Wow...

So I am pulling my usual crap and not updating the blog for a very long period. I “recently” had to go back out to the power plants and work on a NERC CIP remediation project.

I can remember what I did and didn’t write about all of that, but we had put in a bid for a project to help a power plant with NERC CIP remediation back in April. We lost the bid and another company got it.

On Tuesday about 2 weeks ago I got a call from the power company asking if we (Skyline) could come out and help out – they are in a pinch and need some warm bodies. We start the discovery process to see what is needed from us as well as to begin the negotiation process.

Everything was still kind of up in the air – we knew they needed a few people for as long as up to Christmas, and perhaps after. On Thursday we got an email late in the afternoon – Could I be in Gillette, WY tomorrow. Umm…yeah, OK. Can you at least agree to our basic terms. We got the final confirmation at about 6:00pm CST.

At 1:00am CST I had finished doing laundry, packing, buying plane tickets, arranging a rental car, etc., all without knowing exactly where I’d be or for how long. I got about 2 hours of sleep that night as I was so keyed up from running around like a crazy person all night. I caught the first flight out in the morning and traveled all day to Gillette on almost no sleep.

Arriving in Gillette I got my rental car and found the hotel. I had just scarfed down a sandwich when one of the client reps called me and asked me out to the plant for a kick-off meeting. Off to the plant I go. 5 hours later, we were finished and had to be back at 5:30am.

Now, I’ve said it about a billion times. I am just not a morning person and getting 5 hours of sleep to get up early doesn’t suit me well. I really don’t enjoy getting up at the crack of…er…wait a minute, it’s not even dawn when we are getting up and leaving. Since that time, my average day has been like this:

Get up between 4:00am or 5:00am depending on how far away the plant is and what time we have to be there.
Drive 30 ~ 40 minutes to the plant.
Put in a 12+ hour day (some days have been 16 or 17 hours).
Drive 30 ~ 40 minutes back to the hotel
Sync my email and stuff since I am not allowed to get on the Internet at the plant. I also try to catch up on other work I have to do.
Crash
Rinse and repeat.

This has been going on since I left TX. No weekends off or anything fun like that. I’m pretty burned out right now, but I think I only have a few days left. The schedule is changing 4 & 5 times daily so who really knows….