Ka-Boom! + Happy Birthday

Well, my worst fears were realized yesterday afternoon when it came time to energize the transformer at Blackhawk Sub. Overall the project has been going smoothly. Almost too smoothly. At about 2:30 yesterday afternoon I went out to the site and met some of the crew out there so we could put 14kV on the unit. The cable was tested, everybody was out of the way, the guy threw the switch...and there was a horrific noise coming from the unit, a loud popping sound, smoke coming out of the unit and the conductors in the street were galloping.

I couldn't believe it. I've been working on this since last year and we were so close to being done. We opened up the unit and noticed that someone never hooked up the connections to the unit so all the cables were just connected to the case of the transformer, thus ground. The relay in the control house tripped open the feeder and about 135 customers were out of power and I looked at the fault current and there was about 8000 amps flowing through each phase into ground for only like 1/10th of a second though.

But not to worry, not much, if any, damage was done and once the proper connections are made, we can try it again. It's partially my fault since I should have looked over their work before it was energized. Lesson learned!! How exciting it is to work in the utility industry!

Anyway, today is Amber's 27th Birthday! I was planning on doing a huge "Ode to Rew" on my blog last night in honor of her special day but I was in such a bad mood last night and I got home late from work that I just couldn't do it. But just a few facts:

-Amber was born at about 7:30am on Wednesday, June 24th 1981
-Amber was pure blonde until her hair started to turn brown in 8th grade or so.
-Amber and I met on January 1st, 2000 and started going out a few weeks after that.
-Amber has the most perfect nose, ears, feet and hands of anybody I know.
-I have many nicknames for Amber including: Rew, Raincloud, Little Miss, Cutie Rew, Amberoo, Baby-kins or any combination of these nicknames strung together. I also use the common "Hun", "Babe", "Baby", etc.
-Amber is a sucker for Ravioli and Lasgana. And any dairy product.
-Amber has a catalog of over 60 mix CD's that I have made her over the years. Some of the recent mix titles: The Ambergeddon Mix, The Notorious R.E.W. Mix, The Raincloud Mixx, Summatime (I-V) Mix.
-If you hook up power cables to Amber, the worlds energy problems would be solved, since she is in a constant state of motion and would generate a ton of power. In fact her high school friends call her "Perpetual Motion Girl"
-Amber loves to organize, clean, schedule things, hang with friends, read, make random comments.
-Amber does not like to drive for long periods, be too hot or cold, run, mow the lawn.
-Amber gets easily distracted.
-You can always tell what Amber is thinking by the look on her face. Even if she is trying to be nice and polite, you can still see a look on her face (or at least I can)

Amber wants to eat at Biaggi's tonight so we'll be going there and then open up some presents! It's her day so she's the queen!