The snow crunches under my steel toe boots as I walk out to my truck. I can see far off lights across the lake tonight because the snow has stopped for the moment. At zero degrees the snow and ice feel more like plastic than anything else. It doesn’t take much of a wind to drop the wind-chill. Any cables that have wicked water now contain expanded ice within their rigid cable jacket. This is the kind of night where my fingers freeze up quickly. Everything freezes up. Insulated winter work gloves don’t allow me to manipulate simple hand tools very well. I probably should have brought my tool bag indoors this morning instead of leaving it in my vehicle. Now in the dark of night I appreciate the fact that I opted for a hooded sweatshirt under my Arctic Carhartt jacket. The hood comes in handy to block the wind, but gives me the appearance of the Grim Reaper. You have to make sure the batteries in your meters still work. The same goes for your flashlight. I’ve had some meters fog up as soon as I bring them in out of the frigid night. This is the way it is. You should learn from experience what to wear and how to keep your tools in working order when it comes to the rain, snow, heat, or cold. Today I should have taken in consideration that the temperature would drop this far and should have brought them in earlier. Luckily everything checks out and no damage was done. I won’t ever leave my laptop out in the cold for too long if I can help it. I have had nights when my pocket pc has died on me even in my jacket pocket. I’ve been out many nights when the temperature has dropped down to –12 F* or lower. Throw a little wind in that equation and you know it’s cold. I actually kind of prefer the cold to the heat. I know there are crews out punching holes in the ice to keep the water flowing through the intakes. That’s what I used to do. It’s hard backbreaking work, but someone’s got to do it. I do miss working with the crews. Now I work alone or with one other tester. There were some great guys, and somehow we found a way to make the jobs less miserable even in the worse conditions. When the temperature drops you think about those guys out there in the cold who keep the generators spinning. If you drive down the highway past some of the plants you might see a few lights up on the rack platforms and maybe a truck or two parked. What you won’t see from that vantage point are the crews battling the never ending onslaught of slush and ice clogging up the racks, but they’re up there, sometimes all through the night. Sometimes the mist and spray from the water going over the dam turns eyebrows and beards into cakes of ice. This is far removed from the land of spreadsheets and server rooms, but you never want to lose touch or forget what goes on out in the field. There are also the line crews on the T&D side, and the Telco guys who work in this cold to troubleshoot and splice. It takes a lot of people all pulling together to make it all work. You don’t always see them, but they’re out there…………………"Hurry Boys!….Surge!" as Howard (my old foreman) would say.

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