Boiler Madness

I don't do boilers and large AC units. Never learned, a perfect void in my education. And when I got to work this morning, the steam pipes were shaking the building. I turned everything off, I can do that, and things quieted down, and there was a lot of water, condensed steam, and I pumped all that out; had Pegi call Chris Lute, the board chair, and find someone who could come and trouble-shoot. The older guy he sent over, I love these older guys, was the very guy who had installed these boilers 14 years ago. He looks at everything, all the gauges and dials, starts dumping water from the system, says there's a faulty float-valve in the intake line. He doesn't have a tool on him, we never once go back to the truck. He shuts some valves, dumps more water (hundreds of gallons), and then actually takes a penny out of his pocket, to reset a dial. Consummate boiler technology. I'm deeply impressed by shit like this. The guy listens to boilers, he's a boiler whisperer. I don't lean toward the mystic, but something is going on. He gives me some instructions, on what I need to do, to keep the system primed and ready for activation, though that won't happen until after we have the new float-valve, and I wonder why we're doing it at all, except, finally, I see: we're making life easier at the far end. Bastard is using me, but that's OK, if we advance the cause. I had a list of supplies I needed, juice, butter, a few things. I picked them up for cash, at a few different locations. Can't be too careful. I turned my Red Sox hat backward and dropped my jeans so they were hanging low on my ass. Who am I kidding, I don't have an ass, I'm shaped, more or less, like a pencil. I think I most resemble a crane. Not the bird, but a gantry, a simple system of steel trusses. I'm concerned that my ignorance could somehow cause damage. I don't even want to know how boilers operate, but I get a crash course, and then I'm the boiler guy. I'm not pleased with this. I'm not a technical person, in so far as. Wait. I actually do care that things work. A boiler plate example.