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Getting To Know the Community - What do you do for a living

SyntheticShield said:
YOU'RE the one that creates all the work for me. I work more hoot-n-holler and ring down type circuits because of the friggin stock markets than I care to ever admit to. But most of my work comes from the Chicago board of trade and Wall Street. I hate it really. All that money they have and they use friggin analog circuits. Go figure.
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LOL cBot!!!! :th_lipssealed2: I have had to deal a lot with them lately as we are decomissioning a lot of machines at that location in favor or newer ones. Savvis is our backbone provider for all our internet connection. We have had to deal with a lot of "under sea cable cuts" lately. Its been the news a lot lately.

Currently Reuters is being taken over by Thompson out of Canada and we will be named Thompson-Reuters. We will become the largest financial services provider in the world ahead of Bloomberg.

And before my IT career I was a Police Officer for 8 years with St. Louis University's Campus Police for 8 years after I left College in 91. We worked in conjunction with St. Louis City Police on a number of different operations within the City and around Campus as well. It was a good mix of actual Police work and keeping the 20+ square blocks of the campus secure.

I saw my fair share of action with the department. Some of it wont get into cause it affected me personally, but my over all time on the Job was great and I miss it greatly :( But in 1998 I had ruptured my S1 while on the Bike Patrol. I had 1/3 of my S1 removed and was off the Job for a month learning to rewalk cause the rupture caused 60% spinal compression before my stupid Dr. thought it might be a good idea to get an MRI done. By that time I lost 1" in muscle mass in my right leg and I could no longer stand upright. It was a long recovery time.

Once back on the Job, I stayed on the Patrol for another year and a half but realized, my unit never took the sidewalks, we just rode down stairs and found any loading dock we could jump off of :) If I continued on that pace, I would reinjure the S1 again and this time they would have to FUSE the S1. I did not want that!! I was offered a desk job on the department, but to me, it was an ALL or nothing thing. I decided to use the University to start working on my 2nd BS in Computer Science and got my MCSE through the Univserity and then left the Department in Sept of 2000.

Just a little more background for ya :)

Just for laughs, here were a few photo's of me back in the Day on the PD :)

Bike5.jpg


Bike6.jpg


Durango2.jpg


And I use to be and still am a big online gamer nerd :D

CounselorBeltane-Son5.jpg
 
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I am very familiar with Savvis, we carry a great deal of their traffic but I thought they had been bought out by Level 3 or someone, not sure though. I also work on a lot of Reuters stuff as well but not nearly as frequently as stuff from the likes of American Telesis, Westcom and the like.

I have been tracking those undersea cable cuts too, though they have not affected my work level all that much as I dont deal with international a whole lot unless it crosses our network domestically.

You weren't kidding when you said just for laughs. LOL. Nahh, just giving you a hard time 'cause I can and Im like that.
 
As far as I know Savvis has not been bought by anyone. We also have our Hazelwood Data center that is split between Reuters and Savvis. Its MASSIVE. Half underground and half above. I have to use Biometrics to enter the server rooms. And pass through two secure doors and then a metal detector to even enter the building. Its unreal!!! Its like walking into a scene from some of the movies you see on the silver screen with all the cool lights and interesting looking computer equipment.

The under sea cable cuts affected us some, Savvis was able to route around the issue, but latency was cut in half cause of the distruption. And of course we would joke here that they would have to take out the "Yellow Submarine" to fix the cables :)

And its usually not an over night fix either ;)
 
I worked on an issue several years ago that that ran across the Pacific under sea cable and they actually had to send out a boat, just south of the Aleutian Islands, and pull up the cable and make repairs.

Took forever but was an interesting trouble. They would feed us GPS coordinates nearly everyday while they were out trying to fix this thing. I would joke that Jaws the shark got hungry and decided to nibble on our cable.

I used to work for a company that had a sub division that manufactured equipment and under water equipment for laying under sea cables.
 


You look so different and the same at the same time. Wow. Game nerd. What kind of bicycle did you ride? We have a couple of Treks and our son has a Haro.
 
GTPluv said:
You look so different and the same at the same time. Wow. Game nerd. What kind of bicycle did you ride? We have a couple of Treks and our son has a Haro.
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Yeah I was pretty fit back in my PD days. Riding 15-30 miles a day would do that to ya :) And then I get into IT and Bammmmmmm there goes those good looks you use to have :p

Back when I was still on the Job, we had Treks as our duty bikes, our first batch were Raliegh's, they didnt last long. I think now the Department has moved over to the Smith and Wesson bikes now.

I myself have a Raliegh Mojave Off Road Bike with the full front suspension on it. I need to take a picture of it and post it sometime for ya.
 
I work for a utility company in Fargo ND. installing and repairing underground natural gas lines. I also respond to inside leak calls and CO calls.
 
Iron Indian said:
No oil field guys out there?

I;ve never actully told anyone what I do other than my job title. I'm a Field Service Tech. for WGPC. I'm on call 24/7, 365 days a year and I cannot take off on Holidays period. I sometimes get 1 weekend a month off (rotates to 4 guys if work is low). I have a company vehicle rigged out with tools/torch/etc. 99% of my jobs are out in the field, so I have to travel anywhere from 50-500 miles daily to do work on rigs. The other 1% is I may build something in the shop. I generally have to go to the shop to pick up the equipment to go on location. I work anywhere from 60-100 hours a week w/ little sleep.

Let me briefly explain what exactly I do. I'm currently a Stage 1 so I basically go out to the rigs, make sure there killed off (no pressure), use a gas monitor to make sure nothing is coming out of the hole, I'll set some slips for that string, do a rouch cut, and the BOP crew will either remove the stack or remove a spool or DSA for the next string, I then make a Final Cut (very imported, if you cut to short you loose your job, if you drop somthing down hole, you loose your job so your always under pressure. Your working with a lot of $$$$$ here) grind and smooth out the casing stub for the seals, land and nipple up your casing head or Tubing Head, tighten it being yourself w/ a hammer wrenchs or sometimes the BOP crews do it for you. You look up the collapse of the casing X 80% and test to that pressure (again, you can't mess this up. If you go too high, you collapse the csg and cost the company alot of $$$$$), you bleed the pressure to 0 and get the hell out of there. From there the rig crew will either drill a new string, cap off the well and rig down (a dry hole), or cap off a well, rig down and rig up a prod. rig to run tubing. Note: I mostly work with A and B sections, haven't done many completions yet.

Thats a basic short explanation of what I do...

Its a very dangrous job (anyone in the oil field can tell ya). I've been on fire a couple times (gas pressure came out unexpect while cutting w/ a torch, luckily I wasn't injured. I've been close to 15,000 pound BOPs falling (cables or chains failing) luckly I wasn't working under them at the time, i'm most always under something like this to perform the tasks (again, anyone in the oil field can tell ya).

Why am I doing this? I want to have a future, i'll be working in the WGPC OKC office one of these days, 8-5 on salary. I've moved up quite a bit over the years, I started at the very bottom and moved up considerably fast w/ this company (Shop hand, Valve Tech, Shop Leadman, and now Field Service Tech.)....
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Then I am sure you know what this engine is for...but being in Oklahoma, probably never seen one quite this big.
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Thats me sitting on 1002hp and 6000 ft. lbs of torque. :D The transmission alone weighs only 3 tons.

~F~
 


UR LOSN said:
I work for Woodward Governor. Make aircraft fuel systems for GE, Prat Whitney, Airbus, US Gov....etc
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I work for Pratt & Whitney Canada, We build PT6A & PT6T turboprop and turboshaft engines in our plant for airplanes and helicopters. Currently I run Test Cell, Running anything from 700 SHP to 1400 SHP engines(3000-6000 ftlbs), and I guess adjusting UR LOSN's fuel controls and governors.

Before that I was a Auto Tech for 5 years.
 


I subcontract at a 970 unit apartment complex cleaning and painting the units after someone leaves and before the new people move in. I have 2 days to get the unit done after it is assigned to me, so I get to work my own hours which is nice.

I've also started a material handling business on the side. My website should be done in a week or 2. Its www.NationalRack.com. I used to work for a small hole in the wall material handling sales company in town but left this past summer because there was no future there and someone would always "forget" to pay my commissions. I'm going to concentrate on selling new pallet racking, wire decking, cantilever racking and mezzanines.

If I can't figure out a way to payoff my student loan (left Franklin College after 2 years) and move out of my parents house within the next year.....I'm going to join the military! Its what I should have done right after high school anyway. My brother goes to West Point at the moment and he seems to like it. I think if you join up with a good attitude and look to better yourself there is a lot of opportunity in the military.
 
04CompG said:
If I can't figure out a way to payoff my student loan (left Franklin College after 2 years) and move out of my parents house within the next year.....I'm going to join the military! Its what I should have done right after high school anyway. My brother goes to West Point at the moment and he seems to like it. I think if you join up with a good attitude and look to better yourself there is a lot of opportunity in the military.
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I spent a few years in the military and to this day I tell people it was the best thing I ever done. There are many times I wish I had stayed in. You are correct, attitude and looking to better yourself are key elements in a successful career. Even today, with all that is going on if I were able to do so I would not hesitate to go back. It radically reshaped my life, my outlook, my attitude and laid a very solid foundation that has served me well. Even to this day, I still find concepts and approaches to things I learned in the military still serve me in the corporate workplace.

I would not trade my time, my experiences or what I learned in the military for anything. I will forever be grateful to the military for all that I learned there.
 
I work for a company that makes flight simulators. I make mechanical assemblies and also i have to make cables and wire panels etc. I'm also in the Air Force Reserver and i just got back from Bahrain back in January.
 
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