More than pipes and wires

If you work remotely from the corporate environment, you sometimes find that things can be a little quirky. But also fun. Really fun.

Within a year or so of joining the SDG&E Purchasing Department, I was promoted to Buyer and given the chance to support a state of the art geothermal power plant 120 miles east of the corporate offices. 

California’s Imperial Valley was as different from San Diego as night from day. Agriculture-based economy pinned to the cycle of the seasons. Sidewalks safely rolled up and asleep by 8:00 PM.  But a good time could always be had just across the border in Mexicali. Or so they’d tell me; sorry, not my cuppa...

Fun at the end of the workday involved the plant manager and me taking our .22 caliber pistols and plinking at cans along the irrigation canals. We’d reward our good marksmanship with a stop at the “Dewdrop Inn” after. (We knew better than to reverse the order: The Duke taught us well that guns and Who-Hit-John don’t mix).

I seem to remember you could go into the cantaloupe fields after the second or third picking and help yourself, but asparagus fields were off-limits all the time. Don’t even think about it…

Temperatures at the plant averaged 105 during the summer; a little less at night. No exaggeration, you’d start your car’s A/C ten minutes before driving anywhere or you’d melt into the upholstery. 

One day, the plant manager photographed a thermometer on his pickup’s dash: it read more than 180 degrees. Jim also made the mistake of keeping a bottle of wine (given out at the plant’s commissioning ceremony) in his company-provided vehicle. Yup…it corked one afternoon. Try explaining THAT smell to the corporate suits!

And for mid-1980’s technology, the football game the plant’s engineer installed on the mainframe was incredible! I forgot all about Mexicali…