Shortly after my arrest, I told several people of the event. I felt I should tell the scouting people, Angeleno for instance, my boss, obviously, Dr. Tim Zieglerson, my son’s hockey coach, and also Hans Koblenz.
Hans and I got along well at work, and we were working closely together on a national Dirty Bomb research program. Hans worked for a woman I’ll call Jeanine Sellafields, PhD, Jeanie for short. She was a Brit, with a cute little Brit accent and a great sense of humor. She was highly regarded in her field. She and Hans worked in the Radiation Oncology Department. Jeanie and another PhD researcher, Dr. Grandecoeur, together got a five year grant for several million dollars, to research potential effects of Dirty Bombs.
The gist of the research was this: simulate the effects of a dirty bomb on lab mice. Yes; it was animal research. It was an amazing project. I felt honored to be a part of it, and I feel like I made a good contribution.
At the beginning of the project, Drs. Sellafields and Grandecoeur met with Dr. Zieglerson and me to discuss it. They wanted us to be an integral part of the project, and offered to pay 10% of each of our salaries. This was a big deal, because Radiation Safety was under the Environmental Health and Safety Department. We were considered a “unit” of EHS, not our own Department, and we were treated as the proverbial ‘Red Headed Stepchild’. Money was always a problem, with EHS questioning every penny Radiation Safety spent, yet now here would be a direct payment coming toward 10% of our salaries. The caveat was that when they needed me, I was theirs. Dr. Zieglerson’s role was to analyze the data vis a vis radiation dose to the mice and expected biological effects. Zieglerson was the numbers guy. I was the practical, field guy. I devised how to measure the mouse internal contamination.
“If you need to buy any equipment, just let me know” said Dr. Grandecoeur.
“I suggest the project buy a Rad Inspector 5000” I suggested. (ahem)
“No,” countered Dr. Z “the project can just use ours. We don’t use it very often.”
The Rad Inspector 5000 was given to us by New Amsterdam State a few years after 9-11, as part of a national grant from the Feds. It was what we call a “multi-channel analyzer” (MCA). It could identify radionuclides by their signature gamma peak. When a radioactive isotope decays, the gamma ray is of an energy distinct to that nuclide. Cesium 137 (Cs-137), for example, has an energy peak at 662 keV (662 thousand electron volts). (Technically, Cs-137 emits only beta energy. A neutron ejects a beta and becomes a proton. The Cesium becomes Barium, and the Barium then ejects the gamma. But the half-life for the Barium to eject this excess energy is only about 2.5 minutes, so we just say that Cs-137 has a gamma peak at .667 MeV (Mega Electron Volts.)
(The State actually gave us our Rad Inspector 5000 not long after a local metal recycling yard sent out a train and alarmed a railroad radiation detector at the state border. The train was sent back to the yard, and the State called us to come take the offending radioactive source. It was an old radium foil about the size of a quarter, and it was enough to set off the alarm. But that’s a story for another day.)
I had a few other ideas of what I wanted for equipment, but I decided to hold back and ask for it later, so Dr. Zieglerson wouldn’t cut my nuts off again in front of everyone like he did. He was right, though. Let’s use what we have and only ask for things we need but don’t have. The project didn’t need its very own Rad Inspector 5000.
What I did later ask for was a mouse body simulator. I ordered a vial about the size and weight of a mouse. It contained 10 microcuries (10 millionths of a Curie) of radioactive Cs-137. I would use this to ensure the Rad Inspector 5000 was working properly. During the experiment, I would measure the vial at the beginning and end of each day. It should read 10 microcuries every time. This would ensure that it had been working properly that whole day, and our measurements were good.
I got this idea from another project I had been on several years earlier. Verify detector operation at the beginning and end of each day. I was part of a group chasing down radioactive waste that had been inadvertently taken to homes all over another state by nuclear power plant workers. That, too, is a story for another day.
Shocked in the Suburbs 