The Bar 2014 Edition

[fernley1]

Wow, what an interesting day at the bar.
So many good stories, great replys, so inviting.
Thanks.

Free drinks for everybody.

[tatonka]

if the bar ever closes , I know of a place to get moonshine

[media]

[magicmarty]

Sav, I read you account aloud to a few in my office this afternoon. Very impressive indeed. I second what the others had to say. I too am happy to have met you at the MnG this year. I'm in love again!

[trilobyte]

Oh, I don't think that mine was open to the public at any point in my lifetime. My grandfather was something of a rockstar engineer and land surveyor, and was there in some kind of official capacity. Someone at the mine was either doing him a solid or trying to bend over backwards to impress him, we got a pretty full court tour from what I remember.

Yikes, Savannah, that's quite an experience. Cheers to you for turning it around.

[^Rhino!]

Trilo< I got you an interesting link on the place:

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/an ... th-detroit

They started mining it again in 1998 for road salt. No cockroaches or rodents down there, too.

[ygmir]

*strolls in, makes CCC*
Hi gang!
well, it got down to 24 this morning here. I'm just hoping I got my houseplants ( I put them outside for summer) in, in time. they look sorta angry or sad...

I wish I had the luxury of wandering the desert again, like I did in years past. We'd go at least twice per month, every month, and range up to 700 miles in a day (20 hour days at times). Sure saw some cool stuff out there, some of course, left where it was, because "that's where it belongs", or because it was too big for me to move.
Mostly now, all I have is stories of "back then" instead of recent adventures. Had a great mentor, too. He'd been doing the same thing, for 40 years. He'd seen the famous "Midas forest" of petrified (agatized) trees, up to 80' long, laying like matchsticks on eachother. One summer, a company came out with trucks and lifts and took the whole thing. It was very similar to the wood from the petrified forest in AZ. Very colorful.
Nearby, I dug up a 30' log, but it was about 2' diameter, and I couldn't move it without breaking it up, so, just took a few pics and re-buried it.

[Elorrum]

It's cold here too. Don't know what the low was, but thermometer says 34 now, and there was a freeze warning in effect last night. I'm home today, finally got a scheduled day off, and am celebrating by reveling in my nice new head cold. I've got some nice soup in the freezer, and will enjoy that. I'm going to move some furniture I have to move with winter and summer, back to being in front of the air conditioning, and away from the wall heater. This is the first time I've really felt the need for heat so far this year. I think I'll rummage around for the draft blocker as well. Then some naps.
oh let's light a fire.

[Dr. Pyro]

I don't mind being mistaken for 25.

Yes, but in three years from now when you are 25 you might feel somewhat differently.

[ygmir]

I don't mind being mistaken for 25.

Yes, but in three years from now when you are 25 you might feel somewhat differently.

so smooth.........

[unjonharley]

That cop was just chicky checking...

[trilobyte]

I hear ya, Yggy, I miss the desert too. I've got a couple chunks of the petrified forest around here someplace - when I went through in 2002 we weren't allowed to take anything from the national forest preserve area, but I stopped at a Navajo place nearby and they had a bunch of stuff on offer. They had some big full logs and beautiful big slices, but what I ended up taking were just a couple little chunks about the size of my head. Have you ever been to Death Valley? Of all the desert-y spots I've been, that one was probably the most awesome and beautiful, especially the little 'painter's palette' area.

[ygmir]

yeah Trilo, that whole area probably has the same wood, just maybe buried a little more. That wood is recognizable to me, at almost a glace. Very unique.

and no, I've been by Death Valley, but never stopped. I'd love to see it sometime.

[trilobyte]

That palette area... has pretty unique geology that results in the rock walls being nearly every color of the rainbow in this one spot, it looks almost like it's been covered in paint. I wish I had been able to take more time going through, that would have been a fun place to explore.

[Ratty]

Savanah, Good on ya. You handled it with aplomb AND got a ride to work. I remember every police encounter and love having the stories to tell.

Crypto, The gas, (or lack of oxygen), killed a lot of the people. Slooooowly.

[Captain Goddammit]

The thermometer on the fence in the back yard here in a suburb just outside Seattle says 20… it's COLD out!
The playa seems so far away… (although it's just as cold or colder there right now!)

[AntiM]

Single digit temps this morning here. Eek. Although there was sun on one side of the sky and thin snow falling from the other. look like drifting diamond dust.

Underground places sound so fascinating, but they don't suit me. I think my asthma settled in after they sent us into a tunnel on Yokosuka base to clear out an old office, and there were rafts of white mold hanging from the walls like insulation, and black mold like carpeting. Ick.

[ygmir]

Savanah, Good on ya. You handled it with aplomb AND got a ride to work. I remember every police encounter and love having the stories to tell.

Crypto, The gas, (or lack of oxygen), killed a lot of the people. Slooooowly.

I love elevator humor

[theCryptofishist]

Crypto, The gas, (or lack of oxygen), killed a lot of the people. Slooooowly.

You're suggesting they climbed on the rafts (from where?) and then died of gas? Did the pumice continue to outgas after it cooled?

[forty_eight]

i've been looking in the window for pages and pages

enjoying the recent stories

i'll see if i can find a stool

[Aurelia]

Death Valley was a teaching moment

had no money to entertain the fam so we often trekked around

different times of the year..showing itself briefly..after a long secret time with a spasm of color

[^Rhino!]

Crypto, The gas, (or lack of oxygen), killed a lot of the people. Slooooowly.

You're suggesting they climbed on the rafts (from where?) and then died of gas? Did the pumice continue to outgas after it cooled?

Volcanic outgassing consists normally of three components - carbon dioxide, water as steam, and hydrogen sulfide. It doesn't take a lot of hydrogen sulfide to kill you. Any gas that's superheated will kill you, and you can also asphyxiate with a high enough concentration of carbon dioxide.

What's worse, all those components plus volcanic ash blew out of Krakatoa to create a pyroclastic flow. When one of those hits water, it travels across the water on a 'cushion' of steam, like an air hockey puck on an air hockey table.

Take your pick....none of these are a nice way to friggin' DIE.

[theCryptofishist]

I'm not talking about ways to die, however, and nobody has to tell me that all that heat is going to be destructive. But I still don't understand how dead people got on pumice rafts. Or how pumice rafts got under dead people.

[Elorrum]

Was everything thrown up into the air, and some came down people side up, some came down... people side down.

[theCryptofishist]

Possibly. I'm not convinced, but it's the best idea I've heard.

Of course, there's always, the only people who know are dead, but I'd least like to know that it puzzled other people. If for no other reason than there's nothing like a question like that to make you lose confidence in an author.

[^Rhino!]

Crypto, think of it this way - the volcanic eruption was not a one-second single event. Most volcanoes erupt for DAYS. They're spewing ash and gases the whole time.

The frothy pumice at the surface was the only thing left safely floating after the initial eruption. People who had been knocked out of or jumped out of boats (sometimes even burning boats) grabbed on to the pumice as someplace "safe", thought they could breathe again, and died as the volcano continued to spew ash and noxious gases.

[^Rhino!]

Oh, and by the way, our own Captain Goddammit was AT Krakatoa.

Other folks wanted him to stay and he just looked sullen at them, said, "I'm the Captain, Goddammit" and motored the land yacht (still a sea yacht then) out of range in the nick of time.

And a legend was born.

[Savannah]

I don't mind being mistaken for 25.

Yes, but in three years from now when you are 25 you might feel somewhat differently.

so smooth.........

The man haz skills!

[Captain Goddammit]

I was lusting after you because you don't look a day over 13!


oh that didn't come out right...

[lucky420]

Yeah that came out wrong, real wrong

[Savannah]