A Comment on Comments

I have recently been getting dozens of comments every day on my blog. 

Unfortunately, most of them are spam – links to websites and/or services that I have no interest in promoting.  To counteract this problem, I had set my website defaults so that all comments had to be reviewed and approved before they would actually show up on the site.

That makes things easier for you, the reader, but the sheer volume of unwanted crap clogging my inbox is beginning to be a pain.

So…..

If you post a comment now, you will see one of these word-match boxes.

If this actually works as well as advertised, I may be able to allow comments to go directly to the blog.  Meanwhile, I do value your opinions and solicit your comments – hopefully, this extra step won’t keep you from participating.

Solar Impulse

The Swiss-made Solar Impulse plane landed in Dallas in the early morning hours on Thursday, breaking the distance record for a solar-powered flight on the second leg of its coast-to-coast odyssey across America.

The super-light, super-wide plane rose from its runway at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport at 4:47 a.m. Mountain Time on Wednesday with Andre Borschberg, Solar Impulse's co-founder and CEO, at the controls. He guided the plane through Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas.  The plane took off at sunrise in Phoenix, and landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport well after the sun went down, at 1:08 a.m. Central Time on Thursday.

The flight took more than 18 hours, setting a pace that didn't break any speed records. You could have driven between Phoenix and Dallas in less time, and most commercial jets make the trip in two hours or less,  but the 830-mile (1,336-kilometer) trek set a new distance record for a single solar-powered flight. Borschberg set the previous record, 693 miles (1,116 kilometers), last year during a Solar Impulse flight from Switzerland to Spain.

The Solar Impulse project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of 90 million euros ($115 million), backed by Swiss sponsors. The plane is designed to demonstrate a host of clean-energy technologies, ranging from lightweight carbon composites to the 12,000 photovoltaic cell solar-cell system that powers the plane's  motors. The airplane is as light as a typical passenger car, but its wingspan matches the width of a jumbo jet.

On Wednesday, the plane ranged as high in altitude as 27,000 feet, soaking up the sun's energy as it went. "The more I fly, the more energy I have aboard the airplane," Borschberg said.

After Dallas-Fort Worth, the plane is scheduled to move on to St. Louis, and then to Washington, D.C. The final leg of the trip, from Washington to New York, is expected to come sometime around the Fourth of July.

Borschberg said the coast-to-coast trip will serve as a warm-up for a round-the-world, solar-powered odyssey in 2015.

 

LNG

That’s a picture of the Freeport, Texas LNG terminal as viewed from the campground at Quintana County Park.  We sat in the shade of our 5th wheel and watched that big ship fill up with gas a couple years ago.

News from Washington this past week means that the terminal is going to get busier.

The Energy Department on Friday conditionally approved a Texas company’s proposal to export liquefied natural gas, only the second such project allowed to move forward amid a production boom that has led to glut of domestic natural gas.

The action would allow Freeport LNG Expansion L.P. to export up to 1.4 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas per day from its terminal near Freeport, Texas. The DOE said granting such a permit for shipments to countries that do not have free trade agreements with the U.S. was in the public interest.

Energy companies are seeking federal permits for more than 20 export projects that could handle as much as 29 billion cubic feet of LNG a day.

A drilling boom has lowered natural gas prices while boosting production by one-third since 2005. Natural gas production reached an all-time high of 25.3 trillion cubic feet last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Fireboat

The Port of Houston is getting three new Fireboats this year, and the first of them is on the way.

These 70 foot vessels will allow firefighters to remain on-scene for extended periods of time and the cabin contains a primary care facility where EMTs can care for the injured.  The boats are highly maneuverable – can turn in just three boat lengths – and they are fast.  The quad diesels can push the boat to a maximum speed of 45 knots, three times as fast the current fleet’s fastest boat.

Built by Metalcraft Marine, the top manufacturer of high speed craft for fire departments, the Coast Guard, etc., the boats will get a pretty thorough shake-down cruise on the way here.  The boats will travel under their own power from the plant in Kingston, Ontario, across four of the Great Lakes to Chicago – then down the Mississippi and across to Galveston.  For the trip, the first boat will be captained by Ron Peddle, one of Metalcraft’s owners, and the five-man crew will include three from the Port of Houston Authority Fire Department.

The first of the three boats on order should be arriving here about the first of June.

Facebook vs Tornado

If you want to see an example of how social media can actually work for good, this is a good one.  Following the devastating tornado yesterday afternoon, there was a Facebook page set up to post recovered pictures, documents, etc. – and it is working! 

Check it out at TORNADODOCSPICS

By the way, the page shown above was found miles from Moore, but it has been identified and is being returned to a grateful owner.

Twisters

Looks like we are well and truly into tornado season, what with the deadly twisters last week at Granbury, Texas and more touching down last night near Oklahoma City and near Wichita, Kansas. 

The only good thing to come from this devastation is that it has reminded me of an old friend, one I haven’t seen or spoken to in almost forty years.  His name is Rick Temple, and we worked together at 3M in the early 70s.

The twisters reminded me of Rick because he announced one day that he had figured out that Tornadoes are attracted by Aluminum.

I asked him what made him come up with that theory, and he said “Have you ever seen a news report on a tornado that didn’t hit a trailer park or a small private airport?”

Jerseys Tell A Tale

This couple - with their matching jerseys - was recently spotted at a Milwaukee Brewers game.

You might think “Aaaaw.  Isn’t that sweet.” but Jeff Greenwell of Last Angry Fan  points out that the guy seems to be carrying her purse – “probably because that’s where she keeps his cojones.”