Jim’s Random Notes

The Supreme Court handed down a number of decisions in the last few days, prior to taking a summer break.  The decision that seemingly everybody is talking about has to do with guns:  the Court said that states and local governments can’t impose tighter restrictions than those imposed by the federal government.  In particular, city ordinances that ban handguns outright were found to be unconstitutional.  I have to admit to being a bit surprised that this was a 5-4 decision.

Another 5-4 decision, and one that I think should have been a 9-0 decision involved the University of California’s Hastings College of Law–a public institution–and a student group called the Christian Legal Society (CLS).  The first part of the Court’s decision explains the issue quite well:

Hastings College of the Law (Hastings), a school within the University of California public-school system, extends official recognition to student groups through its “Registered Student Organization” (RSO) program. Several benefits attend this school-approved status, including the use of school funds, facilities, and channels of communication, as well as Hastings’ name and logo. In exchange for recognition, RSOs must abide by certain conditions. Critical here, all RSOs must comply with the school’s Nondiscrimination Policy, which tracks state law barring discrimination on a number of bases, including religion and sexual orientation. Hastings interprets this policy, as it relates to the RSO program, to mandate acceptance of all comers: RSOs must allow any student to participate, become a member, or seek leadership positions, regardless of her status or beliefs.

CLS requires that all members and employees, as a condition of their employment or membership, acknowledge in writing a Statement of Faith that, in part, forbids “participation in or acceptance of a sexually immoral lifestyle,” which is defined as sex outside of a heterosexual marriage.  Such a condition is obviously at odds with the non discrimination policy of Hastings College.

CLS tries to argue that Hastings’ restrictions on RSOs violate the CLS members’ rights under the first and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution.  That’s silly.  Hastings has not attempted to change the CLS policies.  It has simply withheld recognition of a group that does not abide by the school’s nondiscrimination policy.

I’m flabbergasted that four Supreme Court justices came down on the other side of this issue.  I haven’t yet read their dissenting opinions–something I really have to do.  This decision seems so obvious that I can’t imagine what rational reason a judge could have for ruling that Hastings should recognize the group.  But we’ll see.

Big news this week about 16-year-old Abby Sunderland, whose solo ’round-the-world trip was cut short the other day by a storm in the Indian Ocean.  As she put it in her blog, “one long wave, and one short mast.”  A French fishing vessel plucked her off her yacht this morning and headed back to civilization.  The yacht is adrift and probably will sink.  Too bad the boat is lost, but I’m happy that Abby is well.

I’m a bit surprised at the public reaction to this incident.  A large number of people have expressed their shock and outrage at the parents for allowing their 16-year-old daughter to embark on such a voyage.  “Sixteen is too young,” they say, “teenagers don’t have the same ability as adults to evaluate risk and do the right thing.”  Then they go on to regurgitate the oft-reported statistics about teenagers and automobile accidents.

It is true, by the way, that teenagers are involved in a disproportionate number of auto accidents when compared to the rest of the population.  And it’s pretty well known why:  teenage drivers tend to understimate hazardous driving situations and are less able than older drivers to recognize potentially dangerous situations.

It’s not age, but experience that matters.  When I was a teenager, I had a friend whose dad was a race car driver.  Ron, too, raced cars on the track.  He was an incredibly safe driver on the road.  He knew better than most drivers–regardless of age–how to evaluate a situation and react accordingly.  I also know drivers in their 40s and 50s who I will not ride with again, ever, because they have shown a shocking inability to anticipate other drivers’ actions and see a dangerous situation developing.

Abby Sunderland has been sailing with her family all her life.  She’s reported to be an excellent sailor and over the years has proven her ability to handle a boat in all manner of situations.  She’s likely a much better and more experienced sailor than most sailors twice her age.  Her parents, by all reports, are responsible people who encourage their children to follow their dreams, but also make sure that the children are well prepared before attempting anything too wild.

I, for one, fully support parents who encourage their children to create and achieve far-reaching goals.  In doing so, the children are learning perhaps the most important lesson that all too many parents fail to teach:  the ability to take a dream from inception to completion.  They learn to develop a plan, gain the knowledge and skill to accomplish their goal, and then do it.  People talk about building self confidence in children, but too many parents balk when it comes to actually giving the kids the opportunity to rely on themselves.

I suspect that in the year or more since she started preparing for her trip, and especially in the six months she spent alone at sea in a 40-foot boat, Abby learned more about herself and how to achieve goals than most people learn in a lifetime.  That she survived the storm that destroyed her boat–a storm that would likely have killed an inexperienced sailor–shows me that she was able to identify and react properly to the dangerous situation.  A big wave broke the mast, true, but experienced sailors will tell you that such a thing can happen to anybody.  30-foot seas are a challenge for anybody in a small craft.

Kids don’t learn anything worthwhile if you coddle them.  They learn by pushing their limits:  often trying things that others view as dangerous.  My friends who have achieved the most in life are those who did “dangerous” things as teenagers:  bull riding, skydiving, auto racing, motorcycle racing, playing with old radios (think about the dangers of high voltage power transformers), etc.  In almost all cases the parents were involved in making sure that the kids were prepared for whatever they were doing:  guiding, not preventing.

Conversely, my friends who were coddled as teenagers and forbidden from doing “dangerous” things (other than driving–for reasons I can’t understand, parents let their kids drive even when the kids show a shocking lack of ability to manage risk) either had a very difficult time learning to take risk as they got older, or are now coddling themselves and their own kids and not accomplishing anything.

Why risk it?  Because there is no advancement without risk.  The key is managing the risk:  building the knowledge and skill to identify and react to hazardous situations, but making plans to avoid those situations as much as possible.  In the specific case of Abby Sunderland, she had the skill and knowledge, and as much as possible she avoided the risks.  But, as she said, “you don’t sail through the Indian Ocean without getting in at least one storm.”  It’s part of the journey.  It’s just unfortunate that this particular storm wrecked her boat.

Congratulations, Abby, on your attempt.  You didn’t make it around the world, but you accomplished a great deal in trying.

To Mr. and Mrs. Sunderland, thank you for allowing your daughter (and your son, last year) to show us what young people can accomplish given the opportunity, guidance, and encouragement.  I hope that other parents will learn from your example.

You’re probably not surprised to discover that one thing wood carvers talk about frequently is how to treat minor cuts.  It seems that even the most cautious carvers wind up with a cut now and then.

In one such discussion recently, somebody mentioned putting black pepper on a cut to stop the bleeding.  I had never heard of that one, but there’s eHow article: How to Treat Cuts with Black Pepper.  eHow is hardly a reliable source for medical information, and I don’t place much faith in the countless alternative medicine sites that have similar content about the use of black pepper on cuts.  Still, I wonder.

It turns out that black pepper is only one of many such home remedies.  I’ve also seen recommendations of flour, cayenne pepper powder, ground coffee, and corn starch.  This leads me to believe that it’s not the particular substance but rather that the substance is powdered.  The powder clots the blood on the surface, which would be enough to stop the bleeding on a minor cut.

Some sites also claim medicinal benefits to some of these remedies–especially the black pepper and cayenne pepper.  I have not been able to find any reliable information about that.

Anybody else hear of these remedies?  Do they work simply by clotting the blood at the surface, or are there some astringent or antihemorrhaghic properties to these recommended substances?

The Atlantic hurricane season officially starts today, June 1, and goes until November 30.   The Eastern Pacific season started on May 15, and also goes to November 30.  We had our first Pacific storm just the other day:  tropical storm Agatha hit Guatemala.

Since at least 1994, the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University has issued predictions on the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season.  They issue three predictions each year:

1. In December, they publish their predictions for the upcoming season.
2. In April, they publish an updated prediction for the season that will start on June 1.
3. In August, they publish yet another update.

You might wonder why they publish an update in the middle of the season.  The answer can be found in their FAQ:

Although the Atlantic basin hurricane season starts on June 1, more than 90 percent of all tropical cyclone activity and 95 percent of major hurricane activity occurs after August 1 in an average season. In general, our seasonal forecasts issued on August 1 show the greatest skill.

The TMP also publishes an annual report that summarizes the most recent hurricane season and compares their predictions with the actual activity.  Their forecasts page has links to the most recent forecasts, and a way to select previous forecasts.

Whereas the forecasts make for interesting reading, I was especially impressed with the summaries.  The authors are very up front about how they derive the numbers for their forecasts, and the summaries accurately present their successes and their failures.  Everything is out in the open.  They don’t appear to be pushing a particular agenda, but rather reporting the results of their observations and using the observed data to try to understand and predict future behavior.  This is what I was taught science is about.

One thing I’ve wondered for the past several years is what caused the recent increase in tropical cyclone activity.  That there has been an increase is no secret, as I pointed out last year in Tracking Hurricanes.  A common cry is, “Global warming is causing more hurricanes.”  TMP’s 2009 Summary addresses that, starting on page 39.  The entire section is well worth reading.  A few quotes are particularly relevant:

Despite the global warming of the sea surface that has taken place between the mid 1970s to late 1990s and the general warming of the last century, the global numbers of hurricanes and their intensity have not shown increases in recent years except for the Atlantic since 1995 (Klotzbach 2006).

Although global surface temperatures have increased over the last century and over the last 30 years, there is no reliable data available to indicate increased hurricane frequency or intensity in any of the globe’s other tropical cyclone basins.

In other words, if an increase in sea surface temperature caused an increase in hurricane activity, one would expect the increased activity everywhere, not just in the Atlantic.

So, what’s the cause?

This large increase in Atlantic major hurricanes is primarily a result of the multi-decadal increase in the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation (THC) that is not directly related to global sea surface temperatures or CO2 increases. Changes in ocean salinity are believed to be the driving mechanism.

Interesting.  Changes in the salt content of the water, which is a localized phenomenon.

The report then gives a detailed counter to the global warming argument, showing that in two recent 25-year periods (1945-1969, during a weak cooling trend; and 1970-1994, a general warming trend), the warmer period had only 48% as many hurricanes as the cooler period.  Looked at in isolation, you would conclude that cooler temperatures caused more hurricanes.  That’s obviously not the case, though, when you look at all the data.  So you have to conclude that the increase in hurricane activity is due to something else.

If you haven’t yet caught on, I’m impressed with the way the TMP presents their research.  I encourage you to give it a look.

The Facebook discussion of my previous blog about the difference between a health care plan and insurance raised the following questions:

1. What should a compassionate society do?
2. Should a compassionate society feed the hungry and house the homeless?
3. Should we provide health care as a human right?
4. Can we do something about ever increasing costs while maintaining or bettering actual care?

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers.  I do have some ideas, though, about what we should do, and why.  But first I need to lay some background.

A society is nothing more than a group of people who voluntarily pool their efforts in support of shared goals and values.  The members of society acknowledge that when they act as a group, each individual is stronger and more secure than if they acted individually.  Typically, they agree to a common code of conduct and commit to contributing some resources (effort, or the product of their effort) to the group.  Note that they don’t commit all of their resources.  Each member voluntarily contributes to the group, and does so as long as he recognizes the value of doing so.  What he considers value can be ego (the pride of knowing that he contributed), the gratitude of others, recognition of the strength to be had in numbers, love, or in order to benefit from the contributions of others, etc.

That’s an admittedly brief and incomplete definition of society, but it will serve.  The primary point is that it’s a voluntary contract among individuals.

As long as the voluntarily contributed pool of resources meets or exceeds the combined consumption, the society works and compassion is a non-issue.  Every member of society is cared for.  Only when consumption exceeds contributions (i.e. there is a deficit) does the question of compassion come in.  At that point, the society must ask for more from those who can contribute.  But when the society demands more, and uses force to obtain it, the society has become corrupt.

You see, societies cannot be compassionate.  Only people can be compassionate.  In order for a society to be “compassionate,” it must have the power to take, under threat of force, from its members.  Forcefully taking somebody else’s life or property is an immoral act, regardless of how that property is then distributed or how “noble” the cause.  Any society that condones or initiates such an act is corrupt.  The end does not justify the means.

I want to expand a bit on my use of “life,” above.  One can debate the morality of war, self defense, and capital punishment, but other than that the taking of a human life is generally regarded as an immoral act.  But depriving me of the product of my life is also an immoral act.  If you steal from me a tool that I spent a day fashioning from a stick, you have stolen a day of my life.  Theft of property is theft of life.  When society demands the product of my effort, it is demanding that I give up part of my life for the good of society.

Government is a construct created by society to protect that society from internal and external threats.  Society limits the government’s powers, cedes to it the exclusive right to initiate force, and tightly controls the exercise of those powers.  Recent history has shown time and again that Locke was right:  governments derive their power from the consent of the governed.  When government begins dictating to society, then the society has ceased to function and the people are at the whim of an entity that has ultimate power and no moral restraint.

Now, to the questions I mentioned at the beginning of this post.  The first two can be combined:  “Should we as a society provide food, shelter, and health care to those who are unable to provide for themselves?”  The simple answer is yes, with limitations.  The real question is how we should go about it, and that is the subject of the next post.  That post might also cover the final question of controlling costs and improving care.

The author of the third question, “Should we provide health care as a human right?” might have meant the question I just asked above, but his use of the term “human right” raises other issues that I want to cover in a separate post on the nature of human rights.

Updates and corrections (full story below):

The pilot’s name is Joseph (Joe) Stack.  He was a software engineer from Austin.  The airplane, a Piper Dakota tail number N2889D, was registered in his name.  He posted a suicide note on his web site at about 9:15, drove to the Georgetown airport and took off about 9:40.  He crashed into the office building shortly thereafter.

The ISP that hosted his web site took the site offline in response to a request by the FBI.  Thanks to the Internet, his suicide note (some are calling it a “manifesto”) will live on.

As of 4:30 PM, there are two reported injured and one still unaccounted for.  I don’t know if that unaccounted-for person is the pilot himself, or somebody who was supposed to be in the building.

My original report:

Around 10:00 this morning, I heard a report on the radio of “something happening” near a major highway intersection here in Austin.  I soon learned that a small plane had hit a building.

The crash started a very big fire, and the building is engulfed in flames.  One report I saw said that the building is likely to be completely destroyed.

It’s been about two hours since the incident.  The NTSB is investigating the it as an intentional act.  Early reports indicate that the pilot set fire to his own house, then stole an airplane and intentionally flew it into the building.  I haven’t yet seen any reports of a motive, and there’s still a lot of speculation.

One person from the building is still unaccounted for.  There are reports of two people being transported to the hospital, the extent of their injuries unknown.  There are no deaths reported.

The conspiracy theorists have already jumped on it.  I’ve seen several posts questioning whether “a little plane” could start such a large fire and cause so much damage to the building.  Another bunch of posters are accusing the Obama administration of leaning on authorities and media to prevent the incident from being described as terrorism.   I’d laugh, but it scares me that there are those who take these guys seriously.

Yesterday, a friend of mine trotted out that old urban legend about using WD-40 to ease the pain of arthritis.  I tried to tell him it was a myth, but he didn’t believe me.  His argument:  fish oil is known to help relieve arthritis pain, and WD-40 contains fish oil.  Oh, boy.

First, the manufacturer of WD-40 recommends against putting their product on your skin.  In addition, WD-40 does not contain fish oil, as you can see by reading their Material Safety Data Sheet.  It’s mostly petroleum distillates, and I certainly wouldn’t want those passing through my skin and into the joints.  Now there’s a thought.  Can they?  We’ll get back to that.

So what about fish oil, anyway?  It turns out that there is some evidence that fish oil can reduce the swelling associated with rheumatoid arthritis.  That is, fish oil that’s taken as a dietary supplement.  There is no evidence that rubbing fish oil on your skin will have any measurable effect other than that provided by the act of massaging.  The fish oil can’t pass through the skin in sufficient quantity to have any effect.

Along the same lines, there are countless sites pushing “natural” skin care products that warn of the dangers your cosmetics pose.  A popular myth seems to be that a woman will absorb between 5 and 20 pounds of skin care chemicals through her skin per year.  If you believe those claims, a woman’s body is a veritable toxic waste dump.  That claim is more absurd than the colon cleansing sites’ claim that I have 5 to 20 pounds of stuff stuck to my colon, “like spackle or paste.”  But I digress.

Back to the point.  Is it even possible for WD-40 to pass through the skin?

There are some chemicals that do pass through the skin very easily.  Probably the best known is DMSO.  Although not toxic itself, DMSO is a very powerful solvent that can carry through the skin the things that it dissolves.  Unfortunately, I’ve not found a list of other chemicals that are as easily absorbed.

The primary ingredients in WD-40 are petroleum distillates, specifically alphatic hydrocarbons and petroleum based oil.  Everything I’ve been able to find shows that the danger of absorbing these chemicals through the skin is very low, provided you don’t have any cuts or open sores.  I suppose if you bathed in it for an hour every day you might get some under the skin.  It’s unlikely, however, that the effects would be good.  It almost certainly wouldn’t relieve the aching joints.

I’ve found it rather difficult to find good information about the permeability of skin to different substances.  What I’d really like to see is a list of chemicals (including common names, where applicable) that gives an indication of the danger of skin absorption.  It’d be difficult to do that in a single list, though.  Some chemicals will pass through the skin readily, but pose no real health hazard.  Others might have more difficulty passing through the skin, but pose an extreme hazard if they get into the bloodstream.

 I did run across a couple of interesting links having to do with the dangers of absorbing jet fuel and gasoline.  The article Assessment of Skin Absorption and Penetration of JP-8 Jet Fuel and Its Components, published in Toxicology Sciences, says in its abstract:

These results suggest: (1) that JP-8 penetration will not cause systemic toxicity because of low fluxes of all the components; and (2) the absorption of aliphatic components into the skin may be a cause of skin irritation.

In other words, you might absorb a bit of it and it might irritate your skin, but it’s unlikely to cause major problems.

According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety’s Health Effects of Gasoline:

When gasoline is NOT trapped against the skin and can freely evaporate, it is probably only mildly irritating or not irritating. However, case reports indicate that when gasoline is trapped against the skin (clothing is soaked in gasoline, skin is in contact with a puddle) for a long period (probably more than 30 minutes), serious burns and skin loss may occur. Absorption through the skin occurs, but is normally not significant.

All the research I’ve found about the dangers of gasoline and diesel indicates that the real dangers are in inhaling, ingesting, or getting it into the body through a tear in the skin.  I wouldn’t soak my hand in gasoline, but I wouldn’t worry too much about a few splashes on the skin.

Some friends who work in auto repair report sometimes using brake fluid as a hand cleaner.  This is probably a bad idea, but not disastrous.  Most brake fluids are glycol-ether based.  I’m not certain, but it looks like all of these solvents are quite toxic if ingested.  There is some evidence of skin absorption through lesions, but I wasn’t able to find any solid information on absorption through intact skin.  Again, I doubt that there’s much danger if you’re not soaking in it.

An interesting resource for the more technically minded is the Skin Permeation Calculator available from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.  You’ll need to know the CAS Number  for a particular chemical, or have its molecular weight and a number called the LOGKOW.  Given those two numbers, the calculator will give you some numbers that indicate how easily the chemical will pass through the skin.  I don’t yet know enough to make good use of that information, though.

You can find the CAS Number for lots of different chemicals from the NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards. Unfortunately, the Skin Permeation Calculator doesn’t recognize all of the CAS Numbers and the NIOSH data lists the molecular weight, but not the log K_OW.  So you end up having to find the CAS and use it to search the LOGKOW database.

I’d be interested in hearing about any list like the one I described above:  substances listed by danger of absorbing them through the skin.  Anybody have a link?  I’d hate to have to download those databases and run the numbers myself.

We should see some small measure of sanity emerge from the election of Republican Scott Brown to fill the vacant Senate seat left by the death of Senator Kennedy.  I think it’s dangerous for any single party to control the White House and both houses of Congress.  We only have to go back to the first of G.W. Bush’s terms to see the kind of excesses such power can lead to.

I’m also happy to see that Democrats have decided not to do something rash like try to jam the health care bill through before the new Senator can be seated.  I doubt that they’d have the votes to do it, but just trying would almost certainly lead to a huge defeat for incumbent Democrats in this November’s election, giving Republicans total control of both houses:  another bad thing.  We’re much safer when neither party has an overwhelming majority in Congress.  We’re safest, of course, when Congress is out of session, but if we must have them mucking things up it’s best if we make it difficult for them.

Congress very often makes what amount to irrevocable decisions.  They’re not technically irrevocable, but they’re usually hard enough to change as to be permanent.  Such things should be done judiciously, not primarily to fit the controlling party’s agenda or to garner votes or to show the public that Congress is “Doing Something”, but rather because in the considered opinion of our Senators and Representatives, it’s the right thing to do for the good of the country.  I see very little of that rationality in Washington, and even less when one of the two major parties has a virtual stranglehold on the lawmaking process.

Unfortunately, I fear that both parties will misinterpret the results of yesterday’s election.  Republicans will call it a “mandate for change” (how often have I heard that one?) or a repudiation of the President’s and the Democrats’ agenda.  Democrats will call it reactionary, blame the tea party movement for hijacking the election, or think that the problem is that they haven’t done enough soon enough.

I think the message is quite a bit simpler:  large numbers of people who normally don’t vote are fed up.  They want want smaller and less intrusive government.  This is their first step in making their voices heard.  They’re neither Democrat nor Republican, but rather people who are tired of “business as usual.”  I’d like to think that others will make their voices heard come November, but if incumbents have any brains (and I’ve never accused them of being stupid), they’ll lay low and not make any waves so that 10 months from now people will have forgotten and won’t have anything recent to complain about.

One of the dubious benefits of owning a swimming pool is that I don’t really have to rake the leaves in my back yard.  I just have to wait for a good wind storm to blow them into the pool, where I can then skim them out.  This convenience doesn’t come for free, though.  They sink if I let them stay in the pool too long, and removing them from the bottom is much more difficult.  Also, they have a tendency to clog up the filter trap, which then causes the pump to suck air.  And, of course, this tends to happen on the coldest night of the year so I can’t just turn off the pump because if I do it might freeze.

Actually, I do rake the leaves.  I cleaned the yard last weekend, but a couple of the oak trees hadn’t yet dropped all their leaves.  They dropped over the week, and Thursday’s cold and high winds put them into the pool.  I spent a cold 30 minutes on Thursday evening cleaning them out.

Debra and I went to an early showing of the movie Avatar yesterday.  I was seriously impressed.  It was somewhat predictable, but other than that I loved it.  Some people I know complained that it was a heavy-handed “tree hugger” movie, but I didn’t see it that way.  I can see where one could make that argument, but then you can make that argument about a large number of movies made over the last 50 years or more.  It’s an underdog movie.  In any event, it’s very well done.  I loved that hammerhead rhino.

While I’m on the subject of Avatar…  The MPAA rating is PG-13 “intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking.”  There are indeed “intense epic battle sequences and warfare.’  There is vanishingly little sensuality and even less “language.”  Whatever.  But smoking?  What is that all about?  We have to warn parents ’cause their kids might see somebody smoking?

Christmas was relaxing.  Other than going to the movie, Debra and I stayed at home, took Charlie for a walk, and generally just enjoyed time together.  A wonderful way to spend a day off.

Our friends Mike and Kristi invited us to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with them at their ranch in Ranger, TX.  We’ve visited there the past two years on my birthday, and I went up there with Mike back in September.  But this time we had most of four days to enjoy.

Mike and Kristi bought the place–50 acres–in the summer of 2007 as a weekend getaway, a hunting area, and with the idea of eventually moving up there.  They’ve been slowly improving the property.  The first year we visited, we slept in a pop-up camp trailer.  Now they have a 400 square foot cabin complete with a toilet and “almost running” water:  you fill a bucket from the rain barrel and pour the water into the tank.  Believe me, that’s much better than going out behind the cabin when it’s 40 degrees (or colder) outside.

The primary goal of the long weekend was to relax.  But with four days to kill, I couldn’t spend all that time just carving by the campfire.  Mike’s been slowly removing a lot of the underbrush and dead trees near the front of the property, chopping firewood, and taking the smaller stuff to the burn pile.  So I grabbed a chainsaw and joined in.  We had a grand old time on Friday and Saturday, and by the time we left the view to the south had been much improved.

While Debra and Kristi were cooking on Thanksgiving day, I decided to try my hand at something I’ve been wanting to do:  carve a sweet potato.  The photo at left is “Yaman” (yam man).  The sweet potato carves very easily, but it’s important to have a sharp knife or you’ll end up breaking the potato.  This isn’t the best face I’ve ever carved, but I’m betting it’ll be okay.  Now I just have to wait six weeks or so for the thing to dry before I can paint highlights.  The drying process will introduce wrinkles, and it will turn brown.  I’ll update here when it’s sufficiently dried.

I didn’t do as much carving as I had envisioned, but I did manage to complete a few projects:  another little dog, this one from a piece of cherry wood that a friend gave me, a small bowl for Debra, carved from a piece of ashe juniper (what they call cedar around here), and a little drink stir stick from a piece of oak whiskey barrel.  The last has a wizard face on the top and a finger at the other end.  I wish I had a picture of that thing, because I’m pretty happy with the wizard face carved in a piece of oak that’s about an inch tall and 1/4″ square.

I also learned of a new art form:  beer bottle art.  I idly wondered whether I could melt a beer bottle by throwing it in the fire, and Mike assured me that it’s possible.  So I put a few bottles in the coals (after consuming the bottles’ contents, of course), and left them overnight.  Of the half dozen bottles we put in the fire, only these two survived mostly intact.

They give some idea of what’s possible, but they’re flawed because they have cracks and holes.  The key seems to be having the patience to let them cool very slowly.  I’m thinking that I’ll have to experiment with this art form.

Even with the hard work on Friday and Saturday, it was a very relaxing time up at the ranch.  The food was excellent, we very much enjoyed spending time with Mike and Kristi, and I really needed the time away to recharge.  It’s hard to worry about too much when you’re sitting in the sun whittling on a stick and laughing at the Guinea fowl running around.  Noisy dang birds, though.

Still, as relaxing as the time was, it was good to get home Sunday afternoon, take a hot shower, and sleep in our own bed.  Wouldn’t want too much of a good thing.

The New Zealand national rugby team, called the All Blacks, performs a traditional Maori war dance (a haka) prior to international matches.  They first did this in 1884 during the team’s first trip overseas, and they’ve been doing it ever since.  It’s something of a rugby tradition.

Today I ran across an animated version with gingerbread men doing the haka. It was apparently an ad for the New Zealand bakery challenge. Quite funny. Assuming, of course, you’re familiar with the whole haka thing.

I’m not a big sports fan.  I enjoyed watching football when I was younger, but I stopped watching even that about 25 years ago.  I like playing sports, but watching them generally leaves me cold.  That said, I do enjoy watching the highlights of some matches.

I ran across rugby again few weeks ago.  I’d of course seen rugby when I was younger, but at the time my impression of the game was a bunch of guys playing what we used to call smear the queer.  (And please note that at the time “queer” just meant “the guy with the ball.”)  In any event, I’ve become somewhat fascinated by this game that is considered the national sport in New Zealand, Lebanon (by law!), Papua New Guinea, and South Africa, and very popular in many other countries.  It’s not as popular as soccer in most countries, but it has a huge following throughout most of the world.

Rugby is kind of like full contact soccer, except that you can pick up the ball and run with it.  The game looks to be faster than soccer, though, with a lot more movement up and down the field.  Think of American football without the huddle.

There are several things that interest me about the game.  First, although players do specialize, the degree of specialization is not like football.  Every player on the team must be able to run with the ball, pass the ball, kick, and tackle.  There is no blocking in rugby, so there’s no need for the big offensive linemen.  Speed, stamina, and agility are the keys.

As I said before, the game is action-packed.  Rather than a huddle after each tackle, and then the players lining up like 16th century armies before a battle, the ball is placed into play almost immediately.  There are short breaks after scoring, for penalties, and out of bounds, but for the most part the game goes on non-stop.  Two 40-minute halfs with a break between them.  This might be one reason the game hasn’t caught on in the U.S.:  there are no convenient places to insert commercials.

Although rugby is a full contact sport, there’s little in the way of protective equipment used.  Some players wear what look like padded leather helmets, but I get the idea it’s more to protect the ears.  You still see hard hits, but most tackles involve arms around legs rather than shoulders or heads slammed into armored bodies.  Perhaps I’m being naive, but to me the game looks much more civilized than American football.

It turns out that there are two forms of rugby widely played:  rugby union, and rugby league.  The games share the same origin.  Rugby league was created in 1895 and the rules changed to encourage a more spectator-friendly game.  Rugby league is a faster and more exciting game with fewer breaks in the action than rugby union.

I don’t know that I’ll become a fan or even sit down to watch an entire rugby match, but I’ve certainly enjoyed watching the highlights videos on YouTube.  Here’s one example from the recent Four Nations Rugby tournament:

About a month ago, Debra and I started noticing that hot water pressure was lower than normal.  At first I thought it was my imagination, but it steadily got worse.  My first hypothesis was sediment in the tank, which fit with what others online will say.  So I hooked up a hose, drained the tank, flushed it a bit, and then refilled it.  Still low pressure.

My next thought was to verify that the problem was with the water heater and not somewhere else in the pipes.  So I connected the cold water input directly to the hot water output, removing the water heater completely from the system.  The resulting high pressure from the hot water side confirmed that the problem was indeed with the water heater.

It took a little looking around, but I finally found the problem:  the 3″ brass nipple that connects the water heater with the hot water pipes in the house was clogged with sediment.  It was so clogged that I’m surprised any water was coming out.  I’m a little embarrassed that it took me so long to check that out.  But since I had so much time in the project and it looked like I wouldn’t have to replace the water heater, I decided to refurbish it a bit.

Electric heating elements for my water heater are about $10 each.  Those and two replacement nipples, plus gaskets for the input and output, and the special tool for removing the elements set me back a total of about $25.  It was a pretty big time investment, though.  Draining the water heater takes a long time.  A few things to keep in mind (some of which I learned from experience):

• Before you drain your electric water heater or do any other work on on it, turn off the circuit breaker.
• If you don’t open a hot water faucet somewhere in the house, or open the T&P valve on the water heater, it’ll take almost forever to drain.  (I knew this one before, but thought I’d throw it in because a friend of mine ran into this problem.)
• Do not try to remove the elements with pliers or a pipe wrench.  Pay the $8 for the element removal tool.
• If the screwdriver you’re using as a handle for the element removal tool starts to bend, stop.  It’s likely you’ll break the screwdriver before the element comes out.  Find a longer and stiffer piece of metal to use as a handle.  Or dispense with the handle and wrap a pipe wrench around the element removal tool.  Works wonders.  (I was smart enough to stop when I saw the screwdriver shaft flexing.)
• Be absolutely sure the water is below the level of the element before you try to remove it.  You will not believe how fast water can come pouring out of that hole, and you will not be able to screw the element back in with the water pouring out.  And the water is hot. (Yes, I’m guilty of this one.)
• You can clean corrosion from heating elements by soaking them in vinegar.  If you decide to re-use your elements after cleaning and inspecting them, be sure to replace the rubber gasket.  Otherwise they will almost surely leak and you’ll have to drain the water heater again to remove and replace them.  The way I figure it, if I’m going to the trouble of draining the water heater, I’ll just replace the elements.

One other thing.  Electric water heaters contain a sacrificial anode rod that helps prevent corrosion of the tank.  The idea is that the anode, being a more active metal than what the tank is made of, will corrode first.  As long as there’s a more active metal than the tank’s metal, the tank won’t corrode (or will do so much more slowly).  Water heater warrantees are typically based on how long the manufacturer thinks the anode rod will last.  You can replace the anode rod.  I haven’t tried it yet.

Most manufacturers recommend that you drain a few quarts from your water heater every three months (some say every month).  That will prevent sediment buildup in your tank.  They recommend draining the tank and inspecting the elements annually.  They also recommend an annual inspection of the anode rod.

By the way, elements that are covered in corrosion don’t work very well at all.  They require a lot more electricity to generate the same amount of heat as new elements.  Especially if you have very hard water, you’re probably money ahead if you replace the elements annually.  The money you save in electricity will more than offset the cost of the new elements, and your water will heat much faster.

Most people (myself included, usually) never think about their water heater until they have no hot water or they notice a leak.  That’s too bad, because with a little periodic maintenance a water heater can last 15 or 20 years rather than the five or so years that they typically last these days.  Considering the cost of a replacement water heater and installation (sometimes over $1,000) and the aggravation of a leaking heater or no hot water, you’re much better off with the periodic maintenance.

If you’re having a problem with your water heater, a good place to look for a solution is Waterheaterrescue.com.  Whereas it’s true that they’re trying to sell you things, they have very good information about common problems and simple solutions.  Oh, and in case you’re interested in how this stuff works: How Water Heaters Work.

Well, it seemed like a box.  When we lived in Scottsdale, Debra and I did a lot of our grocery shopping at Price Club (since purchased by Costco).  One day we needed crushed red peppers.  But you can’t get a small jar of anything at those membership stores.  We ended up with 12 ounces of crushed red peppers.

That was 1990 or 1991.  12 oz. of crushed red pepper goes a long way.

It’s been something of a running joke between us since then.  I’d get out the peppers to spice up my pizza and joke that we’re running out.  About a year ago we really were running out and from time to time we’d dump in the contents of those little crushed red pepper packets we’d get from the pizza place.  I think Debra even added some of the dried peppers that she put up a few years back when we had the bumper crop.

Last night we put the last of the crushed red pepper in the chili.  I guess we’re back to scavenging from the pizza packets until we make it to the grocery store.  I suspect our next container won’t hold anywhere near 12 ounces.

We’ve had a relatively calm hurricane season this year.  According to the National Hurricane Center, we’ve had eight storms:  two hurricanes, five tropical storms, and one tropical depression.  That’s a far cry from the past eleven years in which the number of storms has been in the teens.  Except for 2005, when we had a whopping 28 storms, including 15 hurricanes with four of them reaching Category 5.  A Category 5 storm is rare indeed:  there have been 32 of them recorded since 1851.

The National Weather Service or its forebears has been keeping information on hurricanes and tropical storms since 1851.  Perhaps before, but the records available from the NHC only go back that far.  You can download the raw data from 1851 through 2008 from the NHC’s Hurricane Research Division.  The data isn’t in the most convenient format—a text file of fixed fields—but parsing it with a C# program proved to be easy enough, and within an hour or so I was examining the data.

The last ten years of hurricane activity has raised many concerns that climate change is increasing the number of storms and the intensity of the storms.  Looking at the historical record, it’s impossible not to draw the conclusion that 11 consecutive years with 10 or more storms is anomalous.  It’s way out there.  No other 10-year period has had even close to that number of storms.

I created a dump of the data to a comma-separated format so that I could massage it with Microsoft Excel.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an Excel expert, but I can do the basics and create usable if not especially nice looking charts.  In Excel, I created two charts:  one examining the number of hurricanes each year, and another showing average storm intensities.  If you like, you can download my Excel file with the raw data and the charts.

Let’s talk a bit about those charts.  This first chart has two sections:  storms per year, and storms per year that hit the U.S.  There are also lines for the 5- and 20-year rolling averages.

The top part of the chart is the storms per year, and the bottom part is storms that hit the U.S.  Looking at the chart, there’s no doubt that recent hurricane activity is far out of the ordinary.  Even the 20-year rolling average shows a sharp uptick starting around 1995.  And in general we seem to be having quite a few more storms over the past 60 years than previously.  But there are a few things about the data that make me wonder how much I can trust it.

It’s interesting that, although the average number of storms increased sharply from 1935 to 1953 or so and then plateaued, the average number of storms hitting the U.S. doesn’t show a similar increase.  This makes me wonder if global weather patterns tend to cycle, pushing hurricanes towards the U.S. in some years and pushing them away in other years.  The other possible explanation is detection bias.  That is, it’s quite likely that prior to 1935 we just didn’t have the technology to detect hurricanes that didn’t hit any major population centers.  That wouldn’t explain the increase since 1995, but it certainly could explain the increase from 1935 to 1953.

The second chart shows average storm intensities, along with 5- and 20-year rolling averages.  Excel did a poor job of converting this graph to a .GIF.  Download the Excel file if you want more readable text.

I computed the average storm intensity by multiplying the number of tropical storms by 1, category 1 hurricanes by 2, etc., adding it all up and dividing by the total number of storms.  So if you had two tropical storms and three Category 1 storms in a year, the average intensity would be ((2 * 1) + (3 * 2))/5, or 1.6.  The 5- and 20-year averages summed the number of storms in each category, did the multiplication, and then divided by the total number of storms.  I didn’t fall for the “average of averages” trick.

The interesting thing about this chart is that recent average storm intensity is at or below the historical norm.  The high point in the 20-year rolling average is in the late 1960s.

I’m not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw here.  Well, I can draw one for sure:  the recent hurricane activity is way above normal.  Why we’re getting that activity is something I’ll leave to climate scientists.  Other than that, I just have questions.  Two in particular:

1. I am curious about the sharp increase from 1935 to the plateau starting in 1953.  The 20-year rolling average is almost completely flat from 1953 until 1995.  That’s pretty strange.
2. I’d sure like to know why the average number of storms hitting the U.S. doesn’t show an increase similar to the total number of storms.

I was a little surprised to find just how far current activity is from “normal.”  I expected it to be perhaps a little unusual.  I’m not yet ready to call it a trend, although if the next ten years are as active, I’ll start wondering what the heck is going on.

I’d be interested in any comments you have about the raw data, my methods, or my interpretations of the data presented.  I am not prepared, though, to have a discussion about what’s causing the recent spike in hurricane activity, because I haven’t yet seen a credible hypothesis.  The honest climate scientists have said that they don’t know yet.  Perhaps more on that another time.

So let’s say that you’re a musician on your way by airplane from Point A to Point C with a stop at Point B. Trusting the airlines to handle your luggage, you check your guitar. While sitting in the airplane at Point B you see the luggage handlers treating your guitar roughly, and when you arrive at Point C you learn that the guitar has been broken.

So you spend a year trying to convince the airline that they should make things right.  When your efforts fail and the airline says that their final response is “No,” you decide on a different plan of action.

Dave Carroll posted that video on July 6.  CNN reported on it two days later.  Since then, it’s been reported on several other major news networks and countless blogs.  Today, five days after the video was posted, it has over 2 million views.

As a coworker said, “never piss off a musician.”  I’m betting United Airlines wishes they had handled this differently.

It’s been a long trip—about two weeks longer than we expected it to be.  But that’s the way these things go sometimes.  Debra’s dad was in the hospital, in a rehab facility, in ICU after a procedure called kyphoplasty, and finally in a hospice facility where he’ll likely stay.

To say that it’s been a difficult time would be an understatement.  One of the most difficult parts has been dealing with bureaucracy.  So much so that I have said, more times than I care to remember, “The wheels of bureaucracy grind you under very slowly.”

I often release tension by blogging, but I don’t feel quite comfortable detailing what all we’ve been through in the last three weeks.  Perhaps some time from now, when emotions aren’t quite so high and I can reflect on things a bit more clearly.

One thing I’d like to mention, though, is that the ICU nurses do a very difficult and demanding job, sometimes while having to deal with uncooperative or even abusive patients and family members.  And yet they go about their tasks competently and seem to always have a smile.  I was so impressed with their work that I carved them a little bear in recognition of their efforts.

I don’t suppose the nurses are terribly impressed with my carving skill, but they seemed to appreciate the acknowledgment.

It’s 9:30 PM on Friday in Phoenix.  Debra and I will be on the road by 6:00 AM.  From where we are in the West Valley, it’s about 1,100 miles to home.  Figure 17 or 18 hours.  Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

The New York Pizza Department in Goodyear, AZ serves the best pizza I’ve had the privilege of enjoying in a very long time.  Of course, it takes 20 or 30 minutes to get the pizza once you order it, and it ain’t cheap.  But it’s good.  Debra especially liked the white pizza:  ricotta cheese, fresh tomatoes, fresh spinach, garlic, and mozzarella.  My pepperoni and sausage with fresh basil was quite good, too.  Highly recommended.

Debra saw a beer called Four Peaks Kiltlifter on the drink menu there at NYPD.  Always willing to try a new beer, I ordered one.  What a delight!  This beer has some very good flavor.  A little sweet, and a smoky flavor that at first reminds you of baker’s chocolate.  At 6% alcohol you probably don’t want to have more than two of them in a short period.  We’re going to buy at least a sixpack of this stuff to take home.  Maybe I can figure out how to duplicate it.  Again, highly recommended.

Another beer I recommend is Red Hook ESB.  It’s a lot more popular now than when I last had it several years ago, but it’s as good as I remember it.

There’s a Black Bear Diner here, just across the parking lot from the hotel.  Debra and I have eaten there three times now, enjoying our 10% hotel guest discount.  The service is definitely better than what you’ll get at the big chain pancake places, and the food is very good.  My only gripe is that the portions are huge.  Even the “smaller” portions are more than I normally eat in a single meal.  I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to find a Black Bear, but if there’s one nearby when I’m hungry, they’ll get my business.

Phoenix is crazy.  I thought the Austin area was overbuilt with new housing developments, shopping centers, and strip malls.  Austin has nothing on Phoenix.  Friday we drove the 101 freeway from Scottsdale to Peoria, skirting around the city on the north.  It was like driving through one huge shopping mall.

Saturday we drove out to Buckeye (20 miles west) through yet more shopping malls and strip centers.  There are plenty of new housing developments, some of which have a huge number of vacant houses.  I also saw many “Coming Soon” signs for retail or residential developments that have been abandoned in various stages of completion.

I think what surprises me most is that I can’t see how the number of new homes could even come close to supporting the glut of retail development we saw.  They overbuilt on an astonishing scale.  How they managed to forget the lessons of 20 years ago, when the Phoenix area was one of the hardest hit by the S&L crisis, is beyond me.  I suppose everybody was once again saying, “this time is different.”  It wasn’t.

We managed to arrive in Phoenix during NASCAR weekend.  Phoenix International Raceway is in Avondale, which is right next door to the city of Goodyear, where we want to stay.  But with the race, hotel rates are sky high:  the Super 8 Motel wants $155 per night!  We stayed the first two nights with family in Scottsdale, but it’s 50 miles from the hospital.  Last night we stayed with another family friend out west, but he doesn’t have Internet access and we really do need to be connected.  We’re hoping that we can get a reasonably priced hotel after tonight.

Right now I’m sitting in the Starbucks inside the Safeway grocery store in Goodyear, AZ, connected to their wireless.  Free wifi is a wonderful thing for checking email or making a blog entry, but I don’t think I could do any serious work here.

Debra and I are on our way to Phoenix, driving rather than flying because we’ll be there a week or so and will need a car to get around. We left home just before 6:00 this morning. We’ve covered the 650 miles from Round Rock to Las Cruces, NM in 10 hours. You can really eat up the miles on I-10 in West Texas with the 80 MPH speed limit.

Debra’s driving now while I check my email and make a blog entry using the Sprint Mobile Broadband connection supplied by the company she works for. It’s not especially fast, but we’ve had pretty good service throughout the trip. Ain’t technology wonderful?

It’s been 12 years since the last time I made this trip, and things have changed quite a bit. I’m especially interested in finding out more about the wind farm near Bakersfield, TX. There are hundreds (dare I say thousands?) of wind turbines lining the ridges along a 20+ mile stretch of I-10. With the speed of this Internet connection, it’d probably take me until my battery expires to find more info. So that’ll have to wait until I’m checked in at my hotel in Phoenix.

New road food: Doritos Toro Habanero chips. Yum!

Update:  It’s called Indian Mesa Wind Farm.  The Web site says that there are 125 turbines producing up to 83 megawatts.  I know I saw more than 125 turbines in that area.

1,050 miles.  16.5 hours.  I’m beat.