Random Stuff

I used to think it only happened on TV and occasionally to someone I know. But with a little help from facebook and asking some questions, I now know different.

30% of the people I grew up with.
Plus or minus 4 years in age.
All grew up within 50 miles of each other.

One died as a result of a brain tumor.
The rest of the %30 all suffered or are dealing with cancer. Mostly brain, thyroid, or pituitary.

We all spent our summers swimming and water skiing in the Columbia river. Less than 40 miles downstream from one of North America’s worst polluters. Cominco used to dump their industrial waste into the Columbia river. If you drove along the Columbia to where the Cominco plant was located, you would notice the land was baron. No trees, no forest. Dead. Just what were we swimming in?

Time was also spent riding motorcycles, hiking, and swimming along the Little Pend Oreille river or the various lakes there about. It was always interesting to come across a double chain link fence with razor wire and radio active warning signs while out in the middle of the forest. Uranium mines. Upstream. This same water that was our drinking water supply?

Forest fires were quite common. Ever see the pink stuff being dropped from an air plane to put out fires? Did you know that it is filled with Dioxons? Poisons that stay in your fat cells for decades. It was proven to be in the water supply we were drinking from.

Add to that three saw mills treating wood with arsenic, and one creosote plant.

Is 30% of the people my age who grew up in the same place at the same time a pattern? What about those same people suffering from only 3 different types of cancers? Is it a pattern yet? How about that those types of cancer seem to be rare in the general population? hmmm.

As for me, I don’t know. I’ve never been checked. But after finding out about just how high of an occurance it is happening among the people I grew up with, I think I should.

Those kinds of numbers really make me wonder.

The price of gas is certainly a hot topic these days. I know personally it has hit my pocket book quite hard. A couple years ago I bought a car I never thought I would buy simply because it was getting too expensive to drive one of my gas hogs every day to work. When I did this I went from no car payment and $1200 a month for gas, down to a $575 per month car payment and a fuel bill of $300 per month. A decent amount of savings. Now that gas prices have doubled since then, I am almost back at the point I started at. For the first time since I was 20 years old, I am seriously considering riding the bus because it is getting too expensive for me to drive.

But I’m not angry about it. Far from it, really.

Over the last few years I’ve been in many discussions about fuel prices, fuel efficiency, electric cars, traffic, and a few other related topics. Usually there are a few different catalysts to the conversation or debate, but my argument as always stood pretty much the same. I usually emphasize two of my opinions. So far they seem to be playing out as expected.

People won’t change unless they are forced to do so. This is common for a lot of systems outside of people. A system does not change unless it gets stressed to the point of being either uncomfortable or even failure. People will not give up their cars unless it becomes too much of a burden to keep it. The environment, global warming, pollution, none of these have an impact on the driving habits of most people. Yes there are a few who take these things seriously, but the majority of the population will take no action regarding these impacts of a car. Why? Because they can still afford to drive.

Stress to the system will also drive innovation. The electric car has been around since the time of Henry Ford. But in the last 100 years, there has been a negligible amount of research to make electric cars go further, faster, and more reliably. Yet look at the gains in automotive technology. The worlds fastest car in 1908 could only go 141 miles per hour. It had only 135 horsepower. My “economy” car has twice the power, and with very little modification could go just as fast. But the electric car, up until recently has not really improved in performance at nearly the same pace. The power may be close, but the range was limited to about 50 miles at best. But recently, there has been real change in this area. Take a look at the Chevrolet Volt or the Tesla Roadster. Real change is coming. Why? Because people has started to demand it as a result of Gas prices. It is getting too expensive to put fuel in your car. Research is now actively happening. Making electric cars that cost less to drive and are just as convenient as gas powered cars. And they look good too.

But what is the price per gallon which people start serious making the change? The point at which it goes from only people who are early adopters to mainstream? I have always argued it will be when gas here in the U.S. goes above $5.00 per gallon. I’ve mentioned this over the course of several years as I talked to people about this subject. Recently when Honda came out with their hybrid car, and again when Toyota came out with theirs, and even yesterday when talking about the Tesla roadster. Daily we seem to get closer to that point. The new technology started to appear around $3.50 per gallon and really started to look like a serious alternative when the price went to $4.00 per gallon. Now, as we get closer to $5.00 it seems more and more like an electric car will be a reality.

I don’t know for sure. Those are just my opinions. But I think we are ready for this now.

“Great tits cope well with warming.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7390109.stm

Someone, somewhere has got to be laughing that they got that headline past the editor.

When I drive to work, I take a road along the east side of Lake Washington. Most mornings I see a bald eagle or sometimes an osprey perched in one of the many trees along the way.

Growing up, I can remember being told how bald eagles were on the endangered species list. I don’t think I had the chance to see one until I was at least 20 years old. Up until the last few years, seeing one was still a somewhat rare occurrence. I still find it exciting to see one.

So when I was driving to work a couple days ago and saw not one, but two sitting in this tree, I had to stop and take a picture.

I’ve just returned from a long weekend with my girlfriend over on the East Coast. I saw North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Together we explored the Smokey Mountains, A tourist trap city which I forget the name at the moment, and spent a lot of good time together.

A few things that stick out in my mind from the trip.

A Chinese circus/ballet/drum show. It reminded me very much of Cirque De Sole. It was very impressive. But because there were only about 25 people in a theater that could fit 1800 I think appreciation for culture in the area is somewhat lacking. I talked to one of the people who worked for the show and asked him if there was some way they could make it to Seattle. No such luck. Too bad really. I don’t think the show will last where it is at. Not if there are more cast members than people in the audience.

Me being afraid as we drove up into the mountains. I hate driving next to cliffs. Even though I have a lead food, I drive like a grandpa when next to a cliff. But I wasn’t driving rattling my nerves even more. Debbie got a kick out of this and I don’t blame her, it is kinda funny. I don’t often show fear. Likewise we took a lift ride from a small tourist town up a mountain side. It was like a ski lift but no snow. Debbie who loves to ride thrill rides at the fair was kinda scared by this.

Driving at night, I let a semi truck pull in front of me. As a courtesy when he passed, I flashed my lights to tell him there was enough room to change lanes. He flashed his tail lights to say thanks. Several miles down the road, I passed him as he climbed a hill, but got behind a big SUV who wouldn’t let me pass and even slammed on the brakes in front of me. The truck that I was polite too came up behind me, flashed his lights, so I moved over. He got right up on the tail of this SUV and beside another semi truck. Both semi trucks chased the SUV down the freeway side by side at 80 mph until the SUV finally pulled off the freeway. I guess it pays to be polite to truckers. It also doesn’t pay to piss them off.

Bob Evans’ restaurant has an excellent breakfast. They had grits which I haven’t had in close to 20 years. The price was very reasonable. $16.00 for both of us. It still doesn’t compare to Georges in Kirkland, but that would be pretty hard to beat anyway.

Watching Debbie take pictures of butterflies and humming birds in a field of red and yellow flowers. How can you beat that?

Dieing trees and pollution in the Smokey Mountains are rampant. The trees are being killed off by beetles and weakened by acid rain. It seems all the pollution up and down the coast blows into the Smokey’s and stays. Visibility on a sunny day is rather bad.

Brick houses everywhere. And they were cheap. When I say cheap I mean, if I sold my house I could spend the same amount of money and buy a small mansion with an acre of property, complete with a shop and three car garage. My house would sell for around 80 thousand. (It’s valued at 320k here).

Churches EVERYWHERE. Worshiping God and Jesus really is a part of everyday life there. I don’t think I would fit in too well in that aspect.

Speaking of fitting in. Everyone there was either white or black and a few in between. While I think I would fit in by my skin color, I found the lack of diversity quite surprising. The extent of diversity I saw there, other than people being black or white, was one couple from India, and the cast of the Chinese ballet.

NASCAR. Bigger there than football. Except of course the local college football team. Bristol racetrack was already filling up with motorhomes and there were “Welcome Race Fans!” signs out all over the place by the time I left. The race isn’t until next weekend. We got to sit in an empty Bristol Raceway Stadium, which is an experience all it’s own.

And of course, sitting next to one of the America’s Top Model contestants for season 9 on the plane ride home. Nice girl, very pretty, but way way way too skinny. Good conversation and certainly better than talking to a salesman. And no, I didn’t get her number. (I must be losing my touch ) I might have to watch an episode if it happens to catch my attention.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6491255.stm

Taiwan will be closing down a mojor highway to allow for the safe migration of the purple milkweed butterfly.

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6085329

I just read this article. It worries me. The fact that bees are dying off in large numbers is just not good. Without bees the process of polination is slowed down greatly.

There are a lot of things my father has taught me that have stuck with me throughout the years. Things that have always come in handy or even the hard lessons learned when I was too young and knew it all so I didn’t have to heed his advice. But he never passed up an opportunity to help me understand how the world worked. Environment and politics. Natural science was his strength. He was also exceptional in explaining what was really going on with politics.

He taught me many lessons about natural science as well as politics. One of the biggest lessons that I got from him was that every event has indicators. You can ignore them because they are so small sometimes, but pay attention and you can’t help but see the bigger picture.

A few weeks ago I bought “An Inconvenient Truth.” with Al Gore. It really is a good and informative show. I sat there glued to it. I watched it several times. It wasn’t really anything new. It’s that I had heard it all before. In fact it sounded a lot like my father and the lessons he had taught me and pointed out to me many, many years ago. I sat there and listened as Al Gore talked about all of the small details that no one was paying attention to.

Early blooms of plants and bugs are indicators pointed out to me by my father 25 years ago. There are many more things to look at. I can’t possibly describe them all as well as my father did.

Things like Hurricanes are heat engines. As it gets warmer, the number and strength of them will increase. But look at the recent hurricanes. Not to mention the first hurricane ever in the southern hemisphere. I learned this lesson after he got off the phone with his family to see out they fared in the recent hurricane in Florida. This was some time in the 80’s.

How forests will begin to be ravaged by bugs because they came out early and the birds weren’t out yet to eat them. This lesson came as I asked him why a forest by where we lived was being clear-cut. It was to try to control some sort of beetle. Al Gore talks about the pine beetle specifically. The trees in my neighborhood have an infestation.

…

Last night as I left a friend’s house, he looked at the swarm of bugs that were gathering around his porch light and said “Huh. These bugs usually don’t get here until spring.” then he noticed that the tree by his porch was starting to bud.

Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, provided I didn’t get taken by the website, I will be getting a couple bags of seeds. Japanese maples. No, I didn’t order them because of the word “Japanese” in the name, but because the Japanese Maple is one of the most beautiful trees I’ve ever seen. The leaves always yellow, orange, red, or purple, and very small.

But planting trees goes way back in my history. From when I was about six until eleven years old my father would bring home our Christmas tree from the forest he worked in. But it wasn’t cut down, it still had the roots. He would actually take the time to dig up a small fir tree, wrap its roots, and bring it home. We would then line a cardboard box with plastic, fill it with dirt, and “plant” the tree in our living room. Once Christmas was over, we took the tree outside and planted it in our yard. I haven’t seen any of the trees we planted during that time, but I’ve been told they have grown into full sized trees. Given that the harvest cycle for a managed forest is every 30 years, I can imagine how big they are. The planting didn’t stop on my eleventh Christmas though.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the forests around my hometown, and I don’t know when it started, but I began bringing home pine and douglas fir saplings. I would plant them around the borders of the yard I lived in. Either while I was out woodcutting with my father, or eventually on my own, I would find a sapling that was about 12″ tall, dig it up, then plant it next along in a row starting at my mailbox working my way around the yard and up the side of the driveway. I must have planted around 25 trees.

When left to join the real world the tallest of the bunch was an eight foot tall fir. They got progressively smaller as you worked your way to the last tree I planted there which had grown to a gigantic three feet.

The last time I was in my hometown I didn’t go to see my old house, but to see how the trees had grown. I was amazed to see the tallest at about fifteen feet. And they all still had an order of size about them down to the smallest and last, though it escapes me now how small the smallest was. They have grown large enough to be seen on Google’s satellite map. I’m oddly proud of that. I can look at the picture and say “See those trees? I planted those!”

I haven’t planted any trees since then. I think it’s time to start again. I’m going to try my hand at Japanese Maples.

Those of you who have beeen following my blog for some time will recognize the new link. Ecotonoha is one of my favorite websites. The idea is simple, you click on the tree to add a new branch and leave a message. For every 1000 messages, NEC plants one tree. For 2005 they planted 845 trees.

The web application they use is a work of art in itself. Between the sound and the natural “growth” of the tree that develops, it’s quite relaxing.

Better get your message in now, it closes up December 22 for the 2006 year.