I started to go into a car-wash, today. In fact, I'd paid for it and the door was open with an electronic voice inviting me in.

I remembered that my moonroof sometimes leaks, so I stepped out and pressed down on the corner so that it would seal.

I've done it before.

Today ....

The body shop says it's a custom job, so they can't fix it. They referred me to a business that does custom work.

The custom business says that they don't do sun/moon roofs because they're complicated and there isn't enough demand. They referred me to the yellow pages of South Bend or Kalamazoo or Grand Rapids.

Meanwhile - we don't have a garage and I have a an 8ft square hole in the top of my truck.

So ... off to Lowes I go with a Red Green/Ozark Hillbilly solution in mind.

Here's what I did:

Duct tape, styrofoam, plexiglass, and glue.

Now to find out if it can survive highway speed wind/aerodynamics and weather.

I looked at the list of nominees for Best Picture 2016 and realized that I've not seen a single one of them. I went back to 2012 via a link and realized that I've only seen TWO of the best pictures since that time (Gravity and Midnight in Paris), and I think only ONE of them in the theater - Gravity.

Frankly, I liked Midnight in Paris better, even though I am a sci-fi fan. (I have it on DVD.)

I'm not the most artsy film-watcher, although saintvi and I have been watching Wes Anderson films this week. There are some advantages to being unemployed.  That said, here's what I saw in 2015:

Ant-Man

Avengers - Age of Ultron

Inside Out

Jurassic World

Minions

Peanuts

Shaun the Sheep

Spectre

Star Wars VII

Were I to rank this limited viewing of 2015 motion pictures and give them the Waldo Bookmark Academy Award, here's how they'd rank:

#9 Minions -  Cute film, love the little guys and super-loved the villainess, Scarlet Overkill (animation crush) ... but not really a cohesive story. Sorry guys.

#8  Jurassic World - Well done, stuff of summer blockbusters ... but really, it was mostly a well-done remake of the original. We'll come to that theme again. Favorite lines:

Zach Mitchell (nephew): Your boyfriend is a badass! 

(Aunt Claire hasn't yet come to terms that the insufferable man cycling with raptors is her "boyfriend." Her expression is priceless.)

I laughed out loud at this next one.

The setup is a conversation on why training raptors is allegedly a good idea

Vic Hoskins: Drones can't search tunnels and caves. And they're hackable. The minute a real war breaks out all that fancy tech is gonna go dark!

Owen Grady: Yeah, but that tech's not gonna eat them if they forget to feed it.

Jurassic World

 #7 Avengers - Age of Ultron - I've really enjoyed the Marvel superhero stories. Even the weaker ones have been fun to watch. While I certainly enjoyed this one, it was about 20-30 minutes too long for me.  I didn't have any problem with the Black Widow / Hulk romance, nor the Hawkeye family but because they were included along with the main save-the-world storyline, all the storylines dragged. Also, as has been the case lately, some of the action scenes are just so long as to be monotonous. This was true at the end of Superman, and it is true at the end of Avengers - Age of Ultron and during a Hulk vs Ironman scene.

Best Line:  Tony Stark  is wondering where Black Widow and Hulk are in the midst of battle:

"You two had better not be playing 'hide the zucchini'."

Really impressed with the sculpture at the end credits:

#6 Star Wars VII - I know that much of the world has gone Ga-Ga over this one, but I felt that this too, was both too long and a remake of the original Star Wars.  Excellent film - don't get me wrong, but there has to be some originality to the story to rise high on my award list.  What I really loved about this film were the two young principal actors:  Daisy Ridley and John Boyega.  They delivered top-shelf performances all the way through this film. Loved them both!

#5 James Bond: Spectre - I think I've seen every James Bond film ever made at one point or another. I love that the Daniel Craig films have placed a lot more focus on the spy storyline with tech, girls, and evil villains as the side dishes vice the Bond-Girls, tech, and evil villain as the main draw with Bond along for the ride.

Daniel Craig totally ROCKS the James Bond role, and does so with Spectre!  That said ... the storyline was good, but like so many other films, drew from the past to make the present. There were some excellent plot twists, but is it really so hard to make a NEW villain?

#4 Peanuts - I had real concerns about how this movie would play out. Peanuts is such a gentle treasure that I wasn't sure how well it could be handled. Turns out, it was exceptionally well done. I think they hit just about every feature element and character you'll recall from the comic strip and wove it into a great film.

Best line: The Little Red Haired girl tells Charlie Brown why she picked him as a pen pal:

Little Red-Haired Girl: Oh, hi, Charlie Brown.
Charlie Brown: You remembered my name?
Little Red-Haired Girl: Of course I did.
Charlie Brown: Before you leave, there’s something I really need to know. Why, out of all the kids in our class, would you want to be partners with me?
Little Red-Haired Girl: That’s easy. It’s because I admire the type of person you are.
Charlie Brown: An insecure, wishy-washy failure?
Little Red-Haired Girl: That’s not who you are at all. You showed compassion for your sister at the talent show. Honesty at the assembly. And at the dance, you were brave yet funny. And what you did for me, doing the book report while I was away, was so sweet of you.
[the bus arrives and honks it’s horn]

#3 Ant-Man - Finally! There is an original storyline, fun characters and great acting. This was my favorite super-hero movie of the year, hands-down. I particularly loved the father-daughter dynamics of the original Ant-man and his older daughter and the younger "new" Ant-man and his young daughter. They were themes that were well-integrated into to the story.

Best Line: WAY TOO MANY TO COUNT!! Seriously - this film is one giggle and laugh after another. Here's just one. The setup is that Scott is just out of prison and one of his former (now free) cell mates (and hysterical comic-relief) comes to pick him up.

Scott Lang: Hey, how's your girl, man?

Luis: Ah, she left me.

Scott Lang: Oh.

Luis: And my mom died too. And my dad got deported.

[Scott just stares in awkward silence]

Luis: [Suddenly enthused] But I got the van!

#2 Shaun the Sheep.  I know, how could a claymation-styled show without words get so high on the list?  It's original, it's a great story, it has beautiful color, lots of visual puns (see below), and it evokes emotions.  A director who can do that with stop-motion photography get's my nod!

Well done Mark Burton and Richard Starzak!

#1 Inside Out. Yes, indeed. I give my Waldo Bookmark Academy Award for Best Picture (that I saw in 2015) to an animated film.

This is not simply an animated film. Nor is this simply another of Pixar's outstanding original pictures. This is a remarkable insight into how our views on life change as we grow older and how all of our emotions are important elements of who we are.  The amazing thing is how well these themes are executed using an animated story that is accessible and entertaining to both children and adults.

Inside Out nestles itself right next to Up! on being able to take serious themes of being human and making a wonderful story out of them.  I laugh and cry tears every time I watch this show.

Well done Pete Doctor, Ronnie del Carmen, Pixar (and to Walt Disney studios for not getting in their way)!!

 

 

One of the benefits of being unemployed is that you have time to do things you've been meaning to get around to doing.

I was able to do the artwork for this pathtag in about a day, which delighted me!

I'm sure the proof will be returned with something that looks more like this:

But ... I'll work with it.

Hey ... I've got time on my hands!!

It's quiet around the training center this last week of 2015. It afforded me an opportunity to take some pictures of the area where I work. I've put them in the order I would see as I'm going to work, with the exception of the Lobby (since I can't enter the building from two entrances at once.)

I'm curious to hear your first impressions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friend forwarded these to me.
I usually delete forwards. They tend to be as bad as FaceBook reposts.
These are better. I think every one of them made me groan and smile.

• How does Moses make tea? Hebrews it.

• Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!

• A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.

• I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

• Haunted French pancakes give me the crêpes.

• England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

• I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.

• They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Typo.

• I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.

• Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

• I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.

• I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.

• This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

• When chemists die, they barium.

• I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.

• I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

• Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

• I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

• Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

• When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

• Broken pencils are pointless.

• What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

• I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

• All the toilets in New York's police stations have been stolen. The police have nothing to go on.

• I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

• Velcro - what a rip off!

And the Grand Finale:
• Don’t worry about old age; it doesn’t last.

Employees at a nuclear plant quickly learn that those outside of the industry have a difficult time understand just what it is we do during our workday. Even when Administrate Assistants begin speaking about how they file, organize, and route, the various technical documents that support our site, their friends and loved ones begin to look through their eyes and head to the wall behind them, nod and say,

“Uh, huh, well - I’m glad it seems to pay well.”

I’ve never been a big one for talking about my work. I figure that I spent 8 - 12 hours there, doing what others want me to do. When I’m off-site, I like spending my time doing what I enjoy doing like Colonial American History, gardening, visiting the elderly, encouraging the despondent, cartooning, and reading science magazines … which, to date, hasn’t involved my daily work.  (I do LOVE my profession as a trainer, so I occasionally follow-up on some of those things off-site).

Given those two truths as backdrop, I realize that I probably should offer some idea of what I do, since it does occupy a great deal of my week and provides for food and shelter and nice things in my home. I think the best way will be for me to describe a typical work-week for training the control room operators.

There are two general categories of nuclear plant operators: licensed and non-licensed.  The licensed operators are able to operate controls in the control room that directly affect the reactor, as well as any of the in-plant components outside of the control room, such as valves and switches and breakers. The non-licensed operators can touch nothing inside of the control room, and are generally the hands and eyes and ears of the control room operators in all the rooms inside the plant and pertinent areas outside of the plant (e.g., switchyards).

Both of these categories are also subdivided. The non-licensed operators (“NLOs” … because we love acronyms) have “UOs” (Utility Operators) and “AEOs” (Auxiliary Equipment Operators).  Essentially, they UOs are brand new employees who are learning the ropes and do simple tasks in the plant. The AEOs are senior non-licensed operators who are qualified to do anything outside of the control room.

The licensed operators are subdivided into “ROs” (Reactor Operators) and “SROs”) Senior Reactor Operators.  The ROs operate the switches in the control room, but do not make procedural decisions or apply various technical limiting conditions of operations. The SROs are the supervisors who are licensed to operate the switches, but usually give the ROs that direction and generally provide the supervisory guidance necessary for safe plant operation.  There are more subcategories within the SRO ranks … but enough of that.  I imagine that some of you may already be seeing the wall behind this computer screen.

Enough backstory.

What do I do?

I am a Licensed Operator Training Instructor. I teach the ROs and SROs - the Licensed Operators, who are also referred to as the “Control Room Operators.”

Since they are on shiftwork, they rotate into their “Training Week” every 5 weeks.  The days look something like this:

Monday: The crew is off, since they work 12 hour shifts. This is they day we instructors typically have our weekly meetings and prepare for the next few days.

 Tuesday: Classes in the morning, “as found” simulator evaluations in the afternoon.  The “as found” simulator evaluations have elements that were trained on in the previous cycle. The crew is presented with various failures that require specific responses from them. If they do well, they pass. If they don’t, they fail.  Failure removes them from watch-standing duty, which means that they can’t do work in the Control Room until they’ve been remediated and re-evaluated and pass. Typically, the re-evaluation is scheduled for Friday of the training week, with remediation training sessions squeezed in.

Wednesday & Thursday: Classes in the morning and simulator training sessions in the afternoon.

Friday: Written exam in the morning and “dual unit” or other unique simulator training scenarios in the afternoon.

If a person fails the written exam, they are taken off watch-standing duties until they are remediated and pass a re-take exam. Same is true if their overall average falls below an 80% (passing rate). Typically, the student will take the exam on the following Monday.

We have two nuclear plants our site with two separate control rooms. (Some sites have one control room for both plants.) In “dual unit” training sessions, we present the crew with a problem that affects both plants, like grass coming into the lake-water intakes, or storms, or loss of off-site power supplies.

My role in all of this is being a part of the team of instructors. We all teach some of the classroom topics. This cycle, I have Reactor Theory and Final Safety Analysis Report as topics.

Exciting! Right?!

We all either evaluate or help with running the simulator for the “as found” evaluations. We all teach sessions in the simulator.  If we are not teaching, we are usually developing materials for the next cycle of training.

Size of crews determines how many sessions we have to give; sometimes it’s two and sometimes it’s three. When we teach determines when we come into work and when we leave. Typically, we don’t have to be in earlier than 6:30 or later than 5:30, but that too, varies. Usually, I work from about 7:15 until 3:45.

So there you have it - my average day at work.

 

Our coffee area is like a mini-marketplace for various food items that either didn't eaten for some luncheon or meeting, or the people have too much of at home.

I saw this on the countertop this morning:

In case it's hard to read ... it started out as : Free Zucchini

Someone added an arrow and the word  "teenie."

Someone else added "weenie."

So now it's "Free teenie weenie zucchini."

I thought it was a cucumber.  Honest.

Nevertheless, this is what I thought I saw:

 

 

I used to visit a woman named Lola, who had a dancing solar flower in her window. It always made me smile.

Not too long ago, I purchased this little novelty and put it in a cupholder in my truck. Every time I see her in the daytime, she's doing a happy dance.
It always makes me smile.
Unfortunately, Xanga doesn't like .mp4 video formats. I think I got the photo to link to my Google+ account. Click on it and see if she dances for you.

 

 

What happened on July 13, 2007 ... other than my signing onto Xanga?

Fox keeps a lid on `Simpsons Movie' Gina Piccalo, Times Staff Writer

Bush quiets GOP revolt over Iraq Maura Reynolds and Noam N. Levey, Times Staff Writers

McCain cmp hit by double whammy From the Associated Press

 

 

So, yeah. Boring day in history.  But what about other July 13ths?

2012 - China's economic growth drops to 7.6%, its lowest level for three years

1994 - OJ Simpson (charged with murder) gives hair samples for testing

1984 - Jeff Beck quits Rod Stewart's tour after 7 shows

1978 - Lee Iacocca fired as Ford Motor Pres by chairman Henry Ford II

Ugh. WAKE ME UP!!!  How about WAY back in history???

1939 - Frank Sinatra makes his recording debut

1917 - Vision of Virgin Mary appeared to children of Fatima, Portugal

1787 - Congress establishes Northwest Territory (excludes slavery)

1568 - Dean of St Paul's Cathedral perfects a way to bottle beer

You know ... maybe it's best to just stop here ... and drink an anniversary beer!

 

Recent scenes from our annual 3rd of July Party and the day after:

Here's The Next Generation, enjoying catching up after not seeing each other in a very long time. I'm pretty sure all the gals are single and around 30 years old with professions that range from working with children to M.D.

Shameless selfie, while the fireworks were going. You'd think I might've seen them once or twice before.

Another fireworks shot. Friends from when we first moved here are in front of me.

Actually, most of the party had new people visiting, as Melinda wisely made the party a Geocaching event. That allowed for better discussions between casual friends and strangers who shared the same interest.

We took a break on the 4th to watch the sunset.  There are pix from my cell phone. saintvi probably got better ones that she'll post later.

Hope your holiday weekend was safe, filled with freedom, and alight with sparkles.