Got good gifts this year from the whole immediate family, including a Blue Snowball microphone from the NR Wife, the Treasury of Daily Prayer from my parents, and a slew of books from the in-laws that include the latest Star Wars novel as well as books by Giertz, Sasse, Veith, and Harrison. Good stuff, all. The microphone works very well.

NR will probably continue the slower posting rate until I start traveling again in mid-January. Western Virginia isn’t the hotbed of Lutheranism that northeast Virginia near D.C., is, and the state is about eight hours driving time over there. Going the other way, there are churches in Tennessee that intrigue me, particularly one in Knoxville. Things were much simpler when I was going back and forth to Houston, but at least I don’t have to deal with airports.

The last time I crossed some mountains and went into Virginia, it was funny to listen to all of the radio stations cut out, one by one, as I headed south. The last radio station standing was playing “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash, and it was the first time I’d heard the whole song. These people were some strange critters, I thought to myself.

Happy New Year!

Angela Newland, PE, gave a presentation on the most interesting subject of the day, public works security. Since she is a VP at the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, her emphasis was in airport security.

Three times during the presentation we were asked to recite a promise to use the knowledge in the presentation “for good and not for evil.” The recitation was light-hearted, but it reminded us of the seriousness of the subject. I am restricting information in this post.

Posted signs and policemen with Segways are classified as “Lightweight Infrastructure Security.”

“Heavyweight Infrastructure Security” includes the scrambling of jets to protect our air space, but Newland’s specialty is in ground security.

A picture of CMH in 1958 was shown. Parking was right next to the terminal, and there were no cameras on the light post.

Headache bars, set at the entrance of the airport, keep excessively large vehicles from getting close to the terminal. The small concrete posts that keep people from driving into glass windows and other gear are called bollards.

There is no parking allowed near any of the security fences, to keep them from being compromised. Fences are 8′ high to prevent deer jumping. They also extend underground.

CMH Airport during Thanksgiving

After September 11, airports spent millions of dollars installing cutting-edge bagging screening technology that didn’t work very well and/or are expensive to maintain. My comment: thank Tom Daschle and his wife the airport lobbyist. At the time, CMH didn’t have the money to install the cutting-edge equipment, so they are spared those headaches.

The airport is seeking funds from TSA to upgrade its baggage screening equipment and move the machines out of the airport lobby.

Baggage is currently screened with low dose X-rays, and there is research to X-ray vehicles as they come into the airport. Waste receptacles are now blastproof for a certain amount of TNT, in case there is a need for quick disposal.

“Puffer” systems that try to detect explosives on a person have been tested in several airports, but not in Columbus. The detectors have a high failure rate due to dirt and dust at airports.

Airport demand is projected to be down over the next couple of years, then increasing as the economy improves.

During the question and answer session, I expressed concern for the new air traffic control tower’s proximity to the main road. She answered by saying that the tower needed to be built in a location where it could see everything, and that the new terminal would be built around it, pushing road access away from the tower.

Tying a Ribbon

A children’s choir, arrayed in white, sang several songs, including “God Bless America.” They sounded better than the two college-aged boys in the “Free Speech Zone” up the hill that were yelling that the terrorists had won and we had trashed the Constitution. While I agree with certain eddies of that idea, the sheer rudeness isn’t likely to win anyone to their cause.

This is my favorite photo, of a parent and son tying a ribbon onto one of the angels that represented the heroes of Flight 93.

As I perused their wall of memorabilia, I was reminded of a similar but much larger wall at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. There wasn’t the massive sense of sorrowful loss this time around. Their heroics trump their victimhood.

There are plans to build a memorial, in the shape of a circle rather than the crescent that was originally proposed. The original design, whatever its intent, was in extremely poor taste.

The NR Gallery has three shots, but this one is my favorite. In the shot is a Staff Sergeant who happened to be there when I was. I thanked him for his service.

Soldier at Conemaugh Gap

The Pennsylvania Military Museum is pretty small, about three rooms that contain equipment and details about the four ships named Pennsylvania: a ship of the line, an armored cruiser, a battleship, and an Ohio-class submarine. Accordingly, the price was quite reasonable: $4 per adult.

Outside the museum, a shrine larger than the museum itself is dedicated to those who served in both World Wars. The shrine, the open mall, and the church with its graveyard across the street made for some wonderful pictures.

The cool weather allowed us to have dinner outside at Duffy’s Boalsburg Tavern. The food was quite good, and I imagine Duffy’s will be frequently patronized by “Random Dan” and “Elle,” who recently moved to PA after Dan accepted a new job with a petroleum company.

Military pictures can be had at the NR Gallery; enjoy the others here:

photo credit: RabunWarna

The GPS I occasionally rent from the rental car agency historically has been merely something nice. Last night, I’m not sure I would have made it to the hotel without it. The storm during the evening made everything quite dark. With all the construction, I didn’t want to hold my Google Map directions and drive at the same time.  The Garmin GPS system I rented from Thrifty switched from day mode to night mode, and it kept tracking along on my dashboard.

So now I can argue that it’s a safety feature.

Cook Inlet came first, right after take-off. The mountains were next. While I couldn’t get a sunset picture, my side of the plane yielded a full moon on the wing against a darkening blue backdrop.

A lot of good has been done. Everyone’s been taught enough to have an idea how to use this software going forward. Each area is different. It is more effective to make people think about what they are doing rather than just laying down a routine.

Yesterday I was told by one of the supervisors that I needed to be paid more money. I’ll take that. If they use our software properly, they’ll cut costs, and I’ll get more in the end-of-year bonus. A $50 Corporate Reward STAR Card would be nice, too.

Alaska is remote enough that it is treated corporately like another country. The autonomy lets management make its own deals with customers, which is good, but the bureaucratic and geographic isolation makes it easy to ignore and difficult to assist.

The HAL base camp like most operations up here is ISO 14001 certified. BP demands certification from all the companies it contracts. It meets and exceeds expectations to minimize environmental impact. People who train for Prudhoe Bay not only get cold weather training but environmental training that they can take everywhere else.

If I were to give a hotel report, it would go something like this (I always write hotel reports past tense):

The room had two beds, each with a long twin mattress over a standard twin box springs. Each bed had a reading lamp and a shelf for kleenexes. Four closets and four drawers made it possible to house two men on two hitches. Sheets were changed and rooms were cleaned every other day by contracted staff. The room had no air conditioner (go figure), but the heater worked fine.

There was cable service in every room, but residents had to bring their own televisions. Each floor had a television lounge, and the third floor had extra subwoofers to turn it into a “movie room.” During the summer, the TV rooms were the darkest places around. Each room had an ethernet cable, but mine didn’t work. Wireless internet access was available and functional, but the corporate firewall prevented me from using IRC, Skype, and other services. The firewall also forced me to upload pictures to the blog in a different way.

The bathroom on each floor was spacious, if one didn’t mind sharing. Four showers, three sinks, five restrooms. Water pressure was good and remained hot, but some of the shower faucets functioned in reverse. Attached to the bathroom was a laundry room which had two washers, two dryers, and a mud sink. The washers had automatic soap dispensers that measured out the right amount. Bleach and other detergents were forbidden due to water conservation. The dryers did their job, but the automatic drying cycles didn’t work. The timers had to be used.

The quality of the food served in the miniature cafeteria was pretty good. We didn’t get a lot of seafood, but the Prime Rib night, the Mexican night, and Fry-days were good. It had been a step up from their previous cook who couldn’t quite cook the chicken all the way through. There was no possibility for food storage in the rooms, but refrigerators were available. Breakfast ended at 7am each morning; I could have used another hour.

I did get to eat at two other places: Oooguruk Island and the base camp of ConocoPhillips. Conoco is huge, and the night I was there they had an all out Thanksgiving feast. Apparently BP has a nice facility too, as all HAL employees with the proper security clearances were invited one night.

The facility had a half-court indoor basketball gym and an exercise room with two treadmills, an elliptical, nautilus, and free weights. Everything was in working order but the wall-mounted TV, whose power button was nearly worn out.

Base camp was a bumpy 5 miles from the airport, but once I was settled in, it was easy to go to work each morning.

The contract services provided by ESS were friendly and professional. Bathrooms were kept clean, the residence floors were always swept, and the cafeteria was always clean.

I got no frequent stay points for staying at the base camp, but on the other hand I didn’t have to charge a lot on my expenses. I was able to keep a room by myself the whole time. Tomorrow the other trainer comes, and we’ll share the room until I leave Wednesday.

Oooguluk Island is a project owned by Pioneer Natural Resources. It is about five miles off the shore near Kuparuk, AK. Access is helicopter-only in the summer, but it can be driven to over ice roads in the winter.

Once I got off the helicopter and removed the survival suit, I was escorted by security to the office of the Service Supervisor I was to teach. Class went well; he was experienced enough to ask good questions and saw the value of what we are trying to do.

Late in the afternoon he gave me a tour of Halliburton’s portion of the Island. You may recall the pictures of the cement pump trucks I have posted here. When the truck chassis that the pumping equipment sits on is impractical for a task, the pumps are mounted onto steel rectangular frames called skids.

The equipment doesn’t look very clean for an environmentally friendly location, but the dusting of gray comes from the salt in the sea water that they wash and mix cement with. Sea water’s easy availability makes it the mixing fluid of choice in the Arctic and in the Gulf of Mexico. The salt present in the water makes the cement set up faster, so we compensate with other chemicals.

The airboat was a funny find on the island. The evacuation vehicle of choice is the Arktos, attached together in sets of two. The treads have cleats that dig into the ice when it needs to run on ice, and it uses buoyancy and water jets to navigate in warmer climes.

I was able to take pictures of some helicopter runs before my flight, and I kept the camera out for what I’d hoped would be good pictures. I tried to sit near a window, but somehow I ended up in the middle again.

On the drive back from the airport, we spotted caribou (in the gallery) and about 15 musk ox, which didn’t make for a good picture from a moving pickup.

The 5-minute flight was pretty smooth, and most of the water was still frozen over. The suit prevented me from getting my camera out, but it wouldn’t have mattered much since I was in the middle of a group of five others.