ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area strange things that happen???

Years ago, I did some work at the Utah State Prison. I was accompanied by a guard at all times. First day, I wore my normal work outfit: boots, jeans, and a denim shirt, with a denim jacket, all from JC Penny's. I got a lot of looks and taunts from the cons. The guard told me the reason: the uniform for the cons was JC Penny jeans, denim shirts and jackets. They thought I was a new con and they were priming me for my first encounter. Next day, and every day after, I wore my red and green flannel shirts, and my Carhart jacket.
They offered us a free lunch every day. It was served by the cons, and after eating once, I considered who was serving me, and brown bagged it.
While I was there, some cons burned an empty barrel of oil hidden in a pile of trash under the Utah Power and Light main High Voltage feeder, it blew up and the fire-ball caused the entire State of Utah to be without power for a couple of days. Initially, they were looking at me as the cause.

OK, here are a couple of my "funny stories".

More than once the PoCo would drop power when I was working on a job. Once I turn power on for an electric heater and there was none. (A Poco job) Another time in a public library, I told the helper to turn on a breaker, sure enough the Poco did it again. Of course I saw that there were no stop lights and didn't let on to the helper. However the best one was when I went to a job looking for a payment, and half kidding around, I told the boss that if he didn't pay me, I would turn the power back off. Sure enough the Poco came through. Only this time it was a transformer fire down the street on the pole. But I got paid real quick from that time on! LOL

Sorta Off Topic but this happened in 19777. Was asked to check a house that my attorney had taken in lieu of money retainer. The HVAC ductwork was in the crawl space. Pretty far into the space I spotted something pushed way back on the duct. It was a bank bag. I brought it out and the lawyer, myself, and a building inspector opened it. There was a 9mm and $17,000+ in the bag. Was turned in to police. BTW, the son of the former owners had been charged with bank robbery and the attorney had won an aquittal. I always thought that I had a great attorney.

You don't even want to think about what it's like over here in England now......

paul,

does any law abiding citizen in the UK own a personal firearm? Handgun?

Of course not. Remember what Robin Williame said:

"In America, they cops say "Stop, or I'll shoot!"

In Britain, the cops say "Stop, or I'll say 'stop' again!"

Let's put one of my experiences in which comes to mind.

I was working for the POCO, then Power New Zealand, in the metering department, around ± 1996 - 97, when I upgraded quite a few CT meters, when tariffs changed from 2 rate to T.O.U. metering in commercial installations.

I did a meter change at the Parakai Hotpools, Helensville, NZ and pulled the PT fuses of the CT meter to prepare for a meter change.
At the same time the contactor from the 100 HP hydroslide motor dropped out with a loud clunck, all the other filter pumps stopped and the lights went out as well, Within seconds the pool owner rushed in and said " Did you turn the power off?" , "No!", I said, "Why did it go off!" , "don't know", I said back, while checking the main switch at the same time if I didn't accidentally tripped the Main switch.
I had a chat with the owner and explained that the CT meter does not require a shutdown for a meter change.

Power remained off for about 20 minutes, then everything started up again.
When power was restored I checked the voltages at the isolation points and all was fine, and continued with replacing the 2 rate meter, and doing the necessary CT checks to confirm multiplier and CT tappings etc.

Later that day I heard that a Tornado knocked out the 11 kV feeder line to Parakai, hence the power cut.
It took the faultman about 20 minutes to isolate the damaged section of line and back feed the area from a different circuit.

I was working on a block of units that had recently been renovated and was up on the metal roof with a sheet lifted trying to find a lost cable. At the same time the apprentice is having a bludge leaning against the aluminium ladder I used to get on the roof. I pulled on a cable and found it was cutoff. Thinking it was disused I threw the end of it onto the roof. In fact it was live so now the whole roof is at 240V. I didn't notice because I was standing on top of the roof but it certainly made the apprentice jump.

What's a bludge?

standing around not doing any work.