by Saxon Dog » Tue Dec 29, 2009 12:31 am
Personal Log - Tunnel 3 - Day 32 - Outside Temp 234F
Working our tails off this week. Never looked forward to days off as much as here. Captain has 3 big Projects going and Im helping to some degree on all of them.
Theres a crew digging a connector tunnel up in the Northeast corner, where the ends of the corridors didnt quite meet. They broke thru Thursday. Since all the digging is under the factory floor they dont worry much about the ceiling coming down, they just shore up the walls and leave dirt floor. I guess they had already planned this since there is insulation and dirt above the concrete already. Now they are digging a plain old tunnel except deeper, just to give us some extra room which will give additional cool air if anything shuts down. The trick is getting air to the diggers, so I helped rig some air hoses.
Since we dont want all that dirt in the tunnel, we're using it to extend the entrances. We're dragging empty shipping containers to the West Entrance, lining em up end to end and covering em with dirt. The Captain wants that project to go faster than the tunnels can dig the dirt we need, so Im trying to rig a system to feed cool air to a bulldozer or backhoe. The hard part will be keeping the bulldozer from running over its own feed air hoses.
Biggest Project for me was building a third backup cooling array. The Primary is on the South side, the Secondary is just east of it on the SE corner, and we decided the NorthWest corner was a good spot for a just in case set-up. If anything went wrong it'd get pretty hot that far from the coolers. We can run this one at the same time if we want. Its bigger and nicer than the other two, real easy to work on and every cell has a valve, so if it starts leaking we dont have to shut it completely down to take pipes out. Gonna test it tomorrow.
Promised Bill I would include some personality details, which I suppose is something I should pay more attention too.
The interns are great. Mostly they've formed cliques based on their work assignments and class schedules. They've started giving their workgang nicknames, sorta like bowling teams. There are Tunnel Rats and Dirt Bags and Jock Boys and Bulb Bunnies. I spend most of my time with the Thermal Nerds, who are all in my Thermo class. Theres Stan, Tim and Will, and 667. Stan is a beanpole kid with red hair, he helps out the wiring guys when he isnt learning how to weld on my pipe building projects. Will is a high energy black kid from a rich background, he interns in the computer room, I think in normal times he would have been a typical hacker. What he knows about the latest computers and electronic gizmos sure makes me feel old. "Tiny" Tim is 6 foot 7 inches, looks dumb as a rock, talks slow and quiet, but he's just about the smartest kid in the tunnel. Played varsity football and they said he already had colleges scouting him his junior year. He checks my calculations on the pipe flow.
667 is all anyone calls the one kid. He stopped letting it bother him, but it was habit by then so it stuck. He's just pretty average really. He could go either way. Hard to imagine him making it with any of the girls down here, but I suppose theres plenty for everyone if you look at it that way.
One other guy I want to mention is Brad. We call him Boring Brad. I sorta feel sorry for him. He isnt a kid, he's an expert. All the rest of us adults have really more than one area that we are good at, but Brad is just good at the one thing, and thats making batteries. He knows everything about batteries. And damn little else. Unfortunately, we dont need any batteries just yet, and the Captain wouldnt let him make any inside the tunnel anyway, so except for giving one class for a couple hours every week, he has just about nothing to do. And he tries to help, but dammit if he aint the worst helper in the whole system. I'll talk more about him next week. This getting long and I need to hit the sack.
Oh and one more thing. Outside news - not much. Some rumors that some of the smaller tunnels in Europe have failed but no verification or reasons given yet. And the Nevada Tunnel that lost their drinking water is still hanging in there. They have to be getting pretty thirsty by now. Poor devils.
Off to Beddy Bye Boze Time
Nite Log.
WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG