Two people I love very much, 20 years ago, at Christmas.

[NNadir]

8. That boy is now a nuclear engineer, soon to complete his Ph.D. Today he's hanging out with a nuclear engineer...

...friend of his, also finishing up her Ph.D., and also from New Jersey, visiting her mother on her break from Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

My son's Christmas gift to me was a hat reading "Got Neutrons?" from the ORNL gift shop. I love it. I plan to wear it around the campus of a certain Ivy League University near where I live where they still seem to think, disagreeing with me, that so called "renewable energy" will save the world, although there is no evidence it will do so, just as there is no evidence it has done anything to save the world and no evidence is saving the world.

The woman with whom my son lives, and probably will marry, is also a nuclear engineer, but stayed home to be with her family while giving him space to visit his, ours.

We all went nuclear in this family in hopes of addressing what can still be addressed about the collapse of the planetary atmosphere.

More than anything, I have enormous pride in my son, his lover, and his friends, and their commitment to doing what they can to avoid spitting into the wind. They know what they are doing and why they are doing it.

Thank you for your acknowledgement of my work here, irrespective of any disagreements, and for your kind words.

I wish the same to you, a healthy and prosperous New Year. May it be filled with love and hope.