Wednesday, October 23, 2002 6:23:29 PM Joe Coluccio

There's a chill in the air, I hope.

I vowed, sometime ago, never to write anything topical in the Blog I steered clear of 9/11,12/25 and Columbus Day, whenever that was. But true to my word, I break my word, and frequently. What's a rule if you can stamp on it with the hob nails of your boots.

Tonight I write about 10/23/02, which was rudely pushed back from 10/16/02 and puts me for yet another week looking forward to another weekend in Cleveland Ohio. I write about, gasp, work! What, did you expect a sage explication of the middle east from me? A rant against terrorism? I'll give you a glimpse of my thinking. The reason there is terror instead of awe in the world is because politicians (left, right and central) are people who play at the scatological notions of political and sociological theory and try to convince us that they are creating a fine produce of yield instead of just creating more baseless muck. In short, don't like 'em, don't trust 'em. The poseurs!

This is the story. There are more than 10 million molecules in an ammonia refrigeration system! And we don't want one single story to escape to tell the tale. Ammonia, NH3, is a mighty fine and efficient refrigerant. God made it that way. But what God gives on the one hand God (notice how skillfully I avoided the issue of God's gender. I figure God is all genders! Maybe I should be a politician.) taketh away with the other. 'Cause ammonia, tho' not poisonous, can in concentrations take the breath away from you until you pass on, or somewhat worse, I think, but no less fatal, can under conditions of very high concentration, explode! KaBoom!

The company that I work for and have for the last seventeen years is involved in the renovation of a large cold storage plant, not three miles from this lovely motel room, in Cleveland, OH. And same uses the efficient NH3 as a refrigerating fluid. Roughly 14,000 pounds of it.

The rub is that we have to remove all 14000 pounds from a couple miles of pipe and some large vessels before we can open up the lines and weld a whole new section into the system. We started removal today about noon.

We have been here since July, installing new High Temperature Suction, High Pressure Liquid, Low Temperature Recirculating Suction, Low Temperature Recirculating Liquid, Hot Gas Defrost Lines, hanging new Evaporator Coils, setting a new Flash Cooler, installing a Liquid Transfer System, (I know you don't know what those things are, Hell, I hardly know, but if you use them in casual refrigeration conversation they will give you a certain cach¾ and perhaps a knowing grin from some thermodynamic engineering type.) And our day of reckoning has begun.

The plant has been cooled temporarily (for they cannot for one minute be out of business, the importance of the food chain is signifying) with very large propylene glycol chilling coils that blow you half way to the Far East when you cross in front of them. A large tanker and a large pumping truck sit in front of the engine room and are sucking the ammonia life blood out of the plant. Tomorrow with some luck we start our surgery. Performed with oxygen acetylene cutting torches and then stitched back together with welding devices that spark and spray the air with a sweet smell of ozone. Like the Medusa staring into the sparks will probably turn you to stone, but at the very least give you an uncomfortable ultraviolet eye flash.

We are all grimly aware of the precautions that must be taken. And it is setting me personally on edge. Which is why I break my hard and fast rule. It's either that or down to a State Store to find a large bottle of the cure. But then I wouldn't be all that sharp tomorrow.

If you have a small whiff of a faint Windex kind of smell that comes from eastern region of the Middle West...well, I might not be writing here Friday. I may be answering a whole lot of questions!