Keystone 10

Pssssst!!  That would be sound of a celebratory beer being opened.  Brett and I have completed an install at Keystone U1.  10 straight days of a whole crap-load of not fun and we have had our acceptance document signed by the plant.  What a wonderful feeling that was.  Granted, not even a shadow of the feeling I get when I kiss my wife for the first time in two weeks.  Not even close to the feeling I get when the kids excitedly run out to the garage when I open the door to mob me when I get home.  Heck even the dogs damn near wag themselves in half when I get home, and that is a good feeling too.  I think even the cats are coming around...  Regardless, we've toiled in the heat, suffered through the bedbug bites, and experienced the elements in western Pennsylvania, sorry western PA, for the signature.  After striking out in Germany and not getting a signature in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago, this signing felt good.

So for today, we put the finishing touches on the install, trained a large (approx 20) plant dudes on the system, and packed up the crates for returning to Boulder.  We also trained our main contact, Joe, and his self-anointed whipping boy, Keith on the finer details on the system operations. Another long day, as we've logged just shy of 8 hours of overtime this week, with another full day tomorrow. Looks like Brett will be going to Nitro, WV, and I will be going to parts unknown for next week. Sounds like a quick trip to TX, maybe a trip to China. Not too sure if y'all would like to read anything from China...

Back to Indiana, PA for a moment: It is really tough for me and I am sure for my coworker, Brett, to be away from our loved ones. Talking on the phone and using Skype is a life-saver. There is something to be said about face-to-face interaction. On this trip, we've been honored to meet two great people" Aaron from Hampton Inn and Dan from Ruby Tuesday. Aaron was very kind in the fact that he was able to get Brett and I into separate (thank God) rooms at the Hampton, when they were very busy for the week in which we were in town. After what we experienced at the Comfort Inn, we were very much indebted to him. Hopefully the beer we provided provided some small token of our appreciation. He's also helped us out with checkout time and helped me with laundry. A cool cat for sure. Dan was our bartender twice in the past two weeks. We met him on one of the first days in town. His personality fit ours very well, and he provided excellent service. Heck, he even pointed us in the right direction to go nuts for the Broncos game on Sunday, at Grubs. He remembered our faces and my name, due to a family connection, but regardless he made us feel like we were long, lost friends. Actually, both fells have. So, the next time that I'm in town (not sure when) I am definitely going to both establishments, with the hope of meeting these two fellas again. I'm thinking about writing more on this in a future post.

For now, just one, very important picture:

Back to CO tomorrow. Cannot wait!!!

Thank you for reading.

Kevin