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There was a lot of wood in those old planes. Spars, struts, interior bulkheads., etc. If you go back to WWI most planes were entirely wood and fabric with the exception of the fasteners and engine.

People who don't live around trees all the time don't realize how much heavy stuff they rain down when it storms, or the wind blows just a little. A forest is a very dangerous place in a windstorm, and not just to those who are incredibly unlucky, like this poor woman. Just to put it in...

I'm surprised he kills deer by himself. Want to sell him? ;) Seriously, either the females at 90-150 lbs, or the males up to 300 lb, are a match for most single dogs given their sharp front hooves, strong legs, and height advantage. The males have antlers too. My Lab is about 100 Lb but I am...

"Suburban sprawl" is just a loaded and murkily-defined concept. My neighborhood has been where it is for 25 years, and yet there is increasing contact between pets and deer. The fact is that the deer population is rapidly increasing. There is abundant chow and little to no predation. What was to...

I don't even call it the History channel anymore. I think Mystory Channel would be a better name. Pretty much anytime I tune it in (extremely rarely anymore) it seems the current show is another "Did Nostradamus predict the Gulf oil spill?" idiot-fest. Which is proof that the average person...

Yeah, wow. I bet he won't get that close again any time soon. You know what bugs me the most about that video? The disrespect. Like sharks are there for this ass-wipe to clown around with.

I'm so conflicted. The end of that video was actually funny, though I'm not sure it was worth the first part. I am easily swayed into the view that middle management in every bureaucracy consists of bumbling idiots. But then on the other hand, this really isn't like other management problems...

You make a good point. It's not like this is a lost site. Are veteran's cemeteries in the care of the park service? My own view of their custodial abilities with regard to the sacred or historically meaningful is a dim one.

QFT. It's common for people without technical expertise to vastly underestimate the challenges in a situation like this. I doubt one person in 100 in the U.S. knows what the pressure in that pipe is. Why isn't that sort of detail included in news stories more often? It used to be, or maybe I am...

But have any of you ever had to dial a phone, talk on a party line, and be taught to pick up only on the correct number of rings?

There has been no official conclusion that lax maintenance caused the accident, just a lot of speculation in the press. There has been some evidence put forth that the chain of command on the rig was not clear enough, and that the experienced drillers disagreed with the "company man" who was...

I agree with that, but closed is the same thing as unavailable.

That's the way of it, though. We've all walked forgotten old cemeteries that are sinking back into the earth they were built on. Once the people who care begin to pass on these places are often forgotten. I'm recalling the burying ground of the Vancampens up in the DWGNRA near the old town of...

The problem with this is that you imply there is a standard, safe way to drill for oil at that depth, and that if BP had only followed "safety guidelines" none of this would have happened. That isn't true. Why are they out there drilling for oil at those depths? Like most Americans, you want...

Not nearly enough. The whole fabric of modern life is based on petroleum and its derivatives. You can't have any of it, no matter how much you carpool or how many windfarms we build, without oil or some substitute which as yet doesn't exist. My view is that there will come a time within the next...

I don't fully understand the anti-BP backlash, but it does seem typical to me of our modern "cake and eat it too" mentality. We want to keep driving cars and atvs and motorcycles and boats, and above all we get pissed if the price of gas starts to go up. We're driving oil exploration into...

That's funny, because we probably saw each other there on numerous occasions. Back in the early 80's the Gibby was the place we'd always head for cheap, cold beers and bar snacks. At least, I think I'm getting my bars right. That was the place not far from the paint plant, right?

Is that the back of Hansons west of Old Halfway, Guy?

Most, if not all, of these are pits where clay or sand was mined. I don't know the precise reason for the bright blue color, but it has to do with light absorption and the minerals in the water. Certainly you can visit any that are on public land. Color-wise you'll find that the effect...

Well, that's a value judgement on your part. I guess we all decide what the breakable rules are, and whether we're right would depend on how many people agree with us. For me, with every other animal in the forest urinating where it pleases them, it seems silly to tell this animal to do otherwise.