My top ten similarities between Naval and Commercial Nuclear Power

10. The RO’s main responsibility is to keep the core covered and cooled.

9. Things are best when Keff =1.0.

8. It sucks to get crapped up (put in radcon jail).

7. On a turbine generator hot bearing, if after unloading there is not immediate improvement, the bearing emits smoke or shows other signs of trouble, break vacuum and stop the shaft.

6. Two thirds of the energy put in the reactor coolant from the core goes “out the door.”

5. Decay heat is 7% of equilibrium power.

4. IX resin smells (like fish)

3. Xenon, Xenon, Xenon

2. Briefs aren’t

1. The difference between an infant and a nuclear operator is that when you give an infant what it wants, it quits crying.

all your breakfast needs in a cup

a friend of mine at work saw this on the www.food thing and asked me to order some. as we drink a lot of coffee at work, I will probably have some today and let you know what I think. and yes the flavor is maple bacon...

the nuclear carwash part II

as promised, here are the ditches and some of the diggers.

The Monday Jack

yea, I know it's late again, but I had a .....blah, blah, blah

you know, so here he is

the mazda saga...

I drove it to work the other day and it quit on me (a much longer story, one that I am not willing to try here as it would drown my keyboard). I had a nice coworker follow me home and it overheated. hindsight being what it is, I should have been looking at all of my indications when it quit at work. I was working on it today and noticed that with the engine running, the little bubbler line off of the radiator bubbles continously....looks like the head gasket (or both). man does that suck. the parts alone are about $400 so, I am now trying to find a way to get rid of it and still have a spare car for B to drive.

those of you who know my chevrolet/GM hatred problems will appreciate what one of my coworkers recommended, take it in and get a trade on something else, let them deal with it. I looked online and their inventory dont fit my budget. but you should have heard me lauging when i thought about it...thanks dan.

the nuclear powered car wash

as most of you know, I do work in a plant making electricity. that's not really what this post is about. it is really about digging out the front ditch at my house. it is about 50 feet long and the previous owner had the forsight to line it with brick. the red kind that houses are made of. so i took my new wheelbarrow and went to town. the facts are this, I moved 15 loads of wash, consisting of road gravel, sediment and other organics. each load was about 5 cubic feet, with a cubic foot weighting about 75 pounds. do the math and you get 5625 pounds of dirt. the funny part about this "hole" thing is that as I started hauling the dirt off in about the second load, I started singing about "not getting rich but being better than diggin a ditch" that's right the carwash song. the thing that made me laugh was that by load 10, the neighbour, who was working in her yard too, had pulled her truck up and turned on her fave radio station.....really loud. So, working at the plant as a hourly employee (this year) may not make me rich, but man, it is so much easier than that...

pictures when I get them uploaded.

why I like swing/third shift

When you get home, you don't have to go to bed when the news comes on. Actually, you are EXPECTED to stay up late.....hence Craig Ferguson and the late/late/show. Hilarious (don’t think that I didn’t spell check that).

THANK GOD THAT IT IS OVER!!!!!!!!!

American IDLE is finally over. The joy is a double-edged sword, I have a low tolerance for the TV drama/reality/whatever/krap and on the other hand I can play Call of Duty as much as I want when the FAM is tied up with Simon, Paula, Randy and the lot. Actually, I found that the public results almost line up with my opinions this season. At least the right David won. My real fave was the Irish girl, the accent kills me.

my wife is so cool

so, we were getting all of the pictures off of the digital cameras, getting dinner ready and taking care of getting Jack, Hannah and B where they needed to be and I seriously needed a nap. one of the problems I had getting the weekly Jack uploaded was that the picture on the camera was sideways. she reorientated and uploaded it (while i was napping), along with the word doc that i was working on. so cool, and for all of you that want to know how you stay married for like a thousand (23) years, she did that for me while she was at least mildly annoied with me (more like hugely pissed). the picture is from the upload she did.

YOU ARE THE BEST, K....................!

the monday Jack

Yes, I know that it is Wednesday. I am just coming off of 6 weeks of an outage. For those of you that are not familiar with this term, it means that the power plant where I work was shutdown for refueling and maintenance. The typical schedule is 12 hrs a day 6 days a week. The overtime is awesome but spending that much time at work is… well, less than awesome. So my first day off this week (yesterday) I spent in the yard and goofing around the house. Today is the same, except that Jack is at home, not feeling well. And Kathy decided to “work from home” today to take care of us. As I have found the patch cord for the camera, I can upload the weekly picture of Jack. The little guy is Jack, big bro Brady.

My Angel

So, In an attmpt to not let every post be about the youngest, Jack. I have decided to post some about my angel. She keeps us on our toes and is a wonderful girl. The picture is of her and boy cat, enjoy.

welcome

I decided to start this blog to allow me to get pictures and news about the newest addition to my family (Jack) and then decided it might be fun to just randomly blog away....... we'll see