Sunday, December 10, 2006

Of Alpha Particles and Cardboard Boxes

A few highlights of the week:

  • A couple months ago, our steel mill got a load of scrap that, somewhere in it, included a piece of radioactive material. We don't check loads for that sorta thing, so it wasn't known until the leftovers went to our recyclers, who does check that. They determined that the stuff had been inside some shielded box, and was vaporized during the melting process. It left traces throughout the refuse vents, and they've spent tons of money to clean those vents and install sensors to check incoming material. Monday was the day to get the sensors working, and I got pulled in to fix a couple of bugs our networking guys couldn't figure out. So I spent the morning waving a piece of Cesium-130 around to figure out all the combinations of how the alarms, software, and e-mail system worked. They say that the stuff is harmless, but anything involving the word "radioactive" doesn't exactly set me at ease...
  • I spent another day's worth of time at work packing up my office. No, I'm not quitting. Given the increase of personnel in our department, we've run out of room to shoehorn people into, so next week they're going to completely redo the cubicle layout of our office. None of us are going to be in the same place, so we've all had to pack up everything, and find temporary working spaces for next week. They're dumping me in the data center, which isn't exactly a quiet environment. I'm glad I have those bid Bose sound-man's headphones and the Creative Zen MP3 player I just bought.
  • I think we've found an apartment. A place called Treehouse Apartments, and we're going to get a 2-bed, 2-bath apartment (the B2 floor plan, if you want to have a look) that opens up at the beginning of the year. All the basic utilities are included with the rent, so we only have to take care of phone, internet, and satellite. When split between me and Nacho, it'll come out to a little less than what I'm paying Nacho now, and way cheaper for him. I'll be turning in the application tomorrow. Then I have to start packing what I won't need for the rest of the month.
  • I got an e-mail a couple days ago saying that a replacement TV card for my computer is on its way here. The one I bought a month ago never worked right, I'm hoping this one does better. The DVR is full and overwriting old shows. Also, got the RMA for my video card, which is also not behaving. Hope they get that back to me quick.
Until next post,
NAM

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