"If all emotions are common coin, then what is unique to the good man? To welcome with affection that which is sent by fate.
Not to stain or disturb the spirit within him with a mess of false beliefs.
Instead, to preserve it faithfully, by calmly obeying God - saying nothing untrue, doing nothing unjust.
And if the others don't acknowledge it - this life, lived in simplicity, humility, cheerfulness - he doesn't resent them for it, and isn't deferred from following the road where it leads; to the end of life.
An end to be approached in purity, in serenity, in acceptance, in peaceful unity with what must be." - Marcus Aurelius
It's difficult to describe what a relief the scene one morning a while back while arriving at work.
Below: The welcome sight of steam coming off the cooling tower and out the blowdown tank stack.
The re-start was not without issues - and there are some ongoing problems with the steam turbine that will probably not be resolved without another week-long outage. But it's nothing that can't be lived with for a while.
The rotor finally returned to the plant site, and was immediately installed.
After which the generator ends were replaced.
The contractors then released the equipment clearances, and afterwards we had a difficult start-up. That was a 16.5 hour day - for me. It's a relief to finally be back to more or less routine, and lower the stress levels significantly.
Two people retired during the outage, and have not yet been replaced - so we lost a great deal of experience and a couple of great colleagues. They will be missed, and their knowledge will be missed as well. We can find people, but they will take time to train and for us to gain confidence in their skills.
One thing they don't teach at business school is that people aren't Plug-n-Play. Any old hire off the street can't walk in and do the job that key people have been doing for decades. The loss hurt, although I'm happy for them.
On to passings. It's always sad when someone special is gone. This all occurred during outage, whilst I was either sick, busy recovering from Covid, exhausted, or all three. Not the best time to try posting stuff here.
I'll miss Dickie Betts, one of the founding members of the Allman Brothers Band. He wrote several of their memorable songs, including Ramblin' Man, which he also did vocals:
And the instrumental song "Jessica"
But by far my favorite song by Dickie Betts is the instrumental "In memory of Elizabeth Reed" - which I prefer the studio version of.
We also lost the adorable Kabosu, the adopted Shiba Inu meme dog that was nicknamed "Doge".
A moment of respect for those passed who made our lives a little bit better than they otherwise would have been.
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