Here comes the sun …

That photo shows a parking lot in Germany. The parking spaces are covered with arrays of solar collectors which in addition to shading the cars, produce electricity.  With a little more reading it turns out Germany is a world leader in solar energy after abandoning nuclear power following the problems at the Japanese reactors after last year's earthquake and tsunami.

In May, German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour during peak midday hours over two days.  That's an output equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity.

The process of building the solar and wind energy industries created 500,000 new jobs since the effort to eliminate nuclear power generation.

This could be happening in the United States as well, but for one difference in the two economies.  Perhaps it can be pinpointed with the answer to one question. Quickly, can you name one international German oil company?  No? Bet you they can name Exxon there.  Without a huge oil influence on government, the door to renewable energy swings open on (sigh) better lubricated hinges.

Take that influence out of our own government and perhaps the United States could also become a world leader in alternative energy.  There is a start here in Alaska, even, with a wind farm going up on an island off Anchorage which is expected to supply a percentage of the city's power supply.  In fact, the wind farm on Fire Island in Cook Inlet performed its first generation Aug. 30 during a test of two turbines and delivered 3 million watts into the local power grid. Here's the story.

Still in a state that lives off the oil industry it is looked at as a cute little side track on the road to energy independence. Alaska seems to want to destroy what is left of this last frontier, a misnomer any more, in the constant pressure to increase oil production and not waste a lot of time with these greenie pipe dreams.  Go ask Germany about those pipe dreams.  Hmmm what do you call them when you don't need pipe anymore to move your energy fuels.

What the Germans have done is show the world this is possible on a large scale and can gradually eliminate the use of fossil and nuclear fuels, reduce the country's dependence on foreign fuel sources and do it while adding jobs to the economy.

All we have to do is elect officials who represent people instead of the oil industry.  Is it that difficult?

Germany sets solar power generation record

Alaska wildfire as spectator sport

A friend posted that saying from a site called "Born in the Barn" on Facebook today.  She lives in Idaho and has been anxiously watching the major wildfires burning there this past week.  The posting reminded me of an  incident several years ago on the shores of Prince William Sound in Alaska.

This will take a bit of geography to explain.  Valdez, Alaska, is an ocean port in Prince William Sound.  The town is nestled tightly against the Chugach Mountains which begin their rise right behind the high school on the northern limits of the street grid.  The climate is almost rain forest, though Valdez at the northern limits of the sound is a bit cooler than the rest of the area.  As a result of the rainfall associated with the climate the area very seldom experiences wildfire.  Also, isolated as it is, with one road in and out of town, two commercial flights a day and otherwise boat travel, there is little to be offered in the way of spectator entertainment.  The closest thing the town has to a mall is three stores in the same building. Until, that is, one summer night in the late nineties when the area had experienced an unusual dry spell.

I had picked up a woman friend on the way to another friend's birthday barbecue and had stopped at a store while she went in to buy something or other she needed.  The way I parked my truck, I was looking at the mountain behind the high school.  As I sat there I saw a flash of light behind the school.  Kids were always climbing that steep slope to paint a large bare rock above the school, usually with the year number of the current graduating class.  (Later we heard but never confirmed it was kids with spray paint lighting a match to the paint as they sprayed that started the fire.)

The flash didn't stop, instead the light started climbing the slope, rapidly.  A wildfire is about the last thing to come to mind in that climate.  A UFO would have been a more likely guess for a strange light climbing toward the sky.

But, by the time my friend came out of the store, it had reached almost to the ridge.  At a higher elevation, it contacted our usual afternoon westerly sea breeze and the wind pushed it eastward along the mountain.  By then I had realized it indeed was a wildfire.

This event was not to be wasted.  Instead of heading immediately to the party, we drove to the end of a street that stopped in a cul-de-sac at a large park.  The spot gave us an excellent view of the whole mountainside.  I backed the truck against the curb.  In the back I had lawn chairs and some drinks for the party.  We set up the chairs in the truck bed, popped a couple of cans and prepared to watch the biggest spectator event to hit the town since the drive-in movie against a snow bank the previous winter.

As we watched and sipped our beers, the fire continued to spread along the side of the mountain leaving kind of a blackened line in its wake.  By the time the leading edge had burned maybe half a mile, we heard an airplane approach.  It made one pass along the face of the mountain then flew a circle and came back from the original direction.  This time it dispensed half a dozen parachutes, smoke jumpers, and they guided themselves toward the fire. Across the park and from nearby back yards we heard a couple of cheers from other spectators.  

Once on the ground, though we couldn't make them out in the brush, they went to work.  Within a couple of hours they had the fire all but extinguished.  Obviously this wasn't a large fire compared with those in Idaho this week or many that burn in Alaska over a normal summer.  But, this one had entertainment value.  When the white smoke indicating the fire was on the way to extinguishment (is that a word?) we folded up the chairs, carefully hid our empty cans and drove off to the party, having as I said, been there to see the biggest spectator event of the summer.

It's the customers, stupid

This separation of wealth issue has been troubling for longer than the current situation.  As far back as the sixties when I learned the salaries of people in Congress, I wondered how someone who makes $200,000 year could possibly relate to and represent someone who makes much less.  As it turns out not very well, considering the gap has grown since then as fewer people accumulate more of the country's wealth while the rest of us find our meager salaries (relative to the 1%) have less and less buying power. 

Almost immediately when it came around, I realized what a crock trickle-down economics was.  The country survived it, but today it is worse than ever.  I chose a path that didn't emphasize accumulation of wealth (ha, that part of it worked) so, some of my complaints could be difficult to defend, but still I am not the only one this issue troubles.  Now it has reached a point where only one or two percent of Americans control the lion's share of the country's wealth.  What is new is the attacks on working people and the poor although as far back as Jean Paul Marat, who said the poor will always be poor, it has been the norm.

Public employees, unions, people on welfare, or too ill and poor to afford health care are actually targets.  All this has been hashed over and over so there's no reason to grind it up again here.

What's new is another facet of a failing economy that came to mind while on a long drive the other day. As fewer and fewer people gain more and more of the wealth and the less fortunate have to scratch to survive, that seems to be a deadly facet of the current situation because an economy succeeds on the basis of some people making things and some people buying things.  As the separation grows, there are fewer and fewer consumers to buy the products that keep the economy rolling.  Demand drops, product makers lay off more workers and the problem mushrooms as more and more people join the ranks of non-consumers.

The purchasing by one or two percent of the population cannot sustain the economy.  I mean, you can only buy so much stuff no matter how much money you have.  So, Mitt Romney has so many houses he couldn't even remember what state was his legal residence when he ran for governor of Massachusetts.  Sure the construction and upkeep of those houses employs a few people, but the sustained jobs are at minimum wage.  The Walton family gains immense wealth, but their own employees can't afford to shop even in their cheap stores without the help of food stamps.  One day we are going to wake up and there will be nobody to buy stuff except the misers who only buy money and then hide it in the Bahamas and Switzerland.  The silliest example I can think of is porn star Jenna Jamison came out to support Romney because he doesn't want to tax the rich and she is rich.  Is this one of the few cases in modern times where the rich got screwed?

As one pundit has put it recently, it isn't the rich who keep business buzzing along, it is the customers.  And now, the people most dependent on customers are killing them off.  All of it sounds like economic suicide.

So what do we do?  I went through the couch cushions to see if I could find enough change to buy "The Hunger Games" DVD that was released today. Just doing my part to keep buying stuff and the economy rolling along. But in the movie, did I see the seeds of change?

Random thoughts on the shoulders of life

Red salmon move up a roadside stream.

A three-car accident stopped traffic on the Glenn Highway, the only highway north out of Anchorage yesterday right at the height of rush hour.  We all sat there in the hot sun waiting almost two hours before the trucks could clear it and police could finish their investigation.  It recalled something I had seen, a TV commercial in which a beautiful woman caught in the same situation looks ahead and sees a semi tractor trailer with a huge sign on it advertising Magnum ice cream bars.

Moose lunch

In the commercial she climbs over cars until she reaches the truck and persuades the driver to open the trailer and give her an ice cream bar. I chanced to look over at the bag of groceries I had just bought on the way home and what's on top? A box of Magnum ice cream bars.  Hmm.   I pulled it out and leaned out the window and raised the box as high as I could and still see the rearview mirror.  Nothing.  In that heat the ice cream was not going to last long so I had to bring the box back in before I lost it. I guess a tractor trailer full of ice cream with a huge sign is more attractive than my little Jeep and a box of six mini bars.  Maybe size does matter.

Ready to move

Other things on the shoulders of highways:  The house in the picture is on the lot  one downriver from the house that is tipping into the Matanuska River.  The owner has it all raised and blocked up ready to move.  Planning ahead does work.

Then there was that moose in the bull rushes just munching away on lily pads. 

And, a few red salmon have sneaked into the spawning pool right next to the highway between here and town.

Old gray water, keep on rolling, Matanuska moon gonna shine its ever-loving light on me

July 23, 2012

August 15, 2012

Here's one of those "what's-different-in-the-pictures" puzzles.  The one on the left was taken July 23, the one on the right August 15.  What's going on is s Alaska's Matanuska River has been running high all summer due to the melt off from the heavy snow last winter and a pretty rainy July.  Along about 15-20 miles of it from Sutton north of Palmer to a few miles south of Palmer it has been eroding the bank at a pretty fast pace.

At least one home has been threatened near Sutton; the owner has been in the news several times trying to save as much as he can.

August 31

This place is south of Palmer between town and where I live.  I was driving by July 23 when I saw emergency vehicles and a group of people putting sandbags in the yard to protect the buildings.  Later the owner put in rock rip-rap apparently hoping to make the protection more permanent.  Unfortunately you can't stop the river undercutting the bank without a major operation.  The owner discovered there was a problem this morning when he saw that his septic tank was missing.  Good grief,  were there no warnings or attempts to save things before that?  Septic tanks are not light, it took some time for that thing to get flushed out.

Of course the house is tipping,  but look at all the forest that had already disappeared.  I am hoping the fuel tank was taken out of there before it could go too.  That's a 300-gallon tank and if it was full of fuel oil what a mess it would make of a salmon stream.

One thing, you have to give credit to Alaska builders. That building has to be hell for stout, hanging over a cliff like that without breaking up.  How many times have we seen on the news houses caught in landslides and breaking apart.  Given how strong it looks, a friend and I were wondering why someone isn't trying to save it.  There could be way,  we were thinking huge straps like on marine travel lifts and pulled by a sizeable bulldozer, but there may be other ways too.  I will keep an eye on it and update if anything new happens.

A BIT OF AN UPDATE:  The fuel tank was found on a gravel bar in the river.  The young couple who own the house haven't the money for any kind of recovery of the building.  Insurance won't pay until it is damaged.  No help from government.  Some worry that if it remains intact when it falls into the river, there are two road bridges and a railroad bridge downstream that it could damage.  There should be some Alaska type of help for them but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Another update.   

All in all an event of Olympic proportions

Successful landing of Curiosity on Mars also was an
event of Olympic proportions.

For the first time in my life, I have been able to watch almost as much of the Olympics as are available on TV.  Through life I have always been in school, or working or off on a boat somewhere and haven't had this opportunity before.

Part of the enjoyment has been seeing many of the London landmarks in the context of streets and geography, something new for me.  The marathons were especially good for that.

Over the course of the games I have been writing down thoughts and observations and considering this is the last day, it's probably time to post them.

Years ago a friend in the news business said he always liked to listen carefully to sports announcers and weathermen, because of the stupid things they often say.  I picked up a few during the Olympics:  (of course they are out of context)

"Aley and Gabby are capable of winning.  It's going to come down to performance, that's all there is to it."  Really?

"That's great playership on the part of Navarro."  Playership?

"The USA is running on adrenaline.  This is their sixth game."  Announcer at the gold medal women's soccer game.  Um, like Japan wasn't also in their sixth game and running on adrenaline?

"It's warm out there, particularly hot in the sun."  Again, really?

"Well, they're either going to win or they're going to lose."  No kidding.

"It could go either way." (score was 2-2)  Again, really?

On to other subjects:

The French women won a big basketball game and had a group hug in celebration. The star came running out of it and she had lipstick smears all over both cheeks.  Lipstick?  They wear makeup in these games?  A friend who is from London and a makeup guerrilla said, of course, for European women appearance is everything.  Love it.  I notice that to be true in other sports too, and not just gymnastics.

There is a Scottish rock bagpipe band called the Red Hot Chile Pipers.

How was Russia allowed to go to Pandora and recruit an Avatar for their women's volleyball team?

Early on I noticed some rectangular reddish patches on the backs of  some of the Chinese divers.  Then I saw them on others and some tape as well.  I wondered were half the Olympians quitting smoking?  But, turns out they are called kiniseotape and are for relief of strained, sore muscles.  One study said it was not certain that they work, but the tape and patches seemed to be the style du jour for this year.  If they do work, they probably will be banned in time for the Rio games.

Why do women's volleyball teams have to have a group hug after every point?  USA basketball teams didn't even do that after whole games until they won gold.

Doe it bother anyone else that foreign corporations sponsor and talk about "Our" Olympians.  BP was the most offensive, but Samsung was in there and a couple of others.

What was the purpose of the remote control model car running around the infield during the women's 400-meter final?  It looked like a Mini-Cooper, which was one of the sponsors of the TV broadcasts.

And then there's my own ignorance showing.  Some sports I was surprised to find in the Olympics:

Handball:  when I heard about that I pictured a big room with four walls and two guys slapping a ball around.  I had never seen the team sport played in the Olympics.

Synchro diving:  What?

And, BMX bikes.  Where have I been?

And after that some high points:

This Olympics may mark the day after a lifetime of ignoring soccer, that I came to enjoy it (and sort of understand it, too).  Particularly watching the American women in that epic game with Canada, but in a couple of others as well, I began to get excited about it, and see the organization and strategies on the field -- oops -- pitch.  Anyway American women's soccer was interesting and exciting.

Who could not love Missy Franklin's innocent enthusiasm along with her success in the pool, not to mention the viral video she and her teammates produced.

There was the USA basketball team against Nigeria which was a blowout game but set several Olympics records, including doubling the one for the number of three-pointers in a game. Afterward one of the Nigerian players asked Kobe Bryant to autograph his shoe.

And speaking of Kobe, seeing him in the stands at several non-basketball events, including getting stuck at the longest tennis match in Olympic history and having to forego other sports he'd had on his schedule that day.

And there were inspirational moments.

Paul McCartney singing "Hey Jude" at the opening ceremony. 

South African Oscar Pistorius, the first double amputee running on artificial legs competed and qualified for the 400 meters finals. And then, the eventual winner Kirani James of Grenada, asked to trade name tags with him.

You could almost see in Aly Raisman's eyes the energy she was drawing form the clapping audience as she performed her floor exercise to the tune of "Hava Nagila."


The presentation of John Lennon's ode to peace, "Imagine" at the closing ceremony.

Any complaints?  Just one.  The TV guide said the men's basketball gold medal game was at 6 this morning.  So I set my alarm and got up to watch it.  After the game and a nap I went back to the television around noon only to find the men's gold medal basketball game starting.  I wouldn't have minded waiting for the rerun on that one.

Can haphazard be a concept?

In context: the poppy among its
neighboring flowers.

The concept of a haphazard garden has become more intriguing as more odd flowers show up in the patch where I threw the seeds.  Had a wild idea to buy several bags of them next year, throw them into the garden and call it a wash.  That probably won't happen but it is a thought.  At any rate, this tall poppy showed up today and some other flowers are growing in there.

The case of the red peas

Then, too, there are the surprise peas.  Those strange red flowers among the other pea vines are also peas.  There are pods on the plants.  A friend who knows about these things suggested the original seeds I used had been manipulated and when that happens sometimes there are throwbacks to the original variety and that is probably what the red ones are.  There are more of them now and another patch elsewhere in the garden.  Like I said, haphazard.

Meanwhile back to the mysteries of a haphazard garden

Recurrent Illium

Finally dragged myself out of the house for a few minutes today and found some surprises.  One mystery solved and yet another posed.

Random wildflowers.

First a solution. Those strange plants at the west end of the pea mesh finally bloomed and can now be identified as illium that grew back from last year's planting.  Those are the bunch of orange flowers in the picture.  So, that one's solved.

When I started this year I threw a bunch of mixed wildflower seeds into a bare spot among the trees just in front of the garden.  That field of blossoms is what developed.  A few of them also grew around the new street marker.  I will spend some more time with that next year.

Now the new mystery.  Among the pea plants there is one that doesn't belong. It is just as high as most of the others but it has a stouter stem, different leaves and red flowers instead of white.  Could a different variety somehow gotten mixed up with what I bought or did some usurper sneak into the garden.  Remains to be seen what will come of it.  That's the picture with the red flower among the peas.

Strange red among the pea plants.