Summer Heat

I tried to keep my cool next to the 300 °F pipe. The thermometer suggested I keep my distance.

Sunscreen is just surface preparation for people.

Why did the high-temperature transducer get promoted?

What's the best-attended item on a July job schedule?

Why did the penetrant fail on the hot plate?

Regular couplant on a 300 °F pipe isn't couplant anymore. It's a cooking show.

The instrument screen is easiest to read at sunset, which is also when the shift ends.

You might be a summer inspector if you have ever scheduled a scan around the shadow of a tank.

The crew found the only shade on the site, behind a storage tank. Then the sun moved, and the shade moved with it. By four o'clock they had followed it forty feet across the yard and scanned nothing. They all agreed it was the most productive shade tracking in the history of the site.

Noon sun on the tank,
the couplant is running off.
So is my patience.

Hydration Break (n.): A scheduled pause, and the only item on the schedule the crew has ever finished ahead of time.

Nobody warns you that a helmet is a personal greenhouse by noon.

Ever notice that sound slows down in hot steel, and so does everyone standing next to it?

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Ice.
Ice who?