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IN THE EVERGLADES — Doug Updike has a lot on his mind as he slips beneath the brown, murky surface of South Florida's 2,000 miles of flood control canals.
It's dark down there — never mind the alligators, poisonous snakes, snapping turtles and powerful equipment that can suck in a limb.
Updike is part of a team of specialized divers for the South Florida Water Management District who maintain the country's largest flood control system of its kind. The divers' duties include repairing pumps and floodgates, removing blockages and adding new equipment.
Fearless as they may be, there is an occasional scare or two.
"There was many times when you'd get bumped by something, you'd think it was your other diver, and you turn and look and it would be an 800-pound manatee," Updike says. "Much rather it be that than a 12-foot alligator."
Updike recalls moving ropes underwater only to find one of the tangles in his hand was a slippery water snake.
But it's a job, and Updike wouldn't have it any other way.
"I couldn't sit at a desk all day," he says. "That's just not me. I'd much rather be out here."
Much of South Florida wasn't meant for people. Historically a vast, soggy swamp, much of the region was drained, diked and dammed to divert water out to sea a century ago, making way for development and farms.
Today, the system's network of canals from Orlando to the Florida Keys — 60 pump stations and 2,200 water control structures — requires constant upkeep.
"Whatever needs to be done underwater, our dive team takes care of it," Updike says.
The typical morning starts with a careful survey of waters around the divers' work area, scanning for alligators that must be removed by a professional trapper before it's safe to go in.
Cory Burlew wanders the area with a fishing pole, peering out into the canals for telltale breath bubbles that indicate an alligator is lurking beneath the surface.
"There's a lot of gators out here," says Burlew, a commercial fisherman and state-licensed alligator trapper. "I've seen days where there's 15 to 20 in one spot."
He casts his weighted, hooked line into the water, just over where the gator is believed to be, and yanks hard, snagging the reptile's scaly skin.
Then comes the hard work of reeling in the beefy animal, pulling it close enough to shore to get a nooselike rope around its neck and wrangling it onto land. The gator is then bound, its toothy mouth clamped shut, and loaded into the back of a truck. The process is repeated until the waters are safe for divers.
As part of his payment, Burlew gets to keep the gators he catches to sell for meat and hides.


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A risk is a circumstance or factor that may have a negative impact on the operation or profitability of a given operation. A risk can be the result of internal conditions, as well as some external factors related to the operations. An anomaly is an uncontrollable event. Despite all planning and preparation, anomalies can still occur. An anomaly is the the quality or state of being irregular.Usually a baseline of normal behavior or risks is recognized and when an event falls outside that norm, it is anomaly. Analysis of anomalies that occur during operations is an important means of improving the quality of current and future operations.
Both risk and anomalies cause changes to documentation and to operational procedures to prevent the same situations from recurring. For example in case of challenger case study there were many risks involved one of them was using the solid rocket busters which, once ignited could not be easily controlled or shutdown unlike the liquid rocket booster. This would be considered as a risk because this has been identified from the previous experiences and can have a contingency plan.
On the other hand an anomaly that affected the challenger case study was the unusual low temperature and ice present on the day of the launch. The project manager and the risk management team define risks affecting a project. The quality control and assurance team report operational anomalies to the project manager. Hence the project manager must decide the difference on what becomes a risk to the project and what stays as an anomaly.Engineers, safety officers define anomaly or people with deep knowledge of the subject matter define it.
Anomalies are defined and negotiated depending upon the occupational context and the evaluation systems that have been developed to meet unexpected deviations in the work flow. A mistake or anomaly is never defined in isolation, but always is relative to the local and institutional context of work.

subset: commoncrawl


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PAA Natural Gas Storage, L.P. (NYSE: PNG) today announced a modification to the terms of certain of its Series B Subordinated Units, all of which are owned by Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NYSE: PAA) . PNG's Series B Subordinated Units do not participate in quarterly distributions. Instead, the Series B Subordinated Units convert into Series A Subordinated Units or Common Units in five distinct tranches upon the achievement of defined benchmarks tied to the amount of capacity in service at PNG's Pine Prairie Energy Center ("PPEC") and increases in PNG's quarterly distributions. The modification increases the quarterly distribution benchmark for the first three of the five tranches to an annualized level of $1.71 per unit. Previously, the quarterly distribution levels required to cause conversion for these three tranches were at annualized levels of $1.44, $1.53 and $1.63 per unit. Consistent with the prior terms, any Series B Subordinated Units not converted by December 31, 2018 will be canceled. "Given the dramatic deterioration in natural gas storage market conditions since PNG's IPO in the first half of 2010, we believe this modification is prudent and appropriate for PAA and clearly in the best interests of PNG and its common unitholders," said Greg L. Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of PAA and PNG. "By increasing the distribution benchmarks necessary for the conversion of the first three tranches of Series B Subordinated Units, we have eliminated a potential structural impediment to PNG's distribution growth, while preserving the optionality for PAA and its unitholders to realize incremental value through a longer-term recovery in natural gas storage market conditions." Armstrong noted that through its ownership of PNG's general partner, incentive distribution rights, common units, Series A Subordinated Units and Series B Subordinated Units, PAA owns approximately 64% of PNG (57% excluding the Series B Subordinated Units).
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Sounders FC vs. San Jose Earthquakes
MLS Regular Season
Saturday, May 17; 7 pm PT; CenturyLink Field
TV/Radio: Q13 FOX; KIRO Radio 97.3 FM/SiriusXM FC (channel 94); THIS-TV, KOMO2 (Spanish); ESPN Deportes Radio, 1490 AM (Spanish)
When Sounders FC faces the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday, it will be a meeting of two teams with something to prove—as teams and as individuals—with both squads playing without big stars due to international duty.
Additionally, Sounders FC is coming off the worst defeat in club history, a 5-0 loss to the New England Revolution on Sunday. The Rave Green will be out to show the crowd that will pack CenturyLink Field that it is a team more representative of the 7-2-1 record it held heading into that match than the one result in the 11th match.
"We just have to know which team we are. I still have a lot of faith in the group and they have faith in themselves," Sounders FC Head Coach Sigi Schmid said. "We've got to get back to business. We know we're missing some guys, but that's the way it's going to be over the next three or four weeks. We just have to get back into our rhythm of playing at home the way we were playing before we went on the road the last game."
Seattle won't have Clint Dempsey, Brad Evans and DeAndre Yedlin, as the trio was called in to U.S. National Team camp starting on Wednesday at Stanford University in California.
That opens up opportunities for other players on the squad, and despite the resounding impact that trio has for Seattle, Schmid would like to keep the same approach without them in the lineup. On the surface, that places a heavy burden on the shoulders of forward Obafemi Martins, who becomes the player that will garner the most attention in the match.
However, Schmid is also confident that others will be able to elevate their games to carry the load and keep the top offense in MLS from taking a dip in Dempsey's absence.
"I want us to be able to play along the same lines. Without Dempsey out there it changes a little bit, but we still need to move the ball around and combine down the middle the way we have been, but down the flanks as well," Schmid said. "Not only Oba, but also Marco Pappa needs to step up and make plays. Lamar Neagle as well. Kenny Cooper, Chad Barrett … I'm confident we'll be able to do that."
Cooper, for one, has excelled for Sounders FC through the first 11 matches, netting three goals and one assist to add to his 72 career MLS goals accumulated before he landed in Seattle this year. He is ready to jump into a starting role, if called upon, especially after coming off the bench in the last five matches.
"It's always difficult when you lose top players. We're so fortunate that we have so many top quality players, but that also means that we lose them for situations like these. That's why you have depth and we're very fortunate in that we have a lot of good players and we all have confidence in each other," Cooper said. "It's a challenge when you're not playing games, but we have a lot of talent – a lot of good, honest, hard-working professionals and I think everyone's eager to get out there and help the team out."
Already playing without U.S. National Teamers Chris Wondolowski and Clarence Goodson, San Jose will also be without defender Victor Bernardez and speedy midfielder Shea Salinas. Salinas was dealt a red card in San Jose's match on Saturday against FC Dallas while Bernardez was suspended by the MLS Disciplinary Committee for misconduct in the same match.
While that takes four key players out of the picture and several more are out due to injuries, Schmid and the Sounders aren't about to take the Earthquakes lightly. Like Seattle, the players filling in for San Jose are going to be eager to impress.
"They've got a few more people missing right now, but we expect a San Jose team that still has some quality there for sure. They're still a good team and they are in the same situation as us," Schmid said. "There are players that are going to get chances now on their roster that weren't getting chances and they're going to be hungry."
Kickoff in Saturday's match is scheduled for 7 pm PT, with local television coverage on Q13 FOX.


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A person is appointed dealer. That person deals out the cards face down into a pyramid shape with six rows. The player turns one card over on each row starting from the bottom, until he/she reaches the top or reveals a penalty card. If they make it to the top, they are out and the dealer becomes the player. If they turn over a penalty card, they must drink the required amount, new cards are placed face down over the used cards, and the player starts again from the bottom. If all cards are used on the pyramid, then the cards are picked up, shuffled, and re-dealt.
Rules: Dealer must play next. Dealer may rig pyramid if desired, and if asked directly about a card,must respond honestly. If caught rigging, play ceases, and dealer becomes player immediately. If falsely accused, accuser becomes player. Player may not leave the table for any reason until finished.
Two deck limit is usual for beginners.
Advanced Rules:
This game can be a very evil one if the two cards in the second row are rigged because the top card is the one usually suspected. Try rigging it so that those who have played before get out quickly, and the novices are more eager to have a go. Then let them suffer. A good spectator sport, if not for the player.


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Polycom and Meetrix to Offer Cloud-Delivered Social Video Collaboration Solutions
Polycom, Inc. a leader in open standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), and Meetrix, a cloud enabler and integrator, today announced they have formed a partnership to integrate their respective solutions to offer customers cloud-delivered social video collaboration services. The partnership integrates Meetrix's unified communications cloud service for IBM Sametime and Polycom's video infrastructure software (either on-premises or cloud-delivered from a service provider) to help customers securely and reliably connect, communicate, and collaborate visually through their cloud-delivered social business app.
Meetrix's flagship offering, Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime, delivers "Sametime as a Service" - a service that manages the IBM Sametime solution for customers from the cloud. Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime can be deployed in hours for small and medium businesses or, in the case of larger enterprises, a few days, giving customers instant access to the benefits of IBM Sametime. The Polycom RealPresence Platform, the most comprehensive software infrastructure for universal video collaboration, enriches the social collaboration experience by allowing IBM Sametime and IBM Connections users to collaborate in secure multi-party or point-to-point video calls. The RealPresence Platform software infrastructure, whether installed on-premises or delivered as a service from the cloud, connects users across any environment - immersive video suites, conference rooms, work and home offices, and smartphones, laptops and tablets.
"We've offered integration with IBM Sametime for years but as more customers - especially small and midsized companies - explore cloud strategies, we're excited to partner with Meetrix, a real innovator in this space," said Steve Pattison, Vice President of Business Development, Polycom. "The Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime service allows customers to deploy IBM Sametime almost instantly, and when you integrate Polycom RealPresence video solutions into the social business environment, customers can keep their upfront costs down, leverage their existing investments, and quickly realize a return on their investment from the increased productivity of face-to-face collaboration."
"We are excited to team with a prestigious partner such as Polycom," said Lee Fawcett, Chief Executive Officer, Meetrix. "We've heard from our customers that enterprise-class UC delivered from the cloud is needed, and our joint solution, whether the video infrastructure is on-premises or delivered from the cloud, offers the best-in-class UC and video solution-set available today."
The offering is available globally for existing Polycom RealPresence Platform and Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime customers at no additional integration or application cost. For more information on the integration, please contact your local Meetrix sales rep or email@example.com.
SOURCE: BUSINESS WIRE ©2015 Business Wire