Download audio file (YouGotTheBestPart.mp3)

Back in 2K5, I found myself in jail – again. More “boyish hijinks’s” gone bad. The inequities of last night’s transgressions paid off so to speak.

As the cell door slid locked behind me, I noticed there were two bunks. Four beds total. They were bare and looked like big cookie sheets. I had the dingy cell to myself! Bonus! Abundant comfort at it’s best! Dozing the time away will surely relieve my taught, nervous anxiety.

My bedding was under my arm. A rolled up plastic mattress and a plastic pillow. During the hot unair-conditioned day the mattress and pillow will be nice and sticky. At night they will be shivery and biting. Sweet! The thin blanket I was furnished with was too short to cover your shoulders and your feet at the same time. Coziness indeed! There were no sheets – I guess they were afraid that I might try to choke or hang myself.

The clothing provided was of the highest quality. A stiff orange canvas jumpsuit sans socks complete with disposable flip flops. I’m guessing by the scratchiness of the jumpsuit that it wasn’t from Egypt and the thread count must have been less than 50.

A stainless steel commode with a brushed finished was anchored to the right wall. I should do my business now while I’m alone. Privacy is a commodity in lock-up so you better take it while you can. In the poky, one tends to avoid using the head as much as possible. Sitting on the cold, piss dried can isn’t fun. Especially if there’s somebody sitting three feet away from you while you’re dropping a deuce. Ah, never-mind. I can use this luxurious amenity later when I really need to go.

I unrolled the stiff mattress on the the lower bunk in the back of the cell and tucked myself in under the blanky in the fetal position. That ever familiar feeling of “this really sucks” overcame me. Then came the “what the fuck happened”, the “why the fuck did I do thats” and the “what the fuck am I going to do nows”, started to settle in. The shame was exquisitely pleasant.

There was nothing to do. No cards, no dominoes, and nothing to write with. Nodding off was my best option.

—ZZZzzz…

I was startled awake by the cell door sliding open. A guy sauntered in wearing a jumpsuit about one and a half times the size of mine. He needed it too. He was a black guy about six foot four with an expression on his face that looked as if he had the demeanor of a bent shit can. He threw his bedding on the bunk above me and jumped up after it. I was a bit astonished by the speed and agility he sprang up there with being as big as he was. The bunk was creaking as I whispered to the Lord. “Dear Baby Jesus, please don’t let the bunk above me come crashing down, and please don’t let that big dude get funny with me. A-men.”

We both laid there in silence for quite a while before he jumped down to take a piss in the pot.

Sidebar: When you first show up at county, and you share a cell with somebody, there is an obligatory “total silence” period lasting anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes before speaking to each other. The initial minutes of the “total silence” period are spent puffing your chest out, making augmented movements, and being as loud as possible when saying “FUCK” or “SHIT” to yourself. You also slam things around to let the other guy know how tough you are and that you shouldn’t be fucked with. This ritual is performed after every jail house intake. It’s just something you do when you go to jail. You need time to read the other guy and he needs time to read you. This behavior is something akin to the largest living primates of Africa – the lowland Gorilla of the silverback variety.

After the shake, he zipped up his jumpsuit and turned around looking at the sparse surroundings. He looked up at the ceiling, then over to the vent above the door. Was he planning an escape? There’s no way he could get his canned ham head through the opening.

He cracked the nut first. “How long have you been here?”

I didn’t really know what time it was, “Um, maybe a few hours.”

“Are you going to get out when you talk to the Judge tomorrow?”

“Man, I hope so. How long are you in for?”

“This is just a stop for me. I gotta go to Walla Walla sometime in the next few days.”

“That sucks. Sorry to hear that.” I said.

His name was Darryl and we spent the rest of the night sharing crazy stories laughing our asses off. Guys from cells down the block were shouting things like, “What the fuck are you guys smoking down there?”, “What is this? Comedy Central?”, and the ever popular “Shut the fuck up, it’s late.”

Darryl had these jail house superstitions, that had me rolling. Every time he had a new one, he’d lean over the side of his bed to dispense corrections folklore to me. Spray would hit me in the face as he talked and laughed. I was initially repulsed, but didn’t show it and I soon became acclimated. I had to get spit on to hear his pearls of wisdom. It was a rite of passage, I guess.

• “Don’t touch the wall. If you do, you’ll be back.”
• “If there’s a deck of cards in the cell, take a card with you when you leave for good luck.”
• “If you are locked up over the weekend, pray in the morning and before you go to bed so the judge is in a good mood on Monday morning.”
• “Don’t eat anything that’s green, it’ll give you the shits.”
• “Don’t get too close to anybody when you’re in the joint. Everybody is different than they are on the outside. You might meet that same person when you both get out, but neither of you will be the same people you were when you were in the cell together.”

After we settled down a bit, he found a book under the lower bed in the other bunk. He held it up and said, “Look what I found!” all excited like it was bail money. He then tore it in half and handed me one so we both had something to read.

“Ha! I got the best part!”, he said.

“What part is that?” I asked.

“The END!”

I wish I could remember what that book was. If I did, I’d read it. There’s probably a lesson to be learned in it somewhere.

Download audio file (Dream.mp3)

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

- Thomas Jefferson

Being a cautious optimist, I believe that things are getting better as time passes. I believe that what has happened yesterday need not happen today or tomorrow. Today I know my dreams of the future can come true. My life is becoming increasingly meaningful as time progresses because of being more in tune with my environment and the people I share it with. That barely perceivable hum is getting louder each day as I embrace it and seek it out. My journey is not dependant on the influences of others. I can dream to be me.

Download audio file (BobbyTat.mp3)

In an earlier post (http://daveka.com/green-socks), I was accused of sleeping on the job in an area I was never in by a site manager. When I denied it, the site manager yelled, “My lead man caught you. Are you calling my lead man a liar?” At which point I quit (They were hell bent on kicking my ass). But before I left Lima, my buddy Bobby Beasley and I needed to get tattooed.

We drove by a storefront on the edge town that had a flickering “Tattoo” neon sign in the window. We looked at each other and said simultaneously said, “Wanna get one?” So, we stopped and got out of the car laughing our asses off.

When we got to the door, I tried to pull it open, but it was looked. The store hours open sign said it should be open, so I cupped my eyes with my hands and leaned on the glass to get a better view. I was 19 and committed on getting a tat so I was a lot disappointed when I didn’t see anybody inside at first.
The lights were on inside the front of the place which was really small. I looked to the back of the store and saw a guy lying on a couch in the dark in front of a flickering TV. The tattoo shop was the first couple rooms of an apartment! Creepy!

I looked at Beasly, shrugged my shoulders and knocked on the door. The guy on the couch didn’t move. I knocked again, saw the guy on the couch stir, sit up, look up at me and said, “Shit…” He was annoyed we were there!

He got off the couch, walked to the front door, unlocked & opened it, and said “Wadaya want…”

“We wanna get tattoos.” I said.

“I guess. You can pick one off the wall – or (sigh), do you have something in mind?” I could smell stale booze on his breath as he spoke.

“I’ll pick one off the wall.” I said.

Bobby and I walked in and started looking around. The front room had tattoos on the walls up to the ceiling and a bunch of notebooks loaded with illustrations. The second room was where the tats were applied. The tattoo machine looked like an old time punch card device with a needle at the end of a three foot cable. Truly old school. Not to mention a .45 caliber handgun lying on top of it. Beyond that room was a hallway that went down to the living area where the flickering TV was.

After about five minutes, I found the one I wanted. “Dude, how much will this one cost? I want it on my shoulder!”

“Have you gotten a tattoo before? You couldn’t handle that in one shot and would probably pass out if we tried. You’d need to come back at least twice.” I was pointing at a werewolf that was about a square foot in size.

I ended up picking a wolf head that was about the size of a quarter, but Bobby went all out. “How big of one can I get?” he asked.

“The size of a deck of cards.”

Bobby settled on the Warner Brother’s Tasmanian Devil. That was about 3 inches tall. A manly choice indeed!

I went first. I was a little concerned by the tremor in the hand of the tattooist’s hand and the smell of stale booze on his breath, but what the hell; I’m only going to do this once! I think Bobby was second because he was trying to get enough guts together.

Mine was done in about 15 or 20 minutes, it hurt like hell and it was bleeding profusely. I had to keep a wad of TP on while I waited for Bobby to get his done. The damn thing bled to the whole time.

About an hour of Bobby’s gritting teeth and yelps went by until Bobby’s was done. When the tattooist took the hand away that was steadying and keeping the flesh of his arm taught, the whole middle of TAZ sprang toward the right – like it was doing a hula dance! During the whole time he drew and colored the tat, his thumb was pinching his flesh where-by misshaping the tattoo when he removed his thumb!

Bobby just said, “Oh, well”.

We paid the man ($30 for mine and $110 for Bobby’s), got into the beat to shit Datsun, and drove to Bobby’s girlfriends in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Download audio file (!Herons.mp3)

I’ve been studying dream analysis for quite a few years. Symbols are the language of dreams. Please reply with what your opinion as to what this dream symbolizes. Also post a dream you had in the comments and I’ll give it my best shot at what it might mean.

December 16 2002

My wife and I were fighting (I have no idea the topic) and the kids were with us. We were walking down the street toward this very steep staircase in a tall thin building. The stair case seemed to go nowhere but up in the sky.

She finally admitted to me that she was having an affair with a guy from work. He was in his 40s and his name is either Keith or Kyle. I wasn’t really listening after she broke the news. We started walking up the steep stairs.

I think we got up twenty steps when I told her I was going to ring her neck. I wrapped my hands around her throat, but didn’t squeeze. Instead I let her go, turned around and started walking down the steep steps. On the steps about 10ft. below me I saw two cans of beer; Foster’s Lager.

When I got to them, I picked them up and both of them had tiny holes punctured in the middle of them so they were empty.

There was a pond I knew of where herons lived and I don’t know why, but I knew the herons punctured the cans.

I put the cans down, turned around and began walking up the stairs to follow my wife and children.

I thank the Herons.

Download audio file (Slow Burn Final.mp3)

When you are in a radioactive area in the hot zone, you must de-contaminate yourself.

I’ve witnessed several times a nuke worker moving from a crapped up (radioactive) area to the grey area to remove the duct taped respirator, gloves, and Tyvek body suit only to take a hot shower to rinse off rather than a tepid one.  Sounds innocuous enough, but a hot shower tends to dilate the pores in your skin where radioactive particles can hide.

If a radiation source was detected on you even after decontamination, they’d be sent back into the grey area for another shower, but this time with a wire brush.  The wire brush was used to scrape the radioactive particles out of their flesh.

Some of these guys would emerge from decontamination with pretty bloody self-inflicted wire brush scrubbing injuries.  They would brag about how much it didn’t hurt over a couple shots of Jack at the local dive showing off the scab(s) a week after the fact.  The sign of a true macho man!

Download audio file (!Spinnankers.mp3)

Dale and I met in 3rd grade and we’ve stayed great friends ever since. Dungeons and Dragons, learning how to disco from my mother for the C U P dances, Space invaders, Pizza Pete, War Gamers Society, Timex Sinclair programming, motor cycles, boy scouts, sleeping in igloos and ice caves, scuba diving, spelunking, the parties. Those bachelor parties! We stood up for each other in each of our weddings, and we don’t spend enough time catching up because of the children we’ve brought into this world and our marriages.

The cool thing is we can go for years without seeing each other and when we do finally hook back up, it’s not like a day has passed since the last time we were together. We are both a little older, a little greyer, have more kids and more trials a tribulations to discuss, but for the most part, nothing has really changed at all.

I was unpacking some old boxes a few days ago and discovered some old video footage. We were 21 (circa 1988), and we hit a bar called Schooner’s in Al-keye that doesn’t exist anymore. The plan was to sing some karaoke and bag a couple hot babes like we always did on the weekends (yeah, right – I don’t think we ever had one success!). If I remember correctly, Marlboro was sponsoring the karaoke event that night and they had cigarette girls handing out tiny packs of smokes and lighters all night. Hell, I think that was the first night I ever drank a Midori Kamikazee! Yuck!

We did run into one hottie that night, but I don’t think any one of us was up for a three-way. But it was a blast none the less. I gave you my favorite hat that night, and the hottie tried to get out of the bar with it! I hope you still have it somewhere!

These videos represent a time in our lives when we hardly made over minimum wage, we both drove shitty cars, listened to Motley Crue, The Cure and Journey, only cared about what we were going to do that next weekend, and how we were going to land a girl friend. What a great time in a young person’s life! Man, I miss those days and I miss you too!

Download audio file (!CleanUrine.mp3)

Being a Health Physics Technician (HPT) is a gypsy life style. About every 16 to 18 months, nuclear containment buildings across the United States are cracked open to replace spent fuel rods and to fix whatever atrophied during that time the nuclear reactor was running. This could encompass locating potential radioactive hot spots, repainting surfaces, replacing hot valves, and welding leaks.

The good thing is that there are currently about 104 commercially operated power plants at 64 sites and 34 research reactors present at some universities across the United States. They all don’t go down for repair, decon, and refueling, at the same time, so when your 6 to 8 week contract is complete at one facility, there’s always another reactor to re-locate to. You’re always on the move; you are always looking for new work.

You make a lot of friends along the way (and enemies too) during the course of the contract. Then on the road again to find another available contract which could be anywhere in any state. I did this work for a year and a half, met hundreds of people along the way, but only ran into a handful of people I had worked with before.

That part of the business is sad and lonely. You make friends, and then say good bye knowing you’ll probably never see them again. But the money pretty much made up for it.

When you do apply for a new gig at a new facility, at least three things occur: Your work history is verified, your accumulative dose is scrutinized, and you have to provide a urine sample so they can test for drugs. There might even be a pop quiz.

This pop quiz is called “The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory” (MMPI). You would have had to take this test before your first nuke gig, but the powers that be at some sites throw one in there periodically just to re-check your mental stability.

The MMPI is a personality test that measures one’s mental health, personality structure, and psychopathology. It’s been revised several times since my day, but I’m sure the latest and greatest is pretty close to the one I took.

The test consists of about 550 questions that measure: Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, Masculinity/Femininity, Paranoia, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, Hypomania, and Social Introversion.

I’ve taken this test several times, and I still don’t understand how they can grock your personality and mental state by asking questions like: “I like mechanics magazines”, “I like to read newspaper articles on crime”, “My father was a good man”, “I am very seldom troubled by constipation”, “My soul sometimes leaves my body”, and the ever popular “Evil spirits possess me at times”. But it is the standard they go by.

OK, back to the piss. If there are non-prescribed drugs in your urine, you are an immediate “no hire” and that information goes into your work history and you’d probably never work on a nuke site ever again. I guess they don’t want you high or drunk while playing with nuclear stuff.

But, people do like to do their drugs, so they find a workaround. The most popular is to obtain a clean sample from someone that doesn’t do drugs and sneak it in the bathroom with the piss cup. When you return to the nurse with the sample, they take its temperature to verify that it came out of you. It’s easy to cheat here too. Put the sample in a zip lock bag and either tape it to you abdomen or carry it around in your underwear for a while to heat it up to your core body temperature.

Where do you obtain clean urine if you have drugs in your system? You go to a “provider”.

I couldn’t believe it when I found out that there were people out on job sites selling 2 ounces of their own piss for 50 to $75 – and people were buying it!

There was one guy I knew that failed the urinalysis not due to drugs in the sample, but that the sample he provided was from a woman who was pregnant and didn’t know it! Men generally don’t have placental glycoprotein in their urine!

On one job, I was working for a contractor called Scope at Duke Power in North Carolina. Pretty much all of them were partiers. Mostly alcohol, lots of weed, and a little coke. Nothing too out of control, just some people blowing off some steam after a 12 hour shift at the local bar mostly. The bar would open at 5 in the morning for the guys that worked the night shift. I always worked the night shift when I could. I was always more alert and sharp when the sun went down and there’s nothing like getting a buzz on watching the sun come up.

One weekend there was a Scope company party (not sponsored by the company) that for whatever reason I wasn’t able to make.

But the next day I heard about the shenanigans and boyish hijinks that ensued. It was one hell of a good time! Booze fueled skinny dipping included by some of the hot girls to boot. Damn, I wished I would have made it.

Come Monday morning, I walked up the security desk to get may badge, and it was gone. I looked a little closer and noticed that all Scope contractor badges were gone. I asked the guard why all the Scope ID badges were missing.

“I guess you guys had one hell of a party Saturday night. Rumor has it that there were a lot of drugs consumed and Duke Power wants all Scope employees to take a urinalysis in order to keep their contract. Go see the site nurse.”

I showed up at the nurses’ station and I said I worked for Scope. The nurse handed me a sample cup and pointed toward the bathroom. She then said, “You know, you really don’t have to do this. You can just quit now, because if you test positive, you’ll not only be fired, but you’ll never set foot on reactor property anywhere in this country.”

I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, so I just grabbed the cup and headed to the bathroom.

After I returned with the sample, she said “Go back to the guard station in a week to see if your badge is there. Good luck!”

A week went by and my badge was there. I asked the guard to hand me my badge.
He was in complete shock when he compared the picture on my badge to my face and uttered, “Well I’ll be damned.”
I took my badge from him and headed off to the Scope break area. When I walked in, there was only about 20 (out of 70) Scope people there. My manager asked, “How did you beat the UA test?” I replied, “I don’t do drugs.” I guess I looked like the type of guy that did.

That’s when I understood why the nurse said I didn’t have to provide a sample. I looked like a druggie. They gave everybody a choice. If you were taking drugs, they would let you quit rather than fail the test and never work in that field again. More than 60 percent of the Scope crew either failed the test or didn’t take it and just quit.

Download audio file (!Blacksyph.mp3)

I wasn’t present when this went down, but I know a couple people that were directly involved.  Apparently, when $panky was in college, he met friends rather quickly.  He wasn’t shy, was baroque, and always had a dirty joke or some off the wall story to tell.

After about a month into the semester, you could say $panky had somewhat of a posse, a following of a younger crowd made up mostly of frosh and sophs.  Being a bit older than the rest also lent to his credibility.

There was this one kid in particular (we’ll call him John to protect the innocent) who was part of the posse.  He was very quiet, never drank, was thin, always dressed nice, but his self-esteem was in the shitter and he was extremely shy.

When $panky heard that this kid made it all the way to college without ever going out on a date, never had a girlfriend, and never been shagged.  $panky was on a mission to get this boy some tail!

There was the always a lot of drinking going on, and on any occasion you could see drunk college students staggering  into walls, trying to light smokes at the wrong end, or bragging about how hot the chick they nailed last weekend was.  There were always people passed out too.

For the poor bastards that did pass out, they were in for a big surprise!  Pictures were taken with  bottles and cans stacked around them, their face would be written on with a pen, somebody would almost always stick their bare ass in the face of the passed out guy for that classic photo for Mother, and occasionally, someone would dangle their junk in the victims face for that special *Kodak* moment.

Well, the inevitable happened.  Our boy “John” finally met a girl, and asked her out to dinner.  She accepted.

With a little liquid courage, he was loose enough to make relevant conversation with her, laughed when he was supposed to, and was genuinely interested in listening to what she had to say.

The drinks were flowing and the food was good.  It wasn’t too long before they moved the party to her dorm room and proceeded to “get busy” – which they did I sure hope that condom he had been carrying in his wallet for the last four years was going to hold up!

Anyway, John left when his new girlfriend’s roommate showed up.  He kissed her goodnight and headed straight away to $panky’s to share his good news.

When he arrived, it was still relatively early (maybe midnight).  There were about 6 or 8 people there milling around with brews in hand listening to Floyd.

After the high 5’s, the atta boys, and the rest of the guys trying to pry the gory details of the event out of him, John continued to celebrate and finally did admit that the rubber he had was way too old, he couldn’t unroll it properly so it was not used.  His new girlfriend assured him it would be OK because she was on the pill.

Then $panky jumped in.

He was rattling off all the STDs John could have been exposed to from that one encounter. The worse of which being the:  “Black Syph”, where your junk would turn black and fall off.  And, it doesn’t take long either.

Now $panky was just pulling his chain, but John was the type of guy you shouldn’t kid around with. Especially something as profound and new in his life as getting laid for the first time. You have to be gentle with John.   He was fragile to begin with.  Apparently, $panky never attended a sensitivity training course.

What could have been one of John’s greatest nights of his life was now turning into a nightmare.  He was now petrified about the whole ordeal especially with the $pankster going on and on about the “Black Syph”.

John was scared to death and continued to drink enough to pass out.  Bad move.  One of the guys present was taking an illustration and calligraphy course.  $panky turned is head to the graphic artist in training and said 5 simple words:

“Get me the India Ink.”

India ink is basically made from the soot of different items bound together with shellac.  It’s much more indelible than a Sharpie.

When the ink showed up, $panky went to work on this most evil prank whereby painting the tip of John’s junk with a paper towel dipped in India Ink.

When it was dry, the $pankmeister gently replaced painted unit back in John’s Levis and buttoned up the 501s like nothing ever happened.

$panky said John left sometime in the morning before the rest of them woke up and wasn’t seen for days.  He didn’t stop by the dorm, didn’t hang out with the posse, and started missing classes.  John was clearly wrapped up in serious panic, agonizing fear, and loathing.  A complete and total mind job.

When John did finally climb out of seclusion, he was a new man!  He had gone to a doctor to get it checked out.  The doctor told him he was fine and that he’s hanging out with the wrong friends.

“Who would put someone under this much unnecessary worry, stress, and anxiety?” The doctor asked.  John just shrugged.

John did get over it, and started hanging out with the posse again.  He was even able to laugh about it after a while.

I guess finding out you don’t have the “Black Syph” would change one’s outlook on life to be sure.

John never drank enough to pass out again.

Download audio file (!SteamGenerator.mp3)

Health Physics Technicians
Nuclear reactor containment buildings are cracked open every 16 to 18 months to be re-fueled. Things atrophy over time, so during the 4 to 6 week re-fueling process, nuke workers would repair whatever needed to be fixed. These guys were mostly made up of union pipe fitters, painters, and electricians. These craftsmen knew how to do their trade specific jobs, but didn’t necessarily know the dangers of radiation exposure. So, they in turn were supported by Health Physics Technicians (HPTs).

An HPT’s job is to make sure that personnel weren’t being exposed to something that was not deemed safe by the DOE and the NRC. We collected dosimeter data, took readings off tools with a Geiger counter to verify the decontamination was satisfactory, and roped off or shielded areas that were just too hot (radioactively) for anybody to go near them.

After I dropped out of WSU, my Dad suggested I get into the nuke biz as an HPT. I could travel the country and the pay was good. So, I went through a specialized training program in Maryland to become one. The course only lasted for a few months, and by the time I was certified, I was tutoring other students on formulae, how far to stay away from a radioactive source given the inverse square of a specific dosage at a distance, shielding, the types of radiation we’d be dealing with (alpha, beta, and gamma), and the physical damage these isotopes could do to you either by simple exposure or by ingesting it.

When I did start working on nuclear sites the pay was great! I was 19 years old, making $80,000 dollars a nine month year and there was nontaxable per diem to boot! The holy grail of this type of work was to decon the Space Shuttle. This had to be done after every re-entry due to the fact the shuttle’s skin would pick up radioactive particles while in orbit. The guys working that gig must have known somebody at the top. Their pay was $125 an hour, $75 per diem, and round trip plane tickets from Florida to anywhere their families lived every other week. If you didn’t have family to fly home to, or decided not to use the plane tickets if you did have family, they gave you a check equivalent to what it would cost to fly you there!

OK, back to refueling/repairing the reactor core etc.

Hot Spots
The most radioactive areas in a reactor containment building are the fuel rods which resided in the reactor core where that entire assemblage was submerged in a deep pool of heavy water (deuterium oxide D2O). Heavy water resembles regular (light water) except that the two hydrogen atoms are replaced with two deuterium atoms (D2O) which are hydrogen isotopes that have a mass double that of hydrogen. Why, you ask? The heavy water absorbs fewer neutrons than regular water, so there’s less neutrons being absorbed which enables more energy being released in the fission process.

Valves are hot spots too. There are lots of little nooks and crannies in valves where radioactive particles can be trapped when light or heavy water carrying these particles passes through them. It’s just a matter of time for enough build-up to occur to make that valve something you want to stay away from. If the Geiger counter pegs when you point it at a valve, tape that area off. Anywhere there is a bend, elbow, or joint in the in the system, particles can and most likely will be trapped.

Steam Generators
In pressurized water nuclear reactors, there exist structures called steam generators that are composed of up to 15,000 three quarter inch tubes and can be up to 50 feet or taller. The primary tube coolant side of the steam generator passes through the reactor core to absorb heat. The water in the primary side of the generator is under tremendous pressure to prevent boiling. It’s not uncommon to have 500 degree liquid water in the primary side of the steam generator which passes through the closed secondary tube system of water on the shell side (that contains clean water) to produce steam that turns the turbines that generates electricity.

As I said before, things atrophy when left alone for a while. In the case of steam generators, this means that the integrity of the high pressure/temperature in the primary tube side could be breeched whereby leaking contaminated water into the secondary steam generating side. Not good. When this happens, the leaks need to be patched by an experienced steam generator welder. These leaks are sometimes so small you can’t see them because they could be as small as a pin hole and the 500 degree pressurized water immediately turns to an invisible vapor laser when it passes from the high pressure zone to the low pressure zone.

The guys that fix these leaks are in a very dangerous and radioactive environment. They are only allowed to work in thirty minute shifts to gain access to, weld the leaks shut, then get out alive. In five hours of work (ten thirty minute shifts) you could make about $1000 an hour – and that was 25 years ago. It’s a quick 10 grand, but you’re dosed out for the rest of the year. Meaning no more nuke work for you for 12 months. (Check out my *5(n-18)…* article which describes how much radiation you can be exposed to per year).

Locating the Leaks
OK, if you can’t see the leak, how can you repair it? The technique I’m about to describe is one of the most specialized procedures I’ve seen in such a high tech environment as a nuclear containment building – so read carefully to follow along.

Grab yourself a broom with the handle part sticking way out in front of you. Begin waving the broom handle up and down as you slowly walk around the perimeter of the steam generator. When the tip of the broom handle suddenly drops off, you’ve found the leak! The immediate transformation of a pinhole size ultrahigh pressurized 500 degree stream of liquid water flashing into a vapor stream the thickness of a needle has enough energy to sever an inch thick stick of wood. No shit!

I can’t imagine what this would do to a human body if you walked into it.

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From the Spudnut Website: http://www.richland.tri-cityshopping.com/spudnuts/index.html

Welcome neighbor, to the oldest coffee shop in the city of Richland and the home of the Spudnut. The Spudnut Shop was established in 1948 by our dad, Barlow Ghirardo, and our uncle, Jerry Bell. With one $50.00 check they bought a franchise and 100 sacks of spudnut flour. The shop was originally located in the Richland Wye and operated primarily as a wholesale business. When the highway was built in 1950 the shop was moved to its present location in Uptown Richland.
Spudnuts are different than doughnuts. For one thing they’re made from potato flour and for another they just plain taste better. We feel that it is only fair to warn you that spudnuts are habit forming. Eating just one could turn you into a regular customer and one of our life-long friends. If you’re not careful you could find yourself coming in here on a daily basis to chat with friends or just to relax with a cup of coffee, a spudnut and a newspaper. Before you know it we’ll be greeting you by your first name and the waitress will be serving up your favorite spudnut before you even order it. After a few visits you may get to feel so at home that you start leaving our number on your answering machine. We know it’s scary, but that’s the way it’s been since Dad first opened up in 1948. So give your spudnut order the careful consideration that it deserves. Remember, we’re talking about a relationship here.
Thanks for dropping by, we hope you enjoy your visit with us. We don’t know what the rest of today may have in store for you. It could be a lottery win or a lawsuit. But whatever it is, we want you to remember that you can always find friends, refreshment and maybe even a good lawyer here at the Spudnut Shop in Uptown Richland.
Best Wishes,

Val Driver

Thanks Val, they are still great and I always stop in when I hit Richland!