Expect the Unexpected

When I was in school I was convinced that I wasn't going to need any math or science because I was going to be a writer. The only subjects that interested me and were therefore of any practical use to me were English, history, humanities, art, and maybe speech or psychology. Science and math were for the birds. Who needed em? I was really bad at them too, so it stood to reason that my lack of aptitude meant that that a STEM career just wasn't in the cards for me. I went round and round with teachers trying to get the to explain to me when I was ever going to need the things they were trying to teach me "in the real world." I was certain that the answer was "never."

Also, this was 100% not a thing. (Source)

Oh, how wrong I was. As much as I disliked science and math as a student I find myself enthralled by it now. I don't know when or how it happened, but one day I found myself looking at science like it was magic that came from Narnia itself - especially chemistry, a subject that I was particularly bad at. I'm also quite fond, as you may have guessed, of nuclear physics, entomology, and quantum theory. I like writing about these things. The problem lies in the fact that since I was such a lousy student I end up having to teach myself about these subjects all over again, just so that I can write about them convincingly. And every time this happens I curse my younger self.

Sound advice.

If only I'd studied harder as a young person. If only I hadn't been so arrogant and full of myself. If only I had learned these things for the sake of learning rather than for practical reasons; then I wouldn't find myself in this mess. The writing would just flow out of me and I wouldn't have to hold up the process to figure out just what exactly critical mass is anyway. That's not the case though. Here I am, 30 years old, and giving myself a crash course in chemistry and nuclear physics. The truth is you never know what you're going to need to know, or even want to know when you get out into the real world. I never thought that I would ever need to know what a mole was once I finished high school. Joke's on me, brother.

Dominoes

Last night j^C, That Sprout, and I went to the Halloween party at the office at the apartment complex. There was a Chinese woman there whom I wound up talking to for a little bit. Jake ended up talking to her more than I did because they could talk in Chinese. On the way home from the party I asked Jake what they had talked about and if her husband was in the Army. He said. "No, he does something with atomic energy."

Say what?

I didn't think much more about this until this morning when I googled "Augusta Atomic Energy" and found out about the Savannah River Site nuclear reservation in Aiken, SC. I have a stockpile of plutonium and depleted uranium in my back yard and no one told me about it. This would be no big thing if I had known about it before I started the whole "American Science" thing, but finding out about it now feels a little uncanny. And my neighbor is a nuclear engineer? It's like dominoes falling.

Nice place for a picnic, right? (Source)

So, I did a little research on the place and I found that they have a Citizen's Advisory Board. I thought "I used to be on a board. (It was actually a commission, but whatever.) I should put in an application. Maybe it'll be useful to writing." So, I called the number that was listed on the website and asked a few questions.

At first the man on the phone told me that they weren't taking any new board members until 2018, but then he found out that I was under 65, a military spouse, and a resident of Columbia County and suddenly there was about to be an opening and I needed to submit my application as soon as possible. So, I did. Now, I wait. And I wonder, is my participation on the board in order to learn more about nuclear things to write about (i.e. research) a conflict of interest? I suppose if I find myself on the board I'll just have to ask.

In the meantime, I'm still counting down the days until I can start my novel and waiting patiently for it to be December when I can tour the Savannah River Site. That's right, they do tours and I'm taking one. I'll have to figure out how I'm going to get That Sprout picked up from school on time that day, but that should be the only thing standing between me and the inner sanctum.

Don't judge me. (Source)

There's a part of me that's wondering why I'm doing all this. There's another part of me that feels like I'm just doing what I'm being led to do. The dominoes all seem to fall to this. Then, there's a third part of me that feels like it's some sort of candle I'm burning; some grande gesture I'm making - some attempt to know someone I know I'll never know. Deep down I know this answer has the most truth to it and I wonder what it is about this man that has me so possessed.

Why is it that the other boy geniuses who built reactors don't elicit nearly the same response from me? Is it because Duran Duran wrote a song about him? Is it his youthful exuberance? His reckless abandon? Is it the fact that he tried or the fact that he failed that captures my imagination? What is it about this story that captivates me?

My heart is too unstable. (Source)

A Brief History Lesson

I have so much that I want to talk about, but it's all best kept under my hat for now. So instead . . .

I give you:

A BRIEF HISTORY LESSON!

On this day in 1966 the world gained The Velvet Underground's seminal debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico.

Proof of Lou Reed's genius. As if you needed one. (Source)

On this day in 1984 the world lost Edith Massey, AKA The Egg Lady.

Miss Edie, The Egg Lady (Source)

On this day in 2006 the world gained My Chemical Romance's album The Black Parade.

Will you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned? (Source)

I can't believe it's been 10 years since The Black Parade came out. I can't believe it's been 50 years since The Velvet Underground and Nico either. Yet, somehow I can believe Edith Massey has been gone for 32 years. I guess music is timeless.

I haven't got a whole lot to say right now, but I've been trying to keep up with the blog leading up to NaNoWriMo. I don't know why really. I'm beginning to question whether or not I'll even post the thing on here at all. It seems like a foolhardy venture at this juncture.

I'm still waiting for my piece in Post Road Magazine to come out. Any day now. I wait with bated breath. They said it would be late October. Well, this is October and it's getting late. I'm getting anxious. I want to see my piece in black and white. I'm ready.

That's about all I have for today. Maybe I'll have something more compelling tomorrow.

Halloween Wreath

I feel like I forgot to show you all my Halloween Wreath, so here it is since I feel like garbage and I can't think of anything to write tonight. I drove back from Pensacola today and that's about it, other than hacking up a lung. There is something else that I'd like to talk about that happened tonight, but I don't think that it's my place to talk about that right now. Maybe later.

Kitty!

 Seriously, though. This is a pretty nice wreath.

Another angle, kitty!

Touchdowns and Meltdowns

Today was UWF's Homecoming Football Game against Shorter University.

Let;s Go, Argos!

It was a slaughter. We beat them 30-0. It was sad, really. I had fun though. My face is as red as a lobster, but I had fun. I wish I could say that I forgot about The Boy Scout for a little while, but that would be a lie. I'm in full on writing mode right now and I spent most of the game, and if fact most of the day thinking about my story and trying to work out plot points. That's not to say that I wasn't present. I was. Sort of. I can be in two places at once, right?

After the game, Shelley and I went to McGuire's for a late lunch and I had an Irish Wake. I hadn't had one of those in years and if I'm being honest, that was about all I was interested in having. I ordered a Ruben and some bean soup, but none of that was interesting to me. I was all about the Irish Wake. It made me feel a little better considering that I am hacking up a lunch at the moment. I seem to have caught a cough from That Sprout. I'm not real thrilled about this development as NaNoWriMo comes bearing down on me, but what am I going to do? It is what it is.

After McGuire's Shelley and I came back to the hotel. She's been taking a nap and I've been doing some research for the novel. I decided that my character needed to steal some uranium 235 from the military (NAS Jax?), but that won't do because the only Naval things that are nuclear are aircraft carriers. Back to the drawing board on that one. However, I did discover that breeder reactors, the type that The Boy Scout was trying to make, are prone to exploding. This is useful, since I wanted to make a boom. The question now becomes "How big is the boom?"

I also need to think of some other reckless things for my character to do in the meantime, I need minor plot points. One thing that I really want to work in, and I don't know why - is the way that it feels the first time a girl touches a boy in a button front shirt and tie. Also, chloroform, because Mr. Hahn definitely made chloroform. It might be useful in his procuring the uranium.

Meanwhile, I am very tired and I am tired of coughing. I miss j^C, That Sprout, and The Beans. I will be very glad to be home tomorrow as much as I miss Pensacola and I was glad to be here this weekend. It's just not the same without them. I will be very happy to be back in Augusta with my little family, despite the fact that I hate Augusta. A lot. Like, so much.

The Duality of "Playing with Uranium"

As I continue to grieve Mr. Hahn I have begun to think about my own personal fascination with the element uranium. Regular blog readers will know that I have dubbed myself UraniumJ here on the blog. This is indirectly a result of Mr. Hahn's garden shed reactor. It is directly a result of Duran Duran's song "Playing with Uranium" which was inspired by Mr. Hahn and his garden shed reactor. This is my second favorite song by Duran Duran (my #1 favorite is and always will be "Ordinary World"). When I decided to get a Duran Duran tattoo, it was of a uranium symbol because of the song.

My tattoo.

For many years I thought the song was nothing more than a very clever metaphor dreamed up by Simon LeBon. It wasn't until fairly recently - within the past four years I would say - that I discovered the origins of the song were rooted in fact. When I was a Deep Fellow I wanted to use the song as an example of metaphor, so I began researching it and I found out that it wasn't a metaphor at all. This was when I first learned of David Hahn. I didn't give him or his story very much thought at the time. I was mostly disappointed by the fact that this great metaphor was in fact literal.

Still, the element Uranium remained fascinating. I had also begun collecting Vaseline glass, a subset of depression glass that was manufactured with uranium to produce a vibrant green color that glows under a black light. I thought about buying a sample of Uranium on Amazon - sealed in lead of course. I always picked locked number 92 at the gym because that was Uranium's atomic number. At the time, I thought all of this was just an homage to Duran Duran, but I think now that there was more to it than that.

My Jeanette cake plate. My pride and joy. (Source)

Like the god Shiva, uranium has a dualistic nature - it is the creator and the destroyer. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is a god of the modern age, but maybe you could. Uranium - and any radioactive element for that matter has the ability to create vast amounts of energy for the greater good, as in nuclear power plants; energy that is mostly clean and safe with the capacity to power thousands, even millions of homes for infinitely longer than smog producing coal. With Taylor Wilson's plans for nuclear fission reactors we could possibly create clean nuclear energy from nuclear waste itself. This is the very definition of creation.

But Uranium, and all radioactive elements have the power to destroy - and destroy they do. Most if not all of the pioneers of nuclear research died horrible and gruesome deaths from radiation exposure. The Radium Girls, who painted watch faces with Radium paint were so irradiated when they died that 60 years later their graves still set Geiger counters off. The doctors who pioneered the use of X-rays lost limbs to cancers or died in the early days of the technology. And let's not forget about the accidents that can happen when creating nuclear energy, such as were experienced in Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. All that creation does sometime come at a price.

 Then there was the Manhattan Project and everything that came after. It takes a grapefruit sized amount of Uranium 235 weighing 118 pounds to build a nuclear bomb. It only takes a golfball sized amount of Plutonium weighing 24 pounds (which is created from Uranium 238) to achieve the same thing. According to the United Nations, one nuclear bomb exploded in one major city could kill hundreds of thousands of people. We know this to be true as we are the only nation on the planet to have used an atomic bomb against another nation. With Uranium and the advent of The Bomb, we are become Death.

"Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." J. Robert Oppenheimer (Source)

And so perhaps, this is the fascination of "Playing with Uranium" for me - of the song, and the element itself. There is a duality to it, a creation aspect and the possibility for destruction. With the song, the metaphor still exists and there is the chance that when one is "Playing with Uranium" one might "reinvent the human race" and create something wonderful - a relationship perhaps? Or "it" could "blow up in [one's] face" leaving one to pick up the pieces of the broken relationship "on the other side." It works on two levels.

Then, of course, there remains the fact that the song is in fact about David Hahn, whom I am still mourning and whom I am planning on writing a book based on. He too embodies this dualism. He was so enraptured by the good that atomic energy could do for the world that he was blind to the harm it could do to him, his environment, his relationships, and potentially his entire community. He was himself the god of creation and destruction, and I think if I am to write anything poignant, this must be my theme. I only hope that I am able to do him justice and honor his memory in what I create. We will all do well to remember that this is a character inspired by David Hahn. This character is not actaully David Hahn. I only wish that he were here to give final approval of whatever I come up with.

Shiva dances in the flames to kill the demon and recreate the world. (Source)

The Boy Scout Had a Name

I don't even know how to begin this.

I wrote the day before yesterday about writing a letter to The Boy Scout. I didn't want to mention his name because I didn't want to call undue attention to him. He was a minor celebrity at one point in time and there was a book written about him. I figured if I had any hope of him writing me back that I had better keep a low profile. I also tend to give everyone I mention on this blog an alias in order to preserve their anonymity. I feel like it's the ethical thing to do, especially if the people I write about didn't ask to be written about.

The Boy Scout's name is David Hahn. Otherwise known as "The Radioactive Boy Scout," David Hahn built a nuclear reactor in his mother's garden shed when he was 17. This incredible story was covered by Ken Silverstein for Harper's Magazine in 1998 which was later turned into a book of the same name in 2004. Something of a chemistry prodigy, David Hahn fascinated me from the moment I learned of him. His story not only inspired Ken Silverstein, it also inspired Duran Duran's song "Playing with Uranium," one of my personal favorites. I've been researching his life and work in earnest since September 25th of this year in preparation of NaNoWriMo so you can imagine my excitement at getting in contact with the man himself.

The book that made David Hahn a minor celebrity.

I found out last night that David Hahn died 3 days after my NaNoWriMo idea was conceived. I spent an hour and a half crying over his death after I found out. I went through all sorts of emotions - namely guilt and sadness. I'm sure there's nothing I could have done to have saved him, but there's always that chance that if only I'd had my idea sooner - if only I'd reached out sooner. I don't know how he died, for all I know he was hit by a bus so this train of thought makes not rational sense, but this is how my brain works. It's a very narcissistic way of thinking and I know it.

More realistically I'm just very, very sad. I meant what I said the other day about wanting a connection. I feel this strange sense of loss for something I never had. I've invested myself quite a bit in this man as I've been researching his life for NaNoWriMo and I feel like I knew him. I feel a kinship to him that I don't know how to explain. There's something of a sameness between us, I believe, only now I'll never know for sure. I'll never know if we could have been friends, and for better or worse, I'll never know what he would have thought of my NaNoWriMo.

Aside from these selfish reasons for sadness, I'm sad because David Hahn seemed to have led a very lonely and sad life. I don't know a whole lot about his life after 2004, but what I do know seems rather bleak. He was a very talented person with the potential to do great and wonderful things, but the circumstances of his life hindered him in the pursuit of his dreams. He was an unlikely genius - a mad scientist perhaps - but a kind and gentle one with only the best of intentions. Though foolhardy and reckless, he achieved things as teenager in his back yard that college educated scientists in laboratories slave over for years. He was a diamond in the rough.

I don't know how he left this world, but I am sad that he had to leave it so soon. His birthday would have been next Sunday; he would have been 40 years old. All I can do now is promise to do my best to honor and respect his memory as move forward with my NaNoWriMo project and hope that I succeed in my endeavor. The first step of that is completing NaNoWriMo, which starts in 11 days. I can't let him down. This is about more than Duran Duran now.

I can't find a photo of Mr. Hahn that doesn't have some sort of proprietary restrictions so instead, here's a picture of the Atomic Energy merit badge he earned as a Boy Scout. This began his journey of atomic exploration and I like to think he continued to be very proud of it.