the world of allie

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/03/28/visible.storage.ap/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/international/europe/28cnd-russia.html?

This is just sad that this is taking place in this day and time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7310837/

Creativity is being repressed in the world today...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/23/volcano.movie.ap/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/03/23/russia.bolshoi/index.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=nuclear.htm&url=http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/

http://www.ans.org/pi/resources/dosechart/

http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/radrus.htm

http://facilities.uchicago.edu/organization/radiation/uofcinfo/FAQ_About_Radiation/Doc4.htm

CNN.com - N. Korea: We've built more nukes - Mar 21, 2005

..... Bush........

oh man, i'm into my third week of work...

this past weekend i went to the US Snowboarding Open in Stratton. It was tons of fun i have to say and there was some really cool ass tricks, and it is always a good time with my RIT friends :-)

Honestly there isn't much to say but i'll have pics of the weekend up soon when i get my USB cord.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/03/17/tsunami.lost.city.ap/index.html

I thought that this was interesting. Kinda just shows that there is a balence in life.. with the bad comes the good and visa versa.

oh man my internet sucks.. well i guess that evetually i need to sign up for an account to get internet here in the apartment and not some wireless signal from somewheres.....

work is good
i'm loving the beautiful weather here! the sunny days are so nice :-)
this weekend is going to be interesting because i'm going to the US Snowboarding Open here in VT with a bunch of RIT friends :-)
i'm still poor as fuck and i can't wait till i can get my pay check so i can start paying off my debt to my parents....so fun
and i love my every other friday off, makes the monotany of work oh so worth it..

what i have to come to understand now though, is that nuclear power is not the job for me. it's a decent job, pays the bills (eventually) but the complete lack of creativity is what is killing me. there has got to be a better answer for the whole mechanical engineer thing. i think i iknow how i can get there, i just need to get there soon.

Oh Brattleboro...

I just finished my second week at work. It's all going well, i have a lot of work to do so the day passes better. Yesterday was such a waste of time though. It was site betterment day, so almost all very high paid engineers and managers got on their work clothes and cleaned everything at the plant.. all day... i was in the circulating pump intake room, which is where the pumps are that take water in from the conniticut river to put into the plant system. we mopped, sweapt, on our hands and knees scrubbing everything down. I probably wouldn't have minded it so much if i didn't have to be at work at 6 am.... ps. my neighbors are loud and they woke me up in the middle of the night... i did meet the big head hancho yesterday though. he seems like a good guy, very manager type.

Today i'm driving out to bennington to meet up with some RIT peeps so that tomorrow we can all go to the US Snowboarding Open in Stratton, VT, YEA for the weekend!

CNN.com - Senate votes for ANWR oil drilling - Mar 16, 2005

This is just aweful!

MSN Careers - Six Signs That You Should Run � Not Walk � from Your New Job - Career Advice Article

I hope no one's co-op is like this :-)

I finished a Tale of Two Cities and i have to say that it was one of the best books i've ever read. It was a true love story with all the packed suspence and horror of the frech revolution. i highly recomend it to everyone that wants to read a great book.

i started reading another book called "Faster" by James Gleick. It is a serious of chapters that explores our socieites obsession with speed and time. it is preaty decent but this one paragraph struck me as interesting so i'll share it...

"It is the way of keeping contact with someone, anyone, who will reassure you that you are not alone. You may thin you are checking your portfolio, but deep down you are checking on your existence. I rarely see people using cell phones on the sidewalk when they are in the company of other people. It is being alone that they cannot stand. And for many paople, being alone really means being without Mommy. We are raising a generation that had radio transmitters in its nurseries, keeping Mommy constantly informered of every movement of the baby in his crib. We will soon be walking around with transmitters in our lapels or pocketbooks, constantly connected via satellite with Mommy."

My first day of work. I get there, and they tell me that the plant is doing an emergency plan simulation where they make up a situation where someting goes wrong and teams of people solve a way to fix it. It was actually kinda of interesting because i could see the different databases, what the real time readouts (the electronic measurements for different parts of the plant) for the inside of the reactor are when it is shutting down and where there is a problem... yeah i know i've lost a lot of people by now hahahaha. Needless to say it was an interesting experience of how serious things can get. That was like 4 hours of sitting in a room watching people work through the situations.

When i got back to my cubical i thought that i could take a little break and like organize and get situated.. oh no hahahha... one of the engineerings came up to me and was like "you have nothing else to do, come with me to the reactor". now yesterday i did all my radioactivity training and what not and today i got to use it....... i got my little reader and went through security, all dolled up in my hard hat, and went into the reactor building. i was so nervous because this was the first time i would be exposed to nuclear radiation, so we were walking around the building and to get to the Torus (a large ring that i believe cools down the drywhell which is the thing that holds the reactor... i post some educational links later hahha) i had to climb down this little ladder in the whole of the floor, i almost freaked out (i hate heights) but sucked it up and went below. It was really intimidating to see how large this thing was, it is really hard to describe but i was just a little freaked.

Then afterwards i got a tour of the whole building. I saw where the take the spent fuel rods and place then under water next to the reactor core.. it was a sight to see. I finally got back to the office at like 430 and cleaned up and got my procedure readings for tomorrow if my mentor gets pulled away (so i have something to do)... what a first day, it definetly wasn't boreing hahahahah

Totol Dose of Nuclear Radiation to date: 0.7 (REM or mREM i can't remember... i'll find that out later)

Side note... you get more radiation sun bathing but still it is something to keep track of haha

So today was my first day of training. Overall it was preaty basic... tests and slides and whatnot. But what topped it all off was after my tests i had to go through a simulation of if i was to go into a radioactive area of the plant. So i had to put on all the protective clothing and walk around this closed off area saying what was wrong or what i needed to do. thank god that there weren't any pictures being taken because it was def a sight to see.

So today was my first day of training. Overall it was preaty basic... tests and slides and whatnot. But what topped it all off was after my tests i had to go through a simulation of if i was to go into a radioactive area of the plant. So i had to put on all the protective clothing and walk around this closed off area saying what was wrong or what i needed to do. thank god that there weren't any pictures being taken because it was def a sight to see.

So friday night i went to the Gallery Walk. It is this thing in town where the galleries open up at night and they serve hordorves and play music. It was nice, and there were some really decent pieces. It is really cool how active this town is. Yesterday i drove to Keene, NH in the desperate hopes to find a mall. After braving up the moutains to get to Keene i discovered that there are no malls!! I was sorely disapointed, but after talking to a firend of mine i found that there are malls in NH, but they are like over an hour away, that or drive to MASS. EVentually i'll figure this all out.......

It's been a couple days since i last wrote and that is because i am poor and can't afford internet in my own apartment yet hahahaha. i'm all moved in. It is a decent apartment, luckily i don't have much furniture so it looks bigger than it should. i moved in wednesday afternoon, unfortunetly the apartment wasn't quite ready and clean but i moved in anyways O:-). i live right in the heart of downtown which is really fun because if i get bored i can just walk to a cafe, restuarant, library or the movie theater. i've been doing a lot of that because i just figured out the whole parking situation. i don't have free parking here, i have to use the city's parking lots, which means i pay.. but luckily i can basically leave my car in the parking garage which is a two minute walk from my place all day for like a $1.80 so it isn't that bad. Tonight is the qallery walk, where stores feature a particular artist, they searve food and have local people play music. It only happens once a month (first friday of the month) so i'm sure a lot of people are going to come tonight. hopefully i can meet some new people other than my landlord and the random shop keepers that strike up conversations with me. I like it here so far, there is some interesting people and the town is active. everyone seems nice but they are such aggressive drivers.

I have this great view from my apartment though. i see the top floor of the building across from me and then above that there is this mountain. right now with no leaves on the trees it isn't as grand as it could be but... come spring summer and fall it is going to be really really nice to have that out my windows. I've met a couple of my neighbors but everyone seems to keep to themselves. this building is really quiet, which is nice but also a little scary when i do here some noise because i'm not sure who or what is outside my apartment. This building is one of the oldest in town, so i instantly had some "the shinning" images pass through my mind but luckily they re-did a lot of it so it looks modern on the inside.

The biggest drama i had so far was that i had no electricity when i first moved in here. there was a mix up in the electric company of what apartment to turn on... needless to say that they didn't turn on mine. So i had to go buy a flashlight and a candle, my super left me an extension cord so i can plug it to the hallway outlet so i can have some power. it sucked because i couldn't cook, take a hot shower, there was no heat in the apartment and it just added to my sense of being very very poor right now.

The adventure has begun....

so today i spent the whole day in the hotel room to avoid going out in the snow... don't need to get into a car accident before i start work ya know. i also got the apartment. now the money woes begin.... my company is giving me money to move out here, but i don't get it till the first pay check. since i din't know how much money i would need to start up here i thought i took a good amount out of my loans....well now i've learned that i don't have enough money to pay for my electricity, apartment, and to live off of for the next two and a half weeks.......... luckily my land lord is a really really nice woman and i have some food that i brought from riverknoll that i can eat (i guess my diet starts today hahahahah).

it is so wierd how poor i feel, idk, i just can't wait till i start getting paid. at least then i can pay my bills.