Mesa Mike's Midden of Musings

Rumor has it that Ed Grothus passed away this morning.

Update 2/13/2009: Not just rumor -- More here.

---

The Black Hole occupies what used to be a Piggly-Wiggly supermarket, and the aisles are stuffed to the ceiling with all manner of old test equipment, obsolete spare parts, hardware and every other imaginable type of castoff surplussed from The Lab. The parking lot is stuffed full of other items too big to fit inside.

Ed Grothus, the proprietor of The Black Hole, also owns a church building adjacent to the "nuclear waste" repository, which used to be the meetin' tent of Grace Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod). He has turned it into the "Omega Peace Institute", adorned with a large peace sign mounted on the building, two symbolically broken torpedos out front and a sign that reads:

OMEGA PEACE INSTITUTE
FIRST CHURCH OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY
BLACK HOLE SYNOD
Critical Mass Every Sunday
with
Bomb Unworship Service

Actually, no services are held, and the church building itself is stuffed with more junk.

Some say Ed's a crackpot. Maybe he is, but you can't deny that this fixture of Los Alamos is an interesting fellow.

Here's a YouTube video of Ed Grothus giving a tour of the world famous Black Hole of Los Alamos. This is an amazing place, and should be on your itinerary when you come to visit the Secret City.

Yes, that's a Geiger counter clicking in the background...

Labels: Black Hole, Ed Grothus, Los Alamos