These pictures are mostly for Big Al and I'm sure he was involved in many such projects during his career. I know I have been.

The work is simple enough - we're installing some circuit breakers. Our customer is a continuous process facility and it's taken almost a year to coordinate things such that we can turn off critical circuits long enough to do the work. Our window of available time was short - 4AM to 6AM - and we conducted a dry run last week to make sure we had the required parts. Even missing one screw would have been disastrous - you're not going to get another one at that hour.

We arrived early - 3:30 AM - just to give us time to set up. This iPhone camera is so good with low light that you can't tell, but it's dark outside. The LED exterior lights we installed a few years back do a great job of lighting up the parking lot - pretty cool for fixtures that use only 50 watts:





Again, the camera makes it look like there is light in the sky but it's 4 AM. For you landscape buffs, the trees are lemon scented eucalyptus and they smell very nice.



Al will know what this is - "lockout - tagout." The circuit breaker feeding the panel we are working on is turned off and locked that way to make sure there are no accidents. The facilities manager put the lock on there and he had to be the one who took it off. The photo is to prove to their safety manager that we did it.



The crew consists of Eric and Joe. Eric, the big guy, was working at Costco when I hired hired him 7 years ago at the urging of his father. He'll be taking over the company when I retire and he's ready.



The skinny guy is Joe. He was a diesel mechanic when he got cancer. It nearly killed him - lost his teeth, his hair, and alarming amount of weight. He's in remission now and I'm fortunate to have him.

Eric wants this photo to use in his new brochure. I'm going to frame it and hang it over my desk in the new place.



The job went off without a hitch and the Facilities Manager breathed an audible sigh of relief when we turned everything back on.

Very nice.

Hey… I know what LOTO (or LOTTO — Lock Out, Tag Out, Try Out) is. Anyone who goes into the factory and gets close enough to a flying machine to be able to touch it has to complete the training.

When I was up there a couple weeks ago, one of the floor managers wanted to give me a reminder and used the example of a spoiler (those panels on top of the wing that you see pop up on landing). He said that it can fling you over 100 feet… if you mess with a LOTTO, you can be fired, if you live to tell about it.

The ground power cords they plug into a flying machine when it gets to the gate… on a big flying machine, there are two of them, and each one carries up to 180KVA. That’s enough power to power a decent size neighborhood.

I’m glad to know there are electricians out there who have the knowledge, skills, and most of all, the attitude to do the job right.

I can wire an outlet or a wall switch. The most important thing to know is when you aren’t comfortable doing something and need to call in a professional.

Always a pleasure to see work being done in a safe, responsible manner. Thanks for sharing that, Steve.

You must have brought a number of workers up to snuff in the electrical industry over the years. That's an accomplishment you can take great pride in.

Big Al