One more Mud hole

Here's another leak for you. This time I had the pleasure of operating one of our Vaccon trucks. A subcontractor for ATT hit one of our services line while running fiber optic lines. That leak plus the rain from the day before made quite a mud hole.

Heading out in the chariot of the fleet.

First step when using the Vaccon is to fill it up with water. We not only use the water to help hydro-excavate, but also to help clean out the tank when dumping.


 

It's not supposed to do that. Joys of others improperly using the Vaccon

 

Leak turned out to be a single service broken down low. Since we were already at the main, we decided to rebuild both the broken and neighboring service. We replaced the PVC with poly, as that is our new standard.

Poly Tee coming right off the main. With Poly, there are less fittings to use.

 

Got everything buttoned up. I left before we back filled so that I could go dump the Vaccon.

Poly lines running to service meters

A clean truck is a happy truck.

Mud Hole

Share a little action we had yesterday.

Single service broke going into a 12 inch main. Nothing too big or bad, just a chance to get a little dirty and harass my guys. The day was going slow, and this helped knock a few hours out of the day.

The particular crew I help run can get pretty monotonous, so these leaks are generally welcomed. These guys bust out so much work during the week, that its good to get a change of pace so they don't run themselves ragged.

Things went smooth, and we were in and out with the hole back filled in around 4 hours.
I'll try to get more in depth shots on the next one!



Rebuilt the broken PVC with new poly line (The blue thing)



Backfilling with dirt. The Shadow watches



N.K., the hardest worker out there.

Captains Log: 1

To mix in the personal with the work, I'm going to start these "Captain's Log" posts. So we will start off with a little review of what's been going on these past few weeks.

Brethren Disaster Ministries (BDM)

A few weeks ago I drove down to Lorida, a small town south east of Sebring. I joined a group of people other from various places (Virginia, Delaware, Michigan) who are part of a group called Brethren Disaster Ministries. This group is part of the Church of the Brethren, but that is a story for another day. You can read more about them here: http://www.brethren.org/bdm/

We did roof repair and replacement on around 17k square feet of buildings. Patched holes and vents, and then installed metal roofing. I was the youngest one there, and I really enjoyed my time there. I hope to join up with a group again, as I really felt like I did something.



The Rabbit

My latest car is a 2007 Volkswagen Rabbit. 2.5 Inline 5 cylinder, Manual Transmission. Mundane by automotive standards, but a fun car none the less. I'm currently in the process of "sprucing it up", to either sell it or keep it as a run around. 125k miles and as of this typing, seems to be running like a top. I have a couple of things lined up for it to better improve it drivability and "fun-ability". All on the cheap.

 

 

 

That should catch you up to date in the personal life area for now, I'd like to go more into detail later on a few of the car stuff, but that can wait for later. Will update with a work related post here in the next couple of days.

 

Thanks for reading!



Uh. What?

Holy Moly. It's been over a year since my last post. I mainly make these posts for myself, and it shows. If for some reason you read these, thanks!


It's been awhile, and a lot has changed. A lot.

Let's get up to speed.

• I am no longer the AMI Supervisor. I am the Field Service Supervisor
• I finally have dual monitors.
• Same crew (albeit new employees), same company
• I exclusively wear collard shirts and Bill Cosby hats now.

Now that all that is out of the way, I hope to get a few more posts out with a few more details. I think I'm going to start including more personal/not work related things as it will give me more content to post, and more things for you to read.

I've always wanted to have a blog/vlog/whatever with no real theme. No point. I find everyday life fascinating, and like to appreciate the ordinary. So here's to the future!

Slow and Steady

Man, keeping up with these things is a pain.

Well, all is well on the work front. We've had a few changes in leadership (yes, even more so than what I mentioned last time), but I think everything is going to work out fine. I'm still the AMI supervisor, still doing AMI supervisor things. I'm trying to open up my office, as I'm getting a little cramped in there.

Desk space is at a premium, and I still want dual monitors.

I went back to Gainesville to recertify my Backflow Tester certification. I never understand why I take the classes, as the only time I touch backflows is when I actually go down there to test them. It's a certificate and a skill though, so I'll take it.

A backflow

In a nutshell, all this doohickey does is prevent water from flowing back into the municipality water system. They have checks and valves in them that have to be tested.

Whenever I take these trips to Gainesville, I always try to see how far I can stretch my fuel. This time I hit a new high with 543.6 miles on one (35 gallon) tank. I think that's about 15.5 MPG.

Speaking of fuel....

No Joke.

Saw this energy drink in the cooler at the local Little Champ (that's what I call every gas station store.), and it had a sign stating you had to be 18 or older to buy one. So of course I bought one. 

These guys come in two flavors, neither one that great. The blue raspberry is the most tolerable. The first one I had really worked me up, but the currently do not do anything for me. They've got way more caffeine that a equally sized Redbull, and a whole bunch of other supplements. I still have one every once and awhile, but I'm still sticking with RedBull.

Not much else has happened on the work front, and there are a few things I'm cooking up on the side. We just celebrated Thanksgiving, and Christmas is coming up, so I'm sure there will be more tales to tell. 

Until then!

Ketchup

Ok, let's get everyone up to speed.

For the most part, everything is still the same. Still work at the same place, albeit performing a different duty.

My previous job title was "Field Service Technician" and I've pretty much summed up what those job duties were. Through people moving around, I have ended up in a spot titled, "AMI Supervisor", "AMI" meaning "Advanced Metering Infrastructure".

Not me, this guys is too excited.

What does that all entail? Well, to be honest, I'm kind of figuring that out on my own/making it what I think it needs to be.

Current duties keep my very busy and include the following.

• Inventory - In a nutshell, every meter, register, and related device goes through me. Whether it's new stock arriving, checking current inventory out to the Field Techs, or doing warranty returns, I'm the guy that scans in and scans out all of it.
• Truck Maintenance Records - I make sure our in house database is up to date with my departments vehicles. I'm currently using this information to try and put our trucks on a routine maintenance schedule.
• Quality Control - Making sure our guys are doing the correct work, at the correct address, with the correct parts. This is the most time consuming part of my job. Any error out the field gets sent to me. Sometimes it's small and an easy fix, sometimes it's not. Half the time I can get the guys to go back and correct it, sometimes I end up having to go.

I do a few other small things, but those are the biggies. It's a change of pace, and a welcomed one at that.

Currently, we are scanning in every single item me have, for the end of the fiscal year inventory. This is where things get scary. Basically, every item the finance department says we are supposed to have, we better have. So for now, I'll be spending my time in the meter bay, armed with a bar code scanner and a pack of pink stickers.

This is but a smidgen of our inventory

Nope, not going to say it

I suck at this.

A few things have happened in what, the year I've been off here. Some work related, some not. Instead of writing one large post, quickly touching on a few subjects, I'll take the next few days, weeks, or months covering them.

I can do this. I can do this. I'm probably not going to do this.

Before I forget....

justinraymer.com