15 posts tagged “metro”
i had a nice three weeks off.... well, kinda..... i've been sick most of the last week. i even missed church yesterday. but i came into work today.... i'm still a bit sick actually but not too bad.
i've been catching up here in the office today and i'm already caught up. :-)
we're starting a big project tonight though. we're building supports under the platform edge at King St. Station in VA. so that means midnight work, every day for a couple of weeks. i'm not going to come in every night though..... i will come in tonight and see how i'm feeling about tomorrow.
'specially since i have a concert tomorrow night. i'm going to see Terry Scott Taylor, my favorite song writer, in Sterling, VA. it's a house concert so we'll be sitting in my friends living room with Terry, his son Andrew on bass guitar, and Steve Hindalong on percussion, as he sings to us. cool! :-) i'm looking forward to it. ... let me know if you want to go and i'll give you the info.... :-)
ttfn
wellll..... Jack Bauer did save the Metro this week. he is one busy ex-CTU-agent!
now, about the Metro in 24 this week, it was not my Metro. it was not our stations, or our station kiosk, or fare card machines (althought they did use electronic fare cards), and i dont' think it was our train cars. but that part was hard to tell.... the M on the side of the cars was just like ours, and the station map on the train looked like ours, but the colors were strange... the station managers did have on Metro uniforms and the Metro Police uniform looked like ours too.... the ding dong and the voice on the train were pretty much like ours, but we do not have a station called "L Street," or "Washington Central."
so, if they used the real DC Metro for any scenes, they masked it pretty well.... but of course the important thing is that the Metro is safe..... unlike Jack's daughter....... :-o
24 has been good this season. plus it's been in DC! and now they're coming down to my world....
next week Jack has to save Metro!
:-)
HAPPY EARTH DAY.
i'm at work and Joe Biden is coming to our building today. i was just out back watching the secret service and the police stop and inspect cars as they come in with bomb dogs. there are also sharp shooters on the roof, helicopters over head, and about five or six guards at the gates where there's usually one... he's coming to see some new hybrid buses and say something about Metro going green, i guess.... i won't be around so i won't see or hear him. too many Metro bosses are going to be there. so i'd rather not actually be there. i'd rather just watch the activity around the spectacle.
i'm going to go back outside soon and watch the check point right by my back door again. i'm kinda hoping a half dead Jack Bauer shows up to look over the FBI's sholder.....
Dave, my supervisor at work, is moving up. he took the position of Asst. Superintendent. that is one step up from Supervisor. so now he supervises over about six supervisors of about six different crafts. that starts Monday.
my crew is carpenters and locksmiths. i am the leadman of the crew and will continue in that position. management decided to bring a supervisor from another location, Blair Rd, over here to be our new supervisor. and he and we are still under Dave's umbrella of authority. so nothing that much will change for me; except Rex, our new supervisor, is a much different personality then Dave is. he is much more high strung ... he can change moods quickly, and he does not like to be told what to do.....
i'm actually not sure how he does his work now, or what his present leadman does, or what he'll expect me to do, or not do. i guess i'll just have to see how it all plays out next week. i don't expect any big problems, but you never know.... i have known Rex for many years. he's been here for a long time, and so have i. he told me yesterday that he's changed a lot over the last few years. he said that since he doesn't drink alcohol any more he's calmed down quite a bit..... that's good. he was nuts.
so it will be interesting to see how the next couple of weeks go with Rex at the helm of this crew. i'm anxious to see how it goes with me too....
sorry blog... i haven't been talking to you here lately. i've been playing on FaceBook more.
i guess i can update a few things for you. my dad is doing well. recovering nicely. i take him to see his doctor this Thursday for a check up.
Norman did come back and fixed the dryer. it works great now.... but as i said i was afraid that the landlord would come and see it all apart.... well. Norman came over Friday night and worked into Saturday on it. and the day after Norman made the repairs, Sunday morning, the landlord unexpectedly knocked on the door and wanted to go in the basement to see the water heater. the dryer is right next to the water heater and i had not been down in the basement yet to see if Norman had even finished the job or not. or if it was a mess down there. i didn't know what shape the basement was in right then... so i told the landlord that i'd walk down with him, hoping i would not have to explain a big mess or a half put together dryer. but to my great relief it was all clear down there and the dryer looked good. later i tried it and it works great. yay. :-)
so that was good, but my landlord when he was over, seemed very anxious to come back and talk to me about some "other things." that didn't sound like a conversation i wanted to have. ;-] so i was avoiding it.... but he caught up with me yesterday. he came knocking on my door unexpectedly again and came in with a new lease to sign. and he raised the rent by 50 dollars. :-[ not happy....
another new development i think i'll bring up here, is at work....
the scuttlebutt around here is that my supervisor is getting promoted. so rumors are starting that i'll be taking his job. the problem with that is that Metro is not filling empty jobs right now. they're looking for other ways to fill spots, or just eliminating them altogether. we're in a budget crunch and Metro is laying off, or not filling about 900 positions. they let 300 people go last week and the General Manager says it's not over... so, what will happen here with my crew and the supervisors job?? i heard another bit of gossip, that one of the other supervisors will be moved over our group and bring most of his guys with him. ok... but, then, as the talk goes, that will put too many men under him so the locksmiths will be moved to another crew. even though i'm officially a "leadman," i'm still considered a locksmith, i believe. so i may be moved to another crew too and i don't know what that will do to my status as "leadman" at that time.... so, i may be moving up, or moving out. i'm unsure about anything right now.... that's one thing that is frustrating me right now....
another situation has to do with a co-worker i thought i was fairly tight with stabbing me in the back. it's about overtime (most tension around here is). my "buddy" Bobo went upstairs to the bosses and tried to get me cut out of an overtime project that we're working on right now - supporting the platform edge at a station (i've talked about that before), saying that i'm not a carpenter and that only carpenters should be working on this job. well, what i am is the leadman over a crew of carpenters and locksmiths and my plan was to bring everyone in that i could and as many nights as i could so everyone makes out as well as we could.... that plan got revised and now i'm on a list of labor-help that gets called in to help on the job only as needed. so the carpenters are working overtime 3 to 5 times a week, and i might get 1 to 2 nights.... as i've said here before, we've done four other station's platforms and i've worked right along with my crew... so, that's another frustration right now......
oh well. it'll all work out in the end. sorry i've been ignoring you.... ttyl blog...
i heard my screen door open and the door bell ring... but it's only a little after 4 in the morning!... "who is it?" "it's me Norman and it's cold out here. let me in." he'd been out in his van waiting for me to get up and turn on the lights. so i let him in and he started venting right away. an hour later he had hardly come up for air and i really had to go to work. i was already worried about hitting inauguration day traffic, and now i was leaving the house a half hour late, and i left him there. in the house. he wanted to chill out and calm down and take a shower and hide out from his family and other problems.... so i let him stay. i guess he's ok. i'll see if he's still there when i get home...... and if he's chilled out any. he was pretty hyped up this morning!
well, i didn't have to worry about the traffic. i didn't have any problem getting to work. but along the way i saw lines at every Metro station along the beltway. my route was pretty clear though. and then when i got in here the guys were already talking about the crowded Metro and the lines just to get into the stations. one of the guys said that he went by New Carrollton Station and there was one long thick line trying to get into the station of people and next to that was another long line of folks trying to get out after realizing that they weren't going anywhere and wanted to try another way into town.... then a couple of hours after that the reports of crowds were still coming in when we heard that someone had fallen on the tracks at a Red Line station so the Red Line was stopped. i later heard that it was a lady that had gotten pushed and fell into the track bed from the over crowded platform, but she was ok and did not get hit by the train. thank God. so, people had been making their way down town all day from early early morning, and in some cases since last night. all to stand on the National Mall. the mass of people went all the way back past the Washington Memorial from the Capitol Building. you saw it on TV i'm sure. that is a whole lot of people! ... ok, so all those people took many many hours to get there and then after the ceremonies everyone starts to leave, but at the same time! see? that's going to be a huge crowd of people trying to get into the Metro or on buses or whatever they had planned to exit DC... sounds like more hours and hours of waiting in line after the event.... but as far as i have heard it was mostly all pretty smooth. no big problems. that's good. no terrorist activity yet. that's good. a peaceful exchange of power. that's good. but i'm glad i decided to stay in and watch it all on TV.... i sat in the break room with the crew and watched the day unfold. they're a diverse bunch of guys, about half of us are black and half are white, half republican, half democrat, but the mood was cool and jovial. lots of riffing and cracks were made. so that was fun. it was a pretty good day... :-)
but .....so now when i get home after work i wonder if Norman will still be there. and if he'll be so hyper still.... will that scene be as peaceful as the inauguration was? ..... i hope so.
it's Colorfest week end here in Thurmont. and the place is already hoppin'...
signs of Colorfest started earlier in the week, like Wednesday there were already trailers and tents up around town. now as of today the streets are abuzz with activity that will go non-stop until Sunday night when all the vendors, craft shops, and yard sales pack up and go home.
a lot of the locals dislike Colorfest and go away this week end. i like it. i don't really like yard sales or crafts, etc. but i like the activity and all the people that pour into town for a couple of days and then disappear.
i'll get some pictures tomorrow and Sunday and put some up here on Vox so you can enjoy Colorfest too. :-)
my week at work was fine. no overtime so i slept 8 hours every night this week... nice....
that's the good news, here's the bad news:
sigh...... one big time disappointment this week...
i had my motorcycle picked up by a shop in Glen Burnie. i decided to take it there to be repaired because the mechanic there has been working on this bike for many many years and came highly recommended by the former owner, Dave. so anyway, i called up the shop and had them come get the bike since i didn't think i should ride it with the noise it was making....
i talked to the mechanic a couple of days ago and he had the transmission apart and had replaced the ball bearings and seals and was going to put it back together and run another test or two and let me know if that fixed the problem. i was really hoping to get it back today because it's going to be a really nice week end and i wanted to ride it around town/Colorfest and on Monday i was thinking of taking a nice long ride somewhere since it's a holiday and i don't have to work....
but i spoke to the shop again today and after they put the transmission back together and took the motorcycle for a test ride they heard the noise i was complaining about. they hadn't heard it before but fixed the trans because it was leaking and i thought that was the problem.... well, once they found the noise, it was a rocker arm noise. not good. they'll have to take the engine out and the heads off to see what's happening with the rocker arms and the pistons, etc. they told me that the rocker arm is made out of brass [we saw rocker arms being made on a factory tour while i was in Milwaukee for Harley's 105th] and the only thing that would have made it fail like that is if i overheated the engine or let it get low on oil.
i don't remember riding it until it was that hot, and i don't think i was low on oil, but that could have happened....
i don't really know how it happened but i do know that my bike is not in good shape right now, and it's probably going to cost me a whole lot of money to get it back on the road..... sad, very sad.....
i guess i have to blame myself for not following up on the leak i had noticed. but i also kinda blame the last shop i took it to for not putting the trans back together right after just changing out the fluid. now the oil being low, i don't know what to think about that yet....
...bye bye over time money..... :-(
this video has some shots of the Metro station platform that we were working on this week, Minnesota Ave Station. my crew has been installing supports under some of these cracking, deteriorating platforms... not great for Metro, but i've been getting a pretty good amount of overtime work from it.... we think the platforms are cracking up because we used to use some strong chemical salts to melt ice and snow on some of these outside stations. so in some of the older stations, the concrete is breaking up. local radio WTOP has been running these short audio reports on Metro, sensationalized for sure, but interesting. hmmm.... although i don't think Metro would admit it, but i kinda think that Metro is giving this reporter access because we're looking for big time funding to do repairs and clean ups around here....
... one of the audio blurbs is the reporter standing on the Shady Grove platform and after he says that we're supporting the platform edges with whatever we can find laying around, he tells some customers waiting for the train that the platform is being held up with 2x4s. they believe him and think that's a bit shaky support... of course...
of course that's ridiculous. we actually had engineers go under there first and draw up plans and decide what materials to use and we installed the supports as directed. they are made with pressure treated 2x8s and 2x6s doubled up to make the upper framing and lower base, then we're installing heavy metal screw jacks to actually shore up the platform edge and hold any weight. that should hold up for quite a while. but all this temporary anyway... they say we'll be doing replacement and repairs to the platforms in the next couple of years....
anyway, here's the video... it starts with some bus garage stuff and then you'll see the subway stuff....
Godfrey is having a birthday party tonight. he invited some of the guys from work and he invited me. this is the second year that he's invited me and the second year i won't be going.... i hope he's not too upset with me... i love Godfrey and wish i could get there, but it's two hours away on a Saturday night. i don't like to go out late on Saturday because i go to church on Sunday morning. oh well, i know he'll give me a hard time Monday, but hopefully he'll forgive me by lunch time... :-)
speaking of Monday, i already know it's going to be a difficult day. we're going to start shoring up the subway platform edges again and so we'll be working nights approximately four nights a week until it's done. the first night is Sunday night. i don't want to work it, but i need the money so i'm going in every night i can.... but, among some of the frustrating things going on at work lately, overtime is getting to be such an issue at Plant that we're only working six and a half hours OT a night....
