More of a Nuke This Week...

...than I ever was in the Navy. My current position is a process engineering role for 2 polyethylene (plastic) production lines. One of these two lines is undergoing a turnaround (overhaul) right now. One of our major componants separates the polyethylene from the remaining un-reacted ethylene. Since the traditional differential pressure type level instruments that you would use to monitor water level in a tank don't really work when the liquid is plastic, we use a CS-137 gamma source with a scintillation tube detector to monitor vessel level (the higher the plastic level in the vessel, the more shielding occurs and the lower the reading on the scintillation detector). Well, as part of this turnaround we are replacing this source and cleaning out the inside of the vessel. It turns out that somehow the source tube got bent, and could not be removed in the pre-existing lead sheath as originally planned. We needed to measure the bend and fabricate a new lead shield before we could remove the source.

Now, the idea came up to fill the vessel with water to use as shielding so we can look inside to design whatever fabricated lead shield we would need. I remembered roughly the old thumb rule about 2in of lead = 4in of steel = 24in of water that they tought us in nuke school way back in 1996. So I chime in with my estimate that since the original lead shield is 2.5 inches thick, if we could fill the vessel such that it covers the source tube with at least 36 inches of water we can pull the top off of the vessel and make the appropriate measurements to re-design this lead shield. All is fine and dandy, and I'm pretty confident that I just did something pretty cool (and by "cool" I mean I'm a complete dork).

But alas, all is not fine. I can't just make a recommendation based on some fact stuck in my head so I bust out an "Intro to Nuclear Engineering" textbook from college (easy technical elective for any former nuke to take - a 400 level class on your former job, jackpot!). Well, turns out that specific thumb rule only applies to high energy (2+ MeV) released as a result of the fission process - and that water can't attenuate low energy gammas worth a fuck. CS-137 gammas are 0nly 0.66 MeV, and new calculations showed that we needed at least 60 inches of water to be able to pull the top off the vessel safely. Luckily we had about 72 inches of water available, and we've been able to proceed with a new lead shield fabrication. So the moral of the story is that the one time I thought I was going to be able to use something from nuke school in the real world, I couldn't really use it.

Home Town Pride

Turns out the PC police come with real uniforms in my home town. Cost of freedom of speech, $75. Leaving important details out of a national media report on the exact context of a possibly insensitive remark - priceless.

Of Life and Oil Taxes

As everyone knows Congress called into town 5 members of big oil the other day in a desperate attempt to gain votes prior to the upcoming general election. This hearing makes sense only if the US was the only country on Earth with any interest in oil -- we're not. But other than stating the same arguement that the oil companies (including my own) re-iterated during the hearing I'll offer my own.

As it stands now a majority of oil profits are not from domestic sales (by a long shot they come from overseas). Unlike the auto industry, the oil industry is bringing in foreign money to circulate into the American economy. Now, that being said, in order to meet the growing demand for oil worldwide there will be an escalating need to invest further in all areas of oil exploration, refining, and pipeline applications. All companies measure the success of their investment in terms of ROCE (Return on Capital Emlpoyed, this can also appear as several other acronyms meaning about the same thing). As it stands today, $1 employed in the US does not return the same value to the shareholder as $1 invested overseas. This is not to say that there is no profit to be had, this just means that there is no real motivation for any oil company to invest in the US (notice the lack of refineries being built in the US right now). What's there to invest in? Taxing large oil companies beyond the usual 41% will do more to hurt Americans than it ever will to help. Now, I understand the altruistic cause of alternative energy. We need to have, as a society, a path forward for our ever-increasing need for energy. By doing it through taxes and government action, the only thing we guarentee is that $0.13 cents on the dollar will actually make it there.

Transitioning from Navy to 4-year university

Most of us squids and ex-squids have something in common - we know absolutely nothing about college that we didn't see in some sort of movie. When we near the end of our obligatory contracts with the US government we face three career moves:

1) Re-enlist: it's as easy as saying the word "ok" and signing something.
2) Getting a civilian job: not nearly as easy but some DOD contractors will hire pretty easily, and head hunters can be of particularly good use here.
3) Going away to college: community college is pretty easy to figure out, but the transition to a university can be tricky.

Trying to make career decisions when the information you have about one option far outweighs the others is dangerous, and I feel they lead to many re-enlistments that aren't benificial to the sailor OR the Navy. I did decide my best career move was to make that transition from sailor to student, so I thought I would share some tips/words of advice about university life and on how to make that transition (my grand hope is to help off-set the information imbalance between re-enlisting and the other career options).

1) There is more money available than just the GI Bill/NCF. There is a system within the US education system that addresses "need based financial aid" (info at www.fafsa.ed.gov). Your parents stopped claiming you on taxes years ago, so you don't have to claim your parents income on student financial aid forms. The GI Bill and College Fund are not taxable income, meaning that you come across as flat-ass broke to the government financial aid system. As a result, you are guarenteed to qualify for an extra $2000.00 or so PER SEMESTER of money you never have to give back via Pell Grants.

2) Most colleges and universities have a veterans administration office. This person (or office)can very easily contacted through the university's website (example here http://www.umd.umich.edu/rr_va/).

3) The SAT/ACT you took in high school could still be valid (each school will have a different policy). Generally speaking, if your SAT/ACT or high school GPA is too low for the school of your choice, 2 years of community college will "erase" your high school grades from consideration.

Well, considering this is my first post and I'm getting tired I'm going to stop at three things for now. I'll post more about this subject later.