Blast Furnace

I've been working on the blast furnace again. Man, is that cool! I mean, the job itself is really freaking cold, but it's interesting. I've poked my head in through the top of the blast furnace, and been, well, not impressed, because it's just a big pipe. But today I stood in the middle of the hearth area, which is at the bottom, where all the molten pig iron flows from the furnace into the bottle cars. It's weird to think that the area gets hot enough to melt iron. I don't know, I just love my job. How many other people can ever say that they've stood in the center of a blast furnace?

xkcd

I've seen this webcomic before, but really spent some time checking it out today. Here's one of my favorites, at least one that I feel I can publish on this semi-child-friendly (PG-13) weblog:


A lot of the humor is esoteric, but not all. My favorite is called "thoughts", but you'll have to look that one up yourself. hehe

Why I'm not a Day Trader

I've had this last week off, so during the day, I've been watching the stock market. I had money to add to my IRA account on hand, just in case I found a bargain. Depending on which economists you listen too, either we are already in a recession, or right on the edge, one of the reasons being the troubles in the sub-prime mortgage markets. Other factors, like expensive crude oil, rising unemployment, and rising inflation (which keeps the FED from lowering interest rates), fuel these economic worries. So after reading these forecasts of doom, I thought it might be time to buy some stock, believing the market is at a low point already. Well, I've never been a "technical" investor, and everything I've read says not to be a "market-timer", but since I was on vacation anyway, I figured I'd play around.

My philosophy of investing is along the lines of value investing, that is, picking up good companies when they've fallen out of favor. I thought that with the recent turmoil in the sub-prime mortgage industry, that banking stocks might be a good buy, so I check out a few, and decided on Merrill Lynch and Co. (NYSE ticker MER) I set a price of 50 dollars per share, because it was a bit less than the stock was selling at the time on Monday, and most importantly, because at that price, I'd be able to spend the majority of cash available, leaving no money in the non-interest bearing account.

Monday, I watched the price go up and down, but hadn't decided what to do until late in the day. I was worried that the price was going to go up, so Tuesday, I put in the limit order to buy 110 shares at $50.00 per share. It was executed at 11 o'clock AM, and I felt pretty smart. Then I kept watching the stock go down.... It bottomed out at $48.00. "Dang! I coulda gotten more shares, or saved a couple hundred bucks!" I told myself to be happy that I got it at the price I wanted, and not to worry. I told myself to stop watching it...

Wednesday, it was still down, but closed slightly over $50. Thursday, it continued up, and I was "seeing dollar signs", and "thinking 'what-if's'". "What if I had gotten the stock at 48?" "What if the stock keeps going up?", etc. I congratulated myself on my investor savvy. Then, Thursday night, while I was at Mitchell's drinking a beer and conversing with the lovely Stacy, I saw on the news that Merrill Lynch was looking to take a 15 billion dollar hit on it's sub-prime exposure, nearly twice what was expected. "Crap! It figures! This always happens to me! Just when I buy a stock, it tanks!", I whined to myself.

I got up early Friday morning, and put in a market order to sell all my shares. I thought that maybe, being on the East Coast, I'd at least beat the PST people at selling. At the bell, my shares went for $51.55, even netting me a small profit. I figured the stock would drop five bucks or so. Then, as I've watched the price even today, it's gone up. As of this writing (3:34 PM), it's at $53.28 (price delayed 20 minutes). It maxed out over $55 per share. "Crap! It figures. I could have made MORE money! Why did I sell? Why didn't I do what I'm supposed to do, which is buy and hold?", I whined to myself.

I still don't understand why the price is going up, even though they've got billions in losses. The broader market did tank (DJIA down over 200, SP500 down 18), so why is Merrill Lynch going UP? The real traders must know something I don't, or maybe there was an inkling of this happening when the stock was at 48, or maybe the real traders know that the government is going to bail out the industry. In any case, I don't have a clue.

What I did learn is that I am no day-trader. It was fun (sorta), and I didn't get hurt (actually made a profit), but this style of investing goes against my nature, and definitely against my abilities. I'll keep watching MER, or maybe look for another stock, but I'll be happy when I'm back to work next week, and don't have the lure of constant updates (delayed 20 minutes) to fog my thoughts and pull me off course. The really scary thing is that early this morning, I was considering shorting Merrill Lynch....

High Voltage Cable Repair

Back in the manholes again! This time, we're cutting the splice out of a blown cable, so we can pull the old cable out, and a new cable in. You can see the tool positioned around the cable for the cut.
We use this hydraulic guillotine cutter to safely cut the cable.

Dobi, the foreman, stands outside the manhole and operates the cutter. This way, in the remote chance that we've got the wrong cable, no one gets injured if the cable is energized. There is no way to tell if a shielded high voltage cable is energized or not.

We're using a crane to pull the old lead cable out.

There's the fault! Only one phase shorted to ground, but the cable is useless now.

Dr. Bob is reviewing the instructions and materials to begin his splice. He and Backup are working on the 3 conductor lead to 3 single conductor splice. Toothy McToothman is their safety guy in the background. He sits at the top of the manhole and monitors air quality, keeps the generator running for lights, and would be the person to call for help should there be a problem in the manhole.

I'm doing the other end of our new cables, which join with three existing single cables. It was pretty tight quarters in there.

One of the three splices is completed (top), now I'm starting the second one. The entire process took from noon (when we had the manhole prepared and the cables trained into their final position) until 1 AM. It was an arduous 19 hours on Friday. Saturday, Dr. Bob and Backup finished their splice while I covered the cables with fire resistant tape, then did a few other odds and ends to help wrap up. I finished taping the buss around 8 PM.

Back to work

Those 4 days did, indeed, go by fast. It's 0523 and I'm getting ready for work again. I'll be playing with these high voltage lead cables for the next few days. There are 12 cables here. The bad cable is on the bottom row, third cable in. Sounds like fun, eh? Each of the big cylinders in the center is a splice. That's old-school high voltage splicing.