Spring Trip 2006

Left the hotel area about 9 AM, travels home, stopped for a BLT for lunch at around 2 PM, and drove on in to the Houston office about 19:00. Left the office about 20:00and went out and got dinner and that was it for the day.

Weather home was cool but greatfor driving home.

END OF TRIP!

Well today was warmer than it was yesterday, but still freezing cold. Saw a little sun today, but not much.

Had a meeting with the local power company for the Blytheville plants, then got lunch and drove to New Johnsonville to fix that machine now that the parts are there.

Now I am home bound, with 731 miles to go, or about 12 hours driving. But I will drive out of here (New Johnsonville, TN) and see how far I can go before I need to rest. By then I figure I will be 9 hours from Houston and if I get up early, that will put me in Houston late in the afternoon or early evening.

Well it is now Sunday and again, nothing much to do here. I will go get lunch and maybe drive down to the plant. Still weather is cold and also icy.

No problems with my kidney infection and I am about to run out of my antibiotics, so far, so good.

Well, it did snow early this morning some time after 2 AM. We have about 1 inch of snow on the ground. The snow is hard also, more like ice than snow.

Did not do a whole lot today, went out for lunch and dinner, nothing really good here.

In my hotel room the faucet was leaking, had maintenance come to see about fixing it, but he said they would have to call a plumber to fix it. So he left. I left and went to Lowe's to get new seals and for $1.97 got the parts and also some plumber's grease to fix it. I told the front desk to remove it from the service list and that I fixed the problem. They were glad to refund me the cost of the material for repairs.

That was about it for my Saturday's excitement.

Weather was cold all day long and never above freezing.

The weather was cool and cloudy, about 25° F. It got a little warmer during the morning part of the day, up to 35° F then the winds picked up and it started dropping.

I was at the Blytheville plant all day working in doors. Had one time where I had to climb the cold box and boy was it cold on my face.

Left the plant by 7 PM and went out and got a pizza for dinner, no Outback Steakhouse around here. :-( There is not a whole lot here in Blytheville and its population is about 23,000. They need a nice Steakhouse.

Drove around a little on my way back to the hotel and I could see that they had some nice historical buildings around downtown area. Would be nice to check out when the weather is warmer where I could ride the Segway around.

Late last night it started to rain just a little, just enough to make things a little wet. I was surprised that it did not freeze, but it was just at 32° F by 9 PM.

Well it was dull weather, but temperature was nice, 68° F, but humid also.

My trip to the plant from the hotel was about a 30 minute drive, and I was thinking it was only about 10 minutes. Oh well. Got to the plant, installed the computers on the network. Had one PC damaged in shipping again, this time Houston has to send me the new parts. Now I have to return back to this plant to fix the computer when the parts are in. FedEx does not get to the plant until after 1 PM, so no point in staying in the area waiting for parts. So l drove to Blytheville, Arkansas.

It was a windy drive to Blytheville due to a cold front that is coming. 19 mph winds right now, 6PM . Tonight it should get up to 30 mph.

Started out in Mt. Vernon at the Four Season's motel that was just down the street from the plant. Nice little family run motel, even with wireless internet like the big places.

Morning started out at 45° F, cloudy day with light winds.

Installation at the plant went okay. But did have a dead machine. The CAT 5 cable I got yesterday was not the right kind of cable that I needed. It was solid cable and not stranded as I had asked for.

Left the plant around 2:30 and stopped at a Chinese place for lunch. Well stopping there at 2:30 was not a great idea - there was not much to the buffet.

Now in Clarksville, TN at Outback Steakhouse! I will be heading for my hotel in the New Johnsonville area after dinner. After dinner, well my rating of this meal was below par. My steak that I ordered was to have been medium well, but this was a thick piece and the center was rare. Waitress just said that they have a new cook that just started a week ago. I don't think she ever told the cook or the manager as she should have. Well guess what, no tip. Sorry Christal.

Left there and cruised on down to Hurricane Mills, TN. Ready for the New Johnsonville, TN plant tomorrow.

Headed out to the plant, the weather was fine, just a little chilly. No problem in finding the plant as it was on the side of the highway. After looking at what had to be installed, I had to go get some CAT5 stranded wire. Could not find it at any of the stores I went to and called. Radio Shack was the only place that had it. It was $64 for 100 feet. So I didn't get it as I can buy 1,000 feet for about $100. Went back to the plant, used what wire I had for the install, and completed it by about 4:15 pm. Headed to Graybar Electric in St. Louis, MO about 40 minutes away. Got the wire there and left.

Headed to Mt. Vernon, IL. Stopped at Outback Steakhouse on the way to Mt. Vernon. Got to Mt. Vernon about 9:00 p.m. and got my hotel at the Four Seasons Motel, just down the street from the plant.