John Undrill's Retirement

I just returned from a trip to Albany to attend John Undrill's retirement party. It was a great trip. But the logistics were difficult. There is no airline flying from Marathon so I had to ride the Keys Shuttle limousine to the airport. I had to get up at 0300 to catch the shuttle at 0400 arriving at the airport at 0700 for an 1100 plane. It was very inefficient. Similarly, on the way back, my plane arrived at 1700 but I didn't get back to the boat until 2300.

The retirement party was great. There were 50 to 75 people there at the Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia. After dinner we heard seven speeches praising and/or roasting John, one of which was mine. The praise was lavish, and John was overcome with modestly. However, all the praise was deserved. John has always been the smartest guy in the room, and his career achievements rival those of Charlie Concordia and Paul deMello. The power grid has been called the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century and John is one of the top power engineers of that century. I hear that IEEE will honor John soon.

It was also a great weekend for family contacts. I spend Wednesday evening and Thursday morning with my oldest son John and his family which includes four of our five grandchildren. I had missed them so, and Libby still does. After John's party, I stayed at the Undrill's house. On Saturday I surprised my sister Marilyn with a visit. I took her out to Wall Mart and to a dollar store and to Oliver's. Oliver's is Marilyn's favorite restaurant in Glenville. Marilyn is very popular, everywhere we went she was recognize and people called out "Hi Marilyn."




It was also a great weekend for family contacts. I spend Wednesday evening and Thursday morning with my oldest son John and his family which includes four of our five grandchildren. I had missed them so, and Libby still does. After John's party, I stayed at the Undrill's house. On Saturday I surprised my sister Marilyn with a visit. I took her out to Wall Mart and to a dollar store and to Oliver's. Oliver's is Marilyn's favorite restaurant in Glenville. Marilyn is very popular, everywhere we went she was recognize and people called out "Hi Marilyn."

My daughter Jennifer drove down from Vermont and met up with Marilyn and me. We fetched some stuff for Jenny out of our self storage locker and then went to Undrill's for a nice afternoon and evening. (See the picture.) The Undrill's and the Mills essentially form an extended family so everyone was very happy to see everyone else. Too bad that Libby wasn't there. She would have loved it. I did however extract a promise from the Undrills. They will sail with us in the September/October time frame. Libby jumped for joy when she heard that news.

On the trip back I had a happy surprise. Howard Halstead, a friend from PTI and NYISO days was on the plane to Orlando with me. We had a lot of fun catching up on events with each other.

While we were having all that fun up in New York, poor Libby was babysitting the boat. Poor poor Libby. On the same day I left, the engine sputtered and died. We use the engine to keep the battery charged so that's a big deal. Libby managed it OK though. She shut off the refrigerator/freezer which is the major power drain. She used the oil lamps instead of electric lights at night. She bought ice and put in the refrigerator. With all that conservation, the solar panel kept the batteries almost fully charged. She also tried several times to get a diesel mechanic to come out to the boat and help, but they stood her up twice and never came.

This morning it was my task to get the engine started. I rapidly found the root problem. We have port and starboard fuel tanks and manual transfer valves for fuel feed and recirculation return that select port or starboard. Libby was savvy enough to think of that but she didn't realize that there were two valves. When I looked it was feeding form the port tank (which was dry) and returning to starboard. That was easy to fix, but there was more work to do. All that cranking the engine sucking on a dry fuel tank filled the fuel lines with air. I had to bleed and prime the entire fuel system. It took an hour, but then she started right up.