Had to do a borescope on an engine up at Everett, so spent the morning taking videos of the inside of an engine.
I then got to spend the afternoon walking round the Boeing final assembly line and driving round the flying ramp. The final assembly line is the largest building in the world in terms of floor area. You loose the sense on size when you're in it, until you realise you've been walking for 20mins and you're halfway down the building! There are 4 restaurants, 8 coffee shops and stall for up to 20 aircraft.
The flightline at the moment can only be described as a 787 graveyard. Overall today, I saw 22 787's in different states of build. At least 12 are sat out on the flightline half finished. More disturbing was that there were 2 "calibrated" anvils hanging off each wing where the engine should be. It looked very odd.
Then this evening I went to a Washington University "football" match. Washington's sports teams aren't very good, so everyone follows the uni teams, or Huskys, instead. There must have been 20000 people there, it was an amazing atmosphere; marching bands, cheerleaders, mascots and a commentator on PA. Though in fairness, this is all needed since the game itself is really dull. It never gets going, its too sporadic. I can say I understand the rules now; except penalties. One interesting moment occurred when the ref declared the Husky's intercepted the ball, but caught it out of play. The video replay showed the player catching it 1-2 feet in play, so the crowd boo'd; a lot. The ref then overturns the decision, but declared the play at the wrong 43 yard line. Cue more crowd booing; ref more play to the correct area. This got me thinking the American way seems to be "if you don't get you're own way, make a big enough fuss that people begin to see your point of view". Obama needs to have this apophony.
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