Hello from Everett, WA

Hello from Everett, WA

Saturday afternoon   July 13 2013   (First travelogue of this trip).

As I have mentioned before, I am a contract based instructor for NTT (link).  I was an instructor for them from 2000-2002.  I was recently retained to do some training.  It appeared that I might do a couple of classes a year.  That has changed, as I have joined a team of instructors who are teaching at various Boeing facilities.  This is a major contract that is reported to extend into 2014.

I enjoy teaching.  My main subject is what is called Mechanical Drives (bearings, belts, chain, gears, couplings, etc).  I have now expanded into other subjects as well.  This week I taught Mechanical Drives for the first three days and Shaft Alignment for the last two days.  The students are generally trades people – mostly mechanics. 

Mechanics and related trades are not fond of engineers.  We have a lot of fun with that.  I tell them that Pat does not think I am normal {big grin} and, for sure, I am not your “normal” engineer.  By the end of the class, we generally have a good relationship.  I try to make the class fun (hard to do with a boring subject), and I think that most of the students, do indeed, have fun (at least most tell me they do).

I am staying at the Holiday Inn Express (map).  I am training at a special Boeing training facility (map).

The training facility is a bit remote from the huge Boeing facility here in Everett.  This plant assembles/produces the 747, 777, and the new 787 planes.  I had really hoped to get a tour of some of the facilities.  Pat and I took a “tourist” tour here a number of years ago, but a “contractor” tour would be much better.  Maybe some time.

The only “negative” part of this teaching is that you have to fly to the location.  I hate to fly!  I hate the security lines, the “cattle drive” loading the planes, the very tight seating, etc..  However, I am not a white knuckles flyer.  I often tell the story about reading an NTSB investigation report on the 1982 plane crash at Reagan National Airport (details) as we were landing at the same airport.  The stewardess saw what I was reading and about flipped out.  She asked if the report made me nervous and I told her no.  These investigations and resulting corrective actions are what gives us so much better “odds”.

My flight home yesterday was a good example why I don't like to fly.  The plane was delayed over four hours (mechanical issues on the inbound flight and then the crew ran out of “hours”).  I ended up arriving at the gate in Denver at 2:50 this morning and into the driveway at 4:43!!!

As seems to be the case lately, I start the post in the place I have traveled to and then finish it somewhere else.  In this case, home in Evergreen.

That is all for this trip.