Explosion at a Japanese nuke plant, with who knows how much radioactive steam spewing into the atmosphere. As I write this, they’re saying there’s a 20 km evacuation zone. This of course will be the gift that keep on giving to generations to come, and is why nukes are a bad idea (especially in a seismically unstable place like Japan). Plus, it got cold overnight, so if things weren’t bad enough for the people over there, they can now freeze their asses off in the dark. Good luck to them, and let’s hope this doesn’t deter Obama from his support of nuclear power.

Control rod problems here, too, though not from the nuke plants which are, frankly all too close to us (fifty mile by car, give or take, but about 36 miles as the crow flies – at least until the crow flies into radioactive steam and drops into one of the Colonel’s buckets). When I got home from work last night, I heard one of our three sump pumps running constantly (I’ve become rather attuned to the sound and duration of their run, even though they’re in the basement). This is a pedestal type pump with a vertical float switch, and the bracket that stabilizes the float shaft at the bottom had rusted through and broken (people bitch about plastic, but, frankly, it has its uses). So the shaft got cocked and jammed and didn’t drop to shut the switch off (which I supposed is better than not having it come on, but who knows how long it had been that way).

So, anyhow, I cobbled something together with a piece of PVC pipe and some strapping. It was hard to get the damn thing to not bind up, but it seems to be working now (worked all night, at least). I’m pretty screwed if this thing craps out, though, as we are getting a rather massive amount of water at this point, with no real end in sight.

And then SU had to go and lose to f*cking UCONN.

This is not shaping up to be a very good weekend.