It was a beautiful sunrise this morning. As I let Trey out the door I couldn’t resist snapping this picture.
Morning Star
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Monthly Archives: February 2006
World Population
The planet’s population is projected to reach 6.5 billion at 7:16 p.m. EST Saturday, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and its World Population Clock (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html) . Population levels are growing, but at a slower rate than in the past few decades. The current growth of world population is estimated at 1.1 percent a year, and has slowed from its peak of 2.1 percent annual growth between 1965 and 1970.
A large portion of the world’s population lives in nations that are at sub-replacement fertility, meaning the average woman has fewer than two children in her lifetime. Countries in this camp include former members of the Soviet Union, Japan and most of Europe. Demographers attribute the slowing rate of global population growth in part to more widespread availability of birth control and to people in developed nations choosing to have fewer children. But low-birthrate countries are counterbalanced by nations like Yemen, where the average woman has seven children in her lifetime.The highest population growth rates emanate disproportionately from the poorest regions of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.
Listible
I found a great web site of lists at http://www.listible.com/ They use tagging, voting and listing to sort resources in a way that will be digestible. You can search what you need quick. You can contribute your resources easier. They maintain pages of favorite, featured and new lists. Their current front page 16 featured lists are:
- Windows open source and/or freeware
- List of Torrent Sites
- Listible Suggestions – What you want Listible to add, change, or remove.
- Best Web Design Resources – Resources for web designers. XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX
- Top FREE Anti-Virus Software
- Search engines
- Beer
- Best “Music Recommender” Websites
- Free blog hosts
- Best free wallpaper websites
- Best PC Security Sources
- Ever Expanding list of Chinese Blogs
- Free webmail providers
- AJAX Tutorials
- Best Online Calendars
- Essential WordPress Plugins
Burning the Brush Pile
Usually every year I accumulate enough down limbs, brush and old fence posts over the course of Spring, Summer and Fall that I have a big brush pile to burn in the winter. This year’s pile was one of my largest ever due to the tree damage from the July microburst and cleaning out the fence line to install the new fence. Trey and I went to check out the progress on the fire after it had been burning for about an hour.
Would you let this man near your furniture?
Eric’s pal Trevor’s dad works in a sawmill and as a result Trevor is very knowledgeable of chainsaws, log skidders and the tools of the trade. Eric and Trevor each got matching toy chainsaws from Trevors grandpa – batteries included.
High Winds and Low Power
We had high wind conditions today. I had just made it into work and the sky got dark, it started to blow and the rain came. There were shingles and trim flying off our office building. I heard a cracking sound and looked out my window as a large maple tree came crashing down and bounced off the trunk of a car parked in front of the doctors office across the street. I could see the person frozen in the driver’s seat as the large tree came at her. Several people rushed out of the office to see if she was OK. It was a young girl with a baby in a carrier in the back seat. The tree was large enough that it flattened the rear end of the car onto the pavement. About 5′ difference and they would have had the tree on their heads! We were entertained by a the ensuring parade of police, ambulance, fire trucks and finally the groundskeepers who cut the tree up and pushed it all in pile.
We lost power both at work and at home. I did some paperwork, filled out my medical leave forms, cleaned off my desk, and came home around noon. We fired up our Y2K generator, plugged it into to the breakout box, hit the switch to see what came on. We had heat, some lights and our refrigerator. I ran a 2nd line to plug in our freezer. The only ‘essential’ that didn’t sound good was the deep well water pump. It sounded like it was going to burn up on the power it was getting so I shut it off. We will probably have to re-wire the break out box to use the shallow well pump instead. Power was re-established by mid-afternoon.
Dakota Marie’s 1st Birthday
Billie Jo holds Dakota back from her Tomato Soup cake. She was one year old.
Weighing Trey
Trey tipped the large scale at the vet’s yesterday at a svelte 93 lbs. That’s a lot of dog and he occupies a lot of floor space when he is stretched out.
Living in the Gilboa Dam floodplain
My parents live in the flood plain of the Schoharie River and the entire Schoharie valley has been consumed by recent disclosure of possible catastrophic failure of the Gilboa Dam. The Gilboa Dam Information Web site at http://www.gilboadaminfo.com/index.htm offers a near real time water volume chart which indicates at what stage (1132 feet) the evacuation should begin as well as background information on the problem and a photogallery of the ongoing repairs.
The City of New York operates the Schoharie Reservoir, impounded by the Gilboa Dam on the Schoharie Creek. Reservoir capacity is about 20 billion gallons. The dam is 2,000 feet long and 182 feet high. The reservoir is 5.8 miles long and has a maximum depth of 150 feet. The dam was completed in 1926. The river floods periodically due to weather conditions. Floods were regular and severe for hundreds of years before construction of dams.
In 1997 the city DEP made renovation of this dam a No. 1 priority and planned to start the work in 2002-2004. In 2001, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection analyzed the possibility of a major dam failure and had “dam break analysis” maps prepared showing the projected extent of flooding. In 2003 a city engineer co-authored a paper titled “Stability Analysis and Interim Safety Improvements Gilboa Dam Spillway, Schoharie Reservoir, New York,” presented at the U.S. Society of Dams conference in South Carolina. On 25 October 2005, the city issued a Public Advisory stating “recent investigations reveal that safety factors associated with modern engineering practices are not met by the Dam in its present state.” City officials met with local officials and said they would make emergency repairs in the spring of 2006.
The New York Power Authority operates the Blenheim-Gilboa Reservoir with a smaller dam 5.3 miles downstream from the city’s Schoharie Reservoir. Failure of the Gilboa Dam is projected to impact the Blenheim Gilboa Reservoir in 15 minutes.
Thousands of people live in the Schoharie Valley downstream of the dam and many fear dam failure. Rumors circulated concerning the dam’s condition and stability, and the degree of danger and severity of flooding likely in event of a major dam failure. Emergency response preparations commenced. Public meetings were held on the issue. Residents and federal state and local officials howled in protest and many demanded work begin sooner. Residents demanded immediate drawdown and suggested using siphons. The city balked but eventually agreed to install siphons.
Preliminary repair work began December 15, 2005, and the emergency repairs began on December 19 with the installation of a floating debris boom to keep flotsam from the work area. On January 7, D.A. Collins Inc. started installation of the siphons. Work has been interrupted by high water. Cutting a notch in the dam to lower its level during the repair period is under contract. Meanwhile the overall $200 million Gilboa Dam project has been delayed by rain. The short term fixes are supposed to be finished in September with a complete rehabilitation beginning in 2008. The project is expected to take five years, testing residents’ nerves along the way.
A new notch is cut into the dam on Saturday 11 Feb to lower water levels.
Local Water webcams
Depending upon the weather, visibility and amount of water these views can be quite spectular.
Cohoes Falls http://ny.water.usgs.gov/rt/pub/01357500.htm
Ausable River http://ny.water.usgs.gov/rt/pub/04275000.htm
Reynolds Channel at Point Lookout either as a webcam http://ny.water.usgs.gov/rt/pub/wc-01310740.html or as a movie http://ny.water.usgs.gov/rt/pub/wc24-01310740.html
BTW – I always like to put in a plug for another of my favorite webcams (actually there are 3 separate cameras); The ‘wolfcam’ in Ely, MN. http://www.elyminnesota.com/cams/wolfcam/index3.php If you catch them feeding a deer to the wolves – it too is a spectular view.