I have long considered myself a supporter of the nuclear power industry, but this situation in Japan, along with other stories that I have heard, are making me increasingly skeptical about the use of these types of reactors. I am not going to blindly claim all things nuclear are bad - for example, there are some alternative designs (e.g. pebble bed reactors) that might work very well. For a pic today I'm showing a pic of a nuclear power plant - I don't even remember where this one is located. I do want to point out that the reactor itself is NOT located in the two big cooling towers at the right and left sides of the picture. It is more likely located in the smaller white-domed cylindrical building - containment buildings like that are designed to be pretty tough. I would like to share a more lighthearted story from someone who spent a summer pushing paperwork at a small nuclear power plant along Lake Michigan when he was in college about 20 years ago:
"When I was hired to work at the power plant I was quite impressed with the level of screening and background checking. When we had our orientation meetings, that impression of professionalism, safety, and education of the employees continued. One thing we were told was that in the event of an emergency that we were to leave the plant heading west out the main driveway, then turn right on the main road to head north to an assembly point - to do headcounts, etc. Lake Michigan was to the east of the plant.
As part of the safety consciousness at the plant there were occasional plant-wide drills. Sometime during that summer we had one of those drills. We were given announcements over the PA system 'Attention in the plant. Attention in the plant. This is a drill. This is drill...' and then the relevant info was repeated twice to us, like what was happening and what all of us non-essential personnel were supposed to do to in response. From the infomation that was given for that drill I gleaned that we were to pretend that there was a sizable earthquake that struck the area (HIGHLY unlikely in that part of the Midwest) and that there was pretend damage to the tubine deck and, more importantly, pretend damage to the pool of water where the spent fuel was stored. [NOTE: At this time there is a lot of attention being paid to spent fuel pools at the failing reactors in Japan.] This pretend-damaged pool released a pretend plume of radioactivity, but here is the kicker: the prevailing winds (at least in the drill) were blowing from east to west from the lake onto the land, across the main road and cutting us off from the assembly point. So we non-essential personnel were ordered to head to the parking lot to our cars and drive south along the main road, which we dutifully did, BUT we were not told where to assemble. As I walked out the complex I peeked over the shoulder of a co-worker who was involved in the drill and saw a map of a pretend plume cutting off that main road. Apparently after were out to the parking lot and evacuating and out of earshot of the PA system there was an announcement that were not really supposed to leave, but rather just pretend to do so.
So here I was driving south along this rural road without a clue of where to assemble. When I got to the nearest town I saw a bunch of coworkers at a Dairy Queen, so I stopped in and waited for news with them. Somebody tried to call the power plant via pay phone (this was before the days of cell phones) but it took quite a while to get through because many of the personnel had evacuated. When somebody did make contact with the power plant, we were informed that we really should not have left and that we should come back. We did, but we got some ice cream first."
Last Friday night we did demos as part of an event on campus called Late Night BU. I call the picture above "Good thing I was wearing lab goggles!" This past weekend my parents reciprocated on our visit to Green Bay by visiting us (and they brought their dog). We played frisbee golf on Saturday. This evening was Katie's first soccer practice. As one might expect for 4-year-olds, the practice was sort of chaotic, cute, and funny. It was also only about 45 degrees F outside.
The first day of classes after break was a short one for me. Katie had her second procedure to have tubes placed in her ears. Because she was placed under general anesthesia she had to do this as an outpatient at the hospital. Even though it was a somewhat minor procedure we still had a very similar check-in to Katie's and my surgeries last year - which put both Karen and me a little on edge. She was out only about a half-hour and she recovered very quickly from the anesthesia to her usual spunky self. Karen and I were actually able to make it to our noon classes. Warm weather continues: students are starting to wear shorts on campus, and we heard some chorus frogs on the way to a visitation for our pastor's late mother tonight. Tomorrow's weather might be a bit colder. In other news, I got written up in the Bradley quarterly magazine Hilltopics. See: http://www.bradley.edu/about/publications/hilltopics/2011spring/notebook/page4.dot#campbell under the header "Igniting an interest". I really like the picture that accompanies the acticle.
Bought a new used van on St. Patrick's day (the 6th one we test drove). We were a little sad to let the old minivan go that we had for 9 years, but we like the 2005 Grand Caravan so far. We drove it up to Green Bay for a quick visit to my parents house. We played with their new dog Snickers. Tonight Karen and I went to see a comedian (Michael Joiner, also stars in the movie The Grace Card) at the CupO'Joy Coffee House. We wish Peoria had a venue like this. Tonight is supposed to the closest full moon to earth in many years. Here is a picture of it rising above the courthouse in Green Bay. 
I have long considered myself a supporter of the nuclear power industry, but this situation in Japan, along with other stories that I have heard, are making me increasingly skeptical about the use of these types of reactors. I am not going to blindly claim all things nuclear are bad - for example, there are some alternative designs (e.g. pebble bed reactors) that might work very well. For a pic today I'm showing a pic of a nuclear power plant - I don't even remember where this one is located. I do want to point out that the reactor itself is NOT located in the two big cooling towers at the right and left sides of the picture. It is more likely located in the smaller white-domed cylindrical building - containment buildings like that are designed to be pretty tough. I would like to share a more lighthearted story from someone who spent a summer pushing paperwork at a small nuclear power plant along Lake Michigan when he was in college about 20 years ago:
Spring break begins for Karen and me this week. I'm kind of stunned that the semester if half over already. Sometimes I wish it would slow down; sometimes I wish it would speed up and be over with. Kris went to an ACSI music event at Olivet Nazarene College on Friday and Saturday to sing in a mass choir with her peers from Illinoius and other states. Karen went along as a chaperone. Both enjoyed the trip. Katie and I went to ChuckECheese on Friday night - her very first time. The black-and-white picture-taking car is still there - I have attached my own B&W pic to share with you. And yes, I went in the tubes with Katie. Interestingly, when I dug out old ticket count receipts that we had been saving some of them dated back to 2003, when Kristine was 4 years old! We had a good time. Yesterday, we went to the Lakeview Museum to do science demos and see the Jim Henson exhibit (you may recall the Kris and I saw it at the Museum of Science and Industry back in January). Lots of people were there for the exhibit, so we got to do demos for lots of people. You could not take pictures of the muppets at this exhibit, either, although in the picture of Katie with the glovebox, Kermit the Frog is a green blur in the background. We made leprechaun coins by coating pennies with zinc to make them look silver, then heating the pennies over a hot plate to alloy the zinc and copper to make a gold color (which is really brass). One of my students had the bright idea to run the altered pennies through the souvenier press at the museum, so I have also attached a picture of that (left to right: normal, zinc-coated, brass-coated). I have also been keeping a half an eye on the horrible earthquake/tsunami/nuclear power plant events in Japan. Surprisingly (to me) many people in my 8 and 9 am classes on Friday knew about the quake. I have been showing them this attached pic that I shot in 2005 along the Washington coast when I mention it. Lots of opportunity for prayer in this scary event. I enjoy a good disaster flick, but the real footage was disturbing even for me. CNN.com has been really annoying me by referring to the past couple of nuclear power plant explosions as nuclear blasts in their headers. I know that these organizations hype headlines, but this is too irresponsible for my tastes.
