Day 20.

Survival and Silver Linings.

After a few close calls this week, we have officially closed the customer FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) without any major disasters.  Of course, Murphy's Law in effect, 1 hour before the customer was supposed to be gone for good, he read in a document that we perform Corona Partial Discharge Arc Tests on our equipment, which was in his spec all along.  A few things:

1. A customer's spec is the kind of thing that puts Mary Poppin's magic carpet bag to shame.  They seem bottomless at times.
2. A Corona Partial Discharge Arc Test is pretty much the same thing Doc Brown did in Back To The Future to get Marty back to 1985 (honestly, there are some similarities).
3. Like Doc Brown, we CAN actually do this test.  Unlike Doc Brown, however, we CHOOSE not to.

So the customer's inspector read this and remembered that they had to have it.  No way around it, it was in his spec right below "kitchen sink," and he had written confirmation that we would do it.  Balls.

Approximately 7:23pm in Wendell, NC, the project engineer got a frantic instant message from me, asking how to address this with the inspector, since it just wasn't feasible for us to perform the test on the gear at the time.  Within 20 minutes, we had found the answer.  Turns out we had taken exception specifically to test early on, and the middleman forgot to forward it to the customer... still a sticky situation, but we had performed our part faithfully.  So we escaped by the skin of our teeth, and my first FAT was a success.  We still have some items to close, but most of those I can take care of with some Photoshop'd pictures anyways, so no problem.  Just kidding, I'm no good with Photoshop, and I like my job too much for that.  But we really are in good shape.

Speaking of pictures that have not been doctored, here are a few pictures I took of a sunrise earlier this week, looking out the window of the guest room.  I think it was Monday, but I don't remember--it's been a long week already (4 days in, already worked 45 hrs).  Anyways, sunrises don't always look this good, but they're not usually much worse than this.  Saludos.