April 7, 2013

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  Flying Squirrels, Spent Nuclear Fuel, Dodge Dakota, 3D, Published Article, Moon Garden, and "Where's Waldo."

  Writing challenge #407 - use all the above in a description of your past couple of weeks.

  Where to start?

  I was on shift work much of this past week. My hours were from 5:30 PM to 3:30 AM, to accommodate movement of spent fuel assemblies from our reactor.

  I guess I'll start there.

  Spent Nuclear Fuel

  

  A lot people think spent nuclear fuel glows green. It doesn't. Glow-in-the-dark toys do. Spent nuclear fuel glows a royal blue when submerged in water. If it's not submerged in water, and you're looking at it, you'll be green very soon, and dead shortly thereafter. If you happen to put one of your child's glow-in-the-dark toys in the bathtub and it glows royal blue ... well, let's not go there, but you might want to check that it wasn't made in North Korea.

  But I digress.

  One of the perks of having finished my 18 month certification course was to be able to supervise part of the fuel movement out of the reactor core and into our spent fuel pool. It looks a lot like the picture below:

  

  That's a much better job than hauling around radioactive laundry and trash.

  The operators inside the containment dome flood the compartment with the reactor in it, remove the top of it, and then pick one fuel assembly out of the vessel with a small crane. The crane moves the assembly to a transfer cart that lowers it to a horizontal position, sends it through a transfer tube, and then raises it up so a similar crane on the spent fuel side can pick it up and put it in a designated location in the spent fuel pool. This takes about 10 - 20 minutes per assembly. In the reactor we just defueled, we have 193 assemblies and it took us about 38 hours, which is a very good time frame. My job is to be a second-check to ensure the assembly goes into the slot it is supposed to be stored in. I also direct traffic in the area around the pool, so that no one interferes with their progress. 

  Right now, I'm off shift-work until we are ready to refuel the reactor, which should be around the week of April 22. Kind of depends on how things go.

  Some subterfuge and intrigue is going on in the training department while we refuel the reactor. Long story short, my former supervisor "M" is on the backside of the political favor stick. She's about to lose one of her people to the operations side of training (where I work) so he can work full-time on 3D training lesson plans. It may well be that her group is completely dissolved, and the positions reassigned - but that's speculation.

  So what's in that for me?

  3D Training

  Well - Shane (who she's about to lose) and I have long been lobbying for advanced online training that includes the use of 3D technology. I even went so far as to write and industry white paper on it, which is still posted with 3D Internet. (http://www.3dinternet.com/NUC%20WHITE%20PAPER.pdf)

  Mostly we got pats on the head and sent on our way. Well, the "right" people finally saw a training lesson plan which used this technology and had an epiphany. "All of our lesson plans should look like that!"  It's kind of like when a parent give a child a piece of wisdom and you get, "whatever, mom." But when Sally's cool mom says it, "Wow! Guess what I found out!!" 

  But Shane and I don't care. The idea is moving forward. He's learning how to create the 3D graphics, and he's lobbying for me to be the developing instructor, if for no other reason than he's not qualified to do that. Since I've also been using a more advanced online training software (Articulate Storyline) for recent training modules, and it's been well-received, it's very likely I'd be helping with that. If so - that would excite me a LOT!! There is a barely tapped potential in and out of the nuclear industry for this kind of product. For example:

  Published Article

  And speaking of articles, the International Society for Performance Improvement (http://www.ispi.org/) is publishing my article in their April edition of Performance Improvement Journal.

  

  The title: "The Expanding Role of Human Performance Technology in Corporate Sustainability."

  Yeah - it rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? 

  Needless to say, unless industrial human performance is something that interests you - this wouldn't be your cup of tea. Briefly, I'm looking at the need for more attention on human performance in industrial setting to prevent things like Deepwater Horizon oil spill, space shuttle explosions, and accidents like the recent fatality at the Arkansas Nuclear One power station. (http://rt.com/usa/arkansas-nuclear-plant-accident-170/) Most of the real research data has been measured by sales, inventory, manufacturing time, etc. More needs to be done to study how an error made by one person can set up a sequence of events, or trigger one that has been set up, that would result in tragedy.

  For me - no money involved. I'll get free copies of the magazine and the satisfaction that my writing was worth their printing.

  3D Jurassic Park

  And speaking of 3D, @JoyousWind and I went to see Jurassic Park 3D. She was only seven years old when it first came out. Needless to say, mom and dad weren't too keen on letting her see people get eaten by dinosaurs, so she never saw the film until long after it was on ... VHS.  Yeah - remember video tapes?  Remember the first video cameras??

  

  

  She was thrilled to be able to FINALLY see the movie on the big screen. It was worth a 20 year wait. 

  Dodge Dakota

  Those of you who follow @SaintVi know I'm looking to trade in my 224,000 mile 2000 Dodge Dakota. I'm looking for another Dakota Club Cab that's in the 100K to 130K, has 4WD and is in good shape. And after test driving a few - it has to be a V8 and not a V6.  For a 2 mpg gas savings, they castrated the power in the truck to the point that it's almost impossible to pass anyone at speeds above 50 MPH.  Not a good quality on a busy interstate.  So far, I've not seen a "home run" deal. The best one going is a 2001 model with 111K on it and in really clean shape and a good price. There are a couple of very minor condition issues (much, much better than my current truck). The one real reservation I have is that the engine sounds "loud." Maybe that's my imagination (but I don't think so) Maybe it's a small exhaust hole. Maybe something else. I'd like that sorted out before I buy it. Here's what it looks like:

  

  

  AND ... it has a cassette tape player!!

  

  

  Garden

  The weather has finally, finally shaped up enough for me to tend to my gardens. This is what it looks like in bloom in late autumn. A lot of the flowers are gone at that point in the year, but you get a fair idea:

  

  This is what it looked like before I did much work on it:

  

  Pretty drab. 

  Here's what PART of my work looked like:

  

  I'm pleased to say all the beds are clean, vines and roses are trimmed, and we even have our first daffodil bloom! Yay!

  

  I'm currently scheming to make a moon garden in the flower bed next to the shed.

  

  My plan is for it to have white flowers that are fragrant: moon flower, four o'clocks, blooming tobacco, jasmine, and pansies. I'd also like to build a small structure in the middle for the climbing vines and to hang a bamboo wind chime. We'll see.

  I think that brings me to flying squirrels and "Where's Waldo?"

  Flying Squirrels

  You may recall that I heard sounds in the attic that I thought were rats. I set a trap and caught what I thought must be a chimpmunk, but couldn't really figure out how in the world it got up there. I reset the trap, all the same, to see if more varmints were up there. I heard one scurrying around this morning, so I checked the trap this afternoon. This time it was alive. And again - it didn't really look like a chipmunk, but it was closer to that than anything else. I took the trap and the dog to the creek about a 1/4 mile from our house to toss the varmint over the river. If it fell in - it could sink or swim for all I cared. Instead ... I saw it do this:

  

  "Holy Rocky and Bullwinkle, Batman! That's no chipmunk!"

  That squirrel sailed easily to the far bank. I was impressed, and glad it was on the FAR bank. It was happy to be free and away from Boo, the dog. I call it a win-win.

  Now ... about where they're getting into the attic?  Both they and the bats seem to have a favorite location that I'm going to have to spend some serious time looking for.

  And so that brings me to ..

  "Where's Waldo?"

  I think you'll find this guy in church next Sunday:

  

  Our pastor likes to have a "Holy Humor" Sunday. He will deliver a message that integrates a variety of clean jokes people have sent him. He also encourages dressing a little silly. I thought about doing it last year, but passed on it. I think I'm going for it this time.

  And speaking of all those "holy" phrases. @SaintVi and I passed an interesting church the other day:

  

  Kind of hard to read the sign on their website photo ... but it reads thus:

  "Holy Maternity of Mary"

  Can't you just hear it?

  

  And with that ... I'll turn the page

   

  • 6:06 pm
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