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.

Control modules similar to these, designed in the 1960s, continue in use in the 2010s.

Old technology doesn’t necessarily mean defunct technology.

Our preference is to flee the heat and humidity of Arkansas by heading to the mountains – when we can.

This year, that’s not an option.  I’ve got contract work through the hottest part of the year, so we’re not planning on a trip until later.

This fourth of July weekend, though, I had the opportunity to make it a four day weekend, if, on Thursday, we were able to get done with everything that needed to be done at work so we didn’t need to finish up on Friday.  I texted Karen to let her know, “May take tomorrow off and make it a 4 day weekend if we can finish this exam on the simulator tonight.”

“Ok, you probably need a break,” she replied, and then a little while later, she asked, “Do you want to take a day trip or overnight for something different to do?

I texted back, “Don’t know as hot as it is.  It’d be different if it were cooler.”

Karen: “Biloxi MS is to be in the mid to low 90’s maybe a shower or two. – Day drive look around – just an idea.”

I liked the idea, but decided to check to see just how long a trip that would be.  “That’s over an 8 hour drive by google,” I texted.

So there we were the next afternoon, south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, with the heat mirages shimmering off the blacktop, without even a clue of the road construction traffic backup we would run into east of Vicksburg, Mississippi, or that we would end up in an extended crawl in Friday rush hour traffic in Jackson, Mississippi going into a long holiday weekend.

We didn’t take our motorhome, though there were plenty of recreational vehicles on the road.

Coal miner, Kempton, West Virginia

1939 May

Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer.

Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)

hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a04095

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.

I’ve been spend a bit of time working on the civil war blog, Daily Observations from The Civil War, and, as a result, have been missing from here for a bit.  However, since much of what will be posted in that blog is going to be time relevant, I want to get a good handle on it before things really start happening.

It’s highly likely that I will be going back to work for another 6 month stint beginning in January which means that I’ll be working during the 150th anniversary of the run-up to and beginning of the civil war.  The amount of time that I’ll have for working on the blog will, thus, be limited – which is the reason for the effort now.

I’m currently working with  “Village Life in America, 1852 – 1872,” by Caroline Cowles Richards.  I went ahead and back posted entries from the early days of her diary and am pre-posting entries after November 14, 1860 so each will be published on the applicable day.

Things were going fine until I discovered the e-text I was using didn’t match the text in the pdf copy I was using to check spelling and wording against.  I had already run into missing text earlier, but had just assumed that an error had been made in electronic transcription.

But, then, I ran into an instance where the entry in the pdf version for a particular date had a lot more information and detail.

It turns out that the pdf version is a “new and enlarged” edition.

In looking into it a little further, it turns out that it is at least the third published edition of Miss Richard’s diary and, probably, has entries included that were left out of the previous editions.

So now I am going back and comparing editions and adding new posts where they were omitted.

Of course, if I used the e-text and pdf for the same edition, there wouldn’t have been any discrepency to be found.

I’ll be incorporating more diaries into the blog, but I’ll make sure that the text and pdf versions are from the same source document.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had joined with two others on The American Civil War page on facebook. That was 3 weeks ago and the “friend” count for the page was 1,385.  Today, it went over 2,500.

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.

This is a day at work  — a week — that’s hard to rearrange and/or reschedule.

It wasn’t supposed to do this until later in the day… but at 4:30 AM we already had a bit of white stuff.

… and road conditions are already deteriorating (blue is snow covered, green is slush).

The Arctic Oscillation has become strongly negative again.

I really have intended to work my way through the photos from our September trip. However, I have managed to find other activities to keep me from that goal.  I do, however, have a new photo gallery for Day 3 of Rocky Mountain National Park.

This new notebook sure is small compared to her old one.

Check out Day 3 of Rocky Mountain National Park and my other Haw Creek photo galleries.

Work, of course, takes a huge chunk of time and my time is shifted since the simulator is primarily available for the students in the evening. While I was planning for the contract to be over at the end of 2009, there is a distinct possibility that I will be there until the second week of March.

Karen has a new notebook computer. I spent the better part of a day installing all of her old programs and transferring files.  The notebook runs on Windows 7.

I’m going to also be moving from XP to Windows 7.  After restoring my laptop to near original configuration, there are still times where I am waiting an excessive time  for processes to finish.  My new laptop is on order and will be assembled and shipped next week.

Early this year, I rediscovered a love for reading.  I used to read three or more novels a week on a regular basis.  After many years of only a few books a year, I’m now reading at least a couple of books a week.

This has been the wettest year of all the years we have lived in Arkansas.  Much of the state is well over 20″ over the normal rainfall amounts for the year to date.  This is already about the 12th or 13th wettest year on record for Little Rock.  From what I understand, the wettest year on record was in the 1880s, and there was a little more than ten inches more than what Little Rock has already so far this year — and there is still two more months of 2009 to go.

I’m going to be concentrating on posting the rest of the material from our September trip and building photo galleries. I’ll post on other topics as I have the time and the inclination.

Ten days ago, I had finally had it.

I had been created a photo gallery from the images of our first day in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Unfortunately, I was having more difficulties than normal in getting the gallery uploaded to the server.

I had also been having more and more little problems with my computer — nothing serious that kept me from using it, just a bunch of little things that I either found a work-around on or just gave up on.

The computer was working and doing just about everything I needed, but it was 3 years old, and it was time for a change.

A drastic change.

No, I didn’t go out and buy a new computer, though that was a consideration.

Instead, I reset the computer back to the original software configuration.  I’ve taken more drastic measures — such as reformatting the hard drive or buying a new one — to resolve problems with previous computers.  This was bad enough, since I had to reload the programs I wanted and install all of the updates.  That’s still not completely done.

I’ve also also figured out my problem with uploading material to the server.  I’m in the process of downloading all of my material from the server and will be changing the way that I publish new stuff to the website.  (The problem was in Microsoft FrontPage extensions, which I won’t be using any more.)

With working odd hours and dealing with all this, posting material from our September trip was interrupted.  I will be posting more from the trip, hopefully in the next day or so.

My anticipated “weekend” away from work is being extended by a planned 3 week vacation.

We are currently camped at a KOA in La Junta, Colorado. Yesterday, we camped at Sandy Cove Corps of Engineers campground on Canton Lake in Oklahoma.

Tomorrow we will be traveling on for a week in the Rocky Mountain National Park area. We’ll be camped in the park for four days. When we reserved our campsite for the park, there was nothing available for the Labor Day weekend, so we made reservations at the Estes Park KOA. We prefer to have spots reserved for holiday weekends rather than trying to find a campsite when there will likely be a lot of other people camping.

After Labor Day, though, we shouldn’t have any trouble finding a place to camp.

We will be traveling on Labor Day, though…, and will probably be traveling I40, which brings back memories of another Labor Day on I40.

In 2001, we were headed from Steamboat Springs to Estes Park and decided to go by way of Golden to see a quilt exhibit. We didn’t even think about the fact that there would be heavy, heavy traffic heading from the mountains back to the cities.

We ended up in a traffic jam backed up for miles.

Fortunately, this time, we’ll be heading away from the cities, going west.

Here are a few photos from yesterday at Canton Lake:

The following “drawing” of boys at play in Lake Canton was rendered from a photograph using Corel Paintshop Pro Photo X2.

While I will be “off-line” and away fro the internet until Friday, there will continue to be daily posts that have been “pre-published.”

I plan to have more photos to share later in the week.

This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About.

]]> http://exit78.com/on-the-road-again-in-colorado/feed/ 7 http://exit78.com/work-work-work-rest/ http://exit78.com/work-work-work-rest/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:00:00 +0000 Mike Goad http://exit78.com/?p=2453

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.

published between 1898 and 1905

photomechanical print : photochrom, color.

Library of Congress Photochrom Print Collection

The Photochrom Print Collection has almost 6,000 views of Europe and the Middle East and 500 views of North America. The richly colored images look like photographs but are actually ink-based photolithographs, usually 6.5 x 9 inches.

]]> http://exit78.com/colorado-the-round-up-grub-pile/feed/ 0 http://exit78.com/dont-turn-there-fool/ http://exit78.com/dont-turn-there-fool/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:55:03 +0000 Mike Goad http://exit78.com/?p=2379

Most days, my hours at work go from 11:30 AM to 8 PM.

When I first started in the middle of July, the sun was still up when I left in the evening. Each day, though, it’s been darker and darker when I leave the building.

Image originally uploaded to flickr by Polarimetric

Last night, I left the parking lot around 8:20.  It was getting pretty dark by that time.

About a half mile after I turned on highway 64, I came up behind a car that was driving about 40 miles an hour — in a 55 mph speed zone.  I knew I wouldn’t be behind him long because I would be getting on the interstate at Exit 78, which was just ahead.

He started hitting his brakes and I realized he was probably in an unfamiliar area looking for something.

His turn signal came on and I realized what he was looking for.

I started flashing my high beams on and off at him.

“Don’t turn there, fool! You really don’t want to turn there!”

He started to turn anyway.  He probably thought I was some crazy person, flashing my high beams at him like that.

I pushed down on the horn and held it down and continued to flash my lights, while hitting my brakes to allow him to swing back into my lane — if he got my message.

“DON’T TURN THERE, FOOL!  THAT’S THE OFF RAMP!  YOU’LL BE GOING THE WRONG WAY!

He was almost all the way across the other lane of traffic when he jerked his wheel back to the right and turned away from the east bound exit from the interstate.  After getting back into the correct lane of traffic, he drove just a little bit further and turned at the right point to get to the Exit 78 east bound entrance to the freeway.

The interchange at Exit 78 is rather unusual.  When it was originally constructed, there was only an east bound exit and a west bound entrance.  The east bound exit went right to the highway, while the west bound entrance had a different access point from the highway and had an overpass.

When a west bound exit and an east bound entrance was added a few years back, they were tied in to the old west bound ramp and overpass.

It can be confusing.

The guy I was following last night was obviously unfamiliar with the area.  He probably had gotten off on the previous exit and was following the highway, looking for a way to get back on.  He thought he had found it when he saw vehicles at the exit waiting for traffic to clear.

He was wrong… and lucky.

I’ve only turned down one way roads a couple of times that I can remember.  Last year, I almost turned on to the west bound off ramp of Exit 78. The “new” on ramp is where the old turn was for a road paralleling the interstate that I sometimes use on my way home.

Have you ever made a turn and went the wrong way on a “one-way?”

day 79

Yesterday was supposed to be a 12 hour day. I went in a little early to make sure everything was set up right for the evaluations that we would be doing in the simulator. Unfortunately, four of the six evaluations took longer than expected. After getting to work around 6 A.M., I didn’t leave the building until 10:40 P.M.

It made for a very long day — the longest work day I’ve had in a very long while.

However, it’s enough to let me take all of Friday off, so I’ll have a three day weekend.

Blog Posting

While I am working a 40 hour week, I’ve found that publication on a very regular schedule works for me, so long as I keep with the blog tagline, “Sharing some of my photos, vintage images I’ve discovered, and — occasionally — commentary and thoughts from retired life.”

And that’s what I plan to do, much as I’ve done the last couple of weeks — photos from our travels, vintage images of interest that I’ve found, and an occasional commentary, say once a week or so, on various topics.

For the visitors who like my photos, I’m also publishing them on two other blogs, Haw Creek and Haw Creek Out ‘n About.

While those two blogs are intended to have slightly different content, one RV related and the other travel related, right now all I am primarily publishing a random photo from our travels each day.

Photos published here and on the other two blogs are always different from each other and, generally, have not been published in the past.  The exceptions to that are that I may republish some images that I post while we are traveling and some images that I posted before I established my current semi-random selection process may reappear.  It’s just too difficult to go back through all of the old posts.

day 76

We are the products of choices.

The path our lives take is the result of many, many choices.  We make choices that decide our future and impact the lives of others.   Decisions and choices by others affect us every day.

“I’m going to take every single sick day even if I don’t get sick; they’re mine.” — or — “I only take days off sick if I’m really feeling lousy.”

“I choose to have a positive attitude at work regardless of the problems or issues. ” –  or — “How can I have a positive attitude with all the mickey mouse stuff they want us to do.”

“There aren’t any decent jobs around here, so I guess I’ll just take what I can get.” — or — “There aren’t any decent jobs around here that I’m qualified for, so I’ll do what I need to do to be able to get a better job, even if it means leaving.”

“I’m going to deal with other people based on who they are, not what they are.”  — or — “You just can’t deal with those people; they aren’t like us.”

“I’m just here to earn my paycheck; I’m just going to do what I’m told.” — or — “I’m going to do what I need to do in order to be the very best that I can at this job.”

“I’m tired and grumpy because it’s been a long day, but I sure won’t take it out on the worker at the checkout counter when the product I’m buying doesn’t scan.” — or — “I don’t care about her; I just want to get done here so I can go home and have some beer.”

What are some other examples of choices that shape our lives?

day 68

Yesterday, I was going down the hall heading back to my office, preoccupied with what I was doing.

Sure enough, I walked in the wrong office.

I knew it almost as soon as I opened the door.  I went ahead and walked on in and chatted with Dave for a few minutes before he headed to the class he was slated to teach.

Without thinking, I had gone in the office I had been in before I retired.

Other than personal items and the chair, it looks just the same as it did when I left.

day 57

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

USS Casimir Pulaski, SSBN633 - next to sub tender

The dry dock in Holy Loch, Scotland

Casimir Pulaski in dry dock

When I first met Fred in  Holy Loch, Scotland, in 1976, he had gone to check out a job on the USS Casimir Pulaski, SSBN633 — the fleet ballistic missile submarine where I was one of the crew.  When I went back to the engine room that morning, he was sitting there unable to get back to the tender after scoping out the job he was supposed to work on.

While he was checking out the job, the submarine had been moved away from the tender and was on the way to the dry dock.

Fred hadn’t been to breakfast and he hadn’t reported in to the shop, yet.   For all we knew, his chief considered him AWOL.

I don’t remember if we told any chiefs or officers about Fred’s dilemma so that his shop could be informed.  I do know, though, that I took him to his first breakfast on board a submarine.

Supposedly, the food on submarines is supposed to be the best food in the services.  I really don’t know that to be a fact, since the few meals that I ate on any vessel other than the sub were on the submarine tender and I don’t really remember those.  However, I seldom had any complaints about what we were served on the boat.

Fred’s job had been assigned to the tender as a temporary duty station. He later served on a submarine.

About 5 years later, I was sitting in the control room of a commercial nuclear power plant when a potential new employee was being given a tour of the plant and the control room.  I looked at him and asked, “Where do I know you from?”

He asked what boat I had been on and I told him, “the Casimir Pulaski.”

“You were the guy that took me to breakfast!”

It was Fred.

Fred accepted the job offer and went to work in the same department that I was in, Operations.  After I went to the Training Department, we both ended up in the same senior reactor operator license class.  He stayed in the Operations Department far longer than I did, but eventually he accepted a job in Training.  He is actually older than me, but he stayed at the plant after I retired, retiring almost exactly a year after I had.

Fred is now working as a contractor at a plant in South Carolina.

I’m now working at what used to be Fred’s desk.

day 49