Machine move is going swimmingly well. I estimated 100 hours for tear-down and setup, and after eight days of hard work I'll come in about 20 hours under when I finish tomorrow. Machine is in good shape to begin with, I have a wide area into which the machine fit (it takes a lot of extra space to build this type of equipment since many pieces are quite long) and the maintenance guys have been positively great to work with. Not least of all, management hasn't been breathing down my neck in the rush to get it going again.

On top of that, they're having me work on four other machines in three other local plants while I'm down here. It'll be a long three weeks by the time I get home again, but if things keep going the way they are then this is one of those trips where I'll come home completely spent but also completely satisfied with how things progressed.

I wish they were all like this.