Ever have your day ruined by a catastrophe? I woke up this morning with a plan for the entire day at work, and it was all ruined by 9:00.

Now before you jump down my throat, I was all geared up to tell you about the greatest cult samurai movie I saw, however, around 9:00, we got the call that there was a leaking chlorine railcar at a chemical plant near Virginia Beach.

Road trip!

So it was decided that the Chlorine Emergency Response Team would be activated and trek four hours down I-95 to good ol’ Virginia to respond to this emergency.

We had a visitor from our Corporate Environmental offices in today that I was supposed to meet with, that I had to postpone. I had some flow measurements on a fouled heat exchanger that I had to postpone. I had work to do on steam issues that I had to postpone, along with a meeting on said issue that I had to reschedule.

I was slashing my work schedule harder than Jason Voorhees. Tch tch tch. Aah aah aah.

Anyway, we get the word that they are in the process of unloading the railcar when they saw a small leak come from the dome, and think it’s a leak in the weld. Well if it’s a leak in the weld, they’re screwed. Hopefully, it’s a gasket issue, and we can tighten down on that to stop the leak.

So we’re geared up, we’ve spent forty-five minutes filing away at a rusted-out trailer hitch so we can hitch the trailer with all of our response equipment to the truck. It took a 40-pound sledgehammer to knock that puppy into place. It’s in. But it’s not coming out. Ever.

Finally, we’re ready to roll, and a dozen or so co-workers have stopped to bless the truck on its journey since everyone seems confident it will break down on this trip. Wonderful.

We get a call. It seems we’re changing plans. One of us, obviously not me since I’m writing this, is going to fly down to Virginia Beach and assess the situation. Then, if we’re needed, the remaining two of us will make the four-hour drive ar 1:00.

It’s now 12:30 and I don’t know which option to root for. If we go, we’ll be down there until tomorrow, however, we will have to spend four hours driving in the late afternoon, with a truck that everyone is convinced will crap out on us. Option B, is we don’t go, and I’ve wasted the day, and now have to work twice as hard this afternoon and tomorrow to catch up.

Grrr. Someone just flip a damn coin.

Anyway, barring a typhoon or something, exploits of the world’s most hard-core samurai tomorrow.

Ciao.

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