Next time, Officer K, do it this way and the questions won't be about if there was a deer involved or not.
This pic also includes a secondary but unlabeled FAIL: Nice parking spot... pay no mind to that there hydrant.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Deer Fail or Win, We're Not Sure
This Fail picture posted in honor of Officer Krupke's recent post about a deer encounter.
Next time, Officer K, do it this way and the questions won't be about if there was a deer involved or not.
This pic also includes a secondary but unlabeled FAIL: Nice parking spot... pay no mind to that there hydrant.
Next time, Officer K, do it this way and the questions won't be about if there was a deer involved or not.
This pic also includes a secondary but unlabeled FAIL: Nice parking spot... pay no mind to that there hydrant.
My First Line Trip
A long time ago, in a control room far, far away . . . . .
I was a wet-behind-the-ears dispatcher. Just got bumped up from being the 'numbers' and generation balancing guy, and moved to the desk where real stuff happens. Circuit breakers that I can control.
Three Mouse Clicks from Disaster!
There is nothing you can screw up on the numbers desk that cannot be fixed by an accountant with or without a checkbook.
But now, a mistake will darken cities or blow stuff up, or worse, injure or kill someone.
Yes sir, I made the Big Time. And I was Ready!
Here we go! Update the Log. Grumpy Dispatcher is on the Desk!
(boring hours of pretty much nothing ensue..........................)
Beeeeeeeeeeeeep! A 115kV Line trip! Action!
I jumped out of my chair almost as fast as I did the first hundred or so times my old-school red Minitor I "brick" went off when I was a jumpy new firefighter probie.
Whoops, wait, no turnouts to don here. I'll just sit back down and act like I meant to do that. Yeah.
Supervisor comes over. I'm really working under his eye, not on my own. But I've got my own desk. Yeah, I'm the man.
He suggests I try to close in and test the line.
Smoothly, I pull up the control window for one of the breakers. Act like you've done this before, make it look good.
Yes, I am The Man, I control big circuit breakers miles away!
"Select", "Close", "Confirm". Three Mouse Clicks.
Nothing happens.
Try it again, he says. Three clicks. Nothing.
Try the other end, he says, maybe the relays won't let you pick that line up dead from that end.
Click, click, click. This time it shows closed for a second or two, then opens again. Locked out.
A real outage! Drama!
I get to pull out the callout list and talk to the crews, and direct them in to patrol the line and save the day.
My shift ends before the crew arrives at the site. I pass along the info to my relief so he can finish the mop-up. My work here is done.
----------------
Back in that night. Ready to watch over the world for another 12 hours.
Guess what, rookie? Yeah, that line you tested three times? Yeah, those first two tests the breakers popped back open so fast they never showed closed on the console. Well, the conductor was laying on the guy wire, and you banged into the ground three times and started a nice fire. 25 acres last I heard. Aren't you a fireman? Way to go, rookie!
Um.
Oops.
The intervening years since that new (and not yet Grumpy) dispatcher hit the desk have made this incident increasingly amusing over time....
I was a wet-behind-the-ears dispatcher. Just got bumped up from being the 'numbers' and generation balancing guy, and moved to the desk where real stuff happens. Circuit breakers that I can control.
Three Mouse Clicks from Disaster!
There is nothing you can screw up on the numbers desk that cannot be fixed by an accountant with or without a checkbook.
But now, a mistake will darken cities or blow stuff up, or worse, injure or kill someone.
Yes sir, I made the Big Time. And I was Ready!
Here we go! Update the Log. Grumpy Dispatcher is on the Desk!
(boring hours of pretty much nothing ensue..........................)
Beeeeeeeeeeeeep! A 115kV Line trip! Action!
I jumped out of my chair almost as fast as I did the first hundred or so times my old-school red Minitor I "brick" went off when I was a jumpy new firefighter probie.
Whoops, wait, no turnouts to don here. I'll just sit back down and act like I meant to do that. Yeah.
Supervisor comes over. I'm really working under his eye, not on my own. But I've got my own desk. Yeah, I'm the man.
He suggests I try to close in and test the line.
Smoothly, I pull up the control window for one of the breakers. Act like you've done this before, make it look good.
Yes, I am The Man, I control big circuit breakers miles away!
"Select", "Close", "Confirm". Three Mouse Clicks.
Nothing happens.
Try it again, he says. Three clicks. Nothing.
Try the other end, he says, maybe the relays won't let you pick that line up dead from that end.
Click, click, click. This time it shows closed for a second or two, then opens again. Locked out.
A real outage! Drama!
I get to pull out the callout list and talk to the crews, and direct them in to patrol the line and save the day.
My shift ends before the crew arrives at the site. I pass along the info to my relief so he can finish the mop-up. My work here is done.
----------------
Back in that night. Ready to watch over the world for another 12 hours.
Guess what, rookie? Yeah, that line you tested three times? Yeah, those first two tests the breakers popped back open so fast they never showed closed on the console. Well, the conductor was laying on the guy wire, and you banged into the ground three times and started a nice fire. 25 acres last I heard. Aren't you a fireman? Way to go, rookie!
Um.
Oops.
The intervening years since that new (and not yet Grumpy) dispatcher hit the desk have made this incident increasingly amusing over time....
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
A Few Pointers From This Weekend
If you decide to get drunk, please don't drive.
See, if you'd stopped right there, a lot of issues would have been resolved pre-emptively. But, alas, it was not to be.
If you wreck your car driving drunk at 0430 on a Saturday morning and you decide to try to drive away, make sure your vehicle will still operate with enough functionality to go somewhere.
If you fail to determine that one rear wheel has been completely ripped from your car and the other rear tire is jammed into a fender, do not use what little capability your vehicle has to go farther away from the road.
If you use what little capability your vehicle has remaining to make a run for it, don't get it hung up on the only planter within 100'.
If you get your vehicle hung up on a planter and decide to run for it, don't leave your wallet on the front seat.
Or your cell phone.
If you leave your wallet, don't leave your ID, which matches the registration on the car.
Or all that money in it. Wow, dude.
If you run off and leave your wallet behind, ostensibly because you don't want to get caught as the driver, don't walk in plain sight on the main road where ambulances, fire trucks and police cars will come from.
If you are trying to get away on the main road and get spotted in the headlight beams, don't call attention to yourself by ducking conspicuously out of the way after you've been shined.
If you got shined and then ducked without success, and have now been detained by the police department, have a better story than that you were out looking for your lost dog. At 0430 in the dark. On a quiet country road MILES from where you live.
If you claim you were looking for your dog, know its name and be ready to describe it without having to give it some thought.
And be ready to come up with a plausible local address instead of blurting out your real one miles away (that miraculously matches the address of the RO of a nearby and recently wrecked car) before adding that you moved to the area recently. Uh huh.
You have much to learn, and there is scant hope for your future (or ours if we have to carry tools like you through life).
In the meantime, your right to vote and share our air ought to be rescinded along with your right to drive.
See, if you'd stopped right there, a lot of issues would have been resolved pre-emptively. But, alas, it was not to be.
If you wreck your car driving drunk at 0430 on a Saturday morning and you decide to try to drive away, make sure your vehicle will still operate with enough functionality to go somewhere.
If you fail to determine that one rear wheel has been completely ripped from your car and the other rear tire is jammed into a fender, do not use what little capability your vehicle has to go farther away from the road.
If you use what little capability your vehicle has remaining to make a run for it, don't get it hung up on the only planter within 100'.
If you get your vehicle hung up on a planter and decide to run for it, don't leave your wallet on the front seat.
Or your cell phone.
If you leave your wallet, don't leave your ID, which matches the registration on the car.
Or all that money in it. Wow, dude.
If you run off and leave your wallet behind, ostensibly because you don't want to get caught as the driver, don't walk in plain sight on the main road where ambulances, fire trucks and police cars will come from.
If you are trying to get away on the main road and get spotted in the headlight beams, don't call attention to yourself by ducking conspicuously out of the way after you've been shined.
If you got shined and then ducked without success, and have now been detained by the police department, have a better story than that you were out looking for your lost dog. At 0430 in the dark. On a quiet country road MILES from where you live.
If you claim you were looking for your dog, know its name and be ready to describe it without having to give it some thought.
And be ready to come up with a plausible local address instead of blurting out your real one miles away (that miraculously matches the address of the RO of a nearby and recently wrecked car) before adding that you moved to the area recently. Uh huh.
You have much to learn, and there is scant hope for your future (or ours if we have to carry tools like you through life).
In the meantime, your right to vote and share our air ought to be rescinded along with your right to drive.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Let Me Press This Button Here
Let me introduce you to my Dad, the Smooth Substation Operator. He worked for a municipal electric utility for many years. I loved hanging out with him at work as a teenager, riding out with him in the van as he did his rounds at various stations, taking readings, tagging devices, doing some switching every once in a while. Of course, we also got to jump car wrecks and house fires any time power lines might be involved.
Part of the tour of a shift always involved some time at the Control Center, with old-school grizzly dispatchers so grumpy that I'm Mary Poppins. I learned how to behave around them, and knew I found success when they started to let me have a donut once in a while. I thought, dang, these guys have a cool job. I'd like to try that one day. I wanted to be a firefighter as my first aspiration, but power dispatching also looked like awesome stuff for a control freak like me. Lucky me, I get to do both!
Despite his employer constantly leaning on him to give up his senior spot as a station operator and become a dispatcher, Dad was never dumb enough to take them up on it. Yeah, here's your raise, now you have to sit in the control center and deal with bosses wearing ties all day. No more time outside, on your own, watching baseball on your portable black and white TV at lonely remote substations. Smart man, my Dad.
ANYway.... this is one of my favorite stories he's shared with me. Wish I had been there. I don't remember the specifics, but the essence is accurate.
So Dad is working a stint on a project at the control center instead of out in the field. There is a routine feeder outage that a dispatcher is handling, and Dad is working near the consoles. Dad's company was much, much smaller than the behemoth I work for, so the dispatchers did in fact have to handle some of the overflow calls from customers. The phones keep ringing, and Dad decides to take a call to help the guys out.
Smooth Substation Operator: City Light, how can I help you?
Little Old Lady: Yes, I live at 486 Rose Lane. My lights have been out for a while now, do you know when they will come back?
Dad has a remarkable ability to listen to about four things at once, so in the din he overhears the dispatcher giving orders to a station operator. The feeder has been repaired and they are about to re-energize. He realizes that Little Old Lady is on the feeder.
SSO: Your lights are out? Well, I think I can probably fix that for you, ma'am.LOL: Really? Oh, thank you!Dispatcher in Background: 309, close power circuit breaker 14 at Garden Court Sub.Truck 309: Copy, close power circuit breaker 14 at Garden Court Sub.DIB: That is correct.
SSO: Aha, there's the red button I was looking for, let me press this for you!
Within the next few seconds, the Truck 309 crew closed the breaker and picked up the feeder.
LOL: (sweetly) Oh, thank you, so much, they're on now! Thank you so very much! That did the trick!SSO: Of course, ma'am, thanks for calling to let us know. Call back anytime!
I can only imagine the conversation that ensued the next time Little Old Lady's lights went out.
LOL: Well, last time I called, you guys just pressed that red button on the desk. Why can't you do that again? Honestly! I want to talk to the man who helped me last time!
Brilliant!
Part of the tour of a shift always involved some time at the Control Center, with old-school grizzly dispatchers so grumpy that I'm Mary Poppins. I learned how to behave around them, and knew I found success when they started to let me have a donut once in a while. I thought, dang, these guys have a cool job. I'd like to try that one day. I wanted to be a firefighter as my first aspiration, but power dispatching also looked like awesome stuff for a control freak like me. Lucky me, I get to do both!
Despite his employer constantly leaning on him to give up his senior spot as a station operator and become a dispatcher, Dad was never dumb enough to take them up on it. Yeah, here's your raise, now you have to sit in the control center and deal with bosses wearing ties all day. No more time outside, on your own, watching baseball on your portable black and white TV at lonely remote substations. Smart man, my Dad.
ANYway.... this is one of my favorite stories he's shared with me. Wish I had been there. I don't remember the specifics, but the essence is accurate.
So Dad is working a stint on a project at the control center instead of out in the field. There is a routine feeder outage that a dispatcher is handling, and Dad is working near the consoles. Dad's company was much, much smaller than the behemoth I work for, so the dispatchers did in fact have to handle some of the overflow calls from customers. The phones keep ringing, and Dad decides to take a call to help the guys out.
Smooth Substation Operator: City Light, how can I help you?
Little Old Lady: Yes, I live at 486 Rose Lane. My lights have been out for a while now, do you know when they will come back?
Dad has a remarkable ability to listen to about four things at once, so in the din he overhears the dispatcher giving orders to a station operator. The feeder has been repaired and they are about to re-energize. He realizes that Little Old Lady is on the feeder.
SSO: Your lights are out? Well, I think I can probably fix that for you, ma'am.LOL: Really? Oh, thank you!Dispatcher in Background: 309, close power circuit breaker 14 at Garden Court Sub.Truck 309: Copy, close power circuit breaker 14 at Garden Court Sub.DIB: That is correct.
SSO: Aha, there's the red button I was looking for, let me press this for you!
Within the next few seconds, the Truck 309 crew closed the breaker and picked up the feeder.
LOL: (sweetly) Oh, thank you, so much, they're on now! Thank you so very much! That did the trick!SSO: Of course, ma'am, thanks for calling to let us know. Call back anytime!
I can only imagine the conversation that ensued the next time Little Old Lady's lights went out.
LOL: Well, last time I called, you guys just pressed that red button on the desk. Why can't you do that again? Honestly! I want to talk to the man who helped me last time!
Brilliant!
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