That Sinking Feeling

I got that panicked call from one of the Nodlings during the football game. (Why always during the game?) Daddy, daddy, the kitchen sink is flooding! 

I went upstairs and sure enough we're wading through a couple of gallons of water on the floor. Warm water. Hm. Not the dishwasher. We rescued most of the under the sink supplies and mopped out the cabinet. I determined it wasn't one of those spraying geyser leaks which is a good thing. It only leaks when you turn on the water. Must be the hose or fitting.

I turned off the water and then took stuff apart. Due to the angle, this involved crawling into the cabinet and trying to swing a wrench with my elbow jammed against my nose while reaching around the garbage disposal. Not fun. I'm going to have bruises in strange places. Now I have sore ribs and a neck cramp.

I figured if it was a leaking hose, I could duct tape it until I could get a replacement. The hardware store was closed, but I did find (clear - not silver!) duct tape at the drug store. I ended up not being able to separate the last hose fitting so as to be able to do my triage. Fail!

I put everything back together again and ran some water through the lines -- and now it doesn't leak. This bothers me more than if I hadn't fixed it. I didn't conclusively find the source of the leak; I didn't "do" anything particular to fix it. I took it apart, yanked on a few parts, and put it back together again. I have a sinking feeling this isn't the last we'll see of this problem.

In the meantime, I put a drip pan under the sink and the paper towels and supplies somewhere else. Now I know why plumbers get paid a fortune: they are huge guys with strong hands and bad overalls doing a dirty job. How would a huge guy even fit under the sink?!

Roller Ditching Grandpa

Grandpa Nod hit a rock in the road and ditched on his roller blades.

Two years ago he hit a pothole and softened his landing with his face - out cold. This time it's a triple fractured humerus where he jammed the ball of his arm into the shoulder socket.

Doctor says that unless the rotator cuff is damaged, they won't do surgery. He'll have to keep it in a sling for a couple of weeks, and then do some - light - exercises in order to regain his mobility.

Grandpa Nod grew up playing hockey on frozen ponds, skating, and all that, and yes, he wears all the required safety gear. In general the exercise is good for him, but he's had a couple of unlucky accidents. Knowing him, this won't stop his skating once his arm heals.

We're thinking body armor for his birthday ...

Hospital Magnet

We just can't get away from those guys in white lab coats.

Sibling #3 got hit by a car while riding his bicycle on the snow covered streets. His brakes failed and he slid into the intersection and got nailed. One helicopter ride and three broken ribs later, he ended up in the hospital. Fortunately, there don't seem to be any worse injuries. He should be released tomorrow. Prayers appreciated.

The main thing to look out for with broken ribs is complications. Broken ribs usually mean shallow breathing due to pain. If the lungs don't expand all the way it can lead to a collapsed lung, pneumonia, or other upper respiratory infection.

Strangely enough, you should sleep on the side with the broken rib, so the other side can expand all the way.

Double Flat

In music there are sharps and flats. Each one will bring the target note a half step up or down. Therefore a double flat should bring a note a whole step down? Nope, not quite.

The double flat symbol alters the pitch of the note to which it is attached as well as any subsequent occurence of the same note (identical line or space) in the same measure.

In my personal symphony, this notation means that any tire that I touch on my car will result in a flat for the rest of the day.

On Friday, I drove home without incident and parked in the garage. On Saturday, I woke up to do some errands and got ten feet before I felt it. Walking three-quarters around the car, I found the flat on the driver's side front.

Thinking this was a teaching moment, I called Wynken, my eldest, outside to learn how to change a tire. When we had put the doughnut on, he said, "It looks a little flat." I replied, "No, no, it's just cold out." Backing up another ten feet revealed that he was right.

Flat as a pancake. I tried to manually inflate the doughnut, to no avail. Sidewall split.

Busted.

Plowed

We just got plowed; not the road, but the car.

Somebody stopped suddenly in front of Mrs. Nod; she also stopped suddenly, but the car behind didn't make the grade. In fact, the grade of the hill that driver came down probably had a little to do with the velocity and momentum with which she got hit. But don't worry, we got the license plate. In fact, you can see it embedded in our bumper in this picture.


Ultimately, the damage is one fender and bumper superstructure. The driver of the other car's insurance should take care of it. The larger concern was that Mrs. Nod and the toddlers, Nub and Nib, were ok, especially since Nub just had a hernia surgery and the stitches are still fresh. The doctor seems to think everybody's ok, except for a little whiplash on Mrs. Nod. The next day or two should tell if there are any additional symptoms. Soft tissue damage is slow to show up and even slower to heal.

The other casualties of the accident are two of our car seats. Once you're in any kind of accident, you have to replace them Just In Case. At $150 - $300 a pop, this ain't cheap. It's been a long day with doctor's visits, insurance claims, musical rental car nonsense, and auto body shops.

I'm tired and my advent tree still isn't up, despite the kids' pleas. Be careful out there ...

A Third Hand Version Of The Challenger Disaster

The other day I met a guy who claims to have worked for the company who made the ill-fated O-rings that caused the first space shuttle disaster aboard the Challenger. He told me his version of the story which I then fact checked (well, ok, it was only Wikipedia).

First, his (abbreviated) version:

Steve the general contractor says the Shuttle disaster wasn't caused by faulty O-rings, but because they launched the shuttle when it was too cold. The O-rings were known not to be effective below 68 degrees. The contractor said "don't launch", Reagan said "Launch, I want a teacher in space for my state of the union speech". A too-cold rod that held the rocket in place snapped. The top of the rocket tilted out, the bottom tilted in and punctured the fuel tank. Boom. Disaster.

Steve says the shuttle launched that day with over 350 critical issues, any one of which would result in a complete loss of the vehicle. He says that today they only launch with 150 critical issues. Progress? He also said that NASA figured that they would lose 1 out of every 25 launches. In 27 years, they've only lost 2. Success?

Now the official version:

[Wikipedia] Disintegration of the entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter.

The Rogers Commission found that NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been a key contributing factor to the accident. NASA managers had known that contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but they failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the cold temperatures of that morning and had failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors.

Thiokol engineers argued that if the O-rings were colder than 53 °F (12 °C), they did not have enough data to determine whether the joint would seal properly. This was an important consideration, since the SRB O-rings had been designated as a "Criticality 1" component—meaning that there was no backup if both the primary and secondary O-rings failed, and their failure would destroy the Orbiter and its crew.

One argument of NASA people in contest to Thiokol's concerns was that if the primary O-ring failed the secondary O-ring would still seal. This was unproven, and was in any case an illegitimate argument for a Criticality 1 component. (As astronaut Sally Ride cited in questioning NASA managers before Congress, it is forbidden to rely on a backup for a Criticality 1 component. The backup is there to provide redundancy in case of unforeseen failure, not to replace the primary device, leaving no backup.) The engineers at Thiokol also argued that the low overnight temperatures would almost certainly result in SRB temperatures below their redline of 40 °F (4 °C). However, they were overruled by Morton Thiokol management, who recommended that the launch proceed as scheduled.^[4] Despite public perceptions that NASA always maintained a "fail-safe" approach, Thiokol management was influenced by demands from NASA managers that they show it was not safe to launch rather than prove conditions were safe. It later emerged in the aftermath of the accident that NASA managers frequently evaded safety regulations to maintain the launch manifest (schedule).

So Steve's story was true in the main, if not the particulars. Interesting ...

Fallen Things

The night had just fallen on this early fall day.

Only 30 minutes ago I was walking outside under that tree at twilight looking at the fence with the contractor. We were just shuffling the last of the Nodlings off to bed when we heard that horrifying crack.

Blynken screamed, Mrs. Nod jumped out of her seat, and I went outside with a flashlight to investigate.

A giant section of our Bradford Pear tree broke clean off and came crashing down in the back yard. The high winds must have weakened it earlier in the day. Bradford Pears are notoriously weak jointed and prone to splitting at the crotch. Those branches must weigh several hundred pounds and fell at least 20 feet -- enough to kill.

But as God willed it, it fell exactly between the deck, house, and fence hitting none (including me). I used this event to reassure Blynken and Nod-girl of the Providence of God and his constant care and concern for us. I hugged the girls and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving that we had been spared.

Spared of Fallen things. Hm. Past time for a trip to Confession to repair my own fallen state. Deo gratias.

Red Line Metro Pile Up Kills 9

By now you've heard of it: the deadliest Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) accident ever.

A head-on ramming of one Red Line train into the back of another has killed 9 people and sent 70 more to the hospital in varying levels of injury. The accident happened near the Fort Totten station.

[Miami Herald] Jeter said the trains run in automatic mode during rush hour, and have sensors that should keep them from getting closer than 1,200 feet from each other.

Investigators, who are still in the early stages of their inquiry, said Tuesday that the operator of the striking train, who died in the crash, likely applied the emergency brake, but they cautioned against drawing early conclusions on what caused the crash. Also under scrutiny are the train's signaling system and potential human error.

Passengers on the striking train said it stopped momentarily before the Fort Totten station in Northeast Washington. Then, the train began to move forward at a moderate speed on a curved track before plowing into a stopped train. Several passengers said they didn't feel any braking.

A shade of color saved my life. I ride Metro every day into the city and back again, but on the Orange Line, not Red. Washington, DC has the second largest subway system in the United States; it is also decently clean and safe.

Riding the Metro is one of the dullest, safest experiences you could have. Some of the platforms near the escalators are unnervingly narrow, but the train itself is Dulls-ville Central. So to have a catastrophic accident like this is truly shocking. Our hearts and prayers are with our fellow Washingtonians and their grieving families.

Do you know what happened today? Nothing; everybody got back on the train and went to work.

Sure, everybody avoided the front car today, but by next week even that precaution will be forgotten. Metro took extra long to get anywhere today, but that's because everybody was being extra, extra cautious.

I can't decide whether I prefer that the train was in "automatic mode" or "manual mode". I've seen the automatic mode (normal for rush hour) in action with the driver hanging out the window. Amazing bit of technology. 99% of the time, that is.

Nib Kept In Stitches

Except it wasn't funny; poor Nib banged her forehead on a corner and had to get 5 stitches today.
You know how head wounds are - blood everywhere. Poor baby!

That's life with kids: always moments away from a crisis. Actually I'm surprised we haven't had more of them given our demographics.

I guess someone's looking out for us. Thanks.

The Guys' Take On The News

The news is national or international -- but I live right here, and so do you. That is to say, we are real people, not just headlines.

I talked with "the guys" tonight about the news and they had personal perspectives on it.

Regarding the current flap over Notre Dame giving an honorary degree to President Obama and inviting him to speak at commencement, one guy is a huge Irish fan and his brother is an alum. He said he's not watching any more games, and his brother said the University isn't getting another dime from him until they rescind this invitation and honorary degree.

Another guy is a Navy engineer who said it is very possible the latest sub bump accident with a ship in the Strait of Hormuz could be a result of simply getting too close to each other and getting "sucked together". He said his group did some testing and modeling on it after the last accident. Physics, man.

Sub Bump II - The Sequel

The AP reports that the U.S. nuclear submarine, USS Hartford, and the amphibious ship, USS New Orleans, collided with each other before dawn Friday in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's busiest oil shipping lanes. (h/t Subvet at Blowing San #1 for this one)

The New Orleans suffered a ruptured fuel tank, resulting in an oil spill of approximately 25,000 gallons (95,000 liters) of diesel fuel, Christensen said. There was no damage to the sub's nuclear propulsion system.

Still, the unusual collision between members of the same navy sparked a sudden rise in oil prices -- which had been declining on the day -- even though the strait remained open.

Wow. This is totally embarassing for the world's most powerful nation to be involved in a traffic accident of its own making. Also unhelpful is that these actions directly contributed to jacking up oil prices unnecessarily -- with us in a recession and all.

This incident is just one of the latest in a series of high-powered accidents in the world least hospitable places: Russian satellites, French and English nuclear submarines, green asteroids.
It seems the world's least hospitable places are getting increasingly crowded. Come on, guys -- two hands on the wheel.

Sub Bump Triomp

Say that ten times fast: Sub Bump Triomp(hant).

A French sub and an English sub walk into a bar ... no wait, that's the beginning of a joke. What sounds almost as bad is that the French nuclear submarine Le Triomphant and UK nuclear submarine HMS Vangaurd collided with each other in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during routine patrols, because neither sub detected the other.

Sheesh! Come on guys, those things are loaded. What's going on lately? -- first Russian satellites, then nuclear submarines. Next thing you know we'll be batting down asteroids with the things.

"Look. Look, Jacques. You take the left side, I'll take the right. And for heaven's sake, be careful."

Feel Lucky for more reassuring French military escapades.