The day after Groundhog Day!
Today was OK. We found some more wood and finished the remainder of the office extension. Now we have to do the electrical stuff. That shouldn't be too hard and I know where to get all of the stuff for that. It's everywhere! I did manage to find these aluminum door handles that say PUSH and PULL in Arabic and English. They normally went on glass double doors. They are rectangle and look cool on the office door.
The day went by pretty quickly. Maybe that's because I was so busy right out off the bat this morning. Some soldier (I feel the need to divulge that is was a woman driver) was too lazy to walk next door to turn in her laundry so she decided to drive next door. As she was pulling out, she managed to snag the computer network line that connected the two buildings. She yanked the switch off of the wall drug it across the room and finally tore the face off of it and snapped the cable. Then she had the nerve just drive off. Luckily, someone saw the whole thing and now she has no license (heh heh). My job was to find a new switch, find 200 feet of CAT5 network cable and reconnect the two buildings and restore network and internet service within four hours. Sure! It was a mad dash to try to round up everything I needed. This is
The rest of the day we spent scrounging for wood and nails and playing carpenter. It was a good day in all and the weather was quite nice. About 65 for the high and visibility was really clear!
I took "Bear Cub" out to test his skill in the HUMMER. I am required to take him for a road test before we can get him a military drivers license. I used his road test as an excuse to get out and have some fun in the mud. HUMMERS work really well in this environment. On the street, they leave a lot to be desired but here, they're great!
Finished up the day by doing vibration analysis on Blackhawk tail # 312. After installing all of the test equipment, cameras and vibration absorbers everything was good but the #2 engine. It exceeded it's maximum alowed vibration limits so tomorrow we'll have to balance the drive shaft. Tonight it's coming into a 100 hour service. The blades need to come off so the rotor head can be checked for cracks with a special X-Ray machine. The night crew will handle that stuff.
I recently moved myself from nights to days. After a while, it's easy to get burned out. The pace at night is really high as most of the major maintenance is performed then. The maintenance has to be completed by morning because the aircraft will fly early. If something is not done, I am in the spot light and my reputation will be damaged not to mention possibly dropping a mission. We have been 100% so far. I took the first night shift supervisor duty the first 2 months that we were in country. I wanted to make sure that I set the standard and got everyone headed in the right direction. I don't mean to sound arrogant, it's just I feel like I know what needs to happen. After all, I have done this combat thing before.
The day pace is much slower when it comes to maintenance. I spend my days taking care of the "beans and bullets" as my boss in the civilian world would say. Maximizing my efforts to support my soldiers means that they are free to only have to worry about helicopter maintenance. It also means that if I take care of them, they will perform better and their morale will be good. Don't take care of them, all hell breaks loose. I could take the preverbal whip to them and MAKE 'em work, but that's not what I consider to be a healthy method of leading soldiers and they will loose their will and loose respect for me. That's the last thing I want!
I received an email fro
Well, My time has gone and I need to scoot.
Signing off from somewhere in
"MERLIN OUT"
posted by Merlin @ 9:09 PM
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