03 March 2013
When It Rains, It Pours
03/03/13 09:47
And this week it did. Pour that is. We had what they call a Pineapple Express blow in. That’s a storm that comes in from the southwest bringing in heavy warm rain. They start out near Hawaii which is an amazingly fortunate coincidence, considering the name and gain strength as they travel across thousands of kilometres of warm Pacific water. We got something like 40 millimetres of rain in one day. For those of you still using imperial measurements that’s around 1/48 of a fathom.
And speaking of massive amounts of water from unknown origin, from what we hear there has been a lot of angst south of the border. Apparently Budweiser is being sued for watering down their beer.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/02/27/business-beer-budweiser.html
Once we stopped laughing hysterically over this we did have a thought. If proven I think they should then check to see if they’re watering it down with unfiltered Mississippi River water. Or maybe post BP water from the Gulf. I mean, I’ve always thought there was something wrong with Budweiser and this would prove it. If Bud is “The King of Beers” then this just shows what’s wrong with the monarchy.
Down the street they are still working on that new house. They’ve gotten as far as excavating for the basement and foundation. I had noticed something very interesting about the big hole they’d dug. Early this week, between rainstorms I walked over and took a closer look. I found this:
Note how the bottom is different from the sides of the pit
Closer you can see the sudden change from normal soil to the grey
This is what the grey stuff looks like close up. No clay, no plant parts, very fine grained and only containing random bits of stone.
At the top is a fairly normal brown clay. Abruptly at the bottom it changes to a grey exceedingly fine sand. It’s not quite a sandstone yet but it is very solid and I suspect significantly older than the soil above. Also, where the clay also has lots of roots and sticks in it, the grey stuff is nearly pristine, with just a few round stones and no shells or plant parts or organics at all. It’s odd stuff. I spent half an hour wandering around the muddy pit investigating the geology. Well to be honest, I was just looking at dirt. I probably should have worn my gardening shoes because the next day I ended up tracking dirt all over the office at work. In hindsight perhaps ‘very interesting’ might have been a bit strong, but it was totally worth it. At heart I’m still a Geologist.
In local news Barbara’s car is out of commission. The (original) battery has died. She can get the car towed to the garage, but needs a ride back. Unfortunately between rehearsals, and work and Block and tutoring and Catnap, and random bouts with colds we haven’t been able to get over to help her. We did take her shopping Sunday, but the garage is closed so we couldn’t get her car taken care of.
Fun Fact: Did you know that steel I beams used in construction are called “Double-T beams” in Poland? Ah, those Poles...
One bit of good news. At the end of February, Marsha was at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Useit Store. They were having a silent auction for an assortment of decorator items in one display case so she put in a bid on one. She ended up winning a nice little three gallon crock. It is marked Medalta on the side but other than that we know nothing about it. As I paid for it... Wait, it just hit me. Marsha saw it and posted the bid, and won the crock but I had to pay for it. Somehow I think I got the short end on this. Anyway as I paid for it the clerk commented that we’d gotten a great deal on it as “Some of these go for as much as a thousand dollars”. Possibly but I seriously doubt that THIS one would. Oh it’s in good shape and all, no cracks or chips or anything, but it’s just a crock.
We got our taxes done. The Canadian ones are in, they were submitted electronically, but the US ones need to get signed and enveloped, and stamped and mailed. Very glad to get that done each year.
So that’s it for this week. A little disjointed I know but that’s the way this week’s gone.
Doug & Marsha
And speaking of massive amounts of water from unknown origin, from what we hear there has been a lot of angst south of the border. Apparently Budweiser is being sued for watering down their beer.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/02/27/business-beer-budweiser.html
Once we stopped laughing hysterically over this we did have a thought. If proven I think they should then check to see if they’re watering it down with unfiltered Mississippi River water. Or maybe post BP water from the Gulf. I mean, I’ve always thought there was something wrong with Budweiser and this would prove it. If Bud is “The King of Beers” then this just shows what’s wrong with the monarchy.
Down the street they are still working on that new house. They’ve gotten as far as excavating for the basement and foundation. I had noticed something very interesting about the big hole they’d dug. Early this week, between rainstorms I walked over and took a closer look. I found this:
Note how the bottom is different from the sides of the pit
Closer you can see the sudden change from normal soil to the grey
This is what the grey stuff looks like close up. No clay, no plant parts, very fine grained and only containing random bits of stone.
At the top is a fairly normal brown clay. Abruptly at the bottom it changes to a grey exceedingly fine sand. It’s not quite a sandstone yet but it is very solid and I suspect significantly older than the soil above. Also, where the clay also has lots of roots and sticks in it, the grey stuff is nearly pristine, with just a few round stones and no shells or plant parts or organics at all. It’s odd stuff. I spent half an hour wandering around the muddy pit investigating the geology. Well to be honest, I was just looking at dirt. I probably should have worn my gardening shoes because the next day I ended up tracking dirt all over the office at work. In hindsight perhaps ‘very interesting’ might have been a bit strong, but it was totally worth it. At heart I’m still a Geologist.
In local news Barbara’s car is out of commission. The (original) battery has died. She can get the car towed to the garage, but needs a ride back. Unfortunately between rehearsals, and work and Block and tutoring and Catnap, and random bouts with colds we haven’t been able to get over to help her. We did take her shopping Sunday, but the garage is closed so we couldn’t get her car taken care of.
Fun Fact: Did you know that steel I beams used in construction are called “Double-T beams” in Poland? Ah, those Poles...
One bit of good news. At the end of February, Marsha was at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Useit Store. They were having a silent auction for an assortment of decorator items in one display case so she put in a bid on one. She ended up winning a nice little three gallon crock. It is marked Medalta on the side but other than that we know nothing about it. As I paid for it... Wait, it just hit me. Marsha saw it and posted the bid, and won the crock but I had to pay for it. Somehow I think I got the short end on this. Anyway as I paid for it the clerk commented that we’d gotten a great deal on it as “Some of these go for as much as a thousand dollars”. Possibly but I seriously doubt that THIS one would. Oh it’s in good shape and all, no cracks or chips or anything, but it’s just a crock.
We got our taxes done. The Canadian ones are in, they were submitted electronically, but the US ones need to get signed and enveloped, and stamped and mailed. Very glad to get that done each year.
So that’s it for this week. A little disjointed I know but that’s the way this week’s gone.
Doug & Marsha