Friday, June 15, 2007

I recently received an email from my congressman asking what I felt was our top national priority. Here’s my response:

I believe that investing in alternative energy sources is incredibly important. Since the 80’s the world has found less oil and gas energy reserves each year than we consume each year. With demand for carbon-based fuels (oil) beginning to increase dramatically in China and India, worldwide demand will certainly far exceed supply driving the prices to genuinely hurtful levels (not $4.00 per gallon but $40.00 or more). We can already see China and India beginning to act politically to secure greater and greater supply. I believe that unless we find, distribute, and use alternatives to carbon-based-mobile-fuels, we will fight a world war with China before the middle of the century … probably within our lifetime.

Since bio-fuels made from corn or other food crops produce barely more energy than that required to produce them, I do not believe they are the answer. Plus, they have the downside of diverting food from areas of the world that are desperate for food. This widens the spread between well fed nations and starving ones. If bio-fuels really take off, desperately poor and starving countries will become worse off and may resort to a greater degree of political terrorism. Who can blame them? They have no other weapons and few options.

So what’s the answer? 1) Renewable energy, especially solar, wind and tidal energy; 2) Nuclear (mostly as a 50 year stop gap) – but re-engineered to be safer, and with a re-engineered waste disposal cycle; 3) Hydrogen as the mobile-fuel of the future, using hydrogen-suspension technology which would let us use today’s petroleum distribution infrastructure rather than building a new hydrogen distribution infrastructure; and 4) Relentless, aggressive conservation measures including a) legislatively mandated gas mileage increases, b) legislatively mandated penalties for equipment that consumes energy in passive (or stand-by) mode (e.g. the clock on your microwave oven consumes more energy than that used to cook food) c) aggressive building code standards to reduce residential and commercial energy consumption.

People are all fired up about Global Warming. The trouble with this is that it’s politically polarizing. Whether man is the culpret or not ... whether it matters that the world is warming or not ... WE MUST SOLVE THE ENERGY SUPPLY/DEMAND PROBLEM.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Politics
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Monday, June 11, 2007

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I’ve been out of the country for a few months and I’m just now digging out. While gone I had a chance to visit Malta. Why? Where’s Malta? And, did I see the Falcon? Why? Because it’s there, it’s beautiful, and it’s historically interesting. Where? Fly from Rome, across the middle of Sicily, and keep going ... you’ll run right into it. Oh, and if you get to Africa, you’ve gone too far.

Getting there was easy and cheap: Bus from Florence to Pisa; Ryan Air to Malta, cab or bus to the hotel. Total cost round trip was about $200 including 2 nights in a hotel. Add in food and it brought the total to about $300.

So this professor friend of mine, we’ll call him Dan, well ...  because that’s his name, is a professor of creative writing and especially poetry. Although I like a lot of his poetry very much, I often tease him about his not writing poetry that rhymes. All this is doubly interesting because we got to composing limericks while we were there. Malta turns out to be hard to rhyme. “There once was a girl from Malta,” and Dan’s next line included the word “butt” and ended with “Asphalta.” It could be Malta is as difficult to rhyme as Albania (Check out the movie Wag the Dog!.) So I took my turn ...

Admittedly that makes no sense, but it rhymes! One limerick lead to another and we laughed ourselves silly. Good food, good company, and a couple of pints will do it every time. I hope you enjoy the photos and commentary. I like this place.

And check out www.DigitalQuixote.com for more photos and commentary, including the Aborted Drug Deal and the MURDER.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Casual Travel
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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

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Photo ©2007 Carolyn R Porter All Rights Reserved

Just before Memorial Day, my daughter and son-in-law and I took our Ducati motorcycles over the Cascade mountains to the little town of Winthrop, and back. Why? Simply for the for the fun of the ride! And it was great fun. We stayed in the Duck Brand Hotel for the night. We ate $2 tacos and drank $2 pints of local brew at a funky bistro in town. And we left the following morning in a cloud of decibels. We dropped in on an old family friend in Chelan on the way home who dropped his jaw at the site of the 3 of us on our low-flying DUCs. Round trip: 423 miles.

Twisted Edge Publishing has a book called Destination Highways Washington which rates the 346 best roads for motorcyclists. US 20 from Rockport ot Winthrop is DH-1. It is, according to Destination Highways,

“A cornucopia of Twistiness ... tight, intense coils round the brilliant green-blue gems of Gorge, Diablo, and Ross Lakes before essing up into the mountains of the high, vast Pasayten Wilderness. Huge fast sweepers scale stunning alpine environs that rappel rapidly down the east side of the Cascades. Wide-shouldered Engineering and tip-top open-in-the-summer-only Pavement enhance the up-high Remoteness that is the soul of this road. Whether you take this DH as a challenge to you and your machine or simply cruise and enjoy the amazing Scenery, you’ll witness the road’s impeccable Character. You may also witness speed tax collectors at either end, though they seem to leave the pristine, central section unfouled.”

Twistiness: 30/30
Pavement: 16.6/20
Engineering: 9.1/10
Scenery: 13.2/15
Character: 15/15
Total Destination Highways Score: 92.3/100

WOW!!!

We had a Blast!

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Motorcycles
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Monday, May 28, 2007

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God bless my wife! She is a gardener and she works to make our yard beautiul. The photo above and those below are of Poppies in our yard, and Columbines, and Bees. This is way cool

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Out and About
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Saturday, May 26, 2007

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We made a quick visit to Anacortes, Washington to visit with some friends. Near sunset I took a photo of the harbor supporting the refinery at Anacortes. The Polar Resolution was in port. I learned that Exxon had renamed the Valdez the Polar Resolution after damage leading to the historic Alaskan oil spill was repaired. It is the ship to the right, blue hull with a white superstructure. I would guess it was a PR move to allow the ship to serve without damaging anyone’s reputation. In any event, before the evening was over she sailed empty, back toward Alaska for another load.

Fom the same spot overlooking the harbor, I also shot pictures of some Turkey Vultures riding the thermals over Cap Sante. Kind of cool looking down on them from the crest of the rock.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Out and About
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