The Other Pole

So what could be more opposite than Texas?  France would be a good guess, but I'll have to settle for China.  My original belief was that China was an über-repressive country, in which the people wore bland/dark clothes and were reserved in their manners; one's passport would have to be shown at every corner by leering cops/soldiers; and maybe the populace would sing some song to the late Chairman Mao at 6:15 PM every day.  Turns out phallic jokes are world-wide.  Who knew that these jokes would be funny from Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Niederaußem, Germany, and now to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia???  Great way to break the ice, especially when one's contact does not know a word in English.

I've spent my third trip to Rizhao, China earlier this week and now am writing to you about two hours west of Hohhot, China.  Not sure what the name of the town is, but surprisingly is looks the same as Rizhao, Qingdao, Tiajin, Beijing, and Hohhot:  crowded, dirty in most locations, and lots of construction.  It seems like the entire country is undergoing a face-lift of sorts.  Makes sense, as they're the #2 economy in the world and seems to be holding the US and soon to be the EU by the financial short-hairs.  The propaganda, er the informational, video (shown with the music of "Amazing Grace," no less!!) on the bus from Rizhao to Qingdao kept on showing a rising sun as it was explaining the booming growth of Rizhao.  To me that means that the information, er tourism, ministry believes and is getting others to believe that the changes to Rizhao are just the beginning.  The confidence of the people I interact with lets credence to this.  Speaking of which, the people I've been around have a profound interest in American politics (one would be alarmed at the similarities between US and Chinese politics) and religion.  Strange, one is taught that both were verboten here, as well in the workplace.  But not so much.  They find my views to be "interesting," (I'll leave it at that).  BTW:  Don't be surprised if there is news of activity between China and the Philippines sometime this year.  It'll be the new Premier flexing his muscles.  Oh, and we won't be able to call the political system "Communist," anymore in the near future.  Something like "People's Socialist State," or some BS like that. 

Without further to-do, I will present the rest of this post in picture format.  Tomorrow I will be a tourist in the fab. town of Hohhot.  I was hoping for Beijing, but this'll have to do...

Denver from 10,000 Feet

Wheird building @ LAX, smaller than I anticipated

Old Chinese building

YO!! TAXI!!!

Yup, you can watch the shower from the room

Hover Dump, enough said

 Holy crapola, 3 bottles of 90 proof soju, a case of beer and bad kareoke (thank goodness for U2 and The Eagles.....

How to gain access to Communist power plant

Control room of communist power plant

And yes, it tastes like Coke in China too,

 

And as a added surprise:  what happened outside my window tonight,

Thank you for reading,

Kev

Polar Opposites

Getting into the rental car in Austin, I plug in my GPS.  The unit powers up and the lady's voice is heard saying: "Awww, shit!!  We're in Texas.  For those of you that have not had the opportunity, nay pleasure of driving in a Texas city, please allow me to elaborate.  The highways have few on/off ramps in the common sense that there is an overpass and ramps to get on and off the highway.  They have frontage roads with one-way traffic that runs parallel to the highway lanes, and very short on/off lanes between the two.  For instance, if you're hungry for Burger King (not sure why, but jonses happen) and you spot on coming up on the frontage road, normally you'd take the next off-ramp and head down the frontage road to BK.  Not so in TX.  You'd have to get off the highway on one of the short, aforementioned lane, travel a distance to a turn-around point, double back on other frontage road, to another turn-around point that is beyond your destination and then get back to original frontage road to get to BK.  Now I'm sure that my kind readers in TX are laughing at me, that's okay.  It takes some getting used to the system down there.  When traveling through the meat of a downtown area (Austin, San Antonio, etc.) there is a huge network of bridges (Texans love their bridges), overpasses, and lanes for the sake of having additional lanes.  So, that leads me back to my original point of the pissed off-fa-fa GPS lady.  With all of these parallel lanes/frontage roads, etc. it is very easy to take a wrong turn and the GPS will not know until you've traveled a distance, sometimes a couple of miles, before she realizes that you've goofed.

 

Short on-ramp to I-410 S.A.

You'd better get up on it when you're getting onto a highway, and likewise stomp on the brakes whilst getting off.  And to make matters worse, the plant I was supposed to go to has a new address (well, new to the site where I get my plant address info).  The listed plant address is the back, employee entrance.  I sure got some weird looks when I pulled into there (after many turns in TX gun country) last July.  The following picture is from the GPS after gaining access to the site through the new entrance off of US 181:

Lovely

The trip was not too bad on site.  It was really physically demanding.  4 port rodders (slag clearing thingys) were stuck inside the boilers.  The rodder pulling tool was broken, so I had to muscle them out.  I was quite sore.  One there, boiler #1 decided to leak water/steam from some of it's tubes and the plant dudes had to shut it down.  While shut down, plants like to de-slag their boilers.  Usually plants use a large shot gun inside the boiler to remove the slag.  These guys use dynamite.  I managed to capture a shot video of the action.  It was quite loud, as they were blasting close to my level, luckily I was over on boiler #2:

 I'm gonna have to cut this post short, as I need to check out of my room in Rizhao, China.  I'll post the second part of this blog in a day or two.

Thank you for reading!

Kev

Wrapping Up This German Trip

I've been back in the States for just under a week, and finally have the gumption to write the last post for the most recent trip to Germany.  I must say that coming home to see family once again was met with great anticipation, two sleepless nights, and a wonderful smooch from my wife at the airport.  I sure do appreciate the fact that she came to DIA in order to meet me after a long trip and a late flight (we didn't land until midnight).  Seeing her and the kids is my secular Christmas.  The last time I came home at the end of November 2011, I was greeted with the following:  Alan Jackson singing "Remember When," (one of my favorite songs about the future (hopefully)) and this ~

It sure made the pain of being away intensify and quickly melt away.  Sure made things seem to be more worth it.  I guess that is what made leaving for Germany at the start of January so tough.  That and the fact that I was going to be returning to Germany in short order after getting back.  Supposed to be going back to Niederaußem this Saturday, BUT it turns out that I've been redirected to Texas next week.  Then I am off to Rizhao, China and Yeoungheung-do, South Korea.  For those of you jonesing for posts from the "other side of the sandbox," your wish is my command.  Thank you to Will Kent for showing me how to get around the Chinese censors.

So, visits to Niederaußem and Neurath generating stations finished up the last trip.  Four boilers in three days.  Noooo problem, right?  Riiight?!?  Shit no.  At least the drive into these places was nice, Neurath is to the right and Niederaußem is to the left:

Neurath turned out to be a fairy easy visit.  Had to field-repair the temperature controller in the MDC, align some sensor heads, and diagnose a failed sensor head.  Please check out the posts on Keystone, if you haven't the foggiest notion what I am talking about and your interest is piqued.  Moderate troubleshooting at Niederaußem Unit G and a rather easy walkabout around Niederaußem K were the "highlights," of our visit to Niederaußem.  However, Unit D was a whole new beast.  My hard hat is off to the install team.  Not sure how they did it, but they did.  Amazing work by Scott and Glen.  Allow me to elaborate...

There are these thingies at German power plants called overfired air ducts.  True, these things are at American plants, but they are different in Germany.  Think of this system as the EGR system on a car:  Exhaust gas is redirected into the combustion zone for better combustion and improved emissions out the exhaust (allegedly).  Here is a picture of what is inside of these pipes:

The protective glass is broken, so you can see the 2000+ F "air," glowing orange-hot inside this pipe.  The pipe has a wall thickness of maybe a foot, so it is radiating much heat.  In order to get to three of our pitch sensors, one has to climb up, over, around, and through scaffolding, pieces of scaffolding, these hot pipes, a buckstay (I-Beam), and wooden planks.  Not much fun to say the least.  I thought I had slayed the fear of confined spaces.  Turns out not so much.  I actually had to ask Glen to move out of my way in order to get myself under control.  Nearly freaked out.  Here is where I was standing when I did:

I'm standing at sensor 3, and had to move between the boiler wall (left), overfired air (right), and an I-Beam to get to sensor 4.  The width was about half my body's width, and I would have had to Army crawl under that I-Beam to get to #4 (which you can kinda see in the background).  Needless to say, the walls closed in quickly, with the accompanying tightness in the chest, racing heartbeats, and major pucker factor happening you know where.  Glen was kind enough to move when I said that I needed to get out.  After spending a few minutes outside to get myself under control again, I made a second attempt at getting to #4.  This time I looked for a way to get there from the other side, by #6.  This is where the over, under, and around trek takes place.  I counted 8 sequences of going up and down in order to reach #4 and #5 sensors.  Twasn't much fun, even after the 8th trip.  Here is a picture of Glen working on sensor #4:

The round pipe to the left is the overfired air duct.  Being away from family is very difficult, and working in these conditions amplifies it even more.  Let's see, we work in other tight places:  There's the "Tunnel of Love," at Ottumwa, "Frying Pan," at Amos, "Hell," at Cane Run, and "The Pits," at Clay Boswell.  I'll try to get pictures of these places the next time I'm there.  I guess we can call the front wall of Niederaußem Unit D "WTF???"   As in what were they thinking???  I guess we'll go anywhere to get our job done, all in the name of customer satisfaction.

Talk to you later from Texas.

Thank you for reading,

Kevin