HONEST TO BLOG

To Look For America

I wish I could tell you about my Valentine's weekend. Perhaps privately over beer. There's nothing scandalous; just a literature-worthy character or two. The less dramatic events involve my car breaking down, and my having to walk about 10 miles in the freezing cold and dark along a windy shoulderless highway. It was a 2hr30min hike home.

So I'm working night shift at the Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant, which resides in my back yard. It's temp work, and I'm proctoring National Academy for Nuclear Training e-Learning (NANTeL) and other computer-based training (cbt) exams for the contracted outage workers. Some of these guys travel all over the U.S. for outages. The parade of Americana is interesting. I was invited to a bar with mud wrestling. Not kidding. If I go, maybe that'll be one for private conversation too.

I've also been working with the Susquehanna Valley Community Education Project (SVCEP) as acting secretary. Mostly, I just take meeting minutes, but I'm learning a bit about institution building. Here's some local news coverage (post commercial). You can see part of the back of my head briefly [at 2:08 - 2:12], on the left, front row.

Here is a recent photo of me and nephew Owen doing some coloring.

Rural Pennsylvania life must be getting to me, because lately I've had a hankerin' for scrapple. And did I tell you about my occasional hangout in Sunbury, The Squeeze-In? Five bar stools. Hotdogs and coffee.

Exterior and interior photos (below) courtesy of Denny Gibson, road trip photographer extraordinaire.