When I was looking for work, as a single parent rating two kids, I
was often told I "was overqualified." I told them I was not overqualified to feed my kids! I'm retired now, but I was a technical illustrator, graphic artist, oil, gas and nuclear power drafter, electronics drafter, as well as geophysical and oceanographic illustrator. At the time, I had been married to a man who was a Chief Radioman in nuclear submarines, and both of us thought nuclear power was a good thing. I don't feel that way
now. I live in Nevada and have been part of the effort to keep Yucca Mountain from being imposed on Nevada. We've already paid too heavy a price for nuclear power. At least, Civilian. I sort of concede it still makes a bit of sense for carriers, submarines and
cruisers. But civilian nuclear power has been and continues to be
a huge waste of money, as well as an ongoing danger. Note the hazards still being emitted at Fukushima Japan. We were trying to get the 2020 Olympics taken away from Tokyo, when the v***s did it for us. But I'd rather have a cop with a high IQ, any day! I wish there were higher IQs on the people operating that benighted place, and its so far useless, remediation.

I recall an even about a decade ago, when one young man was not
allowed into the police academy because "His IQ was too high!"
Perhaps a high-IQ police officer would have taken his knee off a man who was crying out "I can't breathe!"
I understand the anger. I don't understand burning and l**ting.

I would understand people quietly demonstrating. A peaceful march
down streets would constitute a protest. Even blocking streets for a time. But using it as an excuse to burn buildings, destroy police cars, (which are paid for by public taxes, including their own), and
r**t, for that there is no excuse. L**ting stores for a new TV or some expensive tennis shoes, where is the justice in that?
But I still think kneeling on any man's neck is beyond stupid!
Once he was down, just put the man in handcuffs. I understand the outrage against causing a person to die. And the three other
cops who stood by and did nothing deserve, at the very least,
firing, plus loss of any retirement. Maybe if all the rest of us protest such treatment, we could begin to cause change.

I saw another, equally effective system on TV, right along with the ADS. It's based on sound so piercing, nobody can stand it.
I've wondered why either system isn't being deployed on ships subject to piracy! But one ship's crew used something almost as good;
They poured boiling water over the pirates! Most commercial freighters and oilers are forbidden to carry weapons. But the ADS, mounted on either kind of ship, would be quite effective.
I do hope the ADS can be deployed soon. They could start on the Caravan. Or, for that matter, all along our border. We wouldn't need to build The Wall.

Aside from the monthly trips to Cedar City, I just cannot travel anymore. Your pictures of your area are beautiful. I'm jealous!
One thing happened last week that gave me some comfort about driving: I was driving home from a small city 14 miles from my home, and some joker crossed a double line on a blind curve, and as I came around, there he was trying to pass another car! Since speed limit in open areas of Nevada is usually 70, he had to be going much faster to pass the other car. I slammed on the brakes and dove for the slender shoulder, the driver being passed also hit his brakes, giving i***t driver just enough room to squeak between us! after I quit shaking, I was happy that my reaction times were still good. I hope and pray I will know when it is time to quit driving. (I just turned 80 this year) I never want to be a danger to other people.
I just bought a new computer, and so far, my photos are still locked inside it. Can't email or forward photos yet, but will send some when I can do that. Your area is quite a bit more beautiful than mine, but still, the desert on a moonlit night is gorgeous. Even on moonless nights, the Milky Way is a glorious band from one horizon to another. I go out alone at night to places where I am completely safe, and love the night sky as much as the days. What makes it so beautiful is that there is almost no 'light pollution' to dim the sight of the stars.
I've outlived many of my correspondents, and would enjoy trading stories of our places, if that would be OK with you. If not that's OK
too. My email address is: zz.tursiops80@lcturbonet.com. Our local server gives us a choice of two blistering speeds for our internet:
1.5 Mbps, or, with DSL, ten! I do have some pretty good pics of our area, including our "Panaca Springs" which is 84 degrees year around. Of course, we only swim in it during the summer. Trying to swim in the winter would be OK, but you could freeze mid-stride trying to get back to your car! My nickname is Penny.

If you want more and better info, Google "Fukushima updates" and enter the current dates. The Japanese are trying to dump 1.09 Million TONS of irradiated water into the Pacific. They think 'dilution is the solution to pollution." But they have already been dumping 300 tons of irradiated water into the Pacific since the accident on 3/11/11. Tuna and Salmon are already tested and found to be irradiated. I have changed to canned chicken. I won't eat ANY Pacific caught fish or crustaceans.
Here are other sources: "Beyond Nuclear." Just Google the name, their newsletter will pop up, emails are free and often updated. Other sources: "NIRSNET:" nirsnet@nirs.org. "Fairewinds:" contact@fairewinds.org. A nuclear engineer with a PhD in the topic runs that, along with his wife, Maggie. You can also find their speeches and videos on YouTube. "Ace Hoffman:" rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com. He has graphic arts on the topic. He also wrote, illustrated and published a whole book on the problems with nuclear power. You can download it, free, from his site. "Watchdog:" info@watchdog.com."Solartopia:" Harvey Wasserman, solartopia@me.com. David A. Kroft,"
neis@neis.org. "Nevada Nuclear Waste Taskforce:" Judy Treichel, Executive Director, judynwtf@aol.com. These will all add you to their mailing lists, free. In most cases, if you can spare a few nickels, they welcome support, but do not demand it. Finally, our sailors, male and female, officers and enlisted personnel, are coming down with cancers of all kinds, the result of the US sending our carrier USS "Ronald Reagan, CVN 76" and her entire escort of ships to Fukushima to try and help. At one point, they were 50 miles offshore, later, they pulled back to 100 miles. Now, personnel are suffering cancers of the thyroid, testicular and ovarian cancer, brain cancers, leukemia, etc. They cannot sue the Navy, so they are trying to sue TEPCO; Tokyo Electric Power Company. That's the owner and operator of the melted down disaster plant. Some of those trying to sue have already died. Yet, it is not being published in our local news, or TV stations. I have notified a total of 4 TV stations in Nevada, and two newspapers. Nothing. We only got the latest news about our military people from an article in Berlin's paper, "Der Spiegel."
The have tried to send robots inside. Even the sturdiest robots are burned out in less than an hour. They LOST the cores of three of the reactors, so hot they melted down through their containment structures, and they are not quite sure where they are. It is estimated it will take 40-100 years to remediate this disaster, using technology not yet invented. The radiation at the reactors themselves are so hot, nobody can measure the amount. There are YouTube postings about all this, as well.
My Navy husband served on submarines for a total of 27 years. He passed in 2012. At first when we were first married, he was on older, retrofitted WW II diesel-electric boats. But only 5 years later, he was a Radioman Chief. He was quickly t***sferred to nuclear boats, and we both thought that was a good thing. My father worked at both of the Nevada Test sites when I was a kid. he thought nuclear power was good. I did too. Now, I am unalterably opposed to it. Nevada has already paid too heavy a price for that. We are united in keeping nuclear waste out of Nevada! I have seen people who were born and raised here, who have died too young. I myself, though most of my career was in aerospace, twice worked for companies which built nuclear power plants. At the time, I still thought they were a good thing. I don't think that now. Please, do the research, and add your voices to the effort to get al this insanity stopped.

There's a great quote that goes, "Being under sentence of death concentrates the mind wonderfully." So does being shot at. That incident happened in Paramount, CA. A suburb of LA, and only 6 miles by street to McDonnell Douglas. I could avoid the freeway to get to work.
Behind my home there was a small park, the LA river, (more like a concrete canyon,) Highway 405, and then Compton. Which went up in smoke and flames after the police officers were acquitted in Simi Valley, of beating Rodney King. That poor Caucasian truck driver, innocent of doing anything wrong, you saw him being beaten on TV, and then the offenders doing a dance. I called a friend who still lived there, and in that neighborhood, where multiple races lived in a good deal of harmony, there were men patrolling the streets at night to protect their homes. They were lucky the vandals didn't cross 405 or the river.
I was already safely here in Nevada when that happened. Watching it on TV. The poor truck driver has never fully recovered, and has to survive on disability to this day.
Even at 2 or 3 in the morning, the surrounding areas were never quiet. Being that close to highway 405, there was always the hum of traffic, sounds of guns being fired. I got so I could tell the caliber of gun being used, from pistols to automatic weapons. We were just south of Rosecrans, and I often called 911 to report collisions or automatic weapons fire. One police officer later told me that, getting ambulances and police moving before other calls, got them to the site in time to save lives.
Rodney King got a huge settlement from the city. it did not teach him a lesson, and he died an alcoholic several years later. Good riddance! On New Year's eve, police officers in their cruisers found a place to park, UNDER something. My dog was heard to give a loud
YIPE and ran to me. A bullet fell through my patio cover, and chipped the concrete right by her muzzle. She came in bleeding. I h**ed the ever-present graffiti, the crime, the fact that I had to look over my shoulder just to walk into a store. Recent events prove I was smart to do that, and to get out when I could. I live in a Senior housing place now, my rent is $399 a month. It's a place for seniors to have independent living. I can and do drive, and about once a month, I chuck a cooler in the car, and drive 81 miles to Cedar City UT, and load up on groceries at a new Walmart there. We have enough amenities here so that I am comfortable. Our winters are decent, hardly ever do we have big snow storms. If we get snow, it melts off in a day or so. Though it does get down below freezing sometimes. It's beautiful here, too. Even our sagebrush stays green all summer, well up into September. The farmers and ranchers here get a good two or three crops a year. After they harvest, they turn cattle and horses out on the land, they glean the remnants, and add their own fertilizer. Then they prepare the ground again, and plant more crops. Mostly alfalfa and corn. No crop dusters or weed k**ler needed.
My granddaughter and her husband are moving soon to San Diego. I wish they'd go to Washington state. I used to love San Diego, but it's too close to the border now, and their rent for a ONE bedroom apartment is $1,900 a month!

Well, the 14.7 psi at sea level is right, and every 33 feet underwater, you gain another 14.7 pounds. My scuba instructor made us learn the book stuff as well as the in-water sk**ls. But the rest left me confused. I'm a good proofreader, but balancing my checkbook is a challenge!
And, the barometer I bought is brand new, so I don't get the change. I just want one figure I can count on! So, somebody somewhere is using these readings. Must be in Europe?
I did hear a funny - an expensive one. NASA and the European Space Agency cooperated on sending another mission to Mars. But the several million dollar mission missed Mars altogether. Seems we were using feet and inches, and they were on the metric system.

Yes, I do live at 4,700 feet. I was born in California, lived there back and forth a good part of my life, then when I could not work, I was driving down a short street to my home, set near a cul-de-sac. Two guys decided to have a shootout over a drug deal, one ran across the street, and I got caught between them! They took the back window out of my car, cops later asked me if any of my car windows were open at the time, I replie "Yes, the one right by my head!" The look they gave each other spoke volumes. They found the broken glass in my car, but no bullet.
After they left, I decided "To hell with this! If I can't work around here any more,I don't have to live here any more!" Sold the small home, moved back to Nevada to retire. Then my wondeful dog didn't get fleas any more. They can't survive our winters. So, I stayed on.
Besides, I love the sea, and the desert. But at least, when I live in the desert, I don't have to watch the ocean, knowing I can't go
back. And nobody shoots at me, there is no grafitti, and no crime.

A few other observations: By the way, I'm left-handed, and I'm a woman. (Several of our recent presidents have been left-handed. Even Obama, I think.) Anybody know this one? Pretty sure Reagan and Clinton are. And I think, one or both Bush presidents?

I was a scuba diver for 10 years in Hawaii. I rescued three other divers, all of them male. My husband, who was 6'4" tall, and a smoker, got so furious that he made me dive with a different 'buddy.' See, women have a layer of fat under the skin that men do not have. This is what causes much of the pleasing contours of women. My husband would come up, totally out of air, and I'd still have a thousand pounds. While he churned toward shore on the surface, I'd be swimming on my back, resting. Right under him. That extra layer of fat under the skin keeps women from having to expend energy to stay warm. Even skinny women have it. My Chinese/Caucasian 'buddy' and I would be able to stay under longer. Since I didn't smoke, I could also swim further underwater, without scuba gear, than my husband. He would also emerge from a long dive, cold and needing a jacket, immediately. I was fine without one.
But there is one cautionary note regarding women scuba diving. Nitrogen, which is 73% of air, gets into the body, and can affect deep tissues more so than those near the surface. Women in late pregnancy should not dive. It could affect their fetuses.
Anyway, you guys are fun to be the opposite sex of!

There is a funny and wonderful YouTube video available, titled "The difference between men and women's brains." If you haven't seen it, look it up, and watch both versions. Has several great laughs.

BTW, I could use a bit of advice: My old barometer finally broke. My new one doesn't have the same numbering system. It's in mm. Anybody know the setting for an altitude of 4,700 feet?? In the old one, there is one needle, which, once set, never needs to move. At sea level, it's 29.994. Here, it's around 29.985. I have an illness that causes me to be sensitive to weather. So, if the needle that moves is rising or falling, I can just shrug and go "Oh. It's just the weather. I can beat this." My pain increases when it is rising or falling. So, what should be the setting for the needle that never moves, once it is set, when the values are expressed as 'mmHg?"

I just checked CNN and MSNBC. Is this event happening now?

The whole Lysistrata thing didn't work either. Too much fraternization with the enemy!

I know. I still h**e it that we ever had anyone going down that trail. And I don't know WHAT to do about the murder of the Saudi guy. We have billions of dollars of work for them, employing many Americans. Or, we break off relations with them, and forfeit all that. It's quite a predicament.

You're right. I can't tell you how disappointed I was during Vietnam when I heard Air America t***sported illegal drugs for the drug lords of that area. Or that my government has conducted research on humans -- our own citizens. I'm a woman who worked on government programs during that time. I had to have certain clearances to do that work. I had to pass muster, with a deep background check on my husband, our friends, and our entire family, back to 1936. I wasn't even BORN until 1938!
And I never broke faith with my government. I never spoke out of turn, not even when my work would overlap my husband's, then serving on nuclear submarines.

And I am sick at heart at what is happening in our country. Thanks for your reply.

Long ago, I had an idea of how Mexico and Central American states could get into the US: Silently, without news coverage, i*****l a***ns could mass all along our Southern border, and at the same instant, with a signal from their 'leaders' -- rush the border. Many miles of the border are completely unprotected. If they struck at night, we'd be in deep trouble handling all that.
At least, with this 'caravan' we can have somewhere to try and stop them.

But I will always believe that the sheer avaricious appetite for drugs in the US, IS the cause of immigrants heading north. Their home countries have become too dangerous for many who are innocent of drug use or drug trafficking, to stay with their kids. "Narcotrafficantes" - drug lords, fight for 'turf' and k**l many innocents in the doing. If America were suffering even worse than we can imagine, with beheaded bodies here and there, the heads hung up for public view, every citizen living in fear, we would try to emigrate to somewhere safer, as well. I don't mean I condone what is happening with the 'caravan.' I h**e it.
But I also think anyone who uses illegal recreational drugs, or who abuse prescription medications, solely for their pleasure or because they are addicted, are utterly selfish. Only the unfortunate few who were introduced to drugs by their parents, are blameless. But all the rest, KNEW they were illegal the first time they tried it! One young man, chosen to be taken directly into the pro basketball ranks, was offered cocaine to 'celebrate' that choice. His first dose k**led him. And when China sends that utterly dangerous drug that is now k*****g people, and when told it is now illegal, they change just one chemical, and now we have to fight the NEW formula! So, China may be TRYING to k**l Americans. Maybe someone somewhere thinks that if enough Americans succumb, they can step over our dope-addled bodies and defeat us. I'm 80 years old, I have 13
living descendants, and I want the same kind of America I grew up in, to be there for them. I don't even recognize the country we have now. I attended high school in the 50s. There was a little dope known about then. Two kids in our 2900-
kid school got involved in drugs. And we SHUNNED them!
People who now take drugs and who are surprised when it bites them in the butt, have to have been living with their head in a bucket NOT to know that drugs are both illegal, and dangerous. I cannot imagine what awfulness makes them take drugs.
I lived an awful young life. Parents racked up 13 marriages between them. We were poor. I have gone hungry several times, once for three days. Yet, I grew up with a strong work ethic, my Mom would have disowned me if I had taken welfare, my father's behavior made me want nothing to do with alcohol, and cigarettes made me blow lunch the one time I tried one.
I live in Nevada. We recently approved both medical and recreational marijuana. And already, one person has been k**led by a stoned driver! I guess we thought the users would use pot with some common sense. Right. And drunk drivers are models of good citizenship! My neck is damaged because of three drunk drivers in about 11 years. I have to sleep in a hospital bed, and I can't use a pillow.
I h**e drugs, drug users, and drug traffickers with a hatred so black, 'black' is full daylight by comparison. I did not turn to drugs when life got tough. I fought my way out, and raised two drug-free kids during the beginning of this awful epidemic.
My grandchildren are also drug free. My son served in Navy destroyers. My daughter was an Army MP. My grandson is active in the Army right now, and none of those people use illegal drugs! If we need money for something, we take more work.
My granddaughter married a Navy submariner, like her grandfather, and now has two Master's degrees, while raising three kids, being a wife and mother, and is now a teacher. She got all her college while her husband was serving out of Naples, Italy, and did it online. Her children are bilingual. We've all faced difficult times in our lives, but not one of us dove into a bottle, or a substance. And I will never be able to understand those who do.

Did you hear about Christopher Columbus' OTHER famous accomplishments?


He was the first man in history to get 1,000 miles to the galleon!