Finally got 2 huge wins today. They’ve been a long time coming. 1. Finally sold the RV. I took a hit, but it’s gone. $750+ per month back in my pocket, just gotta pay myself back. I can do it in 7 months. I had it on the market for 4 almost 5 months.
2. And this is a big one. I got 1 of 4 chillers on the sub I’m working on sealed tight, passed SUBSAFE inspection. I’ve had Big Navy and Pentagon breathing down my back for weeks to bring this home and I just passed the first big hurdle. I was supposed to have a crew to help me, but as usual I had to do it all myself. For those that don’t know, SUBSAFE is a very thorough and time consuming production process that began after the USS Thresher sank. I can’t turn a nut without proper paperwork. No joke.

Also these chillers are from 1985. There are over 100 places they can leak refrigerant and I have to make them airtight. They haven’t ran in more than 7 years and I’ve been tasked with bringing them back from the dead. By myself. This is just step 1. But it’s concrete progress. Next it’s vacuum hold, then oil fill, power checks and refrigerant fill. There is only 1 guy working in our team that has actually seen 1 of these system run. He saw it 20 years ago for 5 minutes. Everyone else has retired or died. I’m truly working in the dark. This has been the most challenging job of my entire career, I’ve worked 70 days straight with only Easter off and I’ve never had this kind of pressure on me, I’ll probably end up working 70 more to get these pigs going.

I’m going to bring this motherfucker home. If nothing else I’ll do it out of spite just so everyone can kiss my nutsack…with tongue. All the guys in the shop all talk big about what they did, places we’ve worked (that were destroyed in the recent war) but there can only be 1 badass. And that’s me. Millennials talk a good game but they can’t hang and the kids just don’t have it in them. Oh, and I’m getting a hefty raise too. That makes it a little more bearable.

The first photo is a reference for what a chiller looks like. Now imagine that machine twinned to another so you can’t get in between them and encased in a steel box with no more than 8 inches of room on the top and 18 inches to work on each side. With a metric fuckton of pipes and wires in the way.