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The Rocky Mountain News has an article this morning talking about the final stages of the cleanup at Rocky Flats.  Kaiser-Hill will declare physical completion any day now, beginning the process of inspections by the DOE and the Colorado Department of Health and Environment.  When I started working there in 1998, there were nearly 800 buildings still standing along with all of the support infrastructure of a small city, and now the site has returned to the prairie from which it was built.  By the time I left in August of this year, there were only 6 buildings left and the vast majority of the site had been returned to prairie.  With the closure, Rocky Flats will carry the distinction of being the first nuclear weapons facility in the world to be completely cleaned up and demolished.  Read more in today's Rocky Mountain News.

Update: The Denver Post is reporting that Kaiser-Hill has declared physical completion of the Rocky Flats cleanup today.  At this point the DOE has 90 days to formally accept the project and ask Kaiser-Hill to address any concerns. 

Yesterday, the last of more than 62,000 shipments of radioactive waste left Rocky Flats, signaling another milestone in the closure.  Within the next 2 weeks, the reseeding and regrading operations should be complete, finishing the cleanup and closure project and marking the end of an era for the Denver metro area.  Read more at the Rocky Mountain News.

This past weekend I travelled to Austin, TX for the first time to visit my best friend, Greg.  Despite airline delays on both ends of the weekend, it was a good, relaxing weekend.  We spent most of the time playing NCAA Football 06, Civilization 3, and NHL 2K6.  On Saturday, Greg also took me on a brief tour of Austin where we went to the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas campus.  On the tour I was struck by how amazingly bad the traffic is in this city that is half the size of Denver, though it is much more spread out, and also the sheer number of bronze statues scattered through downtown and the UT campus.   All in all it was a good relaxing weekend and we had a good time just hanging out.  Photos from the weekend are on my photo page.