Slow Week outside of Intel

Well, it was a very quiet week outside of Intel. It seems as though all I did was work. Way too many hours put in. We continue to struggle getting started on the move in and installation of the process tools. Our general contractor now appears to be about 4 weeks behind the original schedule. We continue to work through the issues both with our own team as well as the general contractors team. I seems like we are spinning our wheels. I feel like I worked so many hours, did so many things, did so much planning but didn't accomplish anything. That is very frustrating. I told Rami today and I feel so out of control because I have no control. That may seem hard to understand but with the way we have our contract set up with our GC, we as Intel folks are not allowed to do much execution without putting Intel in a liable position and open to claims latter in the project. I see so many inefficiencies with the way our GC is setting up and executing the project that I want to just get in there and get it done. I have to be careful not to give specific direction or tell the sub contractors what to do. I can see so many ways we can get this moving and pick up steam. We will continue to give our thoughts and suggestions at this point, but it looks as though we are starting to take more control of some things. That is fine since our GC asked us for some help.

I watched some of our sub contractors install a pedestal yesterday in the fab. This was a comic relief. It looks as though nothing happens for so long and then all of a sudden it looks like when you step on an ant hill and all the ants come out of the ground at once and attacks. That is what this looked like. A bunch of ants on a sugar cube. The people were all over it and every where. They did finally get the ped in place but it took them well over an hour. Now they just have to set it, level it, shim it and grout it before the tool can actually be placed on it for final set and the start of safety sign offs.

I have no new pictures to share this week. I did not do anything fun. The most I did was play badminton on Wednesday night. That was as usual, very fun. The rest of the nights I just came home, relaxed and tried to get to bed a little earlier. I guess I will have to figure out something fun to do this coming weekend. Tomorrow is Friday and the weekend will be upon us. I will not think about work and see what is happening around Dalian.

The best part of the week really has been learning more and more Chinese. Nicholas has really improved on his English. It is getting easier to communicate with him each day. We have a goal to learn 2 to 3 new words each day. I have learned so many words and now he is starting to teach me sentences. This is a lot harder but the challenge is good. I think Nicholas gets excited and then he starts to talk really fast in Chinese. Then I cannot understand a thing.

Well, that was my exciting week. I hope to have more to share later.