Monday, December 29, 2008

Short and Sweet

Morning off, and what a break so far! Amazing how the mind has a way of forgetting that thick slab of responsibility that weighs down upon you during the work week. Hell, all the days just run together now! 

Fantastic gifts and time with the fam, hitting up the regular joints with the guys, a taste of Narey's 19th Hole too. Progress at the lodge and some decent temps to boot. Saturday morning, a pretty decent ice storm came through but I didn't let it interfere with our Cedar Rapids plans. Hit up a 1/2 price tag sale (bust) and stocked up on supplies for the week at Menards, then headed down to the ReStore and a couple carpet outlets for blood red commercial stuff with Cara. Got pretty darn close to the right hue and totally cashed in at the restore. Limped our way home on the icy interstate in time to get ready to meet Ben down at the PL, and a drop-in by Bergman. Shot some semi-decent pool but loused up the final shot on singles and handed the game over to last week's chump by sinking his second to last ball. Sunday, a full day at the lodge. Cara and I drug 150lbs of sand in on a sled, then broke up the frozen slabs over the kero heater on a galvanized garbage can lid while moving this, that and the other around inside. By the end of the day we had the swale leveled, plastic barrier in place, underlayment down and the dining area floor installed complete. Suffice it to say, we were beat come nightfall. This afternoon? A little downstairs drywall and some garage door work.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Cincinnati WKRP (Dec 22nd Update)

Maybe it's just me, but it seems a helluva lot colder this winter than last. It was an honest -10F on my drive in this morning. Cold enough that the car never quite warmed up. Toes falling off and all that. Same deal yesterday. Driving all over the valley and you'd let the car run in the parking lot hoping the interior would rise above the Tepid mark. But that's Iowa in the winter.
 
Knowing that Sunday's forecast was going to be wicked cold (high of 4 below) I resigned to taking Friday afternoon off to pick up my list of supplies and get a jump at the lodge to counter losing Sunday. Things went well enough in that department. By the time I got home and changed I had a stack of 4x8 foam, a dozen 10' beveled cedar boards, 2 pairs of garage door track and other necessities all sticking out the back end of the rig. Keep in mind, we took on 10-12 inches of snow by that morning and making it across the field to the lodge seemed like a fool's mission. At least it hadn't drifted yet, but out there without any windbreaks the stuff really layers. With weak tires and 4-Hi I kept on it and somehow carved my way in. Unloaded the goods and worked until dark on building the west garage door. Escaped with a little light on the horizon and high-tailed it in to meet up with Ben. With the PL packed beyond reason we had a drink and took off for The Hydrant for decent fries and overpriced beer (yes, I was charged $3 for a can of Old Style, this after the bartendress swore she heard me say "Busch Light" and opened a bottle). And who should be warming up the karoake crowd? The infamous Fernando. Despite my prodding I couldn't get Ben to sing Out of Touch. We parted ways shortly after 11; I had a big day ahead.
 
While Sunday was sleep-in/run-around day due to the temps, we were up bright and early Saturday for a sale over in Waterloo. Got our numbers, grabbed some breakfast, stopped at a tag sale where I scored a Philco tombstone for 5 bucks. Then the action! Unassuming little 50's ranch. The boomerang formica was kicka$$, the blonde table and chairs were probably worth the 2-bills. Cara found much to like, as did I. I walked off with some beautiful kitchen smalls, including a Cory Jubilee percolator- practically NOS, and a Futuramic electric skillet (the one that looks like a flying saucer). A 50+ year old galvanized trash can (heavy gauge steel, thick plating) that had never been used and still had the purchase tag (date and price) from Black's Dept Store tied up to the handle. Other stuff ran the gamut from vintage bbq skewers to an MCM table lamp. Some walnut dishes with original hanging tag, pink strippled drinking glasses, etc. etc. You know you're biased to Iowa prices when you pass up an Oster Galaxy blender in mint condition because it's priced at 8 bucks. By this time the snow was coming down and we were loading up our finds when I decided to investigate the little brass leg I spotted earlier sticking through a snowbank out front. Supposedly a heap of "trash" underthere, I was pretty sure I was looking at the end of a pole lamp, and sure enough, after a lot of pounding and digging I came up with a beauty. Brass with wood accents but the pole portion needs a good refinishing. Definitely not "trash". Cara scored a very nice ladies hat in the old-skool hatbox, a silk scarf and some interesting books.
 
From there to the parents for the next adventure. I knew the weather was headed our way and pretty much figured  this would be the last pass of the season. Once the winds would come that night the field lane would be gone. So….with some assistance, we loaded the Blazer with a mighty ton of laminate flooring that I had stockpiled. Plus a 5gal can of fuel for the gen, and anything else that would be impractical to carry on foot the next few months. It was starting to snow and the roads were getting stupid-slick. Cara held down the apt while I headed out. Finding my tracks in was tricky when everything was white. But I made it again, unloaded the hefty flooring and got the truck out as soon as it was empty. Parked it at the Rotary and started walking in as the winds were coming up. I should've figured that was a bad idea, what with encountering an undisturbed blanket of snow a foot deep all the way in. Each slow and deliberate step sank me all the way to gravel. I could find the rails with my feet but they were too slick to walk on. But stuff needed to get done.
 
Once inside I had a blast. I had the radio on, the gen running, the kero heater to warm my hands. Tackled more garage door construction (adhering the skins to the frame) and wired in the under-loft bullet lights. With blizard warnings coming more frequently on the radio and temps starting to drop pretty good, I closed up shop at 7PM. The walk back out in the darkness seemed like miles. The wind had set up a number of drifts and was whipping across the fields in a way you only see outside the city limits. Slugging through the thick snow was not any easier the second time around. I questioned turning back but knew I needed to get to some sort of heat source quickly, the wind chill starting to take a toll on my extremities. A little overdramatic? Maybe. But it sure had the makings of a Jon Voight flick.
 
Monday? A high of 5F means no venturing out there for me, and more snow to come, too. Looks like I get to shovel the roof Tuesday after work. Rock on!

 

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Corpulent Cloisters

Odd weekend. But aren't they all. The weekdays seemed to crawl by; days of mixed enthusiasm and...trying. I had spent the week nights at the lodge, as usual, trying to finish up the west fascias. Because of the importance of getting them installed razor-straight, the actual "putting up" and adjusting was reserved for the weekend when there was plenty of light. Though I decided to head into work an hour or more early on Thursday so I could capture a little afternoon sun to get part of the lower boards installed. Not all-together a bad thing; I find getting up unreasonably early every once in a while helps reset my ever-creeping internal clock. Friday afternoon couldn't come soon enough and I met up with Ben after work at The Library for a really great Cuban with coleslaw. From there, usual antics with him and Cam down at the PL. Not sure if it was our robust "discussions" or the pool playing chumps but something felt a bit off kilter by the end of the night.
 
Gorgeous temps and sun on Saturday. Of course the downside was melting snow and water getting blown in my face off the roof by the high winds. Perils of the bucket. Managed to get everything straightened out, routered and fastened. Metal flashing will complete the top. That leaves the front fascias (and soffits) which don't need to be finished _right now_. One of the greatest things you can take away from all of the soffit/fascia/roofing experiences on the lodge is that flat roof structures require great planning and/or great strength. Gabled roofs only reveal the bottom edge of their structure. Everything else hides under coarse shingles. With a flat roof with great overhangs, droop sticks out like a sore thumb. It's tough to venture around town now without noticing the tell-tale sags of time. Of course, this is a common phenomenon above double garage doors in the pre-LVL/truss days.
 
Continued with interior indecision and finished up some metal work with aligning (and installing) the intersecting railing upright upstairs as the sun went down. Thanks chop saw! Home for a warm shower and some design work. Calculated the needed VCT for the washer area and put the finishing touches on Cold Storage 2 concept. Oh, and a nice pizza and Goodfellas, which for some reason I thought was better than it was. Note: It's not.
 
Sunday, the standard bag of goodness- laundry and all that. And shopping. Hit the mall, spent some money, continued my pursuit of Leupold binoculars, shopped for mattresses, etc. etc. Cara about jumped out of her shoes when she saw Old Chicago was coming to fill the Texas Roadhouse void. By this time temps had dropped to some unreasonable number and we fought to get back to the car. Agreed on a mattress that wasn't offered in the showrooms (and much less than the overpriced junk they all seem to peddle).
 
Monday then, ordered the mattress. Picked up a mid 50's GE combination fridge, a Frigidaire flair wall oven, 200lbs of vinyl tile in the front seat, took care of some banking, dropped in on a UNI auction west of town at the old dairy, forgot to stop by an overhead door provider for track, unloaded the goods and made it home to change and head up to Waverly for a work xmas party. Not a bad time at that.
 
Update: Tuesday post work. Snow was really piling up and the plows couldn't keep the streets clean. All the idiots found their car keys. And the snow kept on coming. Probably the worst I've seen this year. Inspected fabrics at Hancock, worked out a deal at the local lighting store, went through all the grasscloth samples at the local wall-sheather and made a couple notes, then stopped in at Christie Door co and bewildered the staff. 

I'm ready for a break where I can actually spend some time at the lodge and tackle the big stuff.

Monday, December 8, 2008

A Week of Sundays

Mother nature's cruel axe has finally fallen. We've got the kind of snow that'll be sticking around a while and the single-digit temps that turn hands into frozen ham-hocks in no time flat. But it's not all a bleak and dreary outlook. In fact, we took the opportunity to go out for a long awaited dinner Friday night to the Hickory House. The ribs had never tasted so good. Baked potato smothered in melted butter. The bread basket and relish tray. Ice tea and a Manhattan. Dark and warm inside with the wind and snow blowing madly outdoors. Life is good.
 
Saturday was put to excellent use. Lodge-work all day long. Thawed the paint out over the kero heater. Alternated between final-coating fascia boards upstairs, electrical wiring in the kitchen and installing the west-side soffits. Without a pair of work gloves I would've been sunk out there. The wind up in that bucket was something else. Called it a night an hour or two after dark and came in for a hot shower, cold beer and made myself some dinner. I had the place to myself so decided to make the best of it. Figured I'd watch 2001. 25th Anniversary release with trailer and archive features spread out over 6 sides of CAV laserdiscs. The quality was stunning.
 
Never seen the movie before, never even delved into what it was about so I was seeing this totally fresh.
1. The special effects blew me away. Viewing this film on anything but the big screen is a huge disservice.  While not shot in true 3x35mm Cinerama, the original Super Panavision-70 comes about as close as you can get to wide-aspect (as Cinerama) when it was shot.*
 
2. 40 years provides a lot of time for cliches and ideas to be stolen from this film and repurposed into other movies and tv shows, in part or whole. I can only figure that my dissapointment with expecting "something more" from many of the sub plots is a direct result of others taking said ideas individually and exhausting them. Then again, running time is already pushing the limits for a general release.
 
3. The film ages very well. Sure, there's a lot of "mod" which I can tell you was still years away from being a pop culture novelty, but for the most part what you see is what you get. How much was luck (at how "extreme" the future would turn out to be) and how much was careful planning, I have no idea.
 
4. I would not put this film in the top-10 of all time. Yes, the special effects are top-notch (rivaling a lot of today's "so perfect it's fakey" CGI) and the film was radically different from the mainstream at release), but I can't help but think Kubrick is pulling one over on me. In fact, I was slightly pissed off at the ending. This is it? "Wrap up at least one sub-plot…please!" The simplist in me would ask "Did he run out of film or did he run out of funding?" Yes, I realize this is a thinking-man's movie and when all is said and done, we are left to our own conclusions. But I still am left with the impression that even if I were to navigate the maze to completion, I'd find nothing but cobwebs.
 
*My mom (who was in jr. high at the time) and her parents saw this film in 70mm Cinerama when it was originally released. When I mentioned it in passing this weekend she recalled how she's still bothered by the astronaut floating off into space, yet neither her nor my grandma recalled much else. I was more troubled by the life support systems of the 3 scientists on board, failing. Note- unlike typical 70mm presentations we're familiar with these days, a "70mm Cinerema" showing would wrap around you on a louvered screen to really draw you into the action.   More on the 2001 formats: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/brown1.html

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Delaying the Inevitable

Well, the temps are really taking a dive now and the snow accumulation in the country ensures that 4WD is the only way in. Or rather, out. Going in, gravity is your friend. Going out, you're reminded you need new tires. East soffits and fascias are done. Can I live with it? Dunno.
 
Things would be much easier with dedicated power. Yes, I do run a gen and a kerosene heater, but no temp regulation during the hours I'm not there means the water lines must remain drained, the downstairs hovers in the 30's and you still drag cords all over. Certainly much better than last winter, however. (post script- as of Saturday, the lines have froze)
 
BUT, the single digit lows are not helping. So, last night was movie night. The Deer Hunter. Knew nothing about the movie, never even heard of the film before. Let me tell you, only in the 70's. Modern eyes view the first third differently than in '78. Every brick building has smokestacks billowing thick black clouds. And you just know, 30 years later, odds are good every one of those buildings is gone. Everytime a car door opens, beer cans come rolling out. Worn out, rusted vehicles roam dirty, neglected streets. But that's the setup. That was normalcy. Steel plants and manufacturing in Anytown, USA. Acting and characters are top notch while at the same time coming off completely unpolished. Today's movies, even gritty pics, come off as crisp and clinical compared to a lot of this 70's stuff. I'm not just talking about the muted color and soft audio (and conservative use of music), but character development and frankly, direction, make it so. The middle starts to wander but you can't help but notice how the scene selection, angles and editing might as well be from someone's wedding reception video. Deliberate or not, hard to say. You get to the end of this story and you know things are not going to go well. 177 minutes. 3 full LD sides. Emotionally draining is right. Then again, could've been the vodka.
 
Cara came home with 10 minutes left. She's not a big fan of movies with bleak outcomes; her standard comparison is The Great Escape. "Worse than the great escape?" "Much, much worse." But only because I was drawn in. If you don't give it the opportunity or attention it needs, you might walk away with a big ol' shrug.
 
Either way, top notch film. Love DeNiro, love Walken. Currently putting it in my top 10. Whatever that means. 
 
 

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Note:

It appears the time-stamp on my entries is running a couple hours early. Home at 2:47PM? Yeah right!

A Lengthy Entry

Since I promised a good rundown on nuclear near-misses a while back, figured it was time to get things together. Something to think about, it's not always 3-Mile-Island type incidents. AND, whether you buy it or not, we came damn close far too often to something resembling the big one. While the list below is more mainstream and not specific cold-war incidents (I'll save that for another time), all it takes is one plane to have engine trouble over enemy territory or a technical malfunction giving the impression "we" or "they" are initiating attack, prompting retaliation. An animal setting off a perimeter fence alarm at a base that was cross-wired to the attack alarm system of other bases comes to mind. That one sent planes rushing down the runways. Another is an equipment failure at a distant phone relay station that all 3 "backup" communication systems happened to run through. For all intents, the base had been wiped off the face of the earth, taking all communication links with it.
 
Early on, both the USSR and the US realized that the only disuasion from nuclear war was the understanding of mutually assured destruction (MAD). While the arms race was taking off, assuring both sides had ample and advanced weaponry to take out the largest population centers possible, the real advancements were being made on the warning and detection systems, allowing adequate time for a full scale retaliation. Both Dr. Strangelove and even Wargames use many factual incidents in a seemingly "that can't happen" storyline. So many little things are over the top you think they're fiction. The "weapons" section below gives you a taste of actual events. And consider this…the hotline to Moscow wasn't established until a year after the Bay of Pigs Invasion- 1963! That said, there are much better lists out there for cold war bafoonery and mishaps, I'll get around to those sometime.
 
People forget there are a lot of "research reactors" out there too. I've done my best to whittle down a few choice incidents from a listing that would impress and bewilder. Some accidental, some pure negligence. How do you "lose" 234 pounds of enriched uranium?? Special thanks to lutins.org for the info. Here's a taste:
 
Research Facilities:
2 September 1944
Peter Bragg and Douglas Paul Meigs, two Manhattan Project chemists, were killed when their attempt to unclog a tube in a uranium enrichment device led to an explosion of radioactive uranium hexafluoride gas at the Naval Research Laboratory in Philadelphia, PA. The explosion ruptured nearby steam pipes, leading to a gas and steam combination that bathed the men in a scalding, radioactive, acidic cloud of gas which killed them a short while later.
26 July 1959
A clogged coolant channel resulted in a 30% reactor core meltdown at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (now known as the Boeing-Rocketdyne Nuclear Facility) in the Simi Hills area of Ventura County, California. Most of the radioactive fission products were trapped, but gasses were vented which resulted in the release of the third greatest amount of radioactive iodine-131 in nuclear history. The incident was largely covered up until a class-action suit was filed by local residents, who successfully sued for $30 million over cancer and thyroid abnormalities contracted due to their proximity to the facility.
1957
A radiation release at the the Keleket company resulted in a decontamination at a cost of $250,000. A capsule of radium salt (used for calibrating the radiation-measuring devices produced there) burst, contaminating the building for a full five months.
1986
The NRC revoked the license of a Radiation Technology, Inc. (RTI) plant in New Jersey for repeated worker safety violations. RTI was cited 32 times for various violations, including throwing radioactive garbage out with the regular trash. The most serious violation was bypassing a safety device to prevent people from entering the irradiation chamber during operation, resulting in a worker receiving a near-lethal dose of radiation.
 
 
Power Generation:
3 January 1961
A reactor explosion (attributed by a NRC source to sabotage) at the National Reactor Testing Station in Arco, Idaho, killed one navy technician and two army technicians, and released radioactivity "largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission) to the reactor building. The three men were killed as they moved fuel rods in a "routine" preparation for the reactor start-up. One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins.
Comment: I've seen pictures of this gruesome incident. When the vessel was blown apart, the control rod literally pinned the tech to the ceiling where he hung for days. Radiation is a relatively slow killer. Scalding, pressurized radioactive steam, not so much. If I recall, a team of men working in rotating shifts to limit exposure, were sent in to try to save the others and secure the station.
19 November 1971
The water storage space at the Northern States Power Company's reactor in Monticello, Minnesota filled to capacity and spilled over, dumping about 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River. Some was taken into the St. Paul water system.
March 1972
Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska submitted to the Congressional Record facts surrounding a routine check in a nuclear power plant which indicated abnormal radioactivity in the building's water system. Radioactivity was confirmed in the plant drinking fountain. Apparently there was an inappropriate cross-connection between a 3,000 gallon radioactive tank.
1981
The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that there were 4,060 mishaps and 140 serious events at nuclear power plants in 1981, up from 3,804 mishaps and 104 serious events the previous year.
Comment: FOUR THOUSAND!
11 February 1981
An Auxiliary Unit Operator, working his first day on the new job without proper training, inadvertently opened a valve which led to the contamination of eight men by 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee.
15-16 January 1983
Nearly 208,000 gallons of water with low-level radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River at the Browns Ferry power plant.
Comment: People are idiots.
 
Weapons:
Comment1: There's a lot here, I know. Trust me, I whittled this down!!
Comment2: This section blows my mind. The number of aircraft carrying nuclear weapons (armed or fail-safe) that crashed, had to jettison their payload, or outright disappeared is staggering! As of this date there are still nuclear "bombs" lost in the depths of the oceans and it's only a matter of time before their casings are compromised.
13 February 1950
A B-36 en route from Alaska to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, developed serious mechanical difficulties, complicated by severe icing conditions, leading to the world's first nuclear accident. The crew headed out over the Pacific Ocean and dropped the nuclear weapons from 8,000 feet off the coast of British Columbia. The weapons' high-explosive material detonated on impact, but the crew parachuted to safety.
Comment: As I mentioned in a previous post, it is possible for the explosive material to fire and not trigger a nuclear reaction if the payload is isolated, or if safety systems do their job. It IS possible to release low-levels of radiation if the core does catch fire.
10 November 1950
A B-50 en route to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, was forced to jettison a nuclear weapon over the St. Lawrence River near St. Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, Canada.
10 March 1956
A B-47 with two nuclear weapons aboard disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea after flying out of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. An exhaustive search failed to locate the aircraft, its weapons, nor its crew.
27 July 1956
A U.S. B-47 practicing a touch-and-go landing at Lakenheath Royal Air Force Station near Cambridge, England went out of control and smashed into a storage igloo housing three Mark 6 nuclear bombs, each of which had about 8,000 pounds of TNT in its trigger mechanism. No crewmen were killed, and fire fighters were able to extinguish the blazing jet fuel before it ignited the TNT.
22 May 1957
A 10 megaton hydrogen bomb was accidentally dropped from a bomber in an uninhabited area near Albuquerque, New Mexico owned by the University of New Mexico. The conventional explosives detonated, creating a 12 foot deep crater 25 feet across in which some radiation was detected.
28 July 1957
A C-124 Globemaster transporting three nuclear weapons and a nuclear capsule from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to Europe experienced loss of power in two engines. The crew jettisoned two of the weapons somewhere east of Rehobeth, Del., and Cape May/Wildwood, New Jersey. A search for the weapons was unsuccessful and it is a fair assumption that they still lie at the bottom of the ocean.
31 January 1958
Unbeknownst to Moroccan officials, a B-47 loaded with a fully-armed nuclear weapon collapsed and caught fire on the runway at a U.S. Strategic Air Command base 90 miles northeast of Rabat. The Air Force considered evacuating the base, but instead allowed the bomber to continue to burn for seven hours. During cleanup operations a large number of vehicles and aircraft were contaminated.
5 February 1958
A B-47 carrying a Mark 15, Mod 0, nuclear bomb on a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida collided with an F-86. After three unsuccessful attempts to land at Hunter Air Force Base in Georgia, the B-47 crew jettisoned the nuclear bomb into the Atlantic Ocean off Savannah. The Air Force conducted a nine-week search of a 3-square-mile area in Wassaw Sound where the bomb was dropped, but declared on April 16 that the bomb was irretrievably lost. The bomb was rediscovered in September 2004.
11 March 1958
A B-47 on its way from Hunter Air Force Base in Georgia to an overseas base accidentally dropped an unarmed nuclear weapon into the garden of Walter Gregg and his family in Mars Bluff, South Carolina. The conventional explosives detonated, destroying Gregg's house and injuring six family members. The blast resulted in the formation of a crater 50-70 feet wide and 25-30 feet deep. Five other houses and a church were also damaged; five months later the Air Force paid the Greggs $54,000 in compensation.
15 October 1959
A B-52 with two nuclear bombs collided in mid-air with a KC-135 jet tanker and crashed near Hardinsberg, Kentucky. Both bombs were recovered intact, but eight crewmembers lost their lives.
7 June 1960
A BOMARC-A nuclear missile burst into flames after its fuel tank was ruptured by the explosion of a high pressure helium tank at McGuire Air Force Base in New Egypt, New Jersey. The missile melted, causing plutonium contamination at the facility and in the ground water below.
21 January 1961
A B-52 bomber carrying one or more nuclear weapons disintegrated in midair following an engine fire and explosion approximately 10 miles north of Monticello, Utah, killing all five crewmembers.
24 January 1961
A B-52 bomber suffered structural failure and disintegrated in mid-air 12 miles north of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, NC, releasing two hydrogen bombs. Five crewmen parachuted to safety, while three others died when the aircraft exploded in mid-air. The bombs jettisoned as the plane descended, one parachuting to earth intact, the other plunging deep into waterlogged farmland. To this day, parts of the nuclear bomb remain embedded deep in the muck. The area is off-limits, and is tested regularly for radiation releases. 
8 December 1964
A B-58 slid off a runway at Bunker Hill (now Grissom) Air Force Base in Peru, Indiana. The resulting fire consumed portions of five onboard nuclear weapons, leading to radioactive contamination of the surrounding area.
5 December 1965
An A-4E aircraft accidentally fell overboard off the USS Toconderoga, with the loss of pilot LTJG D.M. Webster and a nuclear weapon. The incident, which occurred in the Pacific Ocean approximately 200 miles east of Okinawa, was not reported by the Department of Defense until 1981.
17 January 1966
A B-52 collided with an Air Force KC-135 jet tanker while refueling over the coast of Spain, killing eight of the eleven crew members and igniting the KC-135's 40,000 gallons of jet fuel. Two hydrogen bombs ruptured, scattering radioactive particles over the fields of Palomares; a third landed intact near the village of Palomares; the fourth was lost at sea 12 miles off the coast of Palomares and required a search by thousands of men working for three months to recover it. Approximately 1,500 tons of radioactive soil and tomato plants were removed to the U.S. for burial at a nuclear waste dump in Aiken, S.C. The U.S. eventually settled claims by 522 Palomares residents at a cost of $600,000, and gave the town the gift of a $200,000 desalinizing plant.
22 January 1968
A B-52 crashed 7 miles south of Thule Air Force Base in Greenland, scattering the radioactive fragments of three hydrogen bombs over the terrain and dropping one bomb into the sea after a fire broke out in the navigator's compartment. Contaminated ice and airplane debris were sent back to the U.S., with the bomb fragments going back to the manufacturer in Amarillo, Texas. The incident outraged the people of Denmark (which owned Greenland at the time, and which prohibits nuclear weapons over its territory) and led to massive anti-U.S. demonstrations. One of the warheads was reportedly recovered by Navy Seals and Seabees in 1979, but a recent (August 2000) report suggests that in fact it may still be lying at the bottom of Baffin Bay.
2 November 1981
A fully-armed Poseidon missile was accidentally dropped 17 feet from a crane in Scotland during a transfer operation between a U.S. submarine and its mother ship.
 
Storage/Disposal:
1971
After experimenting with disposal of radioactive waste in salt, the Atomic Energy Commission announced that "Project Salt Vault" would solve the waste problem. But when 180,000 gallons of contaminated water was pumped into a borehole; it promptly and unexpectedly disappeared. The project was abandoned two years later.
1972
The West Valley, NY fuel reprocessing plant was closed after 6 years in operation, leaving 600,000 gallons of high-level wastes buried in leaking tanks. The site caused measurable contamination of Lakes Ontario and Erie.
16 July 1979
A dam holding radioactive uranium mill tailings broke, sending an estimated 100 million gallons of radioactive liquids and 1,100 tons of solid wastes downstream at Church Rock, New Mexico.
August 1979
Highly enriched uranium was released from a top-secret nuclear fuel plant near Erwin, Tennessee. About 1,000 people were contaminated with up to 5 times as much radiation as would normally be received in a year. Between 1968 and 1983 the plant "lost" 234 pounds of highly enriched uranium, forcing the plant to be closed six times during that period.
19 September 1980
An Air Force repairman doing routine maintenance in a Titan II ICBM silo in Damascus, Arkansas dropped a wrench socket, which rolled off a work platform and fell to the bottom of the silo. The socket struck the missile, causing a leak from a pressurized fuel tank. The missile complex and surrounding areas were evacuated. Eight and a half hours later, the fuel vapors ignited, causing an explosion which killed an Air Force specialist and injured 21 others. The explosion also blew off the 740-ton reinforced concrete-and-steel silo door and catapulted the warhead 600 feet into the air. The silo has since been filled in with gravel, and operations have been transferred to a similar installation at Rock, Kansas.
21 September 1980
Two canisters containing radioactive materials fell off a truck on New Jersey's Route 17. The driver, en route from Pennsylvania to Toronto, did not notice the missing cargo until he reached Albany, New York.
December 1984
The Fernald Uranium Plant, a 1,050-acre uranium fuel production complex 20 miles northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, was temporarily shut down after the Department of Energy disclosed that excessive amounts of radioactive materials had been released through ventilating systems. Subsequent reports revealed that 230 tons of radioactive material had leaked into the Greater Miami River valley during the previous thirty years, 39 tons of uranium dust had been released into the atmosphere, 83 tons had been discharged into surface water, and 5,500 tons of radioactive and other hazardous substances had been released into pits and swamps where they seeped into the groundwater. In addition, 337 tons of uranium hexafluoride was found to be missing, its whereabouts completely unknown. In 1988 nearby residents sued and were granted a $73 million settlement by the government. The plant was not permanently shut down until 1989.
Comment: THIRTY NINE TONS of uranium dust. That is A LOT of DUST! And 337 tons of hexafluoride up and gone? Whereabouts "completely unknown". Criminey.
 
 

Monday, December 1, 2008

A Full Head of Steam

December 1st. So it begins.
 
What a flurry last week was…. Dubuque visit Monday, the token work day Tuesday with rushed Rod Library visit and drinks with Ben and Cam in the evening. Wednesday was a break from the desk job and a day of progress at the lodge where planing and painting in the side yard were the day's anchors. Wednesday night, however, found Cam and I at the Panther but the atmosphere was, well, odd. Packed house; loud, bad, music on the juke. I think we shot a game of pool and got out as quickly as we came. From there to Pepper's to meet up with Blake and company (and Hannah). The +$3 High Life did not hit the spot. A few more games of pool and we moved on.  *I should note while taking a phone call there I noticed one of the waitresses replacing the access door on one of the tables after confirming the previous players were through. Free pool? Not so much. As one guy mentioned to Cam while we were putting in quarters, Table 1: withholds sunk cueballs. Table 2: not exactly level. His words rang true on the last game as I went to place the 8 in the corner pocket. The cue ball arced ever so gently across the table, glancing off the 8 and sending the cue ball directly into the pocket for an instant loss. I was not pleased.*
 
Downtown was really hopping, so we took a seat at the Blue Room to soak up the ever younger crowd's vibe. From what I can tell, the Blue Room, which was always the old-timer's hangout, has slowly evolved the last couple years. I can only attribute this to a lot of the patrons passing on, and the smoking ban surely didn't help. Every time we'd visit it was tough to find someone without a cig hanging from their mouth. Where did those guys go? Anyhow, both the beer and the discussions were grade A. Even caught an atypical CCR song on the juke. Wandered over to the Olive around midnight for awkward greetings with Andrea and co who were just getting ready to take off when Alex and Ben S. happened by, fresh from Madison. Renewed vigor and some breathing room at the Cypress formed the perfect setting for a round of Schlitz's and some VW woes. Needless to say, we closed the place down.
 
Thursday, Turkey Day at the parent's. A fantastic spread and lots of cheer. Helped with some xmas lights in the yard and getting the wireless control system up and running. Completed the evening with 8mm movies in the living room. I spent the whole time perched next to the machine trying to keep the film on the take up reel and helping stay ahead of the top sprocket's lethargic pull. Even so, I ended up with a handful of splices to make at the end of the night.
 
Friday was beautiful and I was out the door and running early. First stop- Menards for sales you can't pass up. Only problem….every_single_parking spot was taken. No joke. Parked on an aisle-end up on the rocks and ventured in. Others were parking in the grass along the frontage road. Got everything I needed and found an available line. Despite 12 or 13 registers running full-bore, shoppers were lined up from the front of the store all the way to millwork in the back! Got out, grabbed bkfast and headed for the land. Made it by 10. Warm temps, light wind and all-day sun made painting (as well as picker work) a breeze. I ended up with all the major power equipment on the lawn. Even with the all-day workathon, it was obvious this was an uphill climb. After a long day I was ready for some socializing. Bowling at Maple was the order of the evening. Things were going great until Lunar Bowl fired up. Could have been the deafening metal-rap mixes blaring directly behind us, or the black lights and strobes obscuring all my typical lane references, but my game took a hit. Things got a little better on the left lane. Overall, not too horrible for being out of practice. From there, all 7 of us met up with Alex at the PL, then directly to Cypress for some entertaining pool. Got pretty close to closing the place down and headed to Happy Chef where 7 or 8 bucks still gets you eggs, hash browns, pancakes and sausage. And of course, incandescent lighting.
 
Saturday was colder and I put in another long day out there, still fighting. One tiring bleak day it was. Figured others must've been in the same boat as nothing was scheduled for the evening. Cara and I braved the sleet to get to the Library to find their kitchen closed for remodeling. Hungry, we went a couple doors down to the OP for unremarkable pizza. FYI- Schlitz had arrived there at 2 bucks a bottle. No fantastic table ads like the Cypress, however.
 
Sunday was just plain awful, with several inches of thick wet snow covering everything. 4 wheel drive got me in and out, but the wet falling snow meant everytime I needed to do an operation outside, I'd have to drag the equipment out there, work fast, then bring it in and try to wipe everything down.  With the winds it also meant it was near impossible to work at roof-level from the picker, especially the operations I had in mind. If I had a camera I would have got a shot of me trying to push a 14' board through the router table in the blowing snow. In the end I was able to do the first coat of painting inside after all the woodworking operations outdoors. But beyond that, I'd need cooperating weather.
 
Finished the evening off with bill paying, pizza and The Guns of Navarone on LD; Gregory Peck and Niven put in a good performance.