Hanford 177

The Hanford Site, near Richland, WA, is where they refined uranium into plutonium for atomic bombs.  Its 625 square miles contained several manufacturing plants, housing for 45,000 workers, 8 reactors and numerous supporting structures.  It was deactivated in 1989 after 46 years of operation.  What remained were the byproducts, the most deadly radioactive chemicals and sludge ever created, stored in 177 huge underground tanks, many of which have leaked.  It's estimated that the tanks held 56 million gallons of waste, nearly 3 cups of glow-in-the-dark soup for every man, woman and child in the US. 

To my knowledge, no colored photos have been taken inside the tanks, at least none that have been released to the public.  So, we don’t know what those cauldrons of seething deadly brew look like.  They might look something like this.

 

Hanford 177

Acrylic on Canvas 16" x 20"

Mike Delaney  December, 2012

 

Given the season and the colors, another possible name comes to mind:

'Oops, I Dropped Christmas'

       

The Itch

HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS ITCH RUNS RAMPANT!

 

Nearly a Billion Infected!

The good news is that a cure has been discovered.  Without fail, the infected masses have found that joining a social network brings long lasting relief.

I've avoided the infection somehow, could be I'm immune.  I did join a social network though, because I was curious, "What's all the buzz about?"  What the hell, join up and find out.  So I did.  And, I'm glad I did - my curiosity is satisfied and I'm slightly less out of it than I would otherwise be.

Being uninfected means I have no desire to Tweet.  Nor, as I so subtly implied in my last post, am I the least bit driven to Like.  Being Linkedin is great for transporting convicted criminals but is otherwise unappealing.  Okay, enough badmouthing.  For now.  Linkedin is, at least conceptually, a great tool.  It's for professional networking, rather than social, and networking to find employers and customers and so on makes a lot of sense.  I've been out of the workforce for 20+ years and have no intention of getting back in so have no need to professionally network.

Fed up with being email-pestered by friends, I did finally join Linkedin a few months ago.  Now, I'm even more fed up by Linkedin emails announcing that, "Dan Delines is linkedin with Cherie Pitts."  Whoop do doo!  Although I wish Dan and Cherie all the best, I never met 'em, never even heard of  'em, the announcement of their freshly minted linkage a non-event of the first order.  Yesterday, I got another one of those emails.  The last one.  Today I Linked -out!

I remain on Facebook because it's my online Scrabble vehicle and I do love that game.  Unfortunately, the FB version freezes up every few seconds and irritates me no end, been waiting in vain for several weeks for the FB dipsticks to fix it.  Methinks it's time to find another Scrabble purveyor.  Oh yeah, sometimes when it's a really slow day - we're talking snail, turtle and slug slow here and those days are rare indeed - I scan the FB friend comments and become underwhelmed all over again.  I've been known to show my artwork on FB also.

Having now aired my highly jaundiced personal take on social networks, it's only fair to acknowledge that, having provided all that itch relief, social networks may have some merit.

The Epitome of Stupidity

The epitome of stupidity is the 'Like' feature on Facebook: 713 people like this!  Who gives a rat's ass?  The number of Likers might be of interest if we knew how many people didn't Like it.  Do all of the 7 billion people who didn't say 'Like', dis-Like?  I am the self-appointed spokesman for those 7 billion people, and I say "We're sick and tired of being discriminated against!  We demand equal rights!  We demand a 'Don't Like' option." 

No, no, no.  Cancel that.  We don't like 'Like', and by extension, we don't like 'Dislike' either.  The word 'like' has become one of the most hated words in the English language, thanks to its misuse, overuse and just plain abuse in Valleygirl-speak.  Talk about stupid!

Let's deep-six 'Like' altogether and go with something different: yea/nay, hurrah/boo, cool/yuck, love/hate, yes/no, for/against, +/-, smiley face/frown face.

It'll never happen, though.  You've heard the phrase 'follow the money' yes?  With popular websites, the money comes from advertising and there's tons of it.  Build yourself a website that gets a million hits a day and the ad people will flock to you like locusts, clutching bags of $ in both hands.  But - those ad people won't pay you a single penny if your website allows people to express dissatisfaction for their product or service.

So, we have to live with it.  But that doesn't mean we to have to Like it.

San Diego

San Diego

Yesterday we did the highway 75 loop, starting and ending in San Diego.  We drove through Coronado, which is actually an island, and Imperial Beach, stopping to view neat stuff and to consume our picnic lunch: barbecued salmon, Gouda cheese, fresh apple slices and crackers.

 

Hotel del Coronado

 When it opened in 1888, it was the largest resort hotel in the world.  Currently, it’s one of the largest and oldest all-wood structures in the US.  Lots of celebrities and presidents and sundry mucky-mucks have stayed here - not including Trish and I and Ranger.  The design is Late Victorian/Queen Anne.  You’ve gotta admire those British queens for their architectural achievements.

 

Surfer Dude at Imperial Beach

We stopped here and had our picnic lunch, sitting on the bench beyond Surfer Dude.  The Dude kinda looks like me don’t you think?  Back before my hair reversed course and came out my ears?  Back when I had fabulous abs, the 6-pack belly?  Back before my wrinkles had wrinkles?  Not so much?  C'mon, use your imagination.

 

 

San Diego Bay Walk

This is in the downtown area, great place to stroll and people watch.  The weird looking trees may be California Buckeye but I wouldn’t bet on it.  Anybody out there know what they are?

Balboa Park

Balboa Park

At 1200 acres, it’s one of the largest and best city parks in the world.  It’s called an Urban Cultural Park which is an apt description.  The San Diego Zoo may be the most famous component but there’s also a mind boggling assortment of other goodies: 15 major museums, numerous performing arts venues, and several impressive gardens, each with a different theme.  Depending on your interests, you could easily spend a week or more here.  If you’ve never been, put it on your bucket list. 

 

International expostions were held here in 1915/16 and 1935/36.  Named respecitively the Panama-California Expo and the California Pacific Intl Expo, virtually all of the buildings were built for those 2 events.  The older group is Spanish Renaissance, the newer group Southwest, architechturally speaking.    

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Yesterday, we visited the botanical building and a few gardens.  Given the pleasant weather, we weren’t inclined to spend time in the museums or other indoor attractions.  Besides, we’re cheapskates; most gardens are free, museums and shows are not.  The pix below include several impressive plants, most of which I’d seen before, few of which I can name.  Most plants have little name tags stuck in the dirt nearby, but I neglected to make note of them.  Shame on me.

 

Lily Pond and Botanical Building

 

Inside Botanical Building, split leaf philodendron or monsterosa plant?

 

I've seen smaller versions of this around LHC.  It's a desert plant, don't know its name.

 

 

I beg your pardon..........

 

 

Willie S said a rose by any other name..........

 

Works for me.

 

This is a petunia.

 

Southwest desert garden, hundreds of fine specimens of cacti and succulents.

 

Sweet Horse Pucky

She: "Oh my God, have you tasted the water?"

Me: "Pretty sweet, huh?"

She: "You kidding? If Ranger found a puddle of this stuff on the floor, he'd roll around in it!"  (I've yet to see a dog that didn't love rolling around in manure, rotting carcasses and the like.)

Sweetwater Regional Park, where we are now sitting in our RV, should have sweet water, yes?  Not!  I can handle it, have drunk worse stuff lots of times and was thankful to get it.  Not so, Trish.  We'll be buying 2-3 gallons of drinking water today.  Okay, I'll admit it: I'd prefer not to drink the stuff either.

This park is near San Diego and we're here because we're spending Thanksgiving with my sons, Tod and Adam, and their family.  They live in Santee.  And, we're going to spend 3 days seeing some of the SDO sights, the ocean front sights in particular.  We drove over from LHC yesterday, will be spending 5 nights here.

Speaking of manure, why is that dog owners must pick up after their dog but horse owners don't?  Across the road from us, in the parking area beside the restrooms, resides a respectable array of horse turds - or apples if you prefer.  Said apples are not in the handicapped parking slot, so neither horse nor owner can use that excuse - not that it would be an acceptable excuse anyway.

Ranger wouldn't take a dump on the pavement, knows it wouldn't be the right thing to do.  Granted, dogs are smarter than horses.  Maybe dog owners are smarter than horse owners, too.  Or, maybe horse owners just don't give a shit.

2 More Laws

Just remembered another couple laws I'd love to see enacted and I'm betting 99% of all Americans would love to see them, also. 

First: Campaigns are limited to the 30-day period immediately preceding the election.

Second: Political ads are totally banned on radio and television.

These should be made into law at all levels of government.  No matter the level of government, we elect people to do a specific job.  Is campaigning one of the tasks listed in their job descriptions?  Darn well shouldn't be.  Are they performing well and in a timely manner the tasks that are part of their job description while they're on the campaign trail?  In some cases, I'm sure they are.  But I fear that in many cases, they most definitely are not.

It may come as a surprise (it was to me when first I became aware of it, some time back) that my 2 proposed laws have been the law of the land in the UK for some time.  This brief article from the Chicago Tribune, dated May 14, 2010, describes the UK process.

Last week, Conservative Party leader David Cameron ousted Gordon Brown as prime minister of the United Kingdom. On Tuesday, Brown resigned his post and Cameron moved to No. 10 Downing St. The campaign lasted one month and virtually nothing was spent by either campaign, compared with U.S. standards.
The national election in the U.K. should be a wake-up call to Americans.
Campaign spending in this country is out of control.
In the 2008 presidential race, the candidates spent a total of $1.7 billion, double what was spent in the 2004 race. In the U.K. election, a spending cap of 20 million pounds, about $33 million, was imposed on each of the major parties. Of course, campaigns there are less expensive partly because of a ban on paid radio and TV advertising or any ads on matters of "political or industrial controversy."

This article was reprinted without permission, which means I'll probably go to jail.  But hey, no sacrifice is too great for my faithful readers!