Andrea and Bill’s Wedding June 11,1983, originally uploaded by billhuber.

Twenty seven years ago we got married. It’s been a wild ride but I am glad I took it.

IMG00012-20100605-0909.jpg, originally uploaded by billhuber.

I took this along the side of the road yesterday.

As an engineer who lived in Houston for eighteen years I am fascinated with the engineering problem BP is facing. Its not my field but I guess that the pressure from the well and the buoyancy of the oil is enough to float the 100 ton structure. They probably are concerned with the riser integrity, too. If they stop one leak the pressure might cause a leak to open elsewhere on the riser.

It bothers me that they did not make the hole at the top of the structure big enough with a reducer they could slide over. It is interesting that the riser pipe has not clogged up yet.

As a farmer who is intimately familiar with frozen pipes, I can see why they are trying to jump start the flow. Once you get it flowing, friction should keep it from clogging but the calculations are probably pretty dicey when you are under 5000 feet of water. I suppose they tried getting one of those remote operated vehicles to stick its arm down the hole and keep the hole clean till the flow gets started. They must be pretty close to the right size opening on the structure.

AP – A novel but risky attempt to use a 100-ton steel-and-concrete box to cover a deepwater oil well gushing toxic crude into the Gulf of Mexico was aborted Saturday after ice crystals encased it, an ominous development as thick blobs of tar began washing up on Alabama’s white sand beaches.

Deep-sea ice crystals stymie Gulf oil leak fix (AP)
Sun, 09 May 2010 02:02:44 GMT

Hey, Congress, Fix This Now!

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A nicely written article that encourages me to continue running.

Bookmark this on Delicious – Saved by to running health exercise knees arthritis fitness nytimes aging nyt blog – More about this bookmark

Phys Ed: Can Running Actually Help Your Knees? – Well Blog – NYTimes.com
Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A friend at work mentioned that he was looking at a propane powered smoker being sold at Walmart. He thought it was a good deal, $108, since the smoker had such good reviews. I took a look at it and agreed. So I bought it. My first test was pulled pork using an America’s Test Kitchen recipe. Yup, this makes barbecuing much easier. No reloading the charcoal after a couple of hours with this bad boy. I think I will smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving.

I was actually amused by the whole "You Lie" affair. Like most Americans I was watching "So you Think You Can Dance!" at the time of the speech. When I heard about the interruption I thought the President had said something no one expected like, "No public option". I immediately envisioned the Democratic legislators rising and shouting in anger, "Bush-Hitler!" Oops! My bad! My bad! When I heard that an obscure Republican congressman yelled, "You lie!", I was disappointed. Republicans are notoriously bad at theatrics. Joe should have at least thrown a shoe at the President. Considering the President’s basketball skills I have no doubt he would have avoided the shoe and could then proceed to taunt his opponent with a victory dance. In a moment of political unity both legislators from both parties would then rise and start jiving to "You Bad! You Bad!" Now that’s entertainment!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

On Thursday at an end of the year award ceremony my son accepted his ROTC scholarship. His award was sandwiched between awards for admirable accomplishments in athletic and scholastics. Yet in a touching display the audience rose and clapped. Even though I know that they rose and clapped in previous years for students who accepted military appointments, the response by the parents, students, and faculty was special to me.

So as my mind wanders off to ponder my son’s future, I am caught by the irony of my situation. Two days ago my son figuratively embarked on his military career and next Tuesday I will speak at my father’s funeral at Arlington Cemetery. For the next couple of days I will reminisce about my father and in particular his military career. I will undoubtedly intertwine my father’s military career, my choice not to pursue a military career, and my son’s prospective career. As a West Point graduate my father and my mother were part of a military community for their entire life. Their good times out weighed the bad times. I can see a time in the future that my son’s military will end and I am hopeful he will leave the military because the pastures greener on the outside. There is much to like about the military but I will be especially grateful if my son and the military fully embrace the century-old ethic spoken of below. In the 1970s I decided against pursuing a military career. I have a different opinion now.

In the 1970s the US Army assessed the damage done to the officer corps by the Vietnam War. It wasn’t pretty. Careerism had largely displaced professionalism. Col. Dandrige Malone, one of the principal assessors, wrote that the Army’s historic code, "Duty, honor, country," had been pretty much replaced by "Me, my [rear] and my career."
The Army’s centuries-old ethic, not to lie, cheat or steal, not to tolerate anyone who does, had come to be honored only in the breach.

Sense of Events: Military

Slate has a pretty cool dramatization of the unemployment trends in the United States. Click here to go to their site to watch the animated graph. I have an image copy of the last page below. I think the graph does a great job of showing the impact of the collapsing real estate bubble and auto industry.  Too bad the administration appears to be asleep at the wheel.

The economic crisis, which has claimed more than 5 million jobs since the recession began, did not strike the entire country at once. A map of employment gains or losses by county tells the story of how those job losses first struck in the most vulnerable regions and then spread rapidly to the rest of the country. As early as August 2007, for example””several months before the recession officially began””jobs were already on the decline in southwest Florida; Orange County, Calif.; much of New Jersey; and Detroit, while other areas of the country remained on the uptick.

An interactive map of vanishing employment across the country. – By Chris Wilson – Slate Magazine