their earned time away. Either way, “Safety isn’t 9 to 5″ with this team and like many other individuals in this industry, we take personal ownership of it.

While preparing for a job the other night, I needed to grab some equipment from our tool cage. Since the cage here is professionally organized, it didn’t take me but a few seconds to grab some orange cones, a portable light and a cart on my way out from collecting the other tools I needed.

When I got to each of the areas needing my attention, it was easy to set-up some extra lighting, put the cones out and string the extension cord overhead. You’ll also notice a Fire Extinguisher, the wheeled glare screen, and the cart; the cart doing double duty as a good place to post the Job Safety Briefing & Hot Work Permit since I needed to relocate for each consecutive task.

Even though the possibility of foot traffic through this area at 1AM is very slim, I don’t want to be the one apologizing for someone getting hurt because I didn’t anticipate the possibilities of a Security Guard, unexpected late night worker, etc… and I can say that set-up and take down of the safety equipment added less than 3 – 5 minutes overall.   

You don’t need to milk a job to get it done safely and at the other extreme whenever someone tells me that they don’t have the time to do a job safely, I tell them that I don’t have time not to.

It’s how we roll.

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