Memorable Jobs

[AMU]

For a couple years, I was thinking I would never see anything else other than the SG platforms at whatever PWR plant I worked.  After a few outages, it really turned out to be a good gig, and it was interesting to see the robotic technology progress over an extended period of time.  Then, I got into the ALARA thing associated with SGRP's and that too was good.  Of most of the assignments, I always liked to be associated with the head lift, especially when there was something still connected, always added that little extra excitement.  And finally, there is nothing better than the smell of a freshly shutdown reactor and containment building, can't describe it, but can't forget it.

[Phurst]

The one I have now is the worst. The last one I had was the best. The next one I get will be the best of all. It's been that way for the last 10 jobs.
Actuall for a few months I worked for minimum wage pumping gas. Best job ever.

[Austria]

Best and most memorable job would have to be teaching scuba diving in Grand Cayman.   Did that for 7 years between outages. Did have one scary moment when I heard someone yell for an HP from the back of the dive boat though. Turned out to be a commercial diver I worked with at Perry and Clinton.  Just when I thought I had gotten away from it all....

[luckyu]

One of the best memories I've had at this plant was working the refuel floor and a cloud coming out of the cavity that could be seem by camera an elevation down witnessed by John Mitchell.  John Mitchell, Scott Rydell, Joe Sullivan, Tony Hayes, Bill Rall, Ken Faber and myself were the crew. There was about 18 white shirts standing in street clothes on the refuel floor watching GE try to use a super duper stud detensioner on a stud that we weren't able to remove with the usual stud detensioners.  Unbeknowing to me, my counter parts on days had allowed the bellows to go dry.  As GE put the air to the tensioner, the hose broke, whipping into the bellows. If any of you know Bill Rall, he found a gear that night he didn't know he had trying to get from one side of the cavity to the other and secure the air. Crapped up the whole contaminment building with about 50k in the airlocks. About 20 people on the refuel floor had >50K everywhere.  A fun night.  That's the excitement on the refuel floor. That was RF-5 and we're coming up on RF-11. I've worked the floor except for 2 outages since.  One in ALARA and one covering diving for 28 days.  When shit happens, it happens fast. Good crew to work with.

[luckyu]

Forgive the typo's in the above.  It's 330 AM and I'm sleep deprived of sleep at present.

[DABIGUNC]

Brunswick - 1983 (Pre Rent-a-Tech)

Structural Intake Sawdust Technician

The condenser tudes were so riddled with holes, that they dumped sawdust in front of the intake pumps so it "wood" clog the condenser holes. Some days were smoothe, and others had every one pulling sticks out of the saw dust pile(that's what made it Nuclear Grade)! Long Live AVS!

[doctormoo]

mmm lets see
1. rebuilding the rcp motors outside the westinghouse service center in spartanburg in mid winter in tents
2. indian point in the days of mike shannon
3. chipping ice off the break trailer door at pilgrim during the concentrator  room cleanup, so much fun wading through knee deep resins
4. painting the cavities at calvert cliffs with the rad services decon paint
5. turkey point in the 80's sgrps  surveying the insulation in the tents
6. pre job briefs at the hotel colone in berwick


memories.........

[SloGlo]

one of the most memorable jobs would have to be doing the s/g tube pluggings when they were done with explosive plugging.  what  a blast!  especially when the tent would get blown off the generator sidewall, and we'd lose containment.  ya could hear the cams going off one at a time, level by level.  'n the black powder tech would invarialbly have a grin on behind his face pump.  it always helped to have a newbie on the crew, usta make sure that he went to sleep for about  a 1/2 hour prior to the first charge going off.  with any luck, he 'd  wake up before taking off running, but not always!

[getaclue2]

The neatest one I saw was cavity drain down at Dresden after they puked RWCU into the cavity during the outage. Drain down normally takes several hours to decon as you go type of thing. Do to schedule pressure this outage it was done in <45 minutes and during shift turnover, needless to say they lost the entire reactor building and some of the turbine building.

[getaclue2]

I also saw an engineer about get his head blown off during turbine relief testing. One of the valve didnt lift at the right pressure and he stuck his head by the exhaust pipe to investigate then pop! He looked like a cartoon character when the bomb goes off in thier hands.

[stownsend]

mmm lets see
1. rebuilding the rcp motors outside the westinghouse service center in spartanburg in mid winter in tents
2. indian point in the days of mike shannon
3. chipping ice off the break trailer door at pilgrim during the concentrator  room cleanup, so much fun wading through knee deep resins
4. painting the cavities at calvert cliffs with the rad services decon paint
5. turkey point in the 80's sgrps  surveying the insulation in the tents
6. pre job briefs at the hotel colone in berwick


memories.........

When Shannon asked me about becoming a house tech I said I'd blow goats at a quarter a herd before I'd return to IP and he never ask me again!

[halflifer]

How 'bout MY, '91..."You're just no-good rent-a-techs and we don't really need you here." ...."Oh wait, I didn't mean it, we'll give you another $1000 if you'll stay."
"The home office screwed up the pay checks so you won't get them until next week" (actually the SC's B***h of a wife/secrectary hadn't sent in the time sheets)
"Hey, it's the 2nd day of an outage, let's implement a whole new set of RP procedures."
etc., etc, etc
Remember that one Steve?

[stownsend]

I've got to say MY was one of the last mom an pop nuclear plants and was fun to work at up til the end.Remember when they put our break trailer outside the  security gate an bitched about the techs taking to long to get in when they called.
How about the security gaurd who got fired thank god for pointing his rifle at peolple that got to close to the fence boundry.

[Fermione]

Steve,
IP II back in the early 80's had to be the most fun.  Jerry, Noreen Rice and the rest certainly made it "Outages to remeber".

The recirc replacement at VY was also one for the books.  With leadership from Norman and Ed Waglen, who needed more. 

Hope all is well on the island.

Fermione 

[stownsend]

Jon,
Where is old NEB?How about Pilgrim with the OT list that came out at 4pm for the weekend and you got suspended for two days even if you were not there on Fri.The lines were so long to go home at night it took 15 to 20 min to get out,NEB always wanted to see you at 5:55.I put a picture of me standing in front of a clock that showed 6:00 and told him if he wanted to see me at 6 to look at the pic.At least he had a sense of humor.

[Fermione]

From what I understand, he is headed back to Pilgrim.  The best is when night shift got the dead fish off the beach and put it in the Gaitronics next to his desk.  Boy did that stink after a few days.  Neb's dress code was a thriller.  Remember Joey Kiman showing up in a suit and tie or when he cut off his rat tail and hammer it onto the top of his desk?  Many fine moments back at Plgrim.  Norm had the gall to call me at home at 0800 hours when I called in sick.  It was the only time in two years but he wanted to assure me I wasn't losing my PD.  I think it shocked him more that I was actually home ill. 
Life is wonderful in MI

[patzke]

D. C. Cook in 1981 when a fuel bundle broke as they were moving it to the transfer canal and some of the fuel rods came loose and wrapped themselves around the access ladder from the lower part of the refuel pool to the head level. The word was that if one of the rods broke we'd lose containment for years. Interesting to see a glowing fuel rod lying at the bottom of the pool. During cavity cleanup afterwards I never saw a teletector peg so many times as it did when "particles" would be removed.

[Gonzo]

most memorable job is probably the time three of us (HP Techs) were sent into an 8 foot diameter circ water line to frisk it (a decommish)...   the safety rep was an older fellow who had less than a year to go before retirement, was bored and probably had a touch of the alzheiszmer...   he was so worried we'd get lost in the pipe that he kept wanting to tether us off...   i was accused of initiating this (the two other techs were a couple of cuties) but it didn't happen as there were cooler heads prevailing... and as it turned out..  we didn't get lost in the pipe since it wasn't exactly a maze...

[Mike McFarlin]

Perhaps decomissioning an irradiation facility in Dover NJ in 85. No NRC soil release limits at the time. Lots of work for Norm Hilbert & Associates.

[hoghunter]

I was at Brunswick 81-85 I remember the sawdusting and pumping 8-10 / 55-gals drum of salt water out of the coresprays every 8 hrs, but my best job was without a dought has to be Seabrooks first outage. The house techs there were a good bunch to work for. They treated rent a techs with as much respect as they did thier own. My worst had to be with Numanco about 10 yrs ago, we were cleaning out a oil tank just outside Houston TX mid july. At 8:00  in morning it was 115 degrees in tank. I lost 18 pounds in 5 days. I drank so much gatorade that I was P_____ and S_____ purple  you fill in the blanks.

[Marlin]

I was at Brunswick 81-85 I remember the sawdusting and pumping 8-10 / 55-gals drum of salt water out of the coresprays every 8 hrs, but my best job was without a dought has to be Seabrooks first outage. The house techs there were a good bunch to work for. They treated rent a techs with as much respect as they did thier own. My worst had to be with Numanco about 10 yrs ago, we were cleaning out a oil tank just outside Houston TX mid july. At 8:00  in morning it was 115 degrees in tank. I lost 18 pounds in 5 days. I drank so much gatorade that I was P_____ and S_____ purple  you fill in the blanks.

If you were at Brunswick 81-85 did you get to shovel any of the spent resin out of the pipe tunnels.

[atomicarcheologist]

One of my most memorable jobs was characterizing an artillery range.  It was hundreds of yards long and we were doing square meter characterization.  We were characterizing for depleted uranium components.  Occasionally we'd have a extremely high reading and get to dig for the source.  Finding the U as a crumbling yellow and capturing it all was unique.  Especially when it was 20 degrees below 0 with wind speeds of about 30 mph.

[hoghunter]

I got in on the end of that resin deal,but I did my share of the sawdust and my first resp. job I went 20' into the vessal by polar crane and 6 min. and 850 mr later I came out. I remember when they flooded the RX bldg. I also remember the radwaste ghost,but cable tunnel was creepy. Yes I was at Brunswick, but that was the good days. Marlin if you were there you should know me, I was 3rd shift lead for AVS decon.

[Marlin]

I was dayshift. I do remember the story about the ghost it was not a thing to make fun of in front of some of the house people and it was easy to believe when you were walking down a long dimly lit pipe tunnel with 3 to 6 inches of water on the floor trying to remember where the sumps were so you would not fall in. I don't know how long the pipe tunnels were but they seemed to go on forever.

[nukewood]

I wonder if there are others that might agree that the Rocky Flats decommissioning was about the best gig in the industry while it lasted? Those of us  who thought it might have been continued at INEEL were in for a rude awakening.