The Ziggurat of Pimpery - Some Superficial Similarity to the Ziggurat of Ur
There are some truly dedicated souls out there with a dedication to deliciousness and caffeination that is above and beyond the call of duty. The volunteered themselves for experimentation, made a good case for why they should ascend the lofty Ziggurat of Pimpery and sit in judgment over their respective domains, choosing who should and who should not gain Black Blood of the Earth from their hands. To the ranks of Portland, OR, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Detroit we now add Madison, WI, Chicago, and New York City.
Serving Madison, with occasional service to Milwaukee, is Greg. You may contact him via email WisconsinBBotE [at] gmail [dot] com. You may want to move fast as you’ll have to get bottles from him before he consumes it all himself.
For the Greater Chicago Area, I present you with Senor Weiss. He displays all the depraved caffeine consumption I expect from someone who used to dwell behind Super Sekrit Fences like me. You may contact him via email BBotE [at] billweiss [dot] net.
In New York City, you have inherited an acolyte of the Pimpstress of Greater Los Angeles, the lovely Ms. Wish. Wish may be contacted via email NYCBBotE [at] gmail [dot] com.
Go forth and deplete their supplies! Madison is currently armed with BBotE, NYC & Chicago’s arrive on Wednesday. If, perchance, they do not have the specific BBotE you desire, well, you may always place an order directly here. If you can wait a bit, let them know what you want and it will go into the next shipment that heads their way.
Costa Rica and Colombia are the two primary coffee growing countries that we see in North American stores, despite Brazil out producing them, thanks to some agricultural colonization similar to that which United Fruit did (and thus the coining of the term “Banana Republic”). The monopolies and focused national agricultural production strategies, think King Cotton in the American South, from decades ago are why generations of Americans and Canadians instantly think of Juan Valdez and his burro when someone mentions Colombia. Admittedly, this is probably preferable to the other vision of Colombia as the Narco Kingdom of Medellin that sold so well on the news with the War on Drugs.
The point that I’m getting at here is that the use of Costa Rican and Colombian coffees as bulk material, blended together at port before shipping out, cut like cocaine with much more expensive coffee crops like Jamaican and Kona to help improve profit margins, does a great disservice to the fact that there are some truly fantastic coffees growing in these regions. We wouldn’t have tried to create monoculture crops with unstable puppet political regimes if we couldn’t yield fantastic amounts of coffee, bananas, etc. from their soils in the first place, right?
This is where you’re all supposed to yell at me about the importance for ethically produced, sustainable, organically farmed coffees. All things being equal, I’d prefer not to wear blood diamonds or consume blood beans. The fun thing about Colombia and Costa Rica’s coffee growers is that despite providing over 10% of the world’s arabica beans, most of the production comes from small growers…who then sell to the giant conglomerate co-op that fills the metal cans on the supermarket shelves. I’d be happier if we diverted a bit more of that coffee before homogenization to taste what those small farms can do, because my very favorite BBotE I’ve made to date is a single farm in Guatemala. Surely, the legendary volcanic soils of Colombia and Costa Rica offer similar delights.
Ah yes, volcanoes. It is time once again to discuss Herr Direktor Funranium’s tongue’s strange flavor library. When I taste a coffee and say, “Mmm…andesitic stratovolcano”, as I did with the Colombian tasted yesterday, people tend to look at me funny. Hey, pulverize enough rock samples and you’ll get familiar with their taste and smell too. In defense of my oddity, note how the map of major arabica coffee crops matches up fairly closely with regions of active volcanism (East African Rift Valley, Indonesian Archipelago, hot spot volcanism of Hawaii, the Central American section of the Ring of Fire). The arabica needs these rich volcanic soils to develop their distinctive flavors, which in turn, reflects the distinctive volcanism of these regions. If you’ve ever wondered why Panama tastes so dramatically different than Ethiopia, it’s the difference between the geochemistry of a hydrated subduction zone volcanic arc and the extensional melting of a rift valley where a continent is tearing itself apart. Very different chemistry leads to different lavas which is reflected in their flavor.
In summation, I am always looking for a new small lot of Central and South American coffee to tinker with and this week I got two, Costa Rica Doka and Colombia Paez.
The Costa Rica Doka is a cool shade grown bean that as both a hot coffee and BBotE had a very citrus, fruity flavor. This is likely due to the Costa Rican governments mandatory water process removal of the cherry. Straight and cold, I found the BBotE of the Costa Rica to have a meaty flavor to it which, combined with the citrus-like qualities, made an effect not unlike beef stew. Others declared it to be a good solid coffee flavor with some spiciness to it, which was brought out further by vodka addition.
The Colombia Paez is a supremo grade arabica (similar to the Kenya AA for coffee categorization) that I received within two hours of roasting. The beans had hardly had a chance to cool down before I put them into process. Cold and straight, the Colombia smelled like Hershey cocoa powder or a cup of hot chocolate. When tasted, well, I already discussed my tongue and stratovolcano flavor, but others defined that as milk chocolate with a little tannin bite with a very, very, very long finish. The oils just hang on the tongue and the flavor lasts. With vodka addition, it was declared to be “smooth like butter” and “I want to spread this on toast”.
I think they are both worth experimenting with again, especially the Colombia. Keep an eye out for it appearing in the Clearance & Prototype section.
From time to time, people send me missives thanking me for how their Stein of Science and/or BBotE has allowed More Awesome into their lives. But every now and then the rare testimonial comes in that demands to be shared with the world (especially when they have drink recipes). And so, I present to you, Test Subject SLC Prime:
My first full 100mL dose of BBotE in the morning before a work day (rough, late night previously, I needed the pick-me-up) caught me off guard. I had to stop for a few minutes and zen to pull my heart-rate back down to normal. Haven’t had a repeat of that since, but I try to make sure I keep things low key when BBotE is fresh in the system, just in case… ;)
A roommate’s first full 100mL dose, mixed with a chai latte, produced what we now refer to as the “Chai Fighter.” In that, when you have one, you could very well wind up zooming around the house making “VREEEEEEOOOOOWWWW!” noises like a TIE fighter from Star Wars.
A regular drinker of energy drinks for years (until the Institute got some nice espresso machines), BBotE has probably the “smoothest” caffeine high I’ve ever experienced. I have the heightened alertness, the drive and ability to get things done, but without the ‘twitchiness’ I’d experience with other energy drinks (especially after slamming back the third for the day). BBotE provides all the positives, while keeping down the distracting twitches for a long, smooth ride, and with more of a “dip” instead of a “crash” at the end. Much like my quadra-shot “God coffees”, but with all the advantages of BBotE over normal coffee.
There you have it. I was wiping away some tears of laughter as my imagination went to work imagining the Chai Fighter aftermath. Test Subject SLC Prime has inspired a perverse desire to go stand before the Temple in Salt Lake City, bottle of BBotE in each hand of my outstretched arms, and as an angel of caffeine show them what they have forsaken.
No Longer Applies…for the moment. Lockout is over.
Due to a lockout at the Canadian Post, there will be no shipments going to Canada for a while unless you are truly desperate and want to work out FedEx arrangements. I do truly regret this as I fully understand we are hitting the height of beer season* on Lake Winnipeg and the Maritimes. Hopefully the lockout won’t go on too long and regular BBotE & Stein of Science service will be restored to the Great White North.
*: Yes, yes I know that it is very hard to tell when it isn’t the height of beer season in Canada. There are subtleties, you just have to watch for them.
As I head back to California from the darkest wilds of Penn Yan, NY it is time to get balls rolling again. Won’t be an adventure report for a bit yet but it I should share the things that are coming back into stock:
665ml “Rugged” Style Steins of Science – I made some folks sad a couple months ago when I absolutely could not more of the rugged style dewars to build with. Well, I’ve got six more finally. Folks obviously figured this out with their psychic powers because I was going to say I had eight on hand except…*POOF*…now I have six.
750ml Death Wish Black Blood of the Earth – One of my first priorities after getting home is going to be getting some Death Wish BBotE back in the pipeline. There were some folks upset that they never got a shot at those first experimental bottles. Well, a few more are going up. Get ’em while you can, the last lot was gone within 30 minutes.
Happy news of Pimpery – Sometime in the next few weeks the Pimp of Madison and Pimpstress of NYC will receive their inaugural cases. The Pimpstress of PDX should receive resupply somewhere in there too. The Pimp of Santa Barbara is currently out but he would not be surprised if he got a jab in the ribs by the needy.
Herr Direktor Funranium, Reflected in the Voyager Record, Trusting In Science
Again, no tales of adventure here, but have a picture of yours truly reflected in the a copy of the record currently hurtling out of the solar system aboard Voyager. Every time I think of that record, I miss Carl Sagan.
Knife/Wheelock Pistol Hybrid - Not A Sword-chuck (apologies to Brian Clevinger's 8-Bit Theater)
As a complete non-sequitur, let us begin with this: I want to applaud the brilliance that came up with this magnificent weapon. A German with an armament oriented dedication to More Awesome nearly 500 years ago created this beauty. When I saw it in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all I could think of was Fighter from Brian Clevinger’s webcomic 8-Bit Theater and his mastery of the deadliest of weapons, the Sword-chuck. I think I said that out loud at the Met and confused a docent.
In this round of the Scientific Drinking Tour 2011, my Lovely Assistant and I have taken it upon ourselves to gather together some interesting folks. We then did the most important thing we can do: feed them alcohol and let the talking begin. I like to think of this as a debauched and excessive salon-like event except, knowing my history like I do, that we will never hold a candle to the revels & extremity of pre-Revolution France. At least, not without getting arrested in modern America.
I have dubbed these gatherings the Shadowy Cabal For Global Domination (or SC4GD as Test Subject Scott dubbed them). Currently, DC/Baltimore and New York City chapters exist (oh, plus San Francisco but I can hardly help that) and I can only hope the folks that have brought together keep drinking, talking and thinking. Who knows what wonders may come out of them. At the very least, some new friends.
Just to give a feel for the expertise of the assembled NYC attendees, allow me to list them by field of expertise: economics, immigration law, PR, chemistry, freelance comic artist, physics. This is an impressive collection of skills fit to tackle damn near any topic. Admittedly, discussion was rather beer-centric as we sampled the fine wares of The Ginger Man in the wares of yours truly, a ginger man. As I recall, and things got hazy, other topics discussed were:
The robustness of certain camera lenses when dropped from various heights on hard surfaces. A conclusive declaration that a lens that can be reassembled and used with only minor problems after bouncing down a mountain was a Good Lens. No, I can’t remember the manufacturer.
When trying to make a new start in comics, possibly graphic arts in general, trying to dive into print has good nostalgia value…not necessarily the best business plan.
Black Blood of the Earth has allowed everyone, save the Economics Cabalist who has not yet partaken, to make great achievements. Cabalist Mr. Black declares that this is because caffeine allows the creative mind to focus and actually Do Something. We all need to meditate upon this wisdom further.
In other news, I have always been a proponent of learning new places by making it a point to urinate in different toilet each time, if practicable. I did it to learn all the buildings of Antarctica, all the accessible area of LLNL and the much greater task to get out of my normal science haunts at UC Berkeley.
NYC Main Library Reading Room - Egon Says The PKE Readings Were Low
At the NYC Main Library, as made famous in Ghostbusters, their bathrooms are magnificent which makes their modern toilets seem all the more cheap and tawdry by comparison. I wasn’t expecting much out of the United Nations Headquarters, but peeing there completed one more step in my plans for global domination.
Now that it is May 31st I must reiterate the sad news in a more blatant and public manner: orders placed after the 30th will not ship until June 22nd (after we return from DC & NY). This is not because I don’t love you all but instead because I haven’t turned the BBotE rig into a suitcase portable unit yet, something that is a goal for future international travel.
There will be words from the trail no doubt. If you wish to place orders just get in the queue for my return, by all means do so but you have now been properly alerted when things will ship.
Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building
Take care, kids. In the meantime, enjoy this picture of the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) I took a couple years back in honor of Atlantis heading out from it’s final “stand up”.
I simply cannot do justice to how huge this building is. Those doors on the side are tall enough to allow a fully erect Saturn V rocket in and out.
Alright, coming up on the next bunch of travel as my Lovely Assistant and I set out for Washington DC, New York City, and the Finger Lakes. This means you now get the obligatory last minute reminders and bits & bobs as I clear the decks.
Your last chance to place orders for BBotE will be this Sunday. For Steins of Science, you’ve got until next Tuesday. If you are in Washington DC or NYC are and would like to save on the shipping costs, let me know so I can do the shipping refund and we can arrange an opportunity to meet up. We are not insane enough to rent a car in either DC or NYC, so mass transit friendly rendezvous is key.
In reference to the Death Wish BBotE, I have to admit that my tongue seems to be the minority opinion. After feeding my bottle to my favorite test subjects, there was near universal appreciation of it. From time to time, I get some complaint that the bulk of the regular offerings of BBotE are medium roasts, not dark. Well, Death Wish seems to have satisfied their dark desire. There was also a rather pronounced harrumph from the BBotE Pimpstress of PDX that she didn’t get a chance to have any before it was all gone. In summation, more will get made when I return from travel.
Just be on the safe side, I do recommend cutting my 100ml/day daily maximum in half for the Death Wish BBotE. The zing is quite noticeable. I couldn’t help but smirk at the generally increased bounciness in the St. George Tasting room and rapid speech from everyone that tasted. To the gents at Death Wish, well played…well played indeed. You’ve got quite the bean.
My parting meditative thought for you today:
There are doctoral theses that actually have made profit based on the number of times they’ve been reprinted, referenced and considered seminal works, but you’ve never heard of them. You’ll never read them. In fact, you’ll probably never even read the papers that reference them because they all live in a classified documents vault that take a Q clearance and compartmentalized permissions to access. Keep this in mind when you start writing your thesis; it’s hard enough to get a thesis done without having to work on it only in a secure facility and finding a faculty committee that has the clearance to actually read it so you can graduate.
A while back, one Mr. Kristobek presented me with the simple challenge to see how Death Wish Coffee worked out as BBotE, on the principle that one ridiculous thing taken to the power of extreme must, by definition, be More Awesome. I can’t fault this logic and it is the principle to which Funranium Labs is dedicated.
More to the point, the folks at Death Wish have pursued a line of questioning that has been nagging at me since the dawn of BBotE: why don’t we have tastier robusta coffees? We know that the robusta beans can be 2 to 5 times the caffeine content of their arabica cousins and that they will happily grow in climates that arabica would never sprout. If the childhood memory of Li’l Herr Direktor Funranium serves, we actually had some robusta growing in the wild hammock of Erna Nixon Park in Melbourne, FL. One of the wonderful things about robusta coffee plants is that they are rather friendly cultivation-wise which makes for low impact farming. They’re practically weeds they’re so hardy.
The problem is that robusta beans are regarded as tasting almost uniformly awful. Part of the reason that many mass production store bought coffees are cheap (and regarded as crap) is that their arabica beans have been cut with robusta to help bulk out the can. Yes, that sounded like I was discussing crack sales to me too. I’ve gotten kicked out of more roasteries than I can count for breathing the word “robusta” in the presence of their bean roasters, as if it would taint their production.
But I always wondered, there must be some robusta that isn’t as awful. There must be something that can be done to breed for improved flavor while preserving the higher caffeine content. This is precisely what the folks at Death Wish did. Where I went searching for a process to improve coffee to make it more drinkable for me, they went searching for the highest possible caffeine levels they could find and then making a delicious coffee from that.
Some caveats for my rather biased tasting:
I am fond of light roasts, not dark. Even the choicest picked beans taken to a dark roast loses a great deal of flavor as far as I’m concerned.
The original reasons I made BBotE in the first place was because my sweet tooth couldn’t handle the bitterness of arabica coffees without heavy cream & sugar masking, and diabetes had made that impossible. Thus, the average robusta is a no go. The hot perc coffee I made with the Death Wish was undrinkable to me, though others were quite fond.
As both a grind in the process and as straight BBotE liquid, there was a distinct butyl rubber & deep dark coffee aroma in the air, which is characteristic of robusta beans in general. This is the smell of a new respirator if you aren’t familiar with the chemical. It was somewhat muted compared to some other robusta blends I’ve worked with so that was a good sign.
In flavor, both straight and with 1 part straight vodka to 3 part BBotE addition there was an wild green grape metallic-like (go eat one sometime and and see what I mean) & licorice flavor. And then there was a very long, though muted, bitter pinch on the front sides of the tongue. The robusta bad qualities were showing in the long palate, though not cripplingly so.
When diluted with 3:1 with hot water, the grape-metallic flavor and long palate bitterness disappeared, leaving a good strong, dark coffee that finished with long feeling of menthol cool on the tongue. I think it may have made the best pairing with absinthe yet as it pulled a strong root beer flavor.
For all of these tastes, I can most definitely testify that it had more than the normal amount of caffeinated zing. I felt eyelids go a bit wider after a few minutes after my testing sips. ADDENDUM: did not comfortably get to sleep until roughly 2:30am after a half shot. Wow, and this is my caffeine tolerance talking.
When fed to my favorite guinea pigs at St. George Spirits, there was uniform approval with particular props from the apprentice distiller. Half of the crew are fans of dark roasts, they regularly complain that I don’t do enough of them, and the Death Wish BBotE really hit the spot. I would like to note that the “bouncy” level in the tasting room went up a notch and their knob already goes to 11 in there.
So, the end result is impressive caffeine content but not my favorite flavor. Folks well disposed toward dark roasts will probably be quite pleased with it. There are two 750ml bottles of it now in the Prototypes & Clearance section, so help yourself. (EDIT: Oop, not anymore. Both gone within an hour. Fear not though, there has been sufficient whining from the Caffeinatrix of Portland because she didn’t get any that I’ll probably make another batch when I return from DC & NY. Follow up discussion of Death Wish and why there will be more here.)
The past couple weeks have been rather exciting what with the travel and even more travel coming, with no sign of letting up. That said, I’ve had time to do a little bit of BBotE tinkering that I’d like to share with the collective.
Speaking of more travel, the next leg of Scientific Drinking Tour 2011 is coming up very soon, next week in fact. So, get your orders in by Friday at the latest so I can ship on Monday. After that, my Lovely Assistant and I will be on our way to the reclaimed malarial swamp that is our fair nation’s capital.
Herr Direktor Funranium, Growler & Stein In Hand at Silver Gulch Brewery
From the previous trip on the tour, Fairbanks AK, I give you the Silver Gulch Brewery, America’s northernmost legal brewery (I would be very surprised if there weren’t some small clandestine operations in Point Barrow). Pay no mind to the several miles of what looks like heavy equipment junkyard on the Richardson Highway as you drive from Fairbanks out to them, that’s just the scenic town of Fox. The beer was delicious, particularly the Epicenter Ale, so much so that I had to grab a growler to go for home enjoyment.
With regards to BBotE experimentation, I have begun tinkering with a new medium roast from a small farm in El Salvador. I have to say the flavor has been all over the map and, as always, everyone thinks my nose and tongue are broken. I swear the BBotE made from the Salvadoran has a grape Bubble Yum aroma to it. This got me strange stares as everyone else declared a salty, bacon-y aroma and flavor. On tasting, I agreed with the collective’s assessment, in so much as that I thought it was smoky. Except my smoky made me think of black powder smoke from a Civil War Re-enactment, something I’m quite fond of. In terms of mouthfeel, there was a strange sensation of a pat of flavor/butter sitting in the middle of the tongue, melting off to the sides and letting the whole tongue taste it.
No, that last sentence doesn’t make sense to me either. Describing flavor is hard.
In other news, my samples of Death Wish Coffee are now in process and I hope to have news on how they turned out by the end of the week. The guys at Death Wish have actively pursued one of my earliest questions: we know robusta strains are more hardy and higher caffeine content than arabica coffees, but taste awful. Have we tried to make good tasting robusta? I look forward to seeing the result.
Oh, some discussion with the folks at Caffe Vita seems to indicate that the Guatemala Mundo Nuvo will be returning. I have been lusting for this for nearly nine months now, as has everyone else I let taste the BBotE made from it. It will still be a limited run of BBotE, but there will be quite a bit more than last year. Probably will happen some time in late summer.
Buddies - A 665ml Shiny Brass & A Growler of Epicenter Ale
Right, with that, I should probably go play with x-rays again. I leave you with this picture of joy.
This was originally written on May 20th, 2010, the day after Erik died beneath the wheels of an Alameda County Transit bus. The original post evaporated between many server migrations, in addition to many of the original links disappearing, so I have recreated it here as best as I can as it something than can be done while traveling (or in an airport). It’s been a day short of a year now, the void is still there, but these days I do a lot more smiling when I see or do something that reminds me of his shenanigans. I like to imagine that the first hoist of every Stein of Science is a toast to Erik. So, cheers and raise ’em high, boys & girls.
Erik Fitzpatrick, better known to The Internets as graymalkn in various dark corners and rock undersides, the wielder of multipledigression.com, is no more. He has ceased to be. You may fill in the rest of the Dead Parrot Sketch quietly to yourself.
Erik Fitzpatrick, July 4th On Treasure Island, Playing With Fire
Since learning of his unfortunate demise at lunch time, I have spent the afternoon thinking of how very many of the adventures I’ve had in the last fifteen years have either directly involved Erik or been instigated by him. These are stories that many of you at one time or another have endured at cocktail point as I enter raconteur/bartender mode. Because I know how much he hated my bullet point posts, allow me to enumerate in no particular order:
An abortive zero-notice drive to Vancouver to get Tim Horton’s doughnuts, that didn’t quite make it much beyond the southern border of Oregon.
Being the loudest thing on Treasure Island for several Fourths of July.
Formalwear Bowling.
Introducing me to Urban Exploring on my return from Antarctica, and thus making The Golden Age of Ording (exploring the former Fort Ord) possible.
The Proud Dwarven Maritime Tradition.
While we are speaking of Steinwielder Humphrey, The Humphrey Room Inconveniencer. A wonderful study in the limits of slack vs. inconvenience.
A relationship and help recovering at its end.
The inspiration to actually goddamn make something. There would be no Steins of Science or Black Blood of the Earth without the Typewriter-Keyboard Conversion project.
Homestarrunner.com, the second time. I blame Antarctic dementia for me failing to heed his & Steinwielder Humphrey’s words the first time.
Dry ice bomb detonation of the Death Star.
The friend who prior to my departure thought that my year in Antarctica sounded like the best thing ever, rather than crazy.
A vegetarian willing, on many occasions, to discuss the merits, ethics, logistics, and food preparation concerns of cannibalism.
The man who gave me two copies of Cryptonomicon at the same time so that ONE of them would stay intact long enough for me to complete the book, knowing my previous history destroying that book by accident. It was just that important to him.
Seriously, Urban Exploring. I received an angry fist for getting to do Urban Exploring as a part of my job in places he couldn’t get to and nor could I take pictures of to share. I did a better job decommissioning former nuclear facilities by his inspiration.
Introducing me to Oingo Boingo with their “Farewell”…dammit.
He introduced me to Ole’s Waffles in Alameda.
This is far from an exhaustive list. Mighty Wurlitzers crop up in it now and then.
More importantly, Erik was a principled man that made a difference. He worked in schools teaching elementary school kids that science and computers were awesome. He left a relatively decent job in the games industry to instead be IT and computer education to Walden House. He was proud of being an poll station monitor. And then he decided the only way he was really going make the world better by following his dream to become a lawyer. Next week, he was supposed to start his internship with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Death Penalty Project in Louisiana.
He was going to be a GOOD lawyer.
While most of us were too busy trying to make a buck and make ends meet, Erik found a way to make his daily bread and help many, many more do the same.
And now he is gone. The world is so much the poorer for his passing. I was looking forward to voting for him someday. As a member of my Shadowy Cabal for Global Domination, a public face is necessary to be loved by the masses. It is good for that love to be genuine, well-earned, and returned by the recipient.
Sitting here in Fairbanks, AK on the latest leg of Scientific Drinking Tour 2011 while drinking a stein worth Silver Gulch Brewery‘s Epicenter Ale (took a growler home today), I realized that the next leg in DC and NY is going to be unhelpful to people looking for presents for Father’s Day. This year Father’s Day is on June19th and if you wanted to get a stein for day so he can drink his cares away in a properly cooled style or hep’d up on BBotE, you’ll need to order very soon to get it there in time.
We depart for DC on June 2nd, so all orders will need to be in by the June 1st to get orders in the mail to you. Possibly your father will be understanding about a late gift.
If so, your dad is more forgiving than mine. That’s why my vacation ends on the 18th…
The other half of last week’s fun was responding to a request from UC and Berkeley Police Departments to assist them with some training for their bomb squad unit. While they’re quite familiar with what to do with explosives, they wanted to get some practice in with radioactive sources just to work on potential “dirty bomb” responses. Seeing as how I’m the guy with interesting materials at my disposal and have been The Radiation Guy Who Talks To Cops, I got a call.
A Robot Beyond The Drums - Source Sighted, Box Full Of Thorium Ignored
I set up a nice obstacle course for them to drive the robots through, with some of my favorite sealed sources tucked away out of view behind a whole bunch of waste drums. On the other side of the building, I had the large Cs-137 source put out on the instrument calibration range. Their mission: starting in the middle of the room, head toward the drums and find the sources I’d hidden over there and then drive all the way back to the other end of the room and identify the radioactive source.
Did I mention that over beyond the drums was a somewhat non-descript large cardboard tri-wall box full of uranium/thorium waste? No? Hmm, I failed to mention that to the bomb squads too for some reason.
Sandbagging: Distracted The Robot Operator With Thorough Labeling
The purpose of test one was a sandbagging exercise to see if I could distract them with shiny, well labeled items to the point that they ignored the very evident higher radiation fields from the cardboard box full of thorium and uranium. The did find my check sources, but when asked them what the dose rate was, they let me know that it was only .3mR/hr but it was a bit higher a bit back. I just kind of stood there quietly while they listened to their own words. They then backed the robot up and went inspecting the box. When I was asked what the hell was in there, I said that I was pretty sure that they had cameras on that robot that could look for identifying information rather than deploying a dearly precious technician to go read the paperwork.
On the return trip for a look at the large Cs-137 source, I had my technician leave all the transport containers over there, easy to be seen by the camera. The operator homed in on the larger transport container and was rather to disappointed to discover it was empty. I asked him if, like the sealed source, that was the highest field he’d seen. He began searching again and found a lead container that looked suspiciously like it fit inside the larger one.
I had my technician open it up and show the interior to the camera. Empty. The operator grumpily resumes searching.
After five more minutes, he shows me a picture of the calibration stand and says it is somewhere on there. I ask what, specifically, was the source. He opens his mouth, begins to point at the screen, stops, hangs his head and says, “I don’t know. I have no idea what it looks like.”
I gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder and congratulated him on saying the three hardest words in the English language for people in authority. I then had my technician point at the very, very small,unmarked, quite unobtrusive bullet of metal. Radioactive sources don’t necessarily look like anything. Packaging and labeling is what you look for to indicate something is missing or has gone wrong, but the actual source itself may take some finesses with a meter to find. If it is a rather large source, all you’ll really be interested in doing is defining an exclusion area to keep people out of due to high dose rate.
When we were finished with the exercise, I told them all it was about time to pack up their gear. As the officer went to reach for the instrumentation case, I told him, “Uh uh. What do you think you’re doing, officer?”
With some confusion, caught mid-motion of picking up the case, he slowly replied, “Packing…up…our gear?”
I crossed my arms and felt a smirk I remember all too well from the faces of some of my radtech trainers. “Not that way. You have a perfectly good robot to pack all of that with. Reload your cart using the robot.”
The look I got from him will still be treasured when I’m retired and sitting on the porch in my rocking chair. He then nodded and said, “You’re nastier than the FBI was.”
When they finished, I asked the sergeant how often they practiced with these units. His answer: “Not often enough. This has been a serious workout.” I asked if the police, or the City, held picnics or BBQs where they were present. He nodded as if I were a ninny that hadn’t paid attention to the civic calendar ever.
I told him, “Okay, then there is no reason why the Bomb Squad robot isn’t there serving beer and soda to people. I mean, c’mon, it’s a frickin’ robot, guys! This is a goodwill goldmine in a way that a K-9 unit never will be. It is a chance for you to practice while impressing the bejeezus out of kids. Also, make sure to check if your manipulator arm will crush a beer bottle first. Important safety tip.”
As we were loading everything back into the truck I gave them my take home message, which is very similar to that I’ve been giving for Fukushima reactor problems: never forget the latency of what you’re working with. The explosive will always take priority over the radioactive material as the kaboom will kill you dead immediately. I can always decontaminate things and people later; it may not be quick, it definitely won’t be cheap, but cleaning up rad is what people like me are for. What I can’t do is unexplode people, which is why we have a Bomb Squad.
Test Subject Vivian at the helm of the BPD Bomb Squad Bot
So, if you’re at some future Berkeley civic function where beverages might be served, look out for your friendly robo-server and say hello to the guys driving it. They’re fun guys doing a tricky job, though a bit PR-impaired, bless their hearts.
Oh, International Business Class. Will I ever get to sit in you again?
Tickets are officially purchased for upcoming the May and June parts of the 2011 Scientific Drinking Tour plus a new addition in September! This is your opportunity to get direct hand off of either Steins of Science or BBotE while we’re on the road. They more detailed itinerary looks like this:
May 12th-17th: Fairbanks, AK
We will most definitely be going to the Silver Gulch Brewery in addition to My Lovely Assistant’s sister’s graduation from University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
June 2nd-8th: Washington, DC
Well, more properly staying in Arlington, VA but there will be much nerding about in our nation’s capital. A trip to the Confederacy’s capital might happen.
June 8th-14th: New York City, NY
Again, more properly we’ll be staying in Brooklyn but we’ll be all over the place. It is guaranteed that we will be going to the Big Apple BBQ Block Party. A trip to Brookhaven National Laboratory has been discussed. One of those nights at a location yet to be determined, there will be a meeting of the Shadowy Cabal For World Domination (NYC Chapter). I expect great things will happen around this table. At the very, least some Steins of Science will be hoisted with delicious beer.
June 14th-18th: Penn Yan, NY
Visiting My Lovely Assistant’s extended family in Finger Lakes. Oh yes, I am looking forward to the Mennonite beer. It is possible that we could be tempted to say hello to Rochester.
September 2nd-5th Portland, OR
PDXYAR succeeded in their Kickstarter project to build their boat/stage (AKA El Tiburon) which means we’ve got tickets to go to the Portland Pirate Festival. I’ll be danged if’n I ain’t going.
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 (definition: an adit is the entrance to nearly horizontal mine) and I got to give a crash course in radiation detection using bomb squad robots to the local police departments (this part of the adventure may be found in Part 2).
UC Berkeley’s Lawson Adit Gate
First, the questions everyone asks: why does UC Berkeley have a mine and how long has it been there?
Before UC Berkeley had a Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, it was known as the School of Mines and operated out of what is now known as Hearst Memorial Mining Building. Created by a grant by Pheobe Hearst in 1902 from the vast wealth her husband George had realized during the various gold and silver strikes during the late 1800s, Pheobe Hearst wanted to try to educate a new generation of competent mining engineers in George’s memory to work all the vermiculated placer bearing lands of the American West, rather than drag them over from the east coast or depend upon finding them among the flood of immigrants from Europe.
In 1918, it was decided that they’d have students dig & blast a mine in the hard rock of the hills behind the Hearst Memorial Mining Building. The result was the Lawson Adit. Upon discovery of the Hayward Fault running through there, they decided to dig that mine juuuuuust a little bit deeper so that they could actually cross the fault. You know, because it was there…in the name of Science…for More Awesome. Also, it had a special side gallery that was just for storing the student dynamite. Education used to be much more hands on and exciting once upon a time.
By the late 1950s, the excitement for mining had died down and having a mine bisected by an active (and often creeping) fault seemed a Bad Idea. There were numerous collapses in the adit, primarily where the fault crossed, that made the mine too dangerous to work with anymore. The decision was made to seal it up and then, several years later, seal it up much more thoroughly to prevent the homeless from camping in it and frat boys from getting up to shenanigans.
Lawson Adit – This Is Why You Wear Hardhats
My entry was done in the interest of making sure that no one had done anything silly and tried to store/discard radioactive materials down there. It was unlikely, but I have made a career for myself in having a very dim view of the common sense and forward thinking of others and I thought it prudent to check, just in case. The first thing you see on entry into the adit is a giant goddamn spike hanging down from the ceiling, as shown in the picture to the right.
No, I don’t know why it was put there but it is definitely very educational. Unless you’re shorter than 4 foot tall, you probably only get to learn the “Wear A Hardhat In A Mine” lesson once from this spike.
Baby Stalactites – Aww, Aren’t They Precious?
Rockfalls litter the floor and have dammed up the trickling groundwater, so it is a soggy stroll in the tunnel. Roots hang down from above, with that awful hairy appearance they have for sucking water from dank, moist air. Of course, where you have groundwater seeping through limestone, you get cave formations. This may be a man-made cave, but the natural processes are still going, trying to make some new stalactites on the concrete reinforcing of the side cut entry.
Lawson Adit – Are You Sure Building A Tunnel Through A Fault Is A Good Idea?
At the end of the tunnel, is the collapse that indicates where the Hayward Fault crosses. Lest a rather large hunk of limestone drop and make My Lovely Assistant get very upset with my corpse, I didn’t actually scramble over the debris pile to poke the fault fracture proper.
With the tunnel cleared for radioactive materials and nothing found, they can now do installation of new seismographs before they lock it down good and tight for the foreseeable future.
Next time: Herr Direktor Funranium puts the UC and Berkeley PD bomb squads, and their robots, through their paces.
