Rough Week - aka Yuckers

This has been a really rough week for doing anything but working really.  That big project to fix up rollers and prevent burning was a bust, when the machine started back up burning was the worst it has ever been.  Not just burning, which started right away at startup under conditions where we never see burning, but very unpredictable burning.  The machine would be running fine and then all of a sudden the material would just get torched.  This continued for almost a full day (Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon) and more segments were pulled with heavy copper plating than I've ever seen.  The first shift operator working on removing these segments made a great discovery though, the contacts of the top and bottom set of rollers were not touching, meaning there is nothing to hold the material in contact with the rollers while plating.  A bit of brainstorming and a great idea from Dean, the engineer who installed this plater and knows it very well, and a project to create spacers was underway.  Our machine shop came through in a big way, staying late to get 130 of these spacers modified so we could get the machine back together and running, and not a spot of burning since then.  Plated up rollers is still an ongoing issue, but it is a pretty minor one now compared to what it is.  So hopefully this problem is solved for now (I'm sure in about 5-6 months if not sooner it will be back, and the contacts are now too thin to turn down again) and I'll have a quiet weekend on call.

Training has not happened at all this week, which is really bad since it is freezing at nigth and it seems like snow has to be just around the corner.  In fact, my sister out in UT called me to tell me about the beautiful white landscape she was looking out at, and West Yellowstone got 4-6 inches I think.  Rumor is it snowed here a bit, but it must have been during the 13 hours each day I have been at work.  My one ride yesterday is the first time I've been out in daylight all week, and a 5k tomorrow is my last running race of the year (for realz this time) and barely even a running race really, since I'll be dressed up as a Mario Kart character, kart and all.  Hopefully my kart is fast so I can still contend for an age group award.  Should be an interesting day; I'm not really sure where I fit in with this crew I'm hanging out with, lets just leave it at that.