spring is here

I know that it may be a little early but spring has arrived.   The ?????? bushes in front of the house are blooming in great profusion.  

The flowers are absolutely magnificent with such an intense color.  

There was a light rain today and so there are small rain droplets on the flowers and the leaves.   Can you guess the name of the flower?   Make a guess in the comment section and I will also make a comment after to let you know what it is.   But only after you make a comment.   You have to make a guess first. 

            In the back yard there is what some consider a weed but the flowers are so pretty that I just can’t call it a weed.

It has such a deep rich sapphire blue.   The picture just doesn't do the richness of the color justice.

But this is Florida and what would spring be without some orange blossoms on the orange tree in the backyard.

There was a bright sun when I took this picture and the flower came out too bright.   Just can’t see the detail of the flower so I darkened it some to bring out the detail.

And the aroma of the flowers is so strong.   A real sweet smell which reminds me of jasmine.   I can pick up the sweet scent when I am about five feet from the tree as I approach it.   No wonder honey bees are attracted to it.   And speaking of honey bees, orange blossom honey is my favorite.   But the prices of honey, oh my.   When I lived in San Diego there was a woman who worked at the hospital and was also a bee keeper.   She kept bees for pleasure and not as a business.   She told us to bring in a large jar and she would take it home and fill it with honey.   She would charge a dollar for this which even at that time was a ridiculously low price for the large amount of honey that she gave.   I need to find someone like that here in Orlando.

With this spring-like weather comes warmer temperatures and high humidity which we are starting to get today.  Next week the weather is forecast to be around 87.   I think that we are going to have a very warm summer thanks to global warming.    Tomorrow I will tell you all about my adventures with my resurrection plant.   Until then enjoy the day and tonight is wrestling so don’t forget to watch all of those body slams.    Be good.    Lew

The Culverts

This is the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant.   Well actually I guess that I should say the Turkey Point Electrical Generation Plant since there are also fossil fuel electrical generation here as well.   There are four electrical generating units.   The two blue structures on the left with the smokestacks behind them are the fossil fuel units designated unit 1 and unit 2.   The two round cement structures on the right are the nuclear reactors designated unit 3 and unit 4.   A lot of electrical generation here.   But what is unique about the Turkey Point plant is the cooling method of the units.    We are always use to seeing those hyperbolic-shaped cooling towers which are associated with nuclear power plants.

But at Turkey Point a cooling canal system is used.   The canal system has a shape like a giant car radiator.

The water comes out of the plant in a discharge canal which functions much like the top of a car radiator and distributes the water to the cooling canals which is like he core of the radiator where the cooling actually takes place.   Then the cooled water is collected in a return canal much like the bottom of a car radiator and is carried back to the plant to start the cycle all over again.   In the picture below you can see the temperature of the water cool as it flows from the top to the bottom of the cooling canals. 

 A very simple and effective design.   Fortunate also.    I sometimes wonder how much damage that the intense Hurricane Andrew would have done to a cooling tower.

There was a canal that was outside of the cooling canal system and had nothing to do with the cooling canals.   Since coral rock is porous and this canal is in close proximity to the cooling canal system, samples were taken from it and checked for radioactivity.   The water flow was tidal in nature.   Flowing out at low tide and flowing in at high tide.    There was three large culverts where a road passed over the canal.   This was a beautiful area and for a time was one of my favorite spots.

I use to stand on the culverts and bend down to the waters surface to get water samples.   I had done that for about a year when I happened to mention it to one of the biologists.    He strongly recommended against standing on the culverts because there was a large 11 foot crocodile who would get up close to the culverts and grab fish in her powerful jaws as the fish were carried through the culverts by the tide.   How did they know that it was a female?   I have no idea but biologists seem to know those things.

He said that there were both alligators and crocodiles in the area but that this one was a crocodile which he said is bad because crocodiles are more aggressive than alligators.   The first time that I saw this crocodile she was in the water and only inches from the bank watching me.   Waiting for me to come close to the water like in the documentaries you see when the animals come to the water to drink and the crocodiles grab them.   And that was what this one was doing.   Waiting for me to get close.   I had no idea she was there and when I spotted her by chance I was about 10 feet from the waters edge.   Much too close for comfort.   Initially I froze for about 20 seconds and then I slowly walked backwards to the car which was near.   I jumped into the car to relax and get a breather and to give time for my blood pressure and fear levels to drop back down.   After a period of time I got back out of the car and continued my work while continuously scanning the area around me.   I was behaving just like the animals in the documentaries when they come to the river to get a drink.   They take a drink and then look around for danger, then they take another quick drink and once again look around the are for danger.   Well, that was me.   Get a sample and look around for the croc.   Get another sample and look around again for the croc.   I spotted her on two more occasions that day but she was about 20 or 30 feet away and so I wasn't as terrified as I was the first time.   After that day I always looked around about every 30 seconds for the croc when I was at the culverts.   A Crocodile Dundee I wasn't.   But as the Crocodile Dundee would say, "G'day mate".   Lew

Atomic Glass

The world's first atomic bomb was tested on the White Sands Missile Range near Alamagordo, New Mexico.   The test site is called Trinity but no one seems to know the origins of that particular name.   The scientists needed to test the plutonium atomic bomb because of it's implosion technology for compressing the central plutonium core to criticality.   It was a hot morning on July 16, 1945.  The bomb sat at the top of a steel tower that was 100 feet high.  

The tower was a surplus Forestry Service fire-watch tower.   At the top of the tower inside the enclosure sat the plutonium bomb referred to as "the gadget".

At 5:29 am on that fateful day of July 16, 1945 the world would lose its innocence with the explosion of the first atomic bomb.    Since the bomb sat at the top of a tower that was only 100 feet high, the fireball reached the ground vaporizing the metal tower and turning the desert sand into a green glass.

The crater created  by the nuclear explosion was a shallow depression 2400 feet across.   The sand which had been fused into an atomic glass which is now called trinitite.  

And yes, it is mildly radioactive.

Every time I see a piece of trinitite I am fascinated by the fact that this was at one time inside of an atomic fireball.   Each piece of trinitite is a piece of history.   You can still find pieces of trinitite but it is getting harder and harder, and more expensive with the passage of time.    The glass trinitite was bulldozed and put into metal drums and buried somewhere.   But some small pieces remain in the crater.   There is some trinitite out there which is not really trinitite.   At the north entrance to the White Sands Missile Range where the trinity test site is located there was a rock shop.   This north entrance is called Stallion Gate, a colorful name.   On one of my visits to the Trinity test site I stopped at the rock shop.   There was a nice older gentleman there.

I don't know his name but he has appeared a couple times in the pages of the National Geographic magazine.   Here he is holding a handful of trinitite.   He told me that he use to go to the trinity site to collect the trinitite until they bulldozed the site and secured the site with a locked chain link fence.   He told me that he sold all of the trinitite that he had but people were still asking for trinitite and so he decided to manufacture trinitite with a blow torch melting the desert sand into a glass.   Depending on which way the fallout cloud drifted and where he collected his sand it may not contain the radioactive Cs-137 which is found in fallout.    He was a nice gentleman and we had a pleasant conversation.    The trinity site is open to the public on the first saturday in April and the first saturday in October.   I always liked the first saturday in October for visiting the site because I would spend the weekend in Albuquerque and the first weekend in October is also when there is a massive hot air balloon festival with over 600 hot air balloons.

What a magnificent sight.   And there is so much to see and do in relation to the balloon festival.   Have a great day and if you ever have the opportunity to see a piece of trinitite, just remember that it was once inside of an atomic fireball.   How unique.     Lew



"Draining"

"Draining"  -  what on earth does that mean?

answer  -  "draining" refers to the exploration of storm drains.

It was a hot summer day in Phoenix, Arizona.   I decided that it might be fun to go up the storm drains of the city of Phoenix.    I knew of the hazard of flash floods but this was summer and the sky was clear with no clouds.   I knew where a storm drain entered the dry river bed of the Salt River which went in a general east-west direction along the southern portion of Phoenix.   I called my buddy Rick and invited him to come along.   He quickly agreed and off we went on our grand adventure of exploration.   I had to climb down the grating cover of the storm drain.   I was afraid that the cover might be locked or welded shut.   It wasn’t, plus it was hinged.   You can see the large hinges at the top of the grating in the picture above.   I was surprised that we were able to move the grating on its hinges so that we could slip inside.

There was a steady flow of water but not bad.   I was surprised that there was water since I expected the drain to be dry in the arid desert region of Arizona.

When I looked into the drain all that I could see was a tunnel going off into an infinity of darkness.   There was initially some graffiti on the walls but the graffiti ended after about 50 feet into the tunnel.   From then on I had the feeling that we were traveling where no one had traveled since the storm drain was built.   The light from our lights was the first light that had shone on these tunnel walls in a very long time.   We walked and walked and came to a small opening in the side of the tunnel where there was a pipe with water pouring out of it.   At least it looked like water.   Perhaps it was a toxic chemical from some manufacturing plant.  

We continued on our way up the tunnel.  How do you like my spear which was an old cut-off broom handle with a nail in the end of it.    I was worried about encountering rats, but surprisingly, never did see any.   We traveled on for a long time and my chest started to feel a heaviness on it.   The breathing started to become a bit labored.   There was something wrong with the air.  We came to a vertical pipe that led up to the street above and was covered by a man-hole cover.   We could hear the traffic above driving over the manhole cover.   Our breathing problem was probably being caused by carbon monoxide from the car exhausts trickling down though the holes in the manhole cover and over time was possibly building up to toxic levels.    I had never thought about the dangers of carbon monoxide.   Rick climbed up and tried to move the manhole cover by pushing on it.   

He couldn’t budge it so much as an iota.   Nothing, nil, nada.   Either the manhole cover was too heavy or it had gotten sealed down by the asphalt of the road.   Because of the problem with the breathing we decided to leave.   So we turned around and retraced our steps back to the entrance.   We were glad to “see the light at the end of the tunnel”.   (pardon the pun)

Rick has borrowed my spear but I can’t remember what for.   I hoped that there wasn’t anything toxic or bacterial in the water because as you can see in the picture that our feet were in the water the whole time.   Since I have survived these many years I guess that the water wasn’t that bad.    Yeah, I know that hiking up storm drains is a bad thing to do but back then I was young and felt invincible.  Today they call exploring storm drains as “Draining”.   Have a good day and please don’t go “Draining”.   It is too dangerous.     Lew

 

Radioactive Garbage

Radioactive Garbage?

How can garbage be radioactive?   What a ridiculous thing.   Well, they have radiation detectors at the garbage dumps and they set off a radiation alarm if any radioactivity is detected in the garbage trucks as they enter the dump site.   They don’t allow radioactive material in garbage dumps.   That's the rule.     But when the radiation alarm goes off the big problem is the “unknown”.   Is it highly radioactive and dangerous?   Or just a little bit radioactive and not all that harmful.   That’s where I come in.    They call me or one of my coworkers.  We respond to radiation emergencies and make the radiation problem go away by taking care of it, which usually means hauling the radioactive material away or isolating it.   So one day I get a call from the garbage dump.   Their radiation alarm has gone off.   

Myself and a coworker head on out to the dump and when we arrive, the garbage truck that tripped the radiation alarm is waiting for us, along with a mountain of garbage.   Actually the truck is sitting on top of literally a mountain of garbage.

I wish that I were someone else.   Anywhere but here.   And the smell.   A mountain of rotting garbage giving off an unlimited supply of noxious odors.   And don’t forget about all of the garbage dust created by the bulldozers moving the garbage around and grinding it up in their tracks.   Mask were a must.   My partner with his mask.

And me with my mask on.   And still the garbage stunk.

The picture is shaped like this because the picture taker didn’t hold the camera straight up and down.   What is that blue stuff at my feet?   I have no idea and I don’t want to know.   But it is time to dump the garbage and get to work.   Lovely, the garbage truck is filled up all the way to the back.   A full load.    Yuk!

Well, let’s go ahead and dump the load and get this show on the road.   I don’t like breathing garbage dust.   My gosh, just look at all of the garbage.   

Is this why I got a college degree?   To be a garbage picker?   In all fairness, the dump was the worst of the radiation emergencies.   Compared to having to come to the garbage dump, all of the other  responses that I did were “a piece of cake”.    We got some of their workers to spread the garbage out.   I wonder why the workers aren’t wearing masks?   Everyone else is.

My partner is surveying the garbage as it gets spread out.  

Doesn’t the garbage really look nasty?   No?   Well we found the radioactive item, it was a soiled adult diaper.    Someone who is incontinent probably had a nuclear medicine exam and the radioactive material is eliminated from the body through the kidneys with urine.   Double yuk.   Fortunately the radioactive material that was used decays away rapidly and in three days it is gone.   We placed the adult diaper into a sealed drum, wait three days, survey the adult diaper again to make sure that the radioactivity has gone away and then dispose of it as regular trash.   Our work is done and we have once again saved mankind from a radioactive adult diaper.   LOL.    Have a nice day wherever you may be, and if you didn’t have to go to a dump today then you had a good day.   Anyone who works at a dump has my sympathy.    After reading this blog, I hope that you can enjoy your dinner tonight.    I promise that the next blog will not involve a garbage dump.    Do something kind for someone today.    Lew

rocket launch

I got to watch another rocket launch last night.   It was a Delta IV rocket which puts on quite a show.   I remained here in Orlando to watch the final countdown and the very initial part of the launch on television.   The local station here does a really good job giving live coverage of the launches.

I sometimes wonder why the steel structures at the launch pad don't melt under the intense heat of the rocket exhaust.    Once the rocket lifts off from the launch pad I run outside to see it go up into the sky in the east.  This picture was taken somewhere near the launch site. 

But it is really amazing how much can be seen here in Orlando.   On this launch I was lucky in that the sky was crystal clear and a bit unlucky  because it was a night launch which means that all that I can see is the fiery exhaust.

Isn't this an absolutely spectacular photo taken over on the east coast?   You can even see the stars.   The rocket exhaust is that fiery blob.   I couldn't see the vapor trail of the rocket but the fiery exhaust was very spectacular.   Just so incredibly bright.   With a daytime launch I would have seen so the vapor trail against the blue sky.

However, in the cloudy stormy summer months sometimes the clouds block the view.   I know that this isn't a shuttle launch but there is still an air of excitement to it.   If you can't be here to watch them, then just watch them on the NASA channel or your television news station.   And of course there is always the internet.   And don't forget this blog site as a last resort.   Have a really nice day wherever you may be.    Lew

92 year old house

I recently checked to see if the house that I grew up in was for sale.   I wanted to see how much it was worth.   When I did an internet search, the house was not for sale but I did find a house that I had lived in for a couple of years when I was young that was up for sale.  When I lived there around 1948 there was a large grape vineyard behind the house.   That deck on the side of the house wasn't present.   

When Mary and I went to visit my hometown about five years ago I had driven past this house and gotten a couple of pictures.

Look near the top of the chimney.   Looks like fresh mortar.   It appears that the chimney has been recently repaired.  Judging by the color of the mortar they probably did the chimney repair at the same time as they closed up the window to the right of the chimney.   What a shame to lose a window.   Makes the room darker.   I think that the natural outside light is always preferable.   Notice the curve arch of the brickwork over the door and windows.   I bet that the original door had a beautiful arch to the top of the door.   Now it has been replaced with a rectangular door.   An arched door would have looked so much nicer.   The same is true of the windows.   I see a window A/C unit in the dormer window as well in a window in the picture below.    No central air.    But then when I was a child we didn't have any A/C at all.   We just suffered through the hot summer doldrums.

Yeah, it is built on a hillside.  Look at the reflection of the beautiful large tree in the reflection of the outside mirror on the car.   Now here is the house as it was 64 years ago.   Still looks pretty much the same.   The house was built in 1920 and so I think that it is pretty good for a house that is 92 years old.

That is me with my mickey mouse shirt on.   Even as a child I loved Disney, and I still do.  Disney World is such a magical place to visit.   Everything is fun and everyone is happy.   The woman standing is my aunt Pearl who was my father's sister and the woman seated was my father's mother.   They were visiting from Schenectady where they lived.

This is my dad, my mom, and my brother.   So many homes in this area was built on hillsides.

I like this picture because it has my great grandfather in it.   Remember him from a previous blog?   The marigold man who got me interested in marigolds and which remains my favorite flower.   My brother is all dressed up in his boy scout uniform as he gets ready to go to camp.  And look at me wearing my brother's hand-me-downs.   This was common then, the younger children got the older child's clothing to wear.  People were thrifty back then.   And this particular doorway has a story to it.   On the other side of the door is the kitchen.   One night I was upset about something.   I think that it was because my mom was making the milk from powdered milk and I didn't like the taste of it.   I wanted whole milk.   Distraught, I told my mother that I was going to run away from home.   My mom was calm and said okay and she made me a sandwich and set it on a handkerchief along with some cookies and then brought the four corners up around a stick and knotted them.   Then she gave me the stick with the little bundle tied to the end of it.   It was just like you see the hobos carry in the movies.   I got to the door and opened it.   It was pitch black outside.    There was a grape vineyard behind the house and sometimes in the mornings we would see the footprints of the foxes who had come to eat the grapes.   My brother said "Watch out for the foxes Louie."   With that, in fear, I broke out crying and ran to my mom.    There was no more complaining about the powdered milk.   But to placate me my mom would buy whole milk and mix it half and half with the powdered milk.    And what about that two car garage?

Just look at that car with a running board.  You don't see running boards anymore.   I remember them also from the gangster movies whereby a ganster would be standing on the running board, holding onto the window framwe with one hand, and blazing away with a machine gun held in the other arm.   They were very exciting movies.  My mom is in the middle in this picture and my aunt Pearl is to the left.  And look at the external headlights on the fender.  But in retrospect, how did I manage to get into all of the pictures?   Amazing.   It was nice to see the house as it is today and compare the pictures to those from yesteryear.   I also find it a lot of fun to bring up my hometown on Google maps and then explore around to see how much it has changed.   Of course those of my childhood friends who never moved away probably don't do that because they are still there and only have to walk out the front door to see the current conditions.   I don't know, maybe I remember my home town through a child's eyes but it seemed so much nicer way back when than it is now.   Old photographs are nice and help refresh the old wonderful memories of childhood.   I guess that I am just nostalgic.   Pleasant times are pleasant to remember.   I hope that everyone out there have pleasant memories to look back onto and a photograph album chuck full of old pictures to look back on.    Lew