• The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
• The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.
• The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
• The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
• There are more chickens than people in the world.
• There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
• There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins.
• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
• TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
• Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
• Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
• Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.

.............Now you know everything

... which would you choose? Pick your dessert, and then look to see what psychiatrists think about you! Sorry you can only pick one.

• Angel food cake
• Brownies
• Lemon Meringue pie
• Vanilla cake with chocolate icing
• Strawberry short cake
• Chocolate icing on chocolate cake
• Ice cream
• Carrot cake

No. You can't change your mind once you scroll down, so think carefully what your choice will be!

• Angel Food Cake: Sweet, loving, cuddly. You love all warm and fuzzy items. A little nutty at times. Sometimes you need an ice cream cone at the end of the day.. others perceive you as being childlike and immature at times.
   
• Brownies: You are adventurous, love new ideas, and are a champion of underdogs and a slayer of dragons. When tempers flare up, you whip out your saber. You are always the oddball with a unique sense of humor and direction. You tend to be very loyal.
   
• Lemon Meringue: Smooth, sexy, and articulate with your hands, you are an excellent after-dinner speaker and a good teacher. But don't try to walk and chew gum at the same time. A bit of a diva at times, but you have many good friends.
   
• Vanilla Cake with chocolate icing: Fun loving, sassy, humorous. Not very grounded in life; very indecisive and lack motivation. Everyone enjoys being around you. You are a practical joker. Others should be cautious in making you mad. However, you are a friend for life.
   
• Strawberry Shortcake: Romantic, warm, loving. You care about other people and can be counted on in a pinch. you also tend to melt. You can be overly emotional at times. And sometimes can be annoying.
   
• Chocolate on chocolate: Sexy; always ready to give and receive. Very adventurous, ambitious, and passionate. You can appear to have a cold exterior but are warm on the inside. Not afraid to take chances. Will not settle for anything average in life. Love to laugh.
   
• Ice Cream: You like sports, whether it is baseball, football, basketball, or soccer. If you could, you would like to participate, but you enjoy watching sports. You don't like to give up the remote control. You tend to be self-centered and high maintenance.
   
• Carrot Cake: You are a very fun loving person, who likes to laugh. You are fun to be with. People like to hang out with you. You are a very warm hearted person and a little quirky at times. You have many loyal friends.

• A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
• A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.
• A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
• A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
• A snail can sleep for three years.
• Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
• All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
• Almonds are a member of the peach family.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.

On that note, where the teletype machine stands was the rear wall of 'maneuvering' as the control room was called. It was 12 feet long and 5 feet wide ... when the crew were seated behind the panels, there back was against the back wall, that was how tight it was.

The 'Throttleman' stood watch behind the wheel. The wheel was used to control the flow of steam to the submarine propulsion turbines. As more steam was pulled out of the steam generator, it 'drew' more heat from the reactor coolant, the cooler water reentered the reactor, and the slight decrease in temperature caused less neutrons to leave the 'core' which caused the reactor to increase the number on nuclear reactions that were occurring, which resulted in more heat being generated, which was transferred to the water exiting the reactor and returning to the steam generator ... At one time I could explain this all with mathematical equations, but that was long ago. Suffice it to say, it was self-balancing operation that I enjoyed watching.

The middle panel is the reactor control panel. Here is where the reactor operator used to sit. the upside down "L' looking stick at the bottom of the panel was the reactor control shim switch, which was used to move control rods in and out of the core ... which is how we started up the reactor as we went to sea. 99.99% of the time the reactor operator had nothing to do other the tell 'tall stories'. On the other hand, the tiny switch to the left of the lowest set of dials was the 'Reactor Scam Switch.' In an emergency, all he had to was turn the switch and all the control rods would be forced into the reactor instantly shutting it down.

We used to scram and restart the reactor on a routine basis ... just to keep ourselves sharp. I think my fastest time was 4 minutes .... but the real fun was in starting the plant up from cold shutdown ... there were hundreds of things that had to be done in a proper order, and you had to know all of them by memory ... I loved the challenge.

The far left station was where the Electrical Operator sat, he was responsible for controlling the main breakers that distribute electrical power through-out the submarine. We had two steam powered electrical generators that created over 2 mega-watts of power ... enough to power a small city.

I would sit on a chair behind the electrical operator and supervise all three ... We stood 6 hour watches, on a three watch rotation, for up to 12 weeks while at sea. No days off, no vacations, no sun. The average temperate in maneuvering was usually 85 degrees. We we're not allowed to read anything but operations manuals.

I was only 22 when I was qualified to run the reactor by myself. My three-man crew were between 18 and 21 ... It was a lot of responsibility ... and we knew it, and while the reactor compartment was only 40 feet from reactor itself, I never felt safer, more sure of myself, or sure of what was expected of me in my life.

In a lot of ways it was very hard, and stressful work, but in other hand , it was a very easy job to do ... for we all knew we would never get a second chance if we did something wrong, so there was no question, everything had to be done right the first time.  I learned the importance of team work ... We all knew our lives depended upon each other doing their jobs correctly, and because we always worked as a tem, we always came home safely. 

It's a lesson I've carried with me, and while I don't always meet the standards expected of that young 22 year old fresh out of college, I still try to archive them when and where I can.

Thanks for jogging a few old memories.

Mike