More Junkmail from Bob!
Tuesday, May 30, 2000
Important Stuff.
I'm not in much of a writing mood today, so you get a lot of pictures instead!
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Last week a guy was flying King Air from Phoenix to Carlsbad, CA. But he overshot the mark. It seems that he went to sleep and didn't wake up until he was 150 miles out over the ocean. He woke up when he hit some turbulence, and ended up landing in the ocean. Maybe you should sleep before you fly?
I saw Daniel Heligoin and Montaine Mallet do their aerobatics routine at Oshkosh last summer, and I saw them again this Spring. They had aerobatics school in Florida that used Cap 10's. I was thinking I might like to take a short course in aerobatics or unusual attitudes, and that sounded like a good place. Unfortunately, Saturday they were both killed when they collided practicing their air show routine. They were husband and wife.
I said last week that the An-2 at the North Pole sank in 13,000 feet of water. Now I've read that it didn't sink and is still sitting on the ice. I'm not sure who to believe. I may have to go up there to check it out myself.
For a mere $4.5 million dollars, the price of a small business jet, you can buy a new IBM computer. IBM just sold one to Finland for $4.5 million that will do 1,000,000,000,000 operations per second with 512 processors. I said they sold it, but they won't actually deliver it until October. It will be the fastest commercial computer in Europe. There's one faster used by the French Defense Department, primarily for Everquest.
Microsoft is supposed to reply tomorrow to the government's recommendation that Microsoft be split into two companies. Microsoft asked for some extra time and Judge PJ said no, they've had two years already. I am guessing that Microsoft will reply, the judge will agree with the Justice Department in a few days, Microsoft will appeal, and no matter what happens it won't change life as we know it.
Microsoft will probably have some restrictions placed on its operations during the appeal, and this will hurt their business some. I think they may be able to eke out a profit, though.
Bill Gates denied impending plans for the purchase of the U.S. Justice Department, stating that he would certainly not settle for a small piece of the action when he could own the entire Executive Branch.
Leann went with me to deliver some young hooligans to Florida last week:
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Melinda, Julie, and Chelsea ransacked Florida for almost a week before Jeb cried "Uncle!" and asked that they be deported anywhere west of the Mississippi.
While we were there Leann went frolicking in the Florida wilderness
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... and tried to stay behind
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Here's a picture of a pitcher
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... and here's me:
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I'm reading a book called River Horse about some guys who took a small (20 ft?) boat from New York to Oregon. The author talks about how the rivers have been straightened out. Here's a picture of the Arkansas River from 25,000'. You can see how it was straightened, and all the places it used to run:
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I don't think it could have made all those tracks at the same time. Some change of course must have occurred naturally.
This is the Arkansas just before it runs into the Mississippi. The small canal to the left is where barges and other boats go, through one or two locks. There's a big dam on the right. You can see the Mississippi in the upper right of the picture:
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The Mississippi comes in from the upper left in this picture. You can see the thin navigation channel coming into it. The Arkansas River is the one closer to the bottom with sandbars.
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Here's where the main Arkansas hits the Mississippi. The Arkansas is a lot muddier. I wonder if that's normal or if it just means it's been raining more in the Arkansas drainage.
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Here is some evidence of some major course changes. This farmland is about 20 or 30 miles east of the Mississippi. It looks like the river use to be clear over here. You can even see where the streaks in the soil reflect various river channels even though the fields have been cultivated in rectangles.
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A couple of years ago, Mike, Serge, and I took a small boat (15', even smaller than the one in the book) from Muskogee, OK to Florida. We left the boat for a few days in Destin where it ended up being buried in the sand by a hurricane. I was asked to send either cash or the title to the boat. I guess they didn't want a red boat cluttering up their beach.
Here's Mike playing the baritone for the opening of a lock:
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Here's the red boat in New Orleans:
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Here's the red boat a little lower in New Orleans. We had a slight problem.
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Here are a bunch of red boat pictures, if you're interested:
http://rwebster.com/viatanic.htm
On the way to Indianapolis this week, Steven and I went to Beaver Island. It's an island out in the middle of northern Lake Michigan. There are some interesting plants there. Big Leaves:
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Ferns:
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Here's Steve taking the long way to the airport:
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There are a couple of interesting smaller islands southwest of Beaver Island. They both have private airstrips:
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This one has a big, steep, sandy shoreline. I'd like to visit it sometime:
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Here's sunset over Lake Michigan:
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