If you don’t know what I do for a living, I basically help build systems to control things like water treatment plants. We get the requirements up front, build the system and then install it out in the actual plant, do live tests to ensure everything works and then it’s good to go!

Now, I specifically work on the user interface side of things (HMI), whereas some of my co-workers do the actual control side which is called a PLC. What this video is testing is really the PLC side of things…making sure it runs the system like it’s intended.

This video below is just a little clip of us testing our control of a water filter. If you want to know what you’re seeing, read the text below, or just skip to the video. It may bore you, but it’s fascinating to me to see things actually WORK. We do so much of our work in an office, that taking it out to the field and seeing things function as they are supposed to is the most fulfilling part of my job.

What you are seeing:

This is a water filter. One of 8 giant water filters. Normally the water flows in from the white troughs you see in the video and spills over their tops and is filtered below through the anthracite media. So it drains downward.

Well, the video is a backwash. Normally the anthracite will get full of the dirt and crap it filters out, so now and then you have to “shake it up”, which means you aerate it, and then flush all the dirt upwards into the troughs, which spills it out below into the channel and then flows out to a holding basin. A valve in the line tells it to go there, not to your drinking water supply for Gilbert and Chandler residents

So what you are seeing in the video is the reverse of how a filter normally works. This is the cleaning process. It’s called “backwashing” the filter.

Hope you enjoy it…although it may bore some of you

(you also will see a little pan of the plant, just to see all the construction going on. Oh, and a brief shot of me with a hard hat on!)

(oh, by the way, this was done with our new FLIP HD video camera we have and I am really, really happy with the quality. Such a great camera for so cheap.)

If you don’t know what that means, or where it came from…watch Office Space just once and you’ll get it. But it’s fairly obvious what it means. Mondays suck. Especially after a long break. And I haven’t worked since December 23rd.

This Monday is already sucking.

It’s not just that I’m kind of tired, or missing my wife and little girl…it’s more the fact that now I get to face the situations at work where I’m going to have to travel more. I’ve made them keep me off that stuff until now, but it’s January, it’s 2009 and I gotta start playing ball again. It’s a major part of my job to be at client locations to help test our systems, so travel is involved. I’ve been lucky lately to have jobs close to Phoenix, so it’s nothing but a drive to get there.

Now they are switching out a co-worker and putting me on a job that is southwest of Tucson. A two-hour drive, meaning overnight stays are going to be needed from time to time.

I’ve never minded traveling before, but now that I have a little girl, it sucks to even think about it. Leaving Jina at home to take care of her 24/7 kills me.

It’s part of my job, I have to do it, but I’m not going to like it.

But the first day back was rough. I honestly had no idea how much I’d miss both of my girls and it really killed my motivation. When I got home and let Jina run off to do a few things, I just held Lyla and couldn’t get enough of her.

And now today it feels almost harder. Mostly because Lyla was up a lot last night and Jina got maybe 90 minutes of sleep. It’s so brutal for me to run off to work when she’s at home doing what she does all day. I’m thankful for her aunt coming over this week to give her a short break in the mornings, so hopefully she can sleep a bit today.

I’m trying to do what I can when I’m there, to make things easier for her. I’d like nothing better than for Jina to sleep when she is able and not worry about anything else. I told her I’d do the laundry, the dishes, the bills, give her a break when I get home from work, whatever. I just need to be able to get some sleep for work or I’ll be useless.

But even that makes me feel guilty. I know I have to work and if I don’t sleep, it will make things very hard, especially because I do about 95% of my stuff on a computer all day.

I just wish she could sleep more. Seems like Lyla is still trying to adjust to the day/night thing. We read that when she was in the womb, whenever Jina slept meant more blood would flow to Lyla and thus she would be awake more often. That means if Jina slept for 8 hours, Lyla would be more energetic then.

So obviously, she came into the world ready to party all night long. Getting her to switch is tough.

I know it will happen, but in the meantime, it makes things tougher.

With all that being said, we’re doing great. Friends from church offered to bring meals this week, Jina’s aunt brought us this awesome dinner yesterday (plus let Jina get a nap) and will be back today and Kathy went with Jina to take Lyla to get an immunization yesterday.

It’s a lot of work, but it’s all so very worth it. Lyla is beautiful, cuddly and we just stare at her all the time.