First Day Back At Work

Bay City, Texas

Weather: low 48 degrees, high 60 degrees, heavy rain early, then clear skies, then scattered showers

The weather today reinforced why we no longer care much for living near the coast. It just rains too much!

The picture below was taken in the Petrified Forest in Arizona. Legend holds that anyone who takes a piece of the wood from the park suffers bad luck until the wood is returned. The park has a problem with people taking souvenirs, and it may be that the legend was started to keep people from taking the wood. Whatever the truth is, the fact is that there used to be a lot more petrified wood in the park than there is now.



Today was the first day on the new job, which should last about two months. Of course, if it was less than that, it would be fine with me. We're already missing the road and being free.

Working in a nuclear power plant is an eye opener for people who have never been in one before. The security is very strict, as it should be. New workers or workers who have been away from the industry for more than a year usually have a wait of more than a week for their security clearance to come through so they can be unescorted workers. No one likes to be escorted, but the only way to obtain a security clearance is to have a worker's personal background exhaustively checked to ensure that people who might be a danger in a plant are not allowed to enter them. Now, having said that, I was able to obtain my unescorted security clearance before lunch today. It helps that I was here for the last outage, which was only three months ago.

Most of the day was spent reviewing changes in planning and getting reacquainted with friends and co-workers from the past outage and past jobs. The relationships I've formed over the years are one of the reasons I enjoy the work so much. However, I'll still be ready for the job to end so we can hit the road again.

Oh, by the way. Carolyn prepared a very good chicken pot pie from scratch for supper. The first thing she asked me after greeting me was when can we leave.

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Holbrook, Arizona: Gateway To The Petrified Forest National Park

Not all who wander are lost.