April Chill (in Iowa)

The Radish seedlings flourish,

Pea shoots poke aboveground;

Sun rises earlier to help nourish,

Birds’ cacophony fills air all around.

Trees sprouting leaves aplenty by April,

Lilac shrubs catch up with early flowers;

Tulips, narcissus and crocus all in a jumble,

Tender sprouts occasionally sprinkled by showers.

Suddenly  clouds roll in, the temps drop fast,

Chill rains turn to snow in some places;

Five inches of winter fall on startled grass,

Icy sludge slows I-35 commuter paces.

Delicate early blooms shrivel and turn brown,

Springs promise changed into a withered mound.

-end

Electric bicycle

The other day I rode my electrified bicycle,

Braved cool winds and long trains alike.

Ate a ton of food at the Chinese place;

Then I returned home heavy and happy.

My friend had a seizure,

He was traumatized, hospitalized;

We finally talked and exchanged news –

He was interested to hear of the electric bike…

Well taken care of, and eating lots of food,

He feels guilty for eating so much.

Said he was envious of my electric bike,

I knew he meant the freedom to ride it.

Someday I will take it over to him,

Maybe he can try sitting on it,

Perhaps even riding it some.

His envy and my guilt assuaged.

One week,

One seizure,

One hospitalization,

One long E-bike ride.

Boredom has no home here.

Cisco is going to sell it's Flip camera division, according to the news.  No big deal, right - just another company getting rid of an unprofitable division.  But wait.

  It was profitable - there was a growth of somehwere around 15% over last year.  Fifteen percent growth would be more than adequate for many companies, it seems to me. 


     But not to Cisco, apparently.  They are closing down the division, and laying off 550 people.  All because the growth is donw to fifteen percent annually. 

     If every company operated like this, waiting for growth rates of better than 15% annually to invest in their workers, then No one would ever get hired.   I just wish that some of these companies would show just a sliver, a smidgen of social sensibility, and retain some of their workers.  Why are they in so much of a rush to drag us all into hopeless depression?   It is beyond ridiculous.  Nothing makes sense anymore. 

Shifting Personalities

Sometimes I am the wizened gardener.  Sinking my hands into dirt and growth, I lose myself and transform spaces into high-yield patterns.  

Sometimes I am the clown, buffoon, silly person as I play at work, lightening my load with levity and humor.  

Sometimes I am the clever accountant, who was able to log onto a new bank account and transfer funds.

Sometimes the jet fighter pilot, maneuvering his car through afternoon trafic and wondering why the "fire" button on the steering wheel won't work...

Sometimes the Libertine seducer, working meager plans down at the neighborhood nightclub...

Worldly wise in the morning, Frazzled by noon, silly in the afternoon, tired old man by early evening - toiling wordsmith at night, fuelled by coffee and B12.   Every weekday repeats.  weekends promise change but just deliver more Mondays.


How many people are inside me?  It's too hard to count when THEY are in control  :-)   
But at least it isn't dull, even if it is routine.  Have a Wonderful Day.

Farewell, Elizabeth

The queen of American film drama has made her last exit.  Her stormy relationships, her heartfelt causes, her lingering beauty - even her top-selling perfume all made a major impression on our lives.  She will be missed, but not easily forgotten.  


A link of interest:   http://authspot.com/short-stories/two-lives-2/

Happy reading, all.

Potential bombs

     The nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan right now is a real wake-up call.  There are 104 operating nuclear plants in the U.S. today.  If any one of them had a similar loss of power, and catastrophic build-up of heat the way the Japanese reactors did, the results would be terrible.   Especially the 23 that are of similar internal design.    We should seriously rethink our commitment to building yet more of these plants.

     One in particular, the Pilgrim station in Plymouth, Mass, has had many documented problems, including the release of radioactive Tritium into the groundwater!  This plant has been in license limbo since 2006, and has been dogged by problems.  Public statements by the operating companies always seem to assure the utmost safety – and then something like the Japanese Earthquake/tsunami occurs, and the ugly truth emerges.

     It is high time that we own up to the fact that nature will throw us disasters when we  least expect, that human error occurs, and that these large nuclear installations are all potential bombs that could cause massive injury and death if an accident occurs.    Sure, safeguards have been built into the plants, including the concrete containment towers.  But a large earthquake can still make short work of even a mountainous structure.  A few good shakes of the Earth, and all is naught!

     Some Internet research reveals the costs involved.  A new nuclear power plant, like some twin reactors being constructed in China, can run in the neighborhood of five billion dollars.  This includes site planning, construction, financing, licensing and the like.  Enormous capital costs, and relatively low fuel costs.     High initial costs, many years of construction, and onerous safety requirements and procedures.  All for a lousy 1,500 MW of electricity.    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants)

     Wind Turbines similarly require a high capital outlay – around 3.5  million for a new 2 MW turbine. 

(www.windustry.org/how-much-do-wind-turbines-cost) .  But these can be erected faster, and interconnected.  The energy cost is free as the wind, since it is the wind.   Building an interconnecting grid adds to the cost.  But the safety hazards seem limited to avoiding the spinning blades!   A convenient storage method for this energy is still lacking.  But it is my strong belief we should commit research dollars to working to solve this issue, rather than building more last-century technology nuclear power plants.

     Nature holds one possible answer.   Living processes that occur, like those within plant cells, are decentralized.  Every plant produces its own energy.   If we humans could imitate nature’s design, we might decentralize our energy production down to the level of, say, a city block.   Small solar/wind combination towers could produce lots of power, and store some of it in battery banks located right next to the towers. ( A turbine would spin at the top, and the tower could also be draped with thin-film solar cells to generate additional power.)  This way, if one or a few were destroyed, the others might all contribute a small portion of their excess to the grid, and make up for the loss.  A fallen tower or damaged solar panels would not emit hazardous radiation that would threaten life for years and years. 

     There are a few problems with this idea.  Battery banks would need maintenance, and could be hazardous in cases of earthquake or tornadoes.    Building thousands of these towers would be expensive.  But the relatively passive energy collection performed by a facility like a “power tower” seems safe and easy by comparison to a typical nuclear plant. 

     In any case, the ongoing tragedy in the reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi is a real jolt.  More earthquakes will happen; it is only a case of when.   Fifteen more countries want to build nuclear reactors.   Statistically this seems like a guarantee of more disasters in the making.   Surely we can do better than this?  We are a technologically advanced society.  We build spacecraft that leave the Solar System, we build computers that store trillions of bits of data, fiber optic networks that span the globe, and so on.    We should be able to come up with safer ways to generate the electrical power we need to continue our lifestyles.   The alternative is more disasters, more loss of life, more irradiation of the air and water we all need to survive.    This is unacceptable.   Thanks for reading.

Japan disaster

This is horrible, and a stark reminder that nature holds all the cards.  We build up an enormous, complex society and then the Earth wipes it out in a hearbeat.  All we can do is adapt and survive.  Frightening.  Here is hoping that they can rebuild and go on.  Wonder when California will get hit.   Hopefully not in my lifetime.

Tolkin-esque thoughts.

I have a friend who is writing a fantasy epic, and apparently some writing officials/others have warned him against being too "Tolkien-esque" whatever that is.  It seems to me that JRR Tolkein with his Lord of the Rings trilogy set a new standard in fantasy.  Stories that would include similar elements to Tolkeins, like extensive histories of races of different creatures, would be a gift to modern readers used to blips of info from twitter and cellphone texts.   Once upon a time we sat and read lengthy manuscripts populated with many fantastical creatures - and were vastly enriched and entertained.  I hope the art of reading a long novel will  not disappear from us  (might put some of us out of work  *grin*).  


     For the record, Tolkein merely imitated and adopted myths and legends from Norse, Celtic and other mythology, adding his own twists  (and inventing the Elvish tongue while he was at it).   We all borrow from what was before - guess it is all in how you do the borrowing.    

Live long and prosper everyone  (that is from another series...) 

To Rhyme or not to Rhyme (apologies to Sir William).

     There seems to be an ongoing debate raging about the merits of rhymed poetry vs. “free verse” in all its incarnations.  Academic types might argue that the reader looking for a rhyme scheme is distracted from the message of the poem.  Rhymers will insist the rhyme and meter are part and parcel of a good poem, and enhance the message contained therein.  They most likely ignore each other’s pieces, unless they need something to give their blood pressure a spike that morning. 

     To me, both styles have their merit.  I find that rhyming adds to the enjoyment of a well-written piece.  But sometimes a good free verse poem has a strong impact.  It also may force one to pay closer attention to the words themselves, the metaphors and action verbs, etc.   To exclude one style or the other is to deny readers a full experience of enjoying poetry.   Might as well be inclusive in this day and age. 

     But I suppose that is something left up to the discretion of editors and publishers.  If one magazine or anthology does not want rhyme, another one surely will welcome it.  One can always start their own blog or website these days, and rhyme to their heart’s content.  

     If you want, rhyme it,

     If you can’t or won’t, forget it;

     If you do both, flaunt it!

     In regards to reading it, there is such a variety of poetry out there that every taste surely can be satiated.  From the lush, almost vertiginous sonnets of Shakespeare to slick little ditties by e.e. Cummings.  From pithy offerings by Ogden Nash and Ambrose Bierce, to flowery philosophical renderings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horrific mutli-rhymers by E.A. Poe to Whittier and Wordsworth’s stately soliloquies, there is a ton of material out there.  And new poets are adding to the frothing word-broth all the time. 

     With websites like allpoetry.com and thehypertexts.com, online readers have seeming billions of words to peruse even without purchasing e-books of poetry, which they can easily do now if they so choose.     Some rhyme, but most probably do not.  No matter – I still think there is a lot of good material to be enjoyed out there.  Here is hoping that you the reader find what you like and enjoy it, whether it is in perfect iambic pentameter and rhymes, or is a loose free-verse offering.    Happy  writing and reading!

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Getting back to square one.

Just to rehash what we already know  (and vent some frustration): 

Thee is nearly limitless energy coming from the Sun, and other stars - to our view a limitless supply of free energy, billions of watts pouring off its surface every second.  We know that it is possible someday that we could erect giant collectors on and off the Earth's surface to harvest this energy.  The problem lies not in the knowledge - we already know where the juice is - but in the engineering.  It is only a matter of will.  Thanks to Pres. Obama and some other visionaries, the US is finally moving in the direction of building large "harvesting" installations in the deserts of Nevada and California.  Smaller-scale solar collectors are sprouting up darn-near everywhere.  So it looks like we are getting a real clue here, and moving in a good direction.  The only sticking point is transportation.  How can we capture some of those free gigawatts and pipe them into electromotive wheelbases?   Solar to power seawater-conversion plants to get hydrogen?  perhaps.  But the ocean is full of life, much of it contributing to the air we breathe.  We cannot just drain it in our quest to get from here to there.   We need to come up with other ways to get this bounty, this gigantic free supply of energy, into our cars.  Solar-powered battery-charging stations are one way that comes to mind.

But we need to break with our fossilized 20th century model of thinking.  This is a new century we are in.  Time to implement the new solutions.  We need to drink deep, not just sip, from our star's munificent bounty it sheds on us every minute of every day.   Something to think about while we are shelling out over $3.00 a gallon to get to work and back.  Thanks for reading.

     Change sweeps in and leaves us stunned.  Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan...who is next I wonder.  The young people with their social networks and twitter accounts seem to be saying, get rid of the dinosaurs.  The human ones and the political systems rooted in monarchy and despair.  Some of these governments will topple like dominos - and deservedly so.  The secret police and rule by fear is so.....20th century already.  

     It will be fun to watch the governments topple and the old dictators with their minions fleeing like cockroaches.  Only problem is, next time we go to fill up at the pump, the prices will have gone way up.   The price of progress is never cheap, I guess.  Should be a good show.

25^th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.

On the 25^th anniversary of the disaster, where we lost six astronauts and a schoolteacher, we can reflect on what has been accomplished since. 

President Reagan and NASA officials elected to press on, and build a new shuttle to replace Challenger.  They elected to continue the human-crewed space program despite the risks.  Eventually, we got an International Space Station built, a Space Telescope launched and serviced three times since, and a host of other accomplishments.   It has been expensive, but worthwhile.

Now here we are in 2011.  Our space plans and hopes are focused on some commercial operators continuing with human-crewed flights to the ISS and beyond.  There is discussion of building some booster or other to keep NASA employees busy.  But this seems misguided. 

Here is my humble opinion of what we need to do, and it will not cost much.

NASA should go ahead and build the planned Orion Crew Transport and Ares boosters.  This should be viewed and deployed as a baseline project.  A project that will keep American astronauts flying.  And also one that will establish standards and methods that should freely be given to American space companies for use in their own projects, as well as those of friendly nations.   This way, we can keep our astronauts flying, assist the private companies, and establish long-term standards for equipment, booster and life support technologies and the like – thus granting humanity access to space for the foreseeable future.

Don’t we owe it to those astronauts who have given their lives to at least keep a government-run flight program running, however miniscule?  How hard can it be, especially since major components are in the pipeline, such as a J2-X engine upgrade that was recently tested  (posted on spacedaily website).    Let the commercial companies develop, but allow the government take the lead in establishing common standards, especially in the realm of safety and life support.   This will give the commercial operators someplace to occasionally turn to for help. 

Let it not be said that the Challenger Seven gave their lives in vain.  Let’s keep American Astronauts flying in American-built spacecraft.  Thanks for reading.

More lunacy.

So a friend and I were talking at lunch the other day, and he dropped a real zinger.  "I think that some of the northern US states should secede and merge with Canada."  We talked a bit, and I laughed it off.  But later, I was thinking:  another individual had also spoken about this very same idea, at a different venue, months apart.  So some people are at least entertaining this idea.  To me, this is just wrong on so many levels.

  To vent on a few:

To break up an integrated country such as the US would be a monumental undertaking.  We would have to create a whole new border, with stations at pretty much every north-south road.  This is assuming that people could decide on which states would stay and which would go - surely entailing repeated voting, discussion, argument and the like.  If we could actually decide on which states would go, many would be migrating north or south, unhappy with the turn of events.  Then, someone would have to convince Canada to accept the runaway states.   I doubt that many Canadians would be happy with the idea. 

Assuming all this could be done, then there would have to be integration with Canada, new reconfiguring of borders and voting districts, representation in their Parliament, and so forth.     More mammoth expenses.  And who pays?  Surely not Canadian taxpayers, are you kidding?  Meanwhile, goods and services that formerly flowed up and down highways would now have to be processed through ports.  Who is to say that some Southern state wouldn't slap 100 percent tariffs on cotton, or oil, or coal, or some other vital commodity?   Would the Canada-US state coalition then go to war over it? 

     The whole idea is ridiculous - it would weaken the remaining states, sow confusion and human suffering all around.  We fought a civil war over the secession idea 136 years ago.  That should have settled the whole issue.  We are one nation of fifty states.  Northern cities are just as messed up as southern, indeed they carry enormous debt loads.  Just look at Detroit, or Boston, or even Baltimore.  There are lots of messed up cities all over.    Breaking the US into pieces will not help anyone - it will merely add to the pain, and weaken us even more so our enemies can then come in and mop up the mess.

The North and the South have been slow-dancing for the last century plus - we gotta keep dancing, folks - "ain't no other way to do it."      Thanks for reading.

Economic Uncertainties.

The papers are saying that now 2011 could be the worst year for the housing market, generally speaking.  Previous articles in the business section had suggested that things are turning around, things are looking up.  But now I read about how some housing markets have not hit bottom yet in terms of number of foreclosures - there will be more this year than ever!  It's scary to contemplate.  I don't have any ideas to contribute, other than stricter regulation of the shadowy financial markets and transactions that contributed to this mess.  There was very good reason why the US government imposed restrictions on securities markets in the 1930's.  Repealing those in the '90's helped create the meltdown that came later.   To sum it up - we are human beings ruled by impulsive "wetware" and we need to protect ourselves - from each other.  It's ironic and strange - but the regulators in the 1930's had the right idea.  Time to get back to sanity and common sense.  Here is wishing everyone a happy new year - and hoping all can hang on until 2012!