"The Infinite Hour"

Three o'clock on a Friday is what I call "the infinite hour"... There are actually 90 minutes in this hour. This is the hour in which you wish to leave work to do anything else in the world but be at work... "why didn't I schedule that tooth extraction for today?"

A lot of people think I'm a "professional photographer"... I'm not - I only play one on TV (I'm freelance!) My "real job" is that of a Quality Assurance Inspector at an engineering firm here in Baltimore. My company designs, fabricates and installs custom interiors for rail cars. We have multimillion dollar contracts with Kawasaki Rail Car, Amtrak, the MBTA etc... My duties are to inspect, basically, everything that goes on here.

A lot of what I inspect are fiberglass wall panels, structural car body parts, electrical & plumbing assemblies and various small parts as well as the in-process inspection of bathroom modules, showers or dining car units.

Today I spent 7 hours inspecting wire harnesses for bathroom modules. This is important, but can be tedious if you're not particularly fond of following schematics all day and probing here and there with your multi-meter. Piece of cake... just monotonous when you have to do it all day long.

Anyway, I took a break to shoot my desk, and some of what I was working on. Enjoy my "real job" exposures.

-Mike