April Sucks

So far, April has completely sucked... Let me recap my last four days...

April 1st (April Fools Day): Major power outages. On the first day we take over the power generation part of this contract, the generator dies. Now there have been other generator failures in the past, but they weren't fixed, just swapped over to another generator... a backup. Now our backup was failing due to negligence on the part of the people that USED to have the contract. We put our last critical spare in place. Later that day, the BACKUP backup also starts having issues. Our power person slaps a quick fix on the FIRST failing backup, and gets it back online. While the original backup is working, she fixes the other one (or so we thought...). In the meantime, the low voltage fries a major component of our satellite. We put the last replacement for THAT part in place...

April 2nd: In the morning, we slap the BACKUP backup into place, and prep the original failing backup for transport to Kuwait City. While we have it ready to go, the BACKUP backup (hereafter named BU2) begins failing again... instead of rehooking the original (BU1) up, we decide to run a long power cable to another generator running a similiar setup. The logistics involved are too boring to list, but believe me they were impressive. After this was accomplished, we held our breath and powered up. Relieved that nothing had died (like yesterday), we called it a successful mission ...

April 3rd: We had a fire. I'm not kidding. The new power source works great! The problem was during this whole shuffle, we had taken a UPS (uninterruptable power supply... battery backups) off of Bypass mode. Unbeknownst to us, (but knownst to someone else, I'd bet) it was on bypass for a reason. The connection on the other end was too wimpy to handle the draw... thus... FIRE! Now... while this was developing, I had to drive my truck to our sponsor for "registration and insurance" crap. I was told I had an appointment at 8:30am. I arrive there at 8:45am, and nobody knew what I was there for... I know, maybe you're thinking that if I had been there on time, they would have known... safe guess, but you're wrong.

The person I was supposed to meet was not even there. Hadn't even been there yet. When I talked to him on the phone, he didn't even know I was coming. But he was "glad I was there, and they would get the paperwork started". It's 9am ... At about 10:30am I give them the keys and the registration to the truck, and I go downtown with a local Kuwaiti contractor to pick up some stuff for the site. I get back about an hour later... and still nothing has been done. About 20 minutes later the guy walks in, and of course he's too busy to tell me exactly what's the deal. I settle into the leather couch, text message Hugh... and fall asleep for 30 minutes. I wake up and ask if anything had happened during my respite, and nothing had been done...

About 15 minutes after that one of the guys in that office hands me a phone, and it's "the guy" telling me they need more paperwork, and that I'll have to come back. In other words, I've just wasted four hours. So I leave, and notice that at least my truck got washed (which will be a moot point tomorrow... just wait). I'm half-way home (usually only a 30 minute drive) 20 minutes later due to heavy traffic, when their office calls me to tell me "you forgot the registration"... hmm ... I gave them the keys and the registration, they gave me the keys back... I ASSUMED they put it back in the truck, and even thought I should have checked... but no... I'M the dummy here...

So I tell them I've wasted enough time there for one day, and I will pick up the registration when I bring my passport (for them to screw up) in the next couple of days...

I get back to the apartment to pick up Hugh and eat some Thai food... then we get the FIRE call...

So I've lost several hours of my day, but I have a nice clean truck until ...

April 4th: Today it rained mud. Again, I'm not kidding. The day started a bit overcast, but around mid-morning it starts turning ... brownish. The clouds are a dirty brownish color, and you can only see about 500 yards before things start to get "dirty/foggy". A CPT and I were outside talking when we realized there was a very fine dirt/dust falling on everything. It was literally "snowing dirt"... but as the day progressed, it turned over to a rain, and made a huge mess. I didn't get any pictures today... I really need to start taking more pictures!


Anyway, I've got to finish a long overdue email to Shelley. I actually get to sleep in tomorrow, so I'm going to finish this and that email and go to sleep!

Love to all!

PS, dont' forget to the check the photo gallery frequently! I've made some changes, and there are quite a few completely new ones! I'm also getting them organized better, but that's a slow process.