Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Cannons, Wagons, Buggies, Wheels, Stuff, and Coffee

When I was a kid I had a lot of things I loved. Two of them were wagons and catalogues. Today in the mail I got both. My annual Hansen Wheel and Wagon catalogue. Like the kid I was I spent an hour or so pouring over the images and marking things to buy ( doubt that momma will approve the $28,000 wagon I picked out).

This is a great place. I've blogged about them before (probably every time I get a catalogue).
They inspire the farmer, pioneer, and cowboy buried somewhere inside this old man.

Their new stuff is expensive but will last a lot longer than that Toyota you bought last year.
But they got used stuff too. This wagon for example cost $4,650.

Here's an idea. Got a mother-in-law or brother that always stays too long when they visit.

Fix them up in your new guest house, the sheep herders wagon.

Or if you want a hunting camp or great get away place put one up in the mountains or out on the river.

Of course their are wheels, new, old, used, 24 inch to the size of a barn.

Or you can buy things like this spring seat for your "Man Cave".

Want your own Deadwood Stage. They got what you want.

Hell put it in your living room or den as a unique "conversation pit".

Here is a vehicle that gets 100 miles to a gallon of oats.

Are you a John Deer Collector? Here's what you need a genuwine John Deer wagon on sale for just $4,899. Seriously that's a good deal.

Got a horse? Got a neighbor that has a horse? Got a snow mobile?

Got six kids and a big dog. This will be fun. Only $3,495 and you can have all the sleigh ride you want.

But if you really want to get a bang out of something try their cannons. They got them and all the stuff you need to haul them around.

Actually these 1812 style ship cannons are my favorite. I am really tempted by these. I could build my own fort and every 4th of July..... I wonder if they would fit in the back of my truck?

They ship stuff anywhere by the way.

If you are a backyard cook, you can get your own real chuck wagon chuck box. Heck buy a couple of their wheels and build the ass of a chuck wagon next to your Webber grill.

Want some cool cowboy. settler, western type, cook ware?

And finally the thing that originally hooked me up with these people. Genuwine Cowboy coffee.

Take your hammer (or gun butt) and crush these beans, dump the crushing into that coffee pot above, bring to a boil, drink black chunks and all.

Anyhow, give them a gander: Hansen Wheel and Wagon

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Neighbor's Trash Blown Into My Yard !

It is troublesome when it is just the wind naturally blowing trash from one yard into my yard. When someone stands there with a blower however and deliberately blows it over into my yard I begin to lose that community tolerance that neighbors need to co-exist.

That is what Arizona did to Oklahoma recently. They blew their trash all the way from Phoenix to Oklahoma City.

"Narcotics agents arrest suspected cartel member in Oklahoma City "

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics agents said they arrested a suspected Mexican drug cartel leader during a raid this morning.

BY RON JACKSON

Published: June 29, 2010

Drug agents arrested a suspected high-ranking Mexican Sinaloa Cartel member in north Oklahoma City this morning during a raid....Undercover agents became aware of their main suspect three months ago, after Arizona passed Senate Bill 1070 — the new immigration law that allows police to search anyone for valid documentation of citizenship."

"Our target received a dispatch from Mexico, and was told to leave Phoenix because of the new immigration law," said an undercover case agent whose name is being withheld to protect his identity. "He was told to set up shop in Oklahoma City. Fortunately, in a very short time, we learned of his presence and were able to infiltrate his operation."

In 1993, a piece of trash blown into Oklahoma by the Missouri State Government, raped and murdered two friends and co-workers of mine. Should I even mention McVeigh? It is tiresome to clean up other's messes. We got all the garbage we need here already. Arizona, you boys and girls just keep your own at home and deal with it.

Say, can we establish State laws deporting people back to Arizona?

Sunday, June 27, 2010

A FLAG AROUND WHICH TO RALLY (A JTB Post)

A Flag Around Which To Rally:

For years now volunteers have been saving the Kemp Ridley's Turtles by protecting them all the way from Cape Cod to Corpus Christi. In Corpus they would walk the beach during nesting season and when they found a nest mark it with this flag and guard it 24/7.
I propose that this be the "flag of protest" against the BP oil fiasco.
Every Deep Emotion requires a shibboleth.

A really LARGE version of this flag can be down loaded at: NPS Corpus Christi

-----Junior The Bear

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Smell that Ocean: Doesn't That Dimethyl Sulfide Smell Good

Source: DMS (click diagram to enlarge)

I love the smell of the Ocean. That salt spray and slight sulphur smell is reassuring. That smell comes from a chemical called DMS for short.

You know we are just now beginning to run one of the Earth's greatest experiments. There really should be thousands upon thousands of scientist of all ilks down in and around the Gulf of Mexico gathering data and recording information. Some of the big dollar foundations like Ford or Pew or whomever should put their monies here.

DMS (dimethyl sulfide or dimethyl sulphide {CH3SCH3}) is responsible for the wonderful smells we associate with the beach and the ocean.

"Gases diffuse across the air-sea interface, many of which are synthesized and emitted by microalgae. One of these gases is a sulfur based compound that has a strong characteristic odor. It has been suggested that variations in algal production of these natural gases play an important role in moderating our climate through their aerosols' effect on backscattering solar radiation and in cloud formation.¹ "

In other words this smell is really important.

"A key process in the sulfur cycle is the transfer of volatile sulfur compounds from the sea to the land via the atmosphere. DMS is the dominant biogenic sulfur compound in the marine atmosphere and essential to the global sulfur cycle. The gaseous DMS is photo-oxidized to sulfated aerosols in the atmosphere. Berresheim et al. established a relationship between DMS, sulfate aerosols, and cloud condensation nuclei.¹⁸ Because the sulfate aerosols function as cloud condensation nuclei, DMS has a significant impact on the Earth's climate. Plankton production of DMS and its escape to the atmosphere is believed to be one of the mechanisms by which the biota can regulate the climate."

Gee, so this stuff is really really important.

So what happens when something, say an oil spill, stops the life cycle of the little plants and animals that form this DMS? Do fewer clouds form over that body of water? Does the lack of clouds let the water get warmer? Doesn't warmer water cause stronger tropical storms? Wouldn't stronger tropical storms disperse the oil further killing off more little creatures and decreasing DSM more and thus less clouds and that makes the water hotter that makes the storms stronger..........

Who the hell knows?

Maybe we should.

As they say in the White House no good crisis should ever go to waste. Let's get those egg heads out there and get busy figuring out what the hell his all means.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Relativity

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

JUST LIKE I SAID: IT IS THE GOD DAMN METHANE HYDRATES STUPID

NSF

Almost from day one the evidence that the methane hydrates have seriously complicated the problems of this well blow out have been apparent. I mean hell, if an old retired geographer sitting in Oklahoma can read the message why the hell can't the people on site? Or have they?

If the relief wells have to be drilled though the same material.......God have mercy on all of us.

"Methane gas may cause 'dead zones' in Gulf"

source Wednesday, June 23, 2010

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

"Levels of methane in deep-ocean waters near the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are 10,000 to 100,000 times higher than normal, and in some very hot spots "we saw them approaching 1 million times above" what would be normal, says ocean chemist John Kessler of Texas A&M University in College Station.

Kessler and a group of oceanographers from Texas and the University of California-Santa Barbara spent 10 days doing deep-water sampling from 35 different sites within 7 miles of the leak, close to the ocean floor.

The gases are coming up from the same geological layer as the oil, Kessler says.

The world is focused on the amount of oil being released, but the large quantifies of methane also are creating "a highly unusual situation" that's not going to go away anytime soon, says Peter Brewer, an ocean chemist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Monterey, Calif. Bacteria consuming the methane will "run rampant," using up all the oxygen and possibly creating localized dead zones."

My early tirades on this subject.

May 8 : It is the Methane Hydrates Stupid

May 14 :It is Still The Methane Hydrates Stupid

May 14: Now It is Official: It Is The Methane Hydrates Stupid

Now the real irony, the ultimate joke, is that the next headline that uses "Dead Zones" might be talking about about places above, in, on, or around the Gulf that if you go there you die. Funny huh?

Added: Here is the best general information article about Methane Hydrates and the BP Oil gusher that I have found: The Guardian on May 20th.