Cross-posted from Funranium Labs

There's nothing quite like the end of the month, which is always paperwork crunch time, for new and interesting opportunities to crop up. Despite knowing the certain long hours they will demand in make up time, you just can't...say...no. Two of those happened this week, I got to enter into UC Berkeley's Lawson Adit ( ( Read more... )

This morning, before a suitable amount of coffee was consumed, I had to do a radiation safety presentation to a group of students at Nuclear Engineering. While we were waiting for everyone to show up, the professor and I were discussing the experiments the class were going to do with the students that were present. When we hit the x-ray ( Read more... )

This is a problem that has been vexing be for a while, but came up again in conversation with twistedcat.

A while back, one of my lovely researchers in the Electrical Engineering group approached me with a desire to make his new cleanroom absolutely perfect.  He was shooting for a Class 100 certification and knew that having any paper in the lab was going to ( Read more... )

Pissing down outside.  If I could see out my office window, I wouldn't be able to see very far across Berkeley.  A year of deferred maintenance due to budget concerns has caused flooding off the side of the roof.  Accordingly, a year worth of accumulated crap and bus exhaust particulate has coated my window like a sludge.  I hereby declare this to ( Read more... )

I would like to improve the diet of the homeless for some very selfish reasons.

So, Berkeley has a variety of colorful street people that inhabit the environs of Shattack Avenue hoping for some of your spare change.  Some are very clearly Not Quite Right In The Head and have earned nicknames.  For example, Screaming Lady who (until I learned ( Read more... )

That is majestic urination.  A beautiful porcelain convenience with no backsplatter, finely cracked glaze, marble wall panels, and heavy wooden stall doors.  You practically expect a bathroom lackey to attend to your gilded age hands, arrange you properly, and zip your fly for you ( Read more... )

Protip: When you decide to spout off in a bar about how stupid you think a person/group/department is, you should chose a venue closer to your home turf than theirs.

And now the story.

A co-worker and I decided to conduct the final phase of our workday at Beckett's, a pub style bar close to the office.  I find that a collegial atmosphere in the ( Read more... )

Some people know the fire and electrical codes inside and out.  I swear to booze that there's this one guy at LLNL who is the goddamn Cement Listener and can tell where subsidence is going to occur and what's been poured with bad concrete mix through carpeting.  While I may know a thing or two about radiation and nuclear weapons, my true gift seems ( Read more... )

Get a protective cordon of Extremely Large Black Obama-Women (ELBOW), preferably ornery union employees, to stand around you.  In the event of terrorist attack, they will handily absorb concussion, shrapnel and get up with a head-bob and "Oh no you didn't!"  When entitled sorority bitch gaggle begins acting up about not getting their way, the ( Read more... )

The UC Berkeley EH&S Radiation Safety Special Spill Response Team (SSRT) responded to the Faculty Club this evening ( Read more... )