Turkish Power

Evening Folks.

What a couple of days, not to say last 40 hours. Let me explain: When you work in country's abroad with Tv and you are reliant and the local power grid and it's a bit unstable or should I say having a mind of it's own. There are bound to be some situations where things are not as you want them be and you wish you were just a little cricket sitting in the grass and could jump around and run away as you feel. The last 40 hours has been like that.

It all began yesterday when the phone suddenly rang and the rather nice, but somewhat desperate, voice said we are down and the power has just gone. Self asure as I was, I said : No worries help is on the way! Knowing that our emergency generator would have kicked in long ago and it would just be some small adjustments and then back on track. Boy was I to be proven wrong. We got there and started to reboot everything and in the matter of minutes we were back on track and walked out as small heroes. Barely had we got back from the mountain before the phone rang again and the now not so nice voice said we are down again! Same reply at last time flew out of my mouth even more secure then last time, turned the car around and spun up the mountain again. Same procedure as last time and voila we were back on track once more.

Then it started. Puff Click Bip Bip and the power was gone again, now looking at each other a bit worried we started from scratch and bang we were up, we thought, cus now again running on Genni power, we had now power!! So we started to search for errors and found one! The Genni power wasn't coming any further then the wall box. This was out our hands and we called in the local electrician who had set up the system. While he was on he way to us, the fuel guy came in his truck and wanted to fuel the Genni., we said okay BUT you'll have to wait until the Genni isn't running. He reply in what we now know is the standard Turkish way, waiving his arms and saying yes yes. Clearly not understanding a word of what was coming out of my mouth, so we said to our guard that speaks a little english that he couldn't fuel while the Genni was running and he nooded and went with the guy to the Genni. We went back to our other problem. Then after some minutes the Genni stopped and so did our hearts, because there was still no city power and still the problem. Running to the Genni we arrive just as the fuel guy pulled his head out of the Genni with the fuel hose in his hands, smiling and making the all done mister gesture! Fool we thought, never fuel a running engine, curses air to run into the fuel filter!  Dammit now more problems to fix and the production were at a still stand. Finally the chief electrician arrive. A real silver fox with raybans and blue jeans. Cool we thought he'll fix! and believe it or not He actually did and after a while we up and running on The Genni again and to making Tv. Excellent.

We finished the long day and went back to our hotel and slept. For Four hours only and we where back on location to do a routine exchange of some hardrives and then it happened. Puff Click Bip Bip. Bullocks we said and started the power up routine, now before we could think, it went off again and again and again, 7 times to be exact and after that we were cribbled and had no control over any of our cams. Now starting sweet and thinking all the worst case scenarios in our heads, but not saying it out loud. we battled thru all the possible things that could be wrong and narrowed it down to a router. Battling with that for many hours, with everyone around us itching to get back to making Tv ( not making it any easier I must say ) we came to the conclusion that we needed TechSupport. Not something you want to do when You are the TechSupport, but we swallowed the Mountain camel and Called Norway and after a few minutes on the phones, The Norwegian God as he will now be know as, took remote controle of our Tech Computer via a little usb 3g modem and started his search.

We sat there for over three hours watching this Northern God jumping in and out of our router and all sorts of programmes and diagnostics. Real Nerd Tv I tell you and talking with him over two cell phones with a now very big phone bill. We were on the right track and as we was nearing the end and now all Three almost in tears we listen to Frank Sinatra's I got you under skin on the phone while the Norwegian God did his last magic. WE CAME BACK ALIVE!!! Euforia started to spread among us as we tested the system thru and finding everything up to standard.  Eureka!! And then we did it! All three of took the walkie and made the general announcement: We can now make Tv again and the euforia was now all over!! Now tired after a twelve hour long battle with the effect of Turkish Power.

I'm pleased.