Great accomplishments are overrated.  I prefer to “go with the flow.”

How about you?

Cartoon shared from Calamities of Nature.

(Continued from “Forty Years Ago–A Departure”.)

The flight from Houston had a short layover at Los Angeles International before continuing on to San Diego.  From there it was but a short trip to the San Diego Naval Training Center.

A few weeks earlier, I had ridden with a friend to the Manned Spacecraft Center, where he worked.  He was loaning me his car for the day so that I could look for a job.

Even though I had already had several jobs, I had very little experience at actually looking for a job and, looking back now, I really didn’t have a clue then on how to do it.  I basically spent the day driving around, eventually ending up in a shopping center in Baytown.

I really didn’t start the day even thinking about joining the military, but there I was, at a Texas strip mall that housed recruiting offices for Marine Corp, Army, Air Force and Navy.  With the ongoing Viet Nam conflict, the first two had absolutely no interest for me.  While I don’t remember much about it, my first stop was in the Air Force recruiter’s office.

The stop at the Navy recruiting office was more memorable.  The recruiter talked about a number of options, but there was one that really caught my attention, the Navy nuclear power program.  Not only did it offer interesting opportunities in the Navy, but the job experience gained might later lead to opportunities in civilian nuclear power.  The main drawback was it required a six year commitment instead of the more common two or four year enlistments.

In the ensuing weeks, I qualified for the program through the advanced programs test, passed a physical, and enlisted in the Navy with entry delayed until the end of December.

One of the benefits of the program was that I would be entering the service at E3 pay grade,  a seaman – equivalent to a private first class – instead of seaman recruit (E1).  Completion of recruit training would bring automatic promotion to Petty Officer Third Class, equivalent to corporal.

Three different job fields were included in the program: electronics, mechanical, and electrical.  I hoped for electronics, but I wasn’t going to learn which field I was going to be in until after further testing in boot camp.  Of course, electronics was what most of those who enter the program hoped for and not everyone could get it.

January 1, 1972 was a holiday, of course, so there was no processing of the new recruits.  Instead, we got to watch football games in the receiving and outfitting transient barracks.

While it was pretty hot last weekend, we did get to see quite a bit. We drove a good percentage of the coast from near the Mississippi state line almost to Pensacola Florida – including taking the ferry from Dauphin Island, Alabama.

a bit of a surprise.

While I wasn’t expecting it when I got up this morning, I’m going back to work tomorrow morning — another contract job back at the place I retired from, working in training, as usual.  They need help and found some money to pay for it.

So it’s back to setting an alarm clock, figuring out when to get to the gym, commuting — all of 20 minutes, with light traffic — and all the sundry things that go with work.

But, it’s only for a few weeks.

Except for that six month contract that looks like it’ll start January 3rd.

The retired part of “semi-retired” lasted 6 months this time.

OK. I guess that’s a little overstating it.  I’m not really unemployed. The job is over and the contract is up; I can’t sign up for unemployment because I’m making too much money – from my pension.

Students at a nuclear power plant simulator – photo rendered as a painting. 

This was my second contract since I retired a little over three years ago.  Both have been for about 6 months and both have been doing part of the job that I used to do before I retired – teaching license operator candidates in the classroom and in the simulator.

The class did well in the simulator operational exams administered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week.  The last day of the operational exams was Thursday, which was also my last day on the job.  I had my box packed and was out the door by a little after 6 PM.

I suppose it will take a little time to get back into the swing of not working. 

I think I’ll be up to speed by sometime Monday morning.

I’ve got quite a lot of work to do around our place this spring, summer, and fall.  Of course, we’ll get a little bit of traveling in, too.

Then, sometime in January, it looks like I’ll probably be back at work.  That’s about the time the next class should be at the point where I’ll be needed – if they allocate the funds, which I think is quite likely.

I’ve worked a total of about 13 1/2 months out of the last 36 – and when I do work, it’s doing something I know well and get satisfaction from.

I’ve been working quite a number of hours in the simulator the last few weeks.

One of the requirements for reactor operators is that they demonstrate the ability to start up the reactor.  Each candidate practiced the reactor startup 5 times and then had a startup where he or she is evaluated by someone from Operations management.

So that’s a total of 6 startups for each student.  There are 12 students, so, over the last few weeks, there have been 72 startups for training or evaluation — and I was there for every one of them. Total time in the simulator for this was about 84 hours over a 4 week period — about 20 hours a week. And that doesn’t include the several startups that I did to verify the scenario I was using and to establish the conditions for the evaluations.

This week, I am working in the simulator from about 4 PM to midnight every day, providing support and guidance for a crew of students who are shutting the plant down and cooling to “cold iron.”  Once that’s done, they’ll be doing a heatup to normal operating condition, with a startup and power escalation to as high in power as we can get before the end of the shift on Friday.

I’ll certainly be ready for a rest when the weekend rolls around.

I certainly did NOT miss clearing the paper out of the paper path in copying machines.

However, it’ still one of the necessary qualifications in today’s “paperless” nuclear power teaching environment.

On Friday, I went to the copy center to copy material I planned to hand out in my first classroom instruction since I started on this contract.

The students all have laptops and wireless access to most of the material that they need for class.  However, I’m going to be going over material associated with a certification that they need to complete and I wanted them to have a copy of the forms that that will be used by the evaluator during the test.

The machine jammed on the first copy.

I had not cleared a paper jam from a copier in at least a year.

Needless to say, it wasn’t a particularly  easy task.

Even after I finally found all of the paper, it took a while to get all the levers, knobs, and other copier widgets back in their proper positions.  The door wouldn’t close until everything was aligned for operation.

Finally, everything was somehow aligned correctly and the front door of the copier would close.

I decided to give it one more try before going to find a friendlier machine. All twelve copies sailed through with no problem — single side to double side, stapled, punched and stacked.

All in a day’s work at the power plant training center.

day 53

On Wednesday, another retiree — who I’ve known for over 25 years — went back to work on contract, the same day that I did. He’s working in another part of the training organization from the one I’m working in.

It just so happens, though, that his son is an “in-house” employee in that same organization.

Since he has been contracted to work primarily in a support role, there may be times that he’ll be providing support for his son.

He told me today that he didn’t have problem with doing whatever they needed for him to do, but that his son might have a little bit of a problem telling his dad what he wanted done.

day 37

It’s back to work I go — I think.

We should know something soon as the proposed date to start is June 1st.

The contract schedule will be a little different from last time.  I’ll be working about 6 weeks and will then have about 6 to 8 weeks off while the class is involved in activities that do not require my “expertise.” The entire contract for me will be 6 months of actual work.

During the 6 to 8 weeks that I am off — assuming the funding for the contract is actually approved — we’ll be traveling out in the western mountain states.  We had originally planned that trip for July and August, so it’ll be a little delayed, unless the funding  is not approved.

I really do enjoy the work that I’ll be doing under the contract.  It’s the best part of the job that I had before I retired.

The job will help us keep from dipping into our savings for the duration of the contract and we’ll try to pay down a debt or two so that the pension and other income will stretch further when I’m not working.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it’s off to work I go…, probably…, maybe.

We’re leaving Harper’s Ferry this morning, heading for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

I’ve finally succumbed to a cold — first one this season of any consequence.

The good news is that I won’t be passing it on to anyone at work because I’m not at work — for now.

I was hired as a contractor to work through the first week of March. Then the students went to the plant to support the other unit’s refueling outage. I’ll go back to work about the 8th or 9th of April — the week before classes pick up again. My last day was supposed to be Friday, but that turned into a snow day.

The snow is all gone. Living about 500 feet above the river valley, when we have frozen precipitation, we generally get a bit more than many of the surrounding areas and it usually lasts a little longer. But, still, it’s Arkansas and March, so the snow didn’t stay around long.

I’ve taken about a 5 day break from reading e-mail and looking at blogs… I’ll get back to it. Just taking a bit of a break.

During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been looking at, and downloading, a lot of images associated with the Depression years and the dust bowl. I read a book called “The Worst Hard Time” and found a copy of the old Government propaganda documentary “The Plow that Broke the Plains.” With all of that as a starting point, I picked up a copy of Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”

I read quite a bit — and I used to read a whole lot more — but I’ve never been one to get into the great classics of literature. This time, though, having spent some time getting to know the background, this book is an easy and interesting read. I’ve never tried to read it before, that I know of, and I think I would know since the protagonist’s last name, Joad, is so close to mine. (Did I really just use the word protagonist?)

It’s been 3 days now of getting up early to go to the fitness center before going to work. The fitness center opens at 5 A.M. and normal working hours begin at 7 A.M. This morning I was at the gym about 10 minutes after it opened.

Tonight, I was sitting in the living room reading and the next thing I know, two hours have passed — I’ve been sleeping. I guess I’ve grown accustomed to a bit more sleep over the last 12 months. I could go to the fitness center after work, but I prefer going in the morning when it is less crowded. On days where I’m in the simulator with the class in the late afternoon and evening, I’ll be going later in the morning.

I’ve spent most of the last couple of days reading procedures. I’ve got two “instructor refamiliarization guides” to complete before I can resume teaching. One is for general instructor and the other is for simulator instructor. Needless to say, the reading is pretty dry — make that very dry!

My first scheduled class to teach is Monday, February 11th.

(Note: The control room in the photograph is from Shippingport Nuclear Power Plant, one of the early plants, no longer in operation.)

I’ve not started back to work on the contract job yet. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ll probably be out there sometime next week — perhaps.

The real surprise is that it’s occurring at all.

Three years ago, I was in a situation where I really needed help to get everything done that needed to be done. One of the options that was attempted was to bring back another instructor who had retired a couple of years earlier. He would be a contract instructor, much like what I will be doing.

It never happened.

A couple of years later, I happened to run into the man they had wanted to come back as a contractor. He said he had been willing to do it, but after they had initially talked to him, he hadn’t heard anything from them. I subsequently found out that they had not been able to get approval for hiring a contractor.

My contract manager — the guy used to be my boss — called me today about documentation on some of my qualifications, so things are apparently still moving ahead. It appears part of the problem is that recent restructuring has reduced the number of people in the corporate office that looks at contracts from eight people down to one part-time employee who only works three afternoons a week. I’ve heard that other departments are having similar problems.

Maybe Monday. However, I’m planning on going to the bi-weekly retiree breakfast. (They’ll get a kick out of this run-around.)

I’ll have my cell phone with me.

……Previous posts on this (most recent on top):

• Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it’s….
• BIG BUMP in the road for my online plans…. perhaps.
• The BIG BUMP revealed

That’s right. The funding for my contract was approved. I start next Wednesday. It’s a 26 week gig, 40 hours a week.

The money is good — a bit less than I was hoping for, but more than the minimum I would have accepted. No per diem as it’s a local job. Of course, this is in addition to my pension, plus we won’t have to touch our investments this year.

With this “bump” in my plans, I won’t be spending a lot of time trying to monetize my sites for a while.

related posts:

• BIG BUMP in the road for my online plans…. perhaps.
• The BIG BUMP revealed

A couple of days ago, I posted BIG BUMP in the road for my online plans…. perhaps and there were a number of comments wondering what the heck was up.

Opal already knew as I had mentioned it was a possibility a while back, so I asked her not to give up the secret. (Thanks Opal for the comment… it was perfect!)

Oh and the picture on the post — the same one I’ve posted here — did apply very specifically to this situation.

I’ll use Teeni’s questions and my answers for part of an explanation…

• Just what is this all about? Just wait an opportunity
  
• Will you tell us soon? Likely so right now
  
• How much longer do we have to wait? Not Long now
  
• Is it good? Depends on the perspective, but in many ways, yes for me, yes
  
• Are you getting a new job? Not really.. It’s doing some of the parts of my old job that I really enjoyed, with people I know well, and with very good compensation, so it’s not really a new job — plus, it’s only a limited engagement.
• New camera? Don’t need one. N/A
• New computer? Don’t need one, but there might be something about it that brings one. I’ll have to have a computer and access into the company’s network to do the work. It won’t be my computer, but it’ll be assigned to me.
  
• New travel plans? There is some travel involved, but it’s not far. The travel route is virtually the same as I’ve done well over 1000 times over the years and most days it will be over, under or near the Exit78 overpass.

The main thing I am waiting on is approval for the funding and it’s at the VP level right now. They’ve already got me on the schedule — which I have a copy of — for a week from this coming Monday.

More later!

Written September 2004

I should have been an English major — at least, that’s what Glenda told me in freshman English.

I didn’t tell her that I couldn’t take the pay cut.

Who was Glenda and why should she care about my major?

Glenda was the lady who was teaching the class and the wife of the dean. She later taught freshman English to my wife and high school senior English to both of my daughters.

Now I don’t really know an adverb from an adjective, but I can usually tell a noun from a verb. Conjunction and participle are just words to me. I probably knew what all of them meant at one time, but not any more. If I need to know what they are, I can learn them for a class, for a short time, but that knowledge is just that, short term retention.

What I learned and retained long term was functional English. I passed English in high school and earlier – did okay, in fact – but I’m sure that I didn’t excel. However, I did learn how to use the tool that is English.

Today, my use of the English language is what feels right for me. And usually, not always, what feels right is right… because that’s the way I learned it.

I find it difficult to read material that doesn’t follow the standard rules that I learned, material that is consistently grammatically wrong. (Unfortunately, this includes almost all poetry, which requires addition concentration for me to get through.)

Glenda’s comment that I should have been an English major was in reference to what was done in class and turned in for credit. It was about what I wrote and how I expressed myself.

I like to write, but I would hate to do it as a job.

I’ve imagined writing a novel. Who hasn’t. I’ve even started a couple of times, outlining the story and even starting with the first chapter. I’ve written a short story that I never shared with anyone and poetry that was lost to my youth.

Writing for a living is hard work.

I could have been an English major.

If I had, I would probably ended up as an English teacher.

I couldn’t take the pay cut… so I didn’t major in English.

September 30th, 2007 addendum — so here I find myself retired and writing material that I self-publish online. Ironic or what?

Though not lost, archived version was found on Internet Archive WayBack Machine review 2/25/2011, page, and 2/26/2011, page.  Was not restored to the originally published date since there were comments for the 2007 updated post. (written September 26, 2004; revised September 30, 2007) However, in the effort to find the right place for this post, the comments were lost and, subsequently, restored.

A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

The last couple of days have been spent working with an installer, Ron, trying to get my satellite internet system working and training me on how to set it up and use it. It’s a new model and there have been a few wrinkles. When I leave here though, we will be comfortable with the system and I’ll be able to blog from just about anywhere!

Ron is a member of an online forum that I participate in and has an “extra” RV pad at his home just for friends — which is where we are currently camped. He is retired and does the install for other forum members at the one price no matter how long it takes. He wants to make sure that they will be able to handle it once they leave.

We’ve also been sharing supper with Ron and his wife — three times in their house and once at The Black Bull Saloon and Steakhouse in a town about 30 minutes from here — lots of good discussions and stories.

We sat at a table right next to the built in wine rack – the image below is from their home page.

Even though we had originally only planned a couple of days here, we’re going to end up being here for a full week, it appears. Seems there’s a couple of events in the area that might be interesting, with more opportunities for pictures.

Comments on "Online with our own satellite dish!"

September 7, 2007

teeni @ 8:08 am

Wow – that Ron seems like a great guy, making sure you know what you’re doing before you leave and having an RV pad to stay at. That is wonderful. Also, very cool built-in winerack. Looking forward to posts on the area’s events!

Opal Tribble @ 9:00 am

That’s a sweet set up! Ron sounds like a fabulous guy!

Tomorrow, I’ll be getting some OJT — on-the-job training — on how to set up an internet satellite system.

Except it’s not exactly on-the-job, since I don’t have one — a job, that is.

The guy that’s going to provide the training doesn’t have one, either. He makes some money doing it, but it’s extra money, not a job type money. He’s retired, too.

After researching internet satellite systems, I decided this is the way that I wanted to go. I’m sure that I could have a system sent to me and I could figure out how to do it. There’s some manuals on-line that tell you how to do it.

However, after 20-plus years as an instructor, I know that the best way to learn in most instances is to watch someone else do it, then practice it, and then do it again. That’s how Ron does his training.

Another good thing about it — there’s no test! The criteria for successful completion of the training is that it is over when I feel comfortable setting the system up.

2007 will be the first year for me since 1957 that I haven’t had to take some kind of test.

Last Friday, I stopped in at the training center where I used to work. I like to do that every now and again, though I’m sure as time goes by it will occur less and less often.

When I was talking to one of the operators during their lunch break, he asked me if I was enjoying my time off.

I looked at him and, with a straight face, said something like, “Time off from what?”

When he realized where the question was coming from, we both had a chuckle.

Words and phrases sometimes mean different things at different stages of one’s life.

Vacation, to a child, means summer, because, here in the US, most kids are off from school for most of the summer. To an adult, vacation often means trips and travel — getting away from the stress and strain of the job — what Europeans refer to as holiday.

When one is retired, vacation and time off are pretty much meaningless. I’m not employed and I don’t have any plans to be — at least not in the near future — so there’s nothing to take time off from. We are now on our third trip of 2007. We will have been gone from home for a total of nearly three months this year. It’s kind of hard to term any of that a vacation.

Well, technically, I guess the first trip was vacation. I was still employed, using up my 2007 vacation prior to my retirement day. I guess I was taking time off, then, too, though all I had to do was go back to go through the formalities of terminating — by retiring — my employment.

I know… I’m retired.

I shouldn’t be writing about enhanced work processes.

However, if I had figured this out, when I was still working, it might have made a few things easier.

It’s very simple — just a second monitor.

However, the way that it works is to expand the desktop. Now I can have two different aps open full screen and use the mouse to drag and drop from one ap to the other — a lot less cutting and pasting.

I just finished redirecting all of my wife’s web pages from her old location to the new location — including checking each redirect worked — in a little over an hour. It would have taken twice as long before and would have been much more confusing and error prone. (Can you spell T-R-A-P… just kidding, guys).

Anyhow, if I would have had this before … oh, never mind. I would have had to have bought my own second monitor.

But I might have — I just might have.

In the mid 90′s, I saved the following little piece from a magazine with the intent of perhaps using it in a class some time. I forgot about it and never used it.

Two-way communication

I once worked for a rather staid corporation. At the time, a popular commercial featured a man opening his bathroom medicine cabinet to find a face grinning back at him and shouting, “Hi, Guy!”

I was new to the company, and frequently saw a man in a dark suit pass me on the floor where I worked. We’d exchange looks but never speak.

One day to break the ice, I grinned and loudly said, “Hi, Guy!” He looked surprised, said nothing, and walked away.

I continued to greet him in the same manner for two weeks – until I saw his picture in the company newsletter. He was the CEO.

The next time we crossed paths I started to apologize for being so informal. But he just looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Hi, Guy!”

I’m sure some instructor somewhere might be able to use this in a class of some kind or another.