0 - Prologue: and so it begins...

 Welcome and bienvenue to my first foray into the blogoverse!  I haven't been a great diary keeper in the past before but will push myself to record memories and images here on a fairly regular basis; with every major upheaval to our normal order comes the opportunity to make changes, maybe some of them will last...

A little backstory for those of you just joining: 

June of 1991, a child is born in Seattle.  Adoring parents are puzzled by the pale complexion and curious birthmarks around its eyes.  A sharp intake of breath heralds the fated child's first cry: a silent wail echoes through the halls, the air in the doorway forms a flat, solid, impassable mass and somewhere a man drops a coin into a hat on the floor.  

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September of 2005, a child enters a classroom to find a list of names on long sheets of paper taped on the wall.  French 1 is taught within this salle de classe, a course taught through immersion.  This immersion process starts with students selecting a new name relevant to their tongue of study.  The child reflects on what they seek and searches the list for a name that calls to them; at this time in their life, they conclude that they wish to dominate the classroom and a single name on the wall glows as the rest of paper is consumed in flames.  The child that entered this classroom came to study French because most people were studying Spanish and this child wished to be different; the man who left that day was named Napoleon.

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In 2017, my company (at the time simply Firmenich Inc) made the decision to consider installing equipment at our sister facility in Castets, France for making the same product as my site in Newark, NJ.  There was a whole bunch of business and strategy reasons involved in choosing the new location; but what it boiled down to for me was a chance to interact with a technical team of francophones.  The idea was to copy the existing process at Newark closely but there were some changes required due to differences in infrastructure PLUS we could implement changes where we had very clearly defined issues in Newark,.  To facilitate this, I was responsible for sharing technical documents, recommending specific design changes, and answering questions as needed.  

Later in 2017, a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) was conducted at the Castets site for the (if my memory serves correctly) 50% cost estimate phase.  Having studied French in highschool but completely neglecting it during university, I jumped at the prospect of being able to do some short term travel.  I flew to Bordeaux where I met up with other colleagues traveling from Geneva and we all drove down to St. Paul les Dax and commuted to Castets.  This one week trip was an eye-opener for me: I discovered such amazing things as pain perdu (French French toast), isle flottant (a delightful meringue floating in sea of custard), andouillette (a sausage that smelled like I was biting a cow in a pasture), and falling asleep at the conference table while a team of francophones debate the risks of fire and detonation.  In these moments of jet-lagged drowsiness, it's amazing how similar the words John, Jean, j'en, gens, jaune, or genre sound and how quickly they can set my mind into a frenzy of trying to read context...

From the 50% cost estimate, the project moved into the 30% cost estimate but also saw a change in the engineering firm used; this resulted in a good amount of backtracking and bringing the new firm up to speed on the process.  A few members of the team in France were able to come visit us in Newark, NJ to get a first hand look at how things run.  Later, there was also another PHA to review that previous risks had been addressed with the increased amount of design detail and that new risks had not arisen; this time, my coworker (an expert process and process safety chemist) and I visited Castets and I was able to stay awake for more of the conversation.  He was inspiring as he had a great grasp of French and was able to follow along (at least better than I) and answered many more questions than me.  

After the 30% estimate's PHA, the project went into a bit of a hiatus as the business case changed.  But it underwent a revival in 2021 and powered through to execution.  More of the Castets team was able to visit Newark in 2022 for a week, equipment was ordered, and construction begun.  And that leads us to this moment now, where I head off to the SW of France to support the startup (démarage) of the newly installed chemical plant.  

The plan is to work mid-November 2023 through mid-January 2024, at which point I will take about a month of time off (assuming the plant is running somewhat smoothly by that point).  I'm scheduled to stay in an apartment style hotel in St. Paul les Dax and rent a vehicle to conduct the ~30 minute commute to the plant.  I'm not entirely sure what the work week schedule is going to look like, but I anticipate there will be plenty of time to improve my conversational French and conduct weekend visits to various places and cuisines previously unknown to me.  It's hard to believe the time to start has come so soon...