Well good news first. I found Huck. It took about 3 days, but we got him. Im pretty sure that some punk kids down the street lured him out or flat out took him from our yard, and since he was able to squeeze through the fence it wasn't too hard. My take on it is this: the kids got him and took him home tellin mom and dad "we just found him out on the road, can we keep him!?" but then the mom or dad saw the sign up on the street (I plastered the neighborhood with em) and got wise to the situation and made em return the dog. Only thing I know..if I see some kids back there messin with any of those dogs again...bad news bears for them. So after we got Huck back (and Snickers has been jumping out of the fence now too) we had to repair the fence. It took a good while but me Kevin and Jason jumped on it and got it all straightened out. Now he cant get out anymore. Snickers is still getting out, but he's older and just stays around the house so thats not as critical. We plan on fixing that here soon too.
A couple weeks ago I went to athens and that was a lot of fun. It was an absolutely beautiful weekend, so i was outside for a good bit. We went to some funhouse place that had all these games and i did some putt-putt and lazertag. And now my time to brag....I totally owned at the putt putt owning to the principle that consistancy pays off, I only had 1 hole in one to someone elses 3 buut I also had birdies on pretty much the rest, to their 4's or 6's. So after being the champion of that (hey its the small victories in life) we decided to test our skills in the laser tag arena. It was a 3 v 3 no holds barred rumble in the BRONX! Okay so maybe not the bronx..and no jacki chan...or crappy dubbings. Anyways. I believe our team one and I ended up being The Terminator! It was fun.
Saturday me and cunado played some frisbee golf because it was so nice outside. Later on in the day was Ashley's birthday so we went out to eat and then came back to their place and had a 'rave, clubbin, glowstick' party thing. It was a lot of fun, and really crazy with all of the strobe lights and everything. Sunday was more hangin outside and then I headed home in the evening.
Most of the weeks have just been work. It's going pretty good. Ive been working on a radiation shielding calculation for one of the areas in the facility. Its good to have work to do, makes the day go by faster. Altho overall I think were a little slow right now-so its kind of like "what do i do now?" i feel bad just sitting there surfin the computer lol I dont want to get in trouble or anything. The job is good though..I think I'll want to go back to the DIA though in like a couple years or something. If i can get into a different directorate that would be pretty cool, and especially if i can get deployed. Working there just makes me feel like what Im doing really has an impact and it makes my job feel a little more..fulfilling..I guess. We'll see how it goes.
This weekend is just gonna be relaxing. Im so happy for this wonderful weather! They do say rain is comin in so thats gonna stink. Im gonna try an get out to the farm to do some hog hunting, maybe have some bbq on sunday! Tomorrow is trivia night with tara an her friends which is fun, not only for the hanging out but also for 'Helga's' the place we go to haha
ok off to shoot some discs with the bro.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
My Middle Name is 'Todd', not 'Fart'
Last Tuesday was my first day of work. Monday I couldn't go in because SRNS (Savannah River Nuclear Solutions), who control a lot of operations of SRS (Savannah River Site). It can seem a little confusing. SRS is govt owned land by the DOE, so DOE has sole responsibility over it. However, it is controlled and ran by SRNS-the primary contractor. There is also SRNL which is the DOE lab that does a lof of research and other things for the DOE. The rest are all subcontractors-like who I work for. I work for The Shaw Group Environmental & Infrastructure, but am on what is called The MOX Project, which is headed up by Shaw-Areva. Shaw-Areva is a LLC company that was formed to build a Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Areva is a French nuclear company, and they have already built facilities like these before (La Hague and MELOX) so they have some experience; also considering that they have had no major accidents with reprocessing...ever. So they have teamed up with us, and we have taken most of their design added some of our US flair, so as to comply with our regulations and our performance factors, etc.
Now some folks may be asking:
-Whats this MOX thing?
Well heres some more nerd stuff (whether your interested in it or not) Mixed Oxide Fuel is just a mixture of Plutonium-239, 241 and Uranium-238, 235 to use as fuel in light water reactors (I'll save reactor types for another day..if your that interested).
-So where does this Plutonium you speak of come from?
Glad you asked. What we do is take nuclear warheads from our stockpile that we are trying to diminish and the nice people out at Pantex in Amarillo, TX take em mostly apart (which is totally cool btw I had the awesome pleasure of meeting them while in DC and learning all about it, but if i told ya then yes i truely would have to end your life) Then we get these Pu 'pits' delivered to our facility. We take out the Pu and reprocess it, through what is called aqueous processing. Its using a lot of nitric acid variants and organic solvents. Basically in the end we have nice clean mostly pure Pu-239. This is then ground up and mixed with the U238 that we have shipped to us too. We sinter it all together in pellets, pack it into rods, put the rods in assemblies and then voilà! (as the french would say) you have yourself fuel for reactor plants!
-Great we got fuel, big twow. Whats the use? Why is this any better?
Well there are some definite advantages to MOX fuel. First, MOX fuel will help deplete our nuclear warhead stockpile. Which is awesome. Any nuclear engineer that is for nuclear warfare or warheads or whatnot shouldnt be a nuclear engineer-cause they know what it does and the atrocities associated with it. Thats almost reason enough for it. But wait, theres more! Using MOX Fuel also helps prevent proliferation of nuclear material so no terrorist can come around and steal some Pu and make a dirty bomb or really low yield device. This is also a really big stepping stone for the US towards fuel reprocessing and closing the nuclear cycle. Currently we are on a "Once-Thru" cycle which means we use fuel rods and when they are 'spent' we put them in a box and lock em away (think Yucca Mtn). This is by far the most stupid thing ever! Back in the day Former President Jimmy Carter (who is himself a nuclear engineer no less!) more or less 'banned' the reprocessing of fuel and stuck us into this once thru cycle. It makes no sense! Along with other nuclear legislature he single-handidly brought the advancement of the commercial nuclear power age to a skretching halt. Thankfully this is slowly changing. If we can reprocess fuel then waste would go down at an incredible rate (no more need for Yucca!) So by having this facility we are at the forefront of the change of the nuclear age in the USA. Its nothing terribly new though, other people in the world most notably the French have been doing this (and extremely successfully!)
-Okay, Im really losing my interest in this, like seriously dude. Your freakin me out with all this geek speak. So all I want to know is, what are you actually doing there?
Currently, the facility is still in the construction phase. We're about 30% done, I think. What I do in the project is work on the Radiation Protection Team (and I will probably bounce over to the Criticality Team too). Its me and 2 others and we are making sure that the facility is properly shielded to reduce radiation exposure. This is mainly for when the workers are there, but we also have to look towards when it is deactivated too. So anything that has radiation around it, or could in a disaster situation, we must look at and figure out what the exposure would be and what we can do to keep it low. We also design the monitoring systems and devices to make sure we're always within ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) which every good nukee should know. That is more or less what I will be doing. Then after the facility is constructed, and if Im still there, then I will be part of the same team just more of a engineering monitoring approach.
Alright so that has been really long, but thats about me job. Its pretty cool, because I can go out onto the construction site which is literally right outside and see it all come together. Its also very hectic because a lot of people are working on the designing of this. So you might get a task done with one set of plans only to find out that the plans have changed...3 more times since. Its a good paycheck tho so Im fine with that for now! I got good benefits..I even set up my retirement plan yesterday! I plan on that after I pay off my loans to put in 20% and then I could be retired by 45! We'll see if I can keep that up haha. I work Mon-Thurs 10 hours a day so I have Fridays off. My drive to work is about 40 min in the morning which is a little longer than I wanted, but its 40 min of just basically straight driving, not much traffic so its not stressful. So in a way its like 12 hour days, but oh well. SRS is way out in the middle of freakin nowhere and it is also over 320 square miles so its not like you can live 5 min from work.
Huck is getting bigger. He ate his first puppy food the other day (in his very own puppy bowl), and walked up the stairs for the first time! It took a ton of coaxing and him struggling as hard as he could, but he was determined and finally made it! He's got good energy, he likes to bite alot so im gonna have to straighten that one out. House breaking him is going to be hard I can already tell..but hopefully I can do it. I need to go back to the store and get him some chew bones, treats, a collar. His body looks very daschund but his head is more lab. He sort of looks funny actually, Im skeptical that he'll get pretty tall but he is still young. And either way, Im gonna have to keep him. The little guys grown on me, what can I say.
Augusta has been fine so far. Not been doing much. I come home from work and just want to sit and do nothing cause its been a long day. Today some guys came over and we hung out had some drinks and played wii. They're either married or have a gf, with the exception of me and kevin, so they dont care so much about like 'going out' or whatever to very social places, and I of course am not doing that by myself. Its alright for now though because I have more stuff to take care of like get carpet laid down, get my furniture here, unpack everything. So having a social life should be put on the back burner I guess, right?
So I had to sit through my training class on Tuesday and miss the inauguration! It was sooo dumb. The 10 hour class I could have completed in 30 minutes. I could have walked in, flipped throught the book and probably scored a 100 on the test. Instead I had to sit there and listen to this guy go on and drone about everything for 10 hours. Then I took the test, and made a 100. He acted surprised, I was like Seriously!? There were a lot of other....not well educated folks though, so thats probably why it took so long. It had some general employee training parts so all folks on the MOX Project do it including all the construction laborers. So there were some people there that, ya know, had a little trouble reading and stuff-you could tell some probably didnt make it to high school even. It made it a little frustrating having to sit there all day, but safety is definitely first and especially when it comes to this facility so I see the merit. Anyways, when I finally got home I hoped on the ole intranet and watched the whole thing online. It was pretty cool. Im excited to see what Obama can do. I really hope that he's got what it takes and can help turn around the economy, foreign relations, energy crisis, etc of our country. Its stupid how some people are still all mad about him winning and hate him or whatever-it aint gonna change anything! Get over it! Support him! Support America! I wish him the best because I wish America the best. Sidenote: my advice to every human being is to read I Am America (And So Can You!) by Steven Colbert. You will not cease laughing and in the end....be completely unchanged by it.
This may have been my longest post yet. Im surprised your still here with me! So i'll leave you know with a little word of wisdom:
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons because, to them, you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Now some folks may be asking:
-Whats this MOX thing?
Well heres some more nerd stuff (whether your interested in it or not) Mixed Oxide Fuel is just a mixture of Plutonium-239, 241 and Uranium-238, 235 to use as fuel in light water reactors (I'll save reactor types for another day..if your that interested).
-So where does this Plutonium you speak of come from?
Glad you asked. What we do is take nuclear warheads from our stockpile that we are trying to diminish and the nice people out at Pantex in Amarillo, TX take em mostly apart (which is totally cool btw I had the awesome pleasure of meeting them while in DC and learning all about it, but if i told ya then yes i truely would have to end your life) Then we get these Pu 'pits' delivered to our facility. We take out the Pu and reprocess it, through what is called aqueous processing. Its using a lot of nitric acid variants and organic solvents. Basically in the end we have nice clean mostly pure Pu-239. This is then ground up and mixed with the U238 that we have shipped to us too. We sinter it all together in pellets, pack it into rods, put the rods in assemblies and then voilà! (as the french would say) you have yourself fuel for reactor plants!
-Great we got fuel, big twow. Whats the use? Why is this any better?
Well there are some definite advantages to MOX fuel. First, MOX fuel will help deplete our nuclear warhead stockpile. Which is awesome. Any nuclear engineer that is for nuclear warfare or warheads or whatnot shouldnt be a nuclear engineer-cause they know what it does and the atrocities associated with it. Thats almost reason enough for it. But wait, theres more! Using MOX Fuel also helps prevent proliferation of nuclear material so no terrorist can come around and steal some Pu and make a dirty bomb or really low yield device. This is also a really big stepping stone for the US towards fuel reprocessing and closing the nuclear cycle. Currently we are on a "Once-Thru" cycle which means we use fuel rods and when they are 'spent' we put them in a box and lock em away (think Yucca Mtn). This is by far the most stupid thing ever! Back in the day Former President Jimmy Carter (who is himself a nuclear engineer no less!) more or less 'banned' the reprocessing of fuel and stuck us into this once thru cycle. It makes no sense! Along with other nuclear legislature he single-handidly brought the advancement of the commercial nuclear power age to a skretching halt. Thankfully this is slowly changing. If we can reprocess fuel then waste would go down at an incredible rate (no more need for Yucca!) So by having this facility we are at the forefront of the change of the nuclear age in the USA. Its nothing terribly new though, other people in the world most notably the French have been doing this (and extremely successfully!)
-Okay, Im really losing my interest in this, like seriously dude. Your freakin me out with all this geek speak. So all I want to know is, what are you actually doing there?
Currently, the facility is still in the construction phase. We're about 30% done, I think. What I do in the project is work on the Radiation Protection Team (and I will probably bounce over to the Criticality Team too). Its me and 2 others and we are making sure that the facility is properly shielded to reduce radiation exposure. This is mainly for when the workers are there, but we also have to look towards when it is deactivated too. So anything that has radiation around it, or could in a disaster situation, we must look at and figure out what the exposure would be and what we can do to keep it low. We also design the monitoring systems and devices to make sure we're always within ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) which every good nukee should know. That is more or less what I will be doing. Then after the facility is constructed, and if Im still there, then I will be part of the same team just more of a engineering monitoring approach.
Alright so that has been really long, but thats about me job. Its pretty cool, because I can go out onto the construction site which is literally right outside and see it all come together. Its also very hectic because a lot of people are working on the designing of this. So you might get a task done with one set of plans only to find out that the plans have changed...3 more times since. Its a good paycheck tho so Im fine with that for now! I got good benefits..I even set up my retirement plan yesterday! I plan on that after I pay off my loans to put in 20% and then I could be retired by 45! We'll see if I can keep that up haha. I work Mon-Thurs 10 hours a day so I have Fridays off. My drive to work is about 40 min in the morning which is a little longer than I wanted, but its 40 min of just basically straight driving, not much traffic so its not stressful. So in a way its like 12 hour days, but oh well. SRS is way out in the middle of freakin nowhere and it is also over 320 square miles so its not like you can live 5 min from work.
Huck is getting bigger. He ate his first puppy food the other day (in his very own puppy bowl), and walked up the stairs for the first time! It took a ton of coaxing and him struggling as hard as he could, but he was determined and finally made it! He's got good energy, he likes to bite alot so im gonna have to straighten that one out. House breaking him is going to be hard I can already tell..but hopefully I can do it. I need to go back to the store and get him some chew bones, treats, a collar. His body looks very daschund but his head is more lab. He sort of looks funny actually, Im skeptical that he'll get pretty tall but he is still young. And either way, Im gonna have to keep him. The little guys grown on me, what can I say.
Augusta has been fine so far. Not been doing much. I come home from work and just want to sit and do nothing cause its been a long day. Today some guys came over and we hung out had some drinks and played wii. They're either married or have a gf, with the exception of me and kevin, so they dont care so much about like 'going out' or whatever to very social places, and I of course am not doing that by myself. Its alright for now though because I have more stuff to take care of like get carpet laid down, get my furniture here, unpack everything. So having a social life should be put on the back burner I guess, right?
So I had to sit through my training class on Tuesday and miss the inauguration! It was sooo dumb. The 10 hour class I could have completed in 30 minutes. I could have walked in, flipped throught the book and probably scored a 100 on the test. Instead I had to sit there and listen to this guy go on and drone about everything for 10 hours. Then I took the test, and made a 100. He acted surprised, I was like Seriously!? There were a lot of other....not well educated folks though, so thats probably why it took so long. It had some general employee training parts so all folks on the MOX Project do it including all the construction laborers. So there were some people there that, ya know, had a little trouble reading and stuff-you could tell some probably didnt make it to high school even. It made it a little frustrating having to sit there all day, but safety is definitely first and especially when it comes to this facility so I see the merit. Anyways, when I finally got home I hoped on the ole intranet and watched the whole thing online. It was pretty cool. Im excited to see what Obama can do. I really hope that he's got what it takes and can help turn around the economy, foreign relations, energy crisis, etc of our country. Its stupid how some people are still all mad about him winning and hate him or whatever-it aint gonna change anything! Get over it! Support him! Support America! I wish him the best because I wish America the best. Sidenote: my advice to every human being is to read I Am America (And So Can You!) by Steven Colbert. You will not cease laughing and in the end....be completely unchanged by it.
This may have been my longest post yet. Im surprised your still here with me! So i'll leave you know with a little word of wisdom:
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons because, to them, you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
update about the new job, dog, etc coming shortly.
Im just very tired right now. Im essentially working 12 hour days (but only 4 of them!...for now)
Im just very tired right now. Im essentially working 12 hour days (but only 4 of them!...for now)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
"All Kings is Mostly Rapscallions"
Alright so as promised, here is a picture of the pup that I'm gonna be taking:
His name is Huckleberry (or will be as soon as he learns it). He is only 5 weeks old now, so he's still staying outside with his mother. I'm not so sure how big he'll get seeing as he's mixed dachshund, labrador, and something else like setter. I think he'll be sorta small but still big enough to be able to go out with me and keep up. In a week or so he'll be good enough to be away from his momma and then the real work is going to begin. Thats what Im not looking forward to. Its gonna be expensive! I gotta get a crate and food and stuff and get him vaccinated and fixed. Thats just the logistical part. Then its the training. Tryin to house break him is going to be pretty hard. I'm still debating on what to do. Because I'll be at work all day, somedays kevin will be here (but I dont want to put takin care of the dog on him cause he already has 3 others) But Im also not so keen on leaving him outside all day long-that'll just ruin his training especially runnin around picking up the other dogs bad habits. I'll just have to hash it all out-talk with kevin about it see what he thinks. Either way though I'm excited. I know after about 6 months or so he should (hopefully!) be house broken and well trained and that I'll be better for it.
Huck is basically the cutest little pup ever. Ive been tryin to play with him some-its a little hard cause of his attention span and also the mother is still kinda crazy. He likes to run up to me though and bite on my shoes and roll around. Earlier he was sittin down behind Hershey (a pretty big dog) and got a little interested in his tail (its sorta like a german shephards). So Huck starts biting at it and then gets a good grip and starts doin a tug o war against Hershey's tail. Surprisingly, he took it fairly well for about a minute, but after that he was pretty fed up with it and gave him a nice shrug of.
Alright thats alot o writin for me so far. Maybe now since I have a dog it'll make my life a little more interesting and I'll be able to talk more on here about that.
In the words of Mac Daddy McDee, "Ooh, we shall see...."
Huck is basically the cutest little pup ever. Ive been tryin to play with him some-its a little hard cause of his attention span and also the mother is still kinda crazy. He likes to run up to me though and bite on my shoes and roll around. Earlier he was sittin down behind Hershey (a pretty big dog) and got a little interested in his tail (its sorta like a german shephards). So Huck starts biting at it and then gets a good grip and starts doin a tug o war against Hershey's tail. Surprisingly, he took it fairly well for about a minute, but after that he was pretty fed up with it and gave him a nice shrug of.
Alright thats alot o writin for me so far. Maybe now since I have a dog it'll make my life a little more interesting and I'll be able to talk more on here about that.
In the words of Mac Daddy McDee, "Ooh, we shall see...."
Monday, January 12, 2009
I miss Dwight Derrick. Congratulations, universe. You win.
I know thats what all y'all are saying. but dont worry..I wont let on that I know.
Im finally moved to augusta. Its has been a not quite hectic but still felt like it has been couple of weeks. I was able to get all my stuff packed up and sorted through and still be able to hangout with friends before I left. Since Christmas I'll try an recap stuff that has happened. I did see Valkyrie and it ended up being a really awesome movie. I would recommend seeing it. A week or so ago I went to see Slumdog Millionaire with Jessica. Its an Indian Indie Film (that just sounds pretty funny to me) While being somewhat predictable, I still found the movie enthralling and really good. I went to taco mac a whole bunch throughout my break-probably 4 or 5 times a week and waho even more. There just wasnt much else to do around town. I got to see and hangout with a lot of people though, like fletcher mary andy tara mohua sonny patrick. I went up to tech and hungout with steph and totally gorged myself on cheesecake factory. It was worth it, but the pizza I ate afterwards when I got home was not worth it. I went and watched the national champion game with jessica over at my friends apartment. I figured the Gators would win, but I wanted to see OSU take it. Oh well. Heisman winners just can't seem to take the national championship. The last one to do it in a long time (or maybe even ever..not sure) was Leinart with USC. Anyways, it was a good game and we had a good time. The other day I went down to Senoia (pronounced suh-noah not pronounce see-noi-ah) to this little underground pub called Maguires. It was aweosme. I got what they called a Dublin Burger which if they actually served in Dublin would be quite awesome. it was a burger with mashed potatoes gravy and onion ring on it. Could you want anything more in life? I submit you cannot! So it was that and about 4 or 5 guinnesses later and we left to go to taco mac to hit up their last call. It was good cause I ended up getting a free beer (benefits of knowing the bar-tender i guess? Or she just felt bad because i've been in there waayy too much haha)
Yesterday I moved out to augusta. the place is awesome. kevin is a great guy. i think im keepin the puppy thats out here if i want (im gonna name him huckleberry) I start work next tuesday. I think I might go back to Tech this weekend just to hangout a little bit more, and my rents are suppose to give me a bed frame. We'll see. I took some pictures of the puppy so I'll try an upload some here. He's basically the cutest dog ever.
Im finally moved to augusta. Its has been a not quite hectic but still felt like it has been couple of weeks. I was able to get all my stuff packed up and sorted through and still be able to hangout with friends before I left. Since Christmas I'll try an recap stuff that has happened. I did see Valkyrie and it ended up being a really awesome movie. I would recommend seeing it. A week or so ago I went to see Slumdog Millionaire with Jessica. Its an Indian Indie Film (that just sounds pretty funny to me) While being somewhat predictable, I still found the movie enthralling and really good. I went to taco mac a whole bunch throughout my break-probably 4 or 5 times a week and waho even more. There just wasnt much else to do around town. I got to see and hangout with a lot of people though, like fletcher mary andy tara mohua sonny patrick. I went up to tech and hungout with steph and totally gorged myself on cheesecake factory. It was worth it, but the pizza I ate afterwards when I got home was not worth it. I went and watched the national champion game with jessica over at my friends apartment. I figured the Gators would win, but I wanted to see OSU take it. Oh well. Heisman winners just can't seem to take the national championship. The last one to do it in a long time (or maybe even ever..not sure) was Leinart with USC. Anyways, it was a good game and we had a good time. The other day I went down to Senoia (pronounced suh-noah not pronounce see-noi-ah) to this little underground pub called Maguires. It was aweosme. I got what they called a Dublin Burger which if they actually served in Dublin would be quite awesome. it was a burger with mashed potatoes gravy and onion ring on it. Could you want anything more in life? I submit you cannot! So it was that and about 4 or 5 guinnesses later and we left to go to taco mac to hit up their last call. It was good cause I ended up getting a free beer (benefits of knowing the bar-tender i guess? Or she just felt bad because i've been in there waayy too much haha)
Yesterday I moved out to augusta. the place is awesome. kevin is a great guy. i think im keepin the puppy thats out here if i want (im gonna name him huckleberry) I start work next tuesday. I think I might go back to Tech this weekend just to hangout a little bit more, and my rents are suppose to give me a bed frame. We'll see. I took some pictures of the puppy so I'll try an upload some here. He's basically the cutest dog ever.
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