Another day, another water plant installation with problems.

Today we were in conversation with the management of one of my company's very first, municipal drinking water system, clients. They are doing an upgrade to their system. It seems that demand for good water was under-estimated in the original design, and system purchase. The system runs flat out, 24/7 and has developed some operational problems since installation in 2001.

It was kinda funny, the moment at the end of the meeting when the water treatment plant operator, the guy that checks the equpment daily, opened up to share his thoughts on water treatment. Bear in mind that I think this episode was 'funny' primarily because I work in water treatment and I share the majority of his views. Those of you not in water treatment will probably fail to see the humor in it, but I suspect you'll appreciate the irony.

We're sitting in the council chamber, of the band office. There are council members, important people in the day to day operation of the reserve, along with some professional types/management, who were at the meeting for the provision of technical advice and direction. I would be among that group.

The meeting was concluding and I wanted to ask a quick question about the condition of the system now, and whether they needed some loaned membranes, to get them through to the conclusion of the upgrade. This opened a can of worms that the plant operator took, and ran with. This guy is not schooled. I'm sure he went to regular school, but nothing seemed to indicate a higher level of scholastic achievement. In fact, he seemed to be playing on that angle a little, when he made his point. It came out sounding like 'I'm just a lowly plant operator but I can see why this doesn't work, so why don't you?'.

The point in question? Iron filtration by use of manganese greensand filters. I almost howled this was so funny to me. I'd just spent 5 hours in the office last night, not leaving until 12:45, going over this very same topic with my boss. We discussed, in great length, the lack of technical merit to having greensand filters ahead of a membrane plant. Then, in a meeting the next day, this plant operator put to his design engineer/management team, the question of, why are you using this stupid, antiquated technology that, time and again, proves itself to NOT work adequately.

I know, its probably only funny to me. Nonetheless, it was refreshing to hear someone say to a design engineer, these stupid greensand filters don't work.

Toodles!

P.S. I hate the phone

I swear that I will get to the task of telling the story, around my sister's house purchase. Its just not going to be today. More crap from, the place which we do not name. I believe I am developing a cerebral hemmorhage from that place. Intestinal problems for sure.

In the mean time, some happiness to share.

Candace's NEW house!


My preliminary assessment is, it looks very nice. I am totally jealous now. And a little peeved she managed to resolve the whole thing so quickly. I was looking forward to house shopping with her. Oh well. Candace seems thrilled to the gills, so my momentary disappointment must be swept away.

Congratulations Pooh!!!

Things may be looking up. I got the Blue Heater to install Windows. I'm actually on the internet at home again!

Toodles.

Okay, I've got a god damn question!

I'm sitting here at me desk, in the office. I never went home. As previously reported, I have NO computers at home that work. Thus, if I want to continue being productive, I had to stay here and work on my office computer.

That part is fine. I don't mind. Its quiet, the phone won't ring since business hours are over, I can get something done. And I did. In the 90 minutes between 5:00 and 6:30, I got an excellent amount of stuff completed. I was close to being done in fact.

Then the play turned into Grand God Damn Central! My boss came in. His wife came in to do her cleaning (she's the janitorial service). The wife's assistant came in. The office manager came in, with child in tow. What was a peaceful, quiet, relaxing place to get something done, turned into this shrill cacophony. I'm in a bad, god damn mood.

And I'm not finished yet.





P.S. Stay tuned to this blog for an exciting announcement regarding my sister. She has some BIG news, but I'm holding off on spilling everything until I hear back from her meeting this evening.

Okay, I need to know what god-like deity I pissed off to have so much misfortune rained down on my head. Is there a deity for computers? If there is, that god must hate me.

Let's review:

Toshiba notebook computer was broken. Required a replacement motherboard. Returned to me from Microage, but not currently in my possession because I have loaned it to my uncle.

Toshiba PDA will not connect to the wireless ethernet in my house. Connects fine at work. I can not figure out the problem that prevents surfing the internet on the PDA when at home.

Main desktop system in Watson has gone south. No longer boots. It was halfway working, but that performance has disappeared as well. I get POST error beeps when I try to power it up. Needs at least a video card, and maybe a new motherboard as well.

Desktop in Saskatoon will not connect to portable hard drive, because I can not recover the original FAT32 partitioning on the drive. All re-partititions require that I use NTFS which is incompatible with Windows 98 on the computer in Saskatoon.

If I must reboot my desktop at work in Watson, the video refuses to work, and I must re-install the video drivers. It happens every time, and since I don't have the luxury of multiple hours to fix it, I must live with the situation of never turning off my computer.

The Blue Furnace will not accept a Windows installation. I attempted to bring the Furnace back online, as a stop-gap measure for this week. I have tried Windows 98, 2000 and XP, and all three error upon attempts to install the operating system software. I have run two complete diagnostics of the hard drive, and there are no errors, according to the diagnostic tools. The computer works in all other respects. I guess I could install DOS on it.

My previous satellite internet server has also seen an attempt to revive it from the dead. It accepts power, and makes some starting up noises but, I never get display, and judging from the beeps and whirs emitted from the tower, I do not believe it is following a normal boot-up procedure. The system would appear to be DOA, in its present condition.

I still have a tower in my home office in Watson that is broken. It was a PII-350 server that I'd had the parts for, for several years. The power supply blew up last summer, and I presume it friend most of the components inside. Nevertheless the tower itself sits in my home office, mocking me.

I have a 17" Packard Bell monitor that will not work. When it is plugged in, the power light blinks rapidly, and it never produces an image on the screen.

I have all of this equipment. By my count, that's 8 systems that are not functioning properly. Despite the presence of 4 towers, and a wireless capable PDA in my house in Watson, I can not get on the internet at home. I am seriously posing the question, am I cursed? It seems farcical, to the point of absurdity, that I could have this much equipment, and not be able to accomplish a basic task. I should probably get mad but its so surreal I can barely believe it.

Anyone got a Pentium 166 kicking around? I might as well go low tech.

Toodles!

Bloq Question of the Day Two:

Why does soup take so long to heat up in the microwave?

Blog Question Of The Day:

How much vehicle maintenance/repair knowledge should the average driver know?

I am giving my endorsement to Shoutcast. I really like this service. Stuck out in Watson, I can't get any conventional radio stations. It seems like this place is a black hole for radio waves. Reception is fine until you get the the junction of highways 5 and 6. Then it goes from fine, to non-existent. I wish I understood why the effect was so pronounced.

Thus I am relegated to being my own DJ. That was fine, for quite awhile actually. But doing that means you have to keep looking for new material constantly. Again, not a huge, huge problem. It can be managed. But its kinda frustrating sometimes when you don't really care about what you're listening to, as long as there is some noise to fill the air.

So I got this Shoutcast idea from Kevin. Actually, I had to do it because I forgot the portable hard drive in Saskatoon (DOH!!!) and didn't have any music. It is a great service. Just pick a genre and it tunes you in. I love it! Now, to get up the ambition to figure out how to capture these songs as MP3's that I could listen to on my own. For instance, the song that is playing now is Alice Cooper - Poison. I don't have that on CD. If I could rip it, the song would be in my collection. Project for later I guess.

I have nothing else to say this afternoon. I just wrote a job description for the technicians that are going to be assigned as my employee's. Everyday I work here, I find new responsibilities to assume. Not that I mind all that much. At least that way I SHOULD know what's going on. Knowing what's going on would help. I really hate when stuff happens and I don't hear about it.

I should get back to it. I have a quote to finish before Thursday.

Be well my friends!

Monday morning has dawned upon us all again. It was a nice weekend. I hid from the prying eyes of the world, for most of the weekend. I just wanted to vegetate. 9 days of Brier, and then back into it in water treatment had left me with a body that was requiring some relief. So I found some. Hiding out in the basement, watching TV and playing with my computer.

(By the way, it would appear my computer is broke. No end of problems with in Friday night and Saturday morning. And then, it went away. I don't completely understand that. I may buy a new video card.)

However, back to Monday. I was kinda groggy when I got to work this morning. I took my pills too late last night, and my head was still covered in wool socks. I wanted to take awhile and just clear the cobwebs. No such luck. Three phone calls and two visitors later, and I'm buried in issues again. I don't seem to get much down-time at work anymore. It seems to work like this. I sit here, and if I just wait, something will come along that needs doing.

I will get back to averting calamity. The rest of you, have a great day!



P.S. To all of my readers from Winnipeg, could you please keep Kiki out of trouble? She's showing an alarming trend towards hanging out with potential serial killers. I'd like to keep her safe, and harm free, if we can arrange it. Thanks