The Red Brick Times

McCain picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for V.P. Amazing. He (or I suppose I should say "they", Rove must have a hand in this somewhere) certainly didn't base this choice on her experience and qualifications, so then why? Is it, as I've read several times now, a "Hail Mary pass" for an otherwise doomed campain? I don't think so. The Republican machine is too good for that. She certainly makes their base as happy as clams (teach Creationism in public schools, drill ANWAR, outlaw abortions even in cases of rape or incest), something McCain has had trouble with from the start. Will this appeal to women voters, especially the disappionted Hillary crowd? I dunno. You wouldn't think so as Palin is Hillary's exact opposite politically but.....

What's your take?
Posted 7:34 AM by whatley (3) comments

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How is "conservatism" distributed across social issues these days? Palin has her share of modern-day family concerns (husband's old DUI record, unmarried teen daughter's pregnancy, five children, the youngest 4-months old with Down's Syndrom). That seems to place her more closely aligned with so-called "normal" middle-class people who continue to struggle through life's challenges. Traditional Republican conservatism espouses the nuclear family, the church, and "my country, right or wrong". Are there enough voters who identify with Palin to swing the election to the Republicans, or will the media harp so sharply that it leaves negative associations? To his credit, Obama stated that Palin's daughter is "off limits" as a campaign attack issue. Palin's other concern, the State investigation into her ethical role in the firing of her former brother-in-law, remains as a potential sinker. I think it will be all about whether voters allow people with "normal" problems to take office, or continue to expect angelic perfection in their elected leaders.

# posted by  Andy : September 02, 2008 6:30 AM
 
The Republican speeches last night were downright scary. They threw away vast segments of the population with reckless abandon. I paraphrase: "We value ideas and values over the Democratic Process." "Free ourselves from over- regulation and the tyranny of government unions." "A nation of families with both parents in the home." "Never back away from a conflict." "Refuse to give in to Islamic terrorism." "Get back to the policies of Reagan thirty years ago."

Sarah Palin was energetic, smooth, relaxed and spoke with good cadence and connected with the audience. She just didn't say much, sticking to generalities and party planks, showing no specifics or details.

"Random" shots of the audience highlighted speech segments, showing wildly applauding women when women were the topic and aging, overweight veterans wearing their VFW caps and battle ribbons when McCain's military heroism was being lauded. There were plenty of big red-white and blue hats and waving signs and delegates jumping to their feet clapping. But it was really about a bunch of people who were there as a reward for working really hard for no money or for delivering huge blocks of influence. Not a working meeting or an important event, but a strokey feely goodtime where people could feel like they got something nice while paying for their own hotel rooms. Kind of like a political Cedar Point.

There is really nothing technical on which to choose to vote, for either party. It seems to boil down to which political Hollywood you dream of: Stepford (Republicans) where patterned behavior is the norm, or OZ (Democrats) where people of all sizes, shapes and colors unite to celebrate the defeat of the wicked witch and the little dog is the real hero.

# posted by  Andy : September 04, 2008 6:25 AM
 
Sarah Palin is a distraction. The Republicans are intellectually and morally bankrupt. When Rudy Giuliani(pro-choice, lived with gays between 2nd& 3rd marriages, march in gay pride parade in drag) thinks Obama is too cosmopolitan we have drifted into the surreal. Obama has good detailed policy and program papers posted on his website, read them there is a world of difference between the two parties. Think of Sarah Palin possibly appointing two or three Supreme Court Justices and your hand will go to the correct lever on its own.

But you have to be in the voting booth.

# posted by  A. O. : September 06, 2008 12:09 AM
 
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Got to tour a real live electricity generating plant last Friday. You may have seen it about 5 miles into Michigan along I75. At the Erie/Temperance exit (exit 5), if you look to your right, you will see a big building with three medium height smoke stacks jutting out of the top. That is the JR Whiting generating plant. The plant manager took me on the tour from the top down. Once we climbed eleventy hundred flights of slippery open metal grid stairways and walked along the side of furiously raging boiler fireboxes, we came out on the roof. Have you ever been in a really hot sauna? Breathing the air near the top of that plant was just like that - it felt like lungs being singed with every breath. It had to be 180 degrees up there. The building is about 8 or 10 stories tall. From the roof you can see way out onto Lake Erie. I could see the Detroit Edison Fermi power plant to the north, a Toledo Edison plant to the south, Davis Besse's cooling tower to the southeast, and was told that when the haze was gone, the cooling tower plume from Perry (east of Cleveland) could be spotted as well.

On the way down, we saw fans the size of greyhound buses, with electric motors the size of Buicks to drive them, the steam chamber at the top of each boiler, where the steam and water are separated and water level is monitored, coal bunkers loaded from the top and gravity-fed down to the basement crushers, hundreds of miles of pipes, valves, hot surfaces, massive castings, girders and, unexpectedly, levels of concrete floors and walls all covered with red industrial tiles. In one area that was roped off for some reason, the clay tile floor was black, covered with coal dust and grit. That is what the entire place would look like if it was not regularly swabbed out. And the noise! The whole place fairly thrummed with the energies of the inferno roaring inches away. Through ear protection, one had to fairly shriek to be understood.

The lowest level housed the coal pulverizers, taking the gravel-sized coal down to something that could be moved by air. These pulverizers use steel balls the size of huge cannon shot, which are used until they wear down too small to be effective. There were racks of them along the wall waiting to be installed. The pulverized coal is blown upward to mills that grind still finer, until the coal is the consistency of talcum powder. The powdered coal is blown into the boiler through burners that look like oil burners. The boilers are, in fact, fired on oil from a cold start, and then switched to coal powder when the heat rises sufficiently to support combustion.

There is a 4-mile long channel that supplies lake Erie water to the steam condensors. The boiler water itself is separate and is recirculated through the system. There are pumps everywhere to keep the fluid flowing. A great deal of process equipment is water cooled to prevent heat damage.

The steam turbines have several stages to take full advantage of both high and low pressure steam. Incoming water is preheated by exhausted steam, and incoming air is preheated by exhaust gases, to increase efficiency. Exhaust gases are sent through electrostatic precipitators to remove particulates. Stack gases are continuously monitored for NOx, CO2 and clarity (particulates) and the boiler burn is adjusted accordingly.

The generators that are driven by the steam turbines are cooled by pressurized hydrogen gas. There is a tank farm with big hydrogen tanks to supply the several hundred cubic feet per day required to do the job. The hydrogen not only carries away heat, but insures a lack of carbon (ie: from carbon dioxide) that could create conductive arc paths on the armatures leading to flashovers and short circuits in the intense electric and magnetic fields. Also keeps the ozone production low. For maintenance, they shut the generator down and flood the housings with carbon dioxide to displace the hydrogen, then ventilate with compressed air for several hours to permit safe breathing environments inside the housings.

Oddly enough, if the plant is ever shut off from outside sources of power (the grid becomes disconnected) they have to trip the plant to shut down the generators. There is too much energy being produced and it needs a load to prevent voltages and currents from destroying the equipment. The plant cannot run itself. Once the generation is offline, there is no power to run the ancillary equipment. I spotted a generator that must have come from a diesel locomotive in a corner of the basement. The plant manager said it was actually run on propane. Its primary purpose is to keep the steam turbine/generator shafts turning over at very slow speed during outages. There are motors connected to the shafts that do this. If the shaft is permitted to sit without rotating, the intense heat inside the assembly, rising to the top as circulation is shut down, differentially heats the huge steel shafts (he held his hands about three feet apart to show diameter) and they will bow upward and be destroyed. So they have to turn like rotisseries to stay evenly heated.

There are two coal piles. One is Western coal and one is Eastern coal. Eastern coal has higher btu content (19oo or so btu per pound) and costs over 120 dollars per ton. Western coal has around 700-800 btu per pound and costs around 70-80 dollars per ton. They cannot meet design Megawatt output burning 100 percent Western coal, so they mix it in the first crushing tower out in the stockpile/rail yard. They balance megawatt load demand versus coal cost to balance the mix percent.

This plant was build fifty years ago, and has been online 24/7/365 since started. One notable exception was exactly five years ago during the big blackout, when all of the affected power generating facilities had to go offline or be severely damaged by overloads and reflected power surges.

About 5 years ago, the three boiler operators and their chief (one team per each shift) were supplanted by an electronic central control system. In the control room, surrounded by fifty-year-old levers, meters and switch panels, four modern console desks, each surmounted by four huge flat-panel monitors, watch and control the entire plant operation. Being an older plant, there are still a raftload of valves and gates that need manual control out in the plant, but everything important, from Megawatt output to water level, can be controlled from these consoles. It was like a Star Wars starship bridge control panel, only where a bank of flashing lights and switches are always assumed, 328 Megawatts of potential energy was controlled by a lowly mouse and some right and left clicks.

If you go to Google Maps and type in " jr whiting generating " to search, you can zoom in on the satellite view and see the overhead layout of the plant. The ponds to the north are the fly ash pits. They are clay and terracloth fabric lined, cloth and clay capped, earth covered and replanted when full.
Posted 6:04 PM by Andy (0) comments

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Kidney pie, round two. On the advise of one of my dialysis nurses (the one I really like and trust) I called University Hospital and asked for info on their transplant program. They set up an appointment for me so, last Tuesday, off I went. Though it's quite near the Clinic driving there is a nightmare if you aren't familiar with the Murray Hill area of Cleveland, which I'm not. Streets twist and turn in unbelievable ways there. Be in the wrong lane and you're a gonner. And there's construction. The Clinic is surrounded by construction projects and, much to my surprise, so is UH. They both must be rolling in money. Anyway...

I met first with a financial coordinator. The Clinic's financial coordinators were a joke but this woman really knew her business. She was an expert not only on Medicare and how it applies to transplants in general but also how UH works with that program. Wow, I was impressed. According to her it looks like something I may be able to swing, at least financially. Cool.

The next part involves going through a number of tests, all of which I have to pass before being put on the list. Hooboy. Wish me luck.
Posted 10:50 AM by whatley (3) comments

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You betcha. How is someone without any networking savvy ever going to find the path through the money jungle? Good on you for persistence and knowing lotsa women medical peoples (the networking savvy referenced above).

# posted by  Andy : August 17, 2008 6:00 PM
 
BTW - I am staring the Lorain job tomorrow. Little nervous about that and somewhat regretful about leaving the fun Michigan place that had all of the expensive precision electrical toys. Glad to be back in my own cave. I never realized how much useless stuff I had accumulated over the years. Gotta go on a pitch and toss mission.

# posted by  Andy : August 17, 2008 6:02 PM
 
I am so pleased you have found people and an institution that 'get it'. I will hold nothing but positive thoughts for the prospects.

# posted by  jeichenlaub : August 20, 2008 3:46 PM
 
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Five foot two? Check. Eyes of blue? Check. Great insurance? I think I'm in love.
Posted 4:32 AM by whatley (0) comments

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How Hospital Costs Ran Amok

Hospital costs for uninsured Americans are ruinous, like nowhere else in the world. The Wall Street Journal recently pointed to a major reason: Hospitals gain a "charity" tax deduction for the difference between what they collect and their "list" prices. If they can actually collect the money, which they often do by threatening collection lawsuits, they make a tremendous profit. If not, then they deduct from taxable income their phantom "losses" from patients who don't pay.

So, for example, an ambulance ride with a "list cost" of $1000 could bring in $1000 from a patient who pays or a tax deduction of $1,000 from the patient who doesn't, which then can be deducted against other income. Furthermore, the "list" prices inflate other medical costs. The uninsured today are a major source of hospital profits, as detailed in J. Patrick Rooney and Dan Perrin's America's Health Care Crisis Solved. The book describes how a Denver hospital patient tracked down the charges for his treatment paid by medicare and health insurance companies, which totaled $6,000, compared to the $67,000 the hospital demanded.

Posted 5:54 AM by whatley (1) comments

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A user revolution? A non-aligned, non-insured member group that, by sheer dint of numbers, can wield power equivalent to that held by the insurance companies to dictate payments. There is no lack of un- under-insured to populate such a group. Remeber the Lumberman's Insurance group? A co-op that gave insurance benefits on a socialized basis. Can people get along just well enough to insure themselves a healthy future?

# posted by  Andy : August 11, 2008 9:07 PM
 
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I have not told anyone except my immediate supervisor and my family yet, but I accepted the job at Emerson Power Products (Lorain Products) this past Wednesday. Not nearly as much fun as the Lab job in Michigan, but nearly twice the $$ with almost no daily commute (to F Street in Lorain), and from my own home. So I will be back before the end of August. And yes, you are part of my family. Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!
Posted 3:45 PM by Andy (0) comments

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