Bakersfield California makes you sick??

[Rusty McNeil]

Bakersfield California makes you sick??

Me and all the other guys in our company have every one of us gotten sick soon after arriving in this town. This is separate arrivals spanning several months during different phases of these PG&E projects.

They locals call it the Bakersfield crud. Deep congestion, coughing, sneezing, throat and upper respiratory infections, damn near lost my voice, the Escort Service could barely understand my adress over the phone.:bang head:

I will say that even with my perspective of coming coming from Houston that the level of smog here is unbelieveable...I was here for a week and a half before I knew there were mountains around here,,,it's that smoggy......at least in Houston we don't live in a valley, the gulf winds across coastal plains blow it north or south...

Anyone ever hear of this?????????......

Fuck I can't wait to go back to West Texas, Arkansas, Colorado or Utah.....my Customers there are nicer too..

 

[rusty]

Bakersfield California makes you sick??

Me and all the other guys in our company have every one of us gotten sick soon after arriving in this town. This is separate arrivals spanning several months during different phases of these PG&E projects.

They locals call it the Bakersfield crud. Deep congestion, coughing, sneezing, throat and upper respiratory infections, damn near lost my voice, the Escort Service could barely understand my adress over the phone.:bang head:

I will say that even with my perspective of coming coming from Houston that the level of smog here is unbelieveable...I was here for a week and a half before I knew there were mountains around here,,,it's that smoggy......at least in Houston we don't live in a valley, the gulf winds across coastal plains blow it north or south...

Anyone ever hear of this?????????......

Fuck I can't wait to go back to West Texas, Arkansas, Colorado or Utah.....my Customers there are nicer too..

I'm sorry u got sick when u came to my state Rusty.I consider Bakersfield the arm pit of So Cal.Yep it's about the smogiest place around, worse then LA. But there really are some nice people here though....SOME WHERE!!!:rofl_200:

 

[Rusty McNeil]

I'm not slamming the whole state.....We have a place called Pasadena in Texas thats's the industrial equivalent of this, an armpit for sure. Pretty Much the whole Southern end of Houston anywhere near the ship channell and refinery comeplex is just as bad as here.

I've been all over Cali and it truly is a Beautiful place, although a little too crowded for my taste.

As for the people so far everyone's been fairly friendly, not close to Southern state standards but a whole lot better than Northern states in general. I know I'm generalizing but I've been to close to 20 states in the last three years so..............

It was mainly the customer I was talking about on the "nicety" scale...It why I like the West Texas work so much, you'll never meet a stranger out there.

 

[clintard]

I ran into the same thing out in Cali. It was riding passenger in a vaccum truck and between the smog sickness and the guy driving making me fear for my life all day every day, i eventually started having panic attacks and really freaking out thinking i was suffocating

 

[SpecOps13]

I'm having regular panic attacks right now. Caught some shit in Ky in October and it keeps coming back every once in a while.
I hate travel by public means to anywhere. I always get sick after an Airplane trip... Good Luck Rusty. I Really Wish You Well Bro...

 

[clintard]

Panic/anxiety attacks arent any fun thats for sure. I remember freaking out so bad i made dude pull over on the side of the freeway so i could get out of the truck and walk it off. I couldnt figure out what was causing it. Went back to Illinois and it stopped after a bit.

 

[06VMAXIMUS]

damn near lost my voice, the Escort Service could barely understand my adress over the phone.:bang head:
Now that's funny shit right there!:rofl_200:

 

[Rusty McNeil]

I'm having regular panic attacks right now. Caught some shit in Ky in October and it keeps coming back every once in a while.
I hate travel by public means to anywhere. I always get sick after an Airplane trip... Good Luck Rusty. I Really Wish You Well Bro...

Same here man, I hate flying. if it's a short few days consultation job I'll fly, but anything more than that and my boss knows I want to drive it so I don't have to deal with Planes, rental vehicles and not having "my stuff" I keep on the truck. He'll usually schedule my jobs accordingly; giving me drive time to get there.

 

[rynoman]

It's the whole friggin San Joaquin valley. Polluted air, polluted politicians, and polluted people. Basically you can compare the valley and really the whole friggin state to Tijuana.

 

[Lew L]

I moved out of California for the reasons in the previous post and many others. Nevada has its faults but the mountains above Reno are beautiful.
Lew

 

[Rusty McNeil]

If you took the beauty of Southern California and cut the population down to about 2 persons per square mile they would call it the Big Bend Region of West Texas.
Just as Beautiful without the pollution.
Populations low 'cause unless you own 100,000 acres it's not enough to run catttle on, and there's not much oil to speak of. Just pristine nature far away enough from any population centers to make it not a place to live unless you bring your money with you. There is some farming but not much.

 

[rusty]

It's the whole friggin San Joaquin valley. Polluted air, polluted politicians, and polluted people. Basically you can compare the valley and really the whole friggin state to Tijuana.

Yep, Quoted as truth.This is where our state is going----->:Flush000:

 

[Rand-5107]

Nothing like a job site to promote good health. I pretty much lived in the motel there at Olive and hwy99 For several years in the mid 90's while building several Co-Gen's in the area. Blew a couple of vessels up at Texaco. I just love it when you tell an engineering dept. that something won't work that way and they sign your hold harmless release and tell you to go ahead. Oops what the hell happend. Where's your project at and how's it going?

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Nothing like a job site to promote good health. I pretty much lived in the motel there at Olive and hwy99 For several years in the mid 90's while building several Co-Gen's in the area. Blew a couple of vessels up at Texaco. I just love it when you tell an engineering dept. that something won't work that way and they sign your hold harmless release and tell you to go ahead. Oops what the hell happend. Where's your project at and how's it going?

Project is a 50 year old PG&E distribution sub on Merle Haggard and Chester, we're cutting in a new transformer and breaker to the existing sub, and then a whole brand new high bay yard next to it next spring. The main problem with the part now is trying to cut in controls and protection to the existing sub with shitty existing documentation/drawings. Pretty much having to do "as builts/founds; field verification" on everything we touch, and then field re-engineering our engineering departments plans/intent before we start cutting in the new stuff to the old. Mostly what they pay field service for is to catch engineering fuckups and then make the thing work; we are the last ones to touch it so if it's wrong it's on us.

The local unions don't help; can't touch anything with a screwdriver myself, even tho what I'm doing is not technically "electrical work" it's testing and commisoning. I have to use someone else as my hands, pain in the ass. Our Construction group is union as well and we have excellent working relationship with them but when it's this far from home they can only bring thier Foremans , Managers and Superintendents and have to hire all the hands locally. We got hammered last week for working them, and us 108 hours in a week trying to meet an outage deadline, were told we were supposed to hire MORE of them instead. I understand the concept, my Dad owned a Union oil field service and construction shop for 35 years out in West Texas. But the work ethic is a little different out here on IBEW's part, they for sure display a "drag it out" mentality since they know they are going to be laid off when it's over. The part I don't understand is that I've heard them making fun of some of their Union Brothers who stick with one company for many years; Sorta like the straight A student in High School getting hammered for being a suck ass when all it really is is that they "give a shit"

Next spring should be a cake walk tho, all brand new yard and ground up installation with no existing stuff to mesh with.

After that we have about 200 Scada/RTU jobs coming up all over California over the next few years. That's basically bringing in a modern communications package to existing substations so thier control centers miles away can look at the sub and see everything that is going on with it. And control it as well without sending someone out to do it locally. Not sure how long I'll be here for those.

 

[SpecOps13]

Wow Rusty, what a job you have there......

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Wow Rusty, what a job you have there......

It's the best job I've ever had....

It's also the most stressful...

Sometimes I daydream about the easy life of plant maintenance I used to have, making almost the same money....No worries, very little accountibilty or responsibility and plenty of restful nights.....never took my work home with me...

With the job I have now I fall asleep almost every night thinking about work,and it's always the worst case scenario that's floating in my head......Not sugar plums