Interesting parking spots while working

[HueyPilotVN]

I have parked in some interesting places while working on medical projects during the last 35 years.

I thought I might share some of them and others might also have stories or pictures of their parking places.

In about 2002 I was building the second generation Mobile Surgical Facility in a new plant in Chicago in the winter.  I hate winter and cold weather.  It was necessary for me to be present almost every day during the development and manufacturing of the prototype unit.

My solution was to brave the cold and miserable weather of Chicago by parking inside one of the manufacturing buildings.  I had full hookups and we installed a sat dish on the roof and ran the cable down to me.

One nice feature was that I could turn all the lights on at night and camp in a 70 degree campsite.

 

[Larry N.]

Neat -- not much of a view, though.  ;D

 

[Alpena Jeff]

No campfire?

 

[HueyPilotVN]

I have parked in lots of hospital parking lots.

This is Kingstree, South Carolina where we replace the emergency services after the hospital was demolished.

They hooked me up with 50 amps, water, sewer, and even had a parade for us when we were done.

 

[Rene T]

I have parked in lots of hospital parking lots.

This is Kingstree, South Carolina where we replace the emergency services after the hospital was demolished.

Been there done that!!!

 

[Arch Hoagland]

Well...Ya do what ya gotta do!!!!

 

[Oldgator73]

Long, long ago in a far away place; circa 1970, I was a Class B Operator out of IBEW Local 756, Daytona Beach, FL. We had a guy, a lineman, show up to work driving a truck with a slide in camper. He never moved. Lived in the camper across the street from the yard. The company owner had to call him after almost a year and tell him to cash his paychecks.

 

[HueyPilotVN]

Pretty cool, like me! Although the hospital is a bit of a sad story, demolition, why?

It was the only hospital in the county and was destroyed by a tropical storm in 2016.  The rain and flooding as well as the asbestos made it unsafe for use.

I have also parked for work on several military bases.

When we delivered a special unit to the military at Fort Detrick, Maryland, MRMC, (Medical Research and Develoment Command), I met the grandson of the Senior Advisor to IV Corp who had been in the back of the Huey that I was piloting that was shot down in Viet Nam.  The Staff Sargent that I met was the assistant to the Commanding General and it shocked me when I saw his name tag.  Both his father and grandfather were in Viet Nam at the same time, (69 and 70).

From what I now understand about what they worked on at Ft. Detrick, maybe staying there was not such a good idea.

I also parked at Wilford Hall Medical Center at San Antonio, Texas, (the largest DOD medical hospital), when we took one of our Mobile Surgery Units there for Clinical trials in the late 90s.  They did all kinds of surgery including Heart surgery in the parking lot.  As a joke, the commanding General P. K. Carlton threatened to change my reserve status and activate me and send me to Area 51 to work on development.

I had pictures of us loading one of our units on a C5A at the airfield next door but I lost it when my rig was stolen. 

I am interested in where some of you guys have parked for work.

 

[RRR]

I'm guessing the company parking lot doesn't count?

Interesting career. 

 

[Larry N.]

My first few years with AT&T were at Norway (Norway, Illinois, that is), a facility with the only 8-legged tower in the Bell System. It was in the middle of farm land, and not actually in the town, and was intended to bypass Chicago in case of war (this was the cold war period). At that time several hundred people worked there, but I'm not sure whether anyone works there now or it's just remotely monitored. For scale, the building covers an acre or a bit more, and has a basement and two floors above ground. The tower is 212 feet tall.

 

[HappyWanderer]

Every time I see one of those AT&T towers, I have to wonder if I had handled the waveguide. I used to work for the company that manufactured round waveguide used by the horn antennas, performing mechanical and electrical inspection on thousands of pieces.

 

[HappyWanderer]

I once spent the night in a hospital parking lot for work. The site was about 100 miles from home, but only a few miles from my favorite COE park. We had to replace the phone system in a doctors? office, which I did after hours on a Thursday, then spent the night in the motorhome. After training staff on their new phones in the morning, I joined up with friends at the campground.

Afterwards, I received a glowing review saying I was such a dedicated employee that I slept overnight in the parking lot. In reality, I was at the campground by noon on Friday, and got paid mileage for the trip.

 

[SLOweather]

2 Stories, same central Califonia coastal mountain top, neither of them me, but I have knowledge.

First one. ATT microwave site back when ATT was The Phone Company, plus it's near one of the Trans Pacific cable landings. During the Reagan years, a shed appeared on the side of the building. The mountain top is LOS to the Reagan ranch maybe 90 miles away. The shed held a motorhome containing all of the secret comms stuff for the President. Apparently, there was a similar unit at the ranch, so the Prez could always be in full governmental communications.

Second, after the 41 Fire in 1994 (?) I was up there working on getting my employer back on the air, and there was about a 30' motorhome for riggers and techs rebuilding radio and telecom sites. That doesn't sound all that bad, except that I could barely get up there in my Jeep Cherokee. I dunno how they got that rig up there and back, especially the first hairpin turn.

 

[HueyPilotVN]

Back in 96 we built our first Mobile Surgery Unit and began a nationwide demonstration tour of the entire country.

We took it to San Francisco and displayed it inside the convention center for the annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons.  We had to rent the space of about 30 normal booth sites in the display hall.  Hundreds of Surgeons toured the facility.

We also toured Southern California using my motorhome as a break room and security post.

Eventually we toured the entire country over the next several months.  We did free surgery in a park within a mile of the federal building in Oklahoma City. 

We deployed in a large parking lot in central California and had the State of California inspect and conduct a regulatory compliance survey for State license and Medicare Certification of the unit, (the first of many states).

There were too many deployments over several months and many thousands of miles to remember without going back over the records.

We set up in all kinds of places and usually I was somewhere nearby.

We set it up in the parking lot of Health and Human Services in Baltimore for tours by Federal Medicare Survey teams.

We even set up on the steps of the Capital building in Washington D.C. and had dozens of Senators and Congressmen tour the unit.  We at one time had the Surgeon General of the United States giving the tours.

That first unit eventually was placed in service at the North Florida Reception Center for the Prison system of the State of Florida.  The unit was setup inside the grounds of the prison.  Getting us in and out of the prison is a story all by itself.

That?s my story and I am sticking to it..

 

[Heli_av8tor]

Now that's what I call slide-outs.