Podcasts about army corps

How do you go from being literally dirt poor to becoming a serial entrepreneur responsible for founding, investing in, or serving on the board of over 100 companies? How can an eagerness to learn and serve shape your life in a way that influences local and global communities for the better?  Listen as our guest shares his path from a subsistence farm life to one filled with “FinTech” and “Impact investing,” the importance of knowing what you are good at and creating a dream team to handle the rest, and how a willingness to serve can open doors to amazing opportunities for growth.    Wade T. Myers, a serial entrepreneur, advisor, investor, author, and speaker, has turned a lifetime of learning into a multi-faceted career that impacts local and global communities. Growing up on a subsistence farm in North Dakota, Wade worked his way through intermediate grades, high school, and college while also enlisting in the Army Reserves. After graduating, Wade went active duty in the Army Corps of Engineers before volunteering for Ranger School, ultimately completing Airborne training and then commanding a special weapons unit. Ever in pursuit of knowledge, Wade decided to get a graduate degree in Computer Information Systems while on active duty. When he left active duty, he was recruited to work at Mobil Corporation in their plastics division until he was called up to serve in the Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star. Upon returning home, Wade knew that he wanted to buy or start a company so to learn how to do so he attended Harvard Business School and graduated with an MBA as a Baker Scholar.  Following a post-graduate stint with the prestigious Boston Consulting Group, Wade started his career as a serial entrepreneur.  Since then, Wade has founded, invested in, or served on the board of over 100 companies. In addition to his own entrepreneurship, Wade has an advisory focus to help startup entrepreneurs achieve their vision. Wade is also a featured speaker at conferences and has taught seminars at business schools. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Agricultural Economics from North Dakota State University, a Master's degree in Computer Information Systems from Texas A&M University Central Texas, and an MBA as a Baker Scholar at Harvard. He has five children and currently lives with his wife, Lisa, in Westover Hills, Texas. Bigger Than Business is the show where you'll discover real-world stories of business owners living their purpose. You'll encounter men and women all over the world who draw strength from understanding why they do what they do and how they remain true to that purpose through the ups and downs every business owner will face. www.thecapitalchartroom.com

What waters can be regulated as “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act? This seemingly simple question has been anything but simple, with decades of federal overreach by the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers. As property owners, from farmers to homebuilders know all too well, there is massive confusion. This confusion is largely due to the government […]

The public has another chance to comment on Governor Kim Reynolds school voucher-style “Education Savings Account” plan on Tuesday. The leader of the Clay County Fair in Spencer is the next leader of the Iowa State Fair. Plus, the Army Corps of Engineers is predicting no relief for dry conditions in the Missouri River Basin this year.

The Florida reef lights date back to 1852 when Carysfort Reef Lighthouse was completed under the direction of Lt. George Meade of the Army Corps of Engineers. Sombrero Key Lighthouse was built a few years later, and then Alligator Reef was built as the third of the reef lights in 1873. Alligator Reef Lighthouse is about four nautical miles offshore from the village of Islamorada. The reef is named for the U.S. Navy schooner Alligator, which was launched at Boston in 1820. Alligator Reef Lighthouse, courtesy of Friends of the Pool, Inc. The lighthouse was established on the northeast end of the reef in 1873, with a light 136 feet above the water. The iron skeletal tower stands on pilings that are driven 10 feet into the coral. The cost of construction was $185,000, making it a very expensive project at the time. The light was automated and de-staffed in 1963. In 2021, under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, the lighthouse was deeded to Friends of the Pool, Inc., a local nonprofit organization that has held an annual eight-mile round-trip swimming race to the lighthouse. Rob Dixon, left, and Larry Herlth There are two guests in this episode, and both are leaders of the effort to preserve Alligator Reef Lighthouse. Rob Dixon is a longtime charter fishing boat operator and open water swimmer based in Islamorada, and he's the president of Friends of the Pool. Larry Herlth is a metal artisan specializing in incredibly detailed replicas of the Florida Keys Lighthouses, and he's also a swimmer who inaugurated the Swim for Alligator Lighthouse. He's known widely as Lighthouse Larry.

Natalie Sudman was born in Montana and raised in Minnesota. She worked for sixteen years worked as an archaeologist in the western U.S. In 2006 was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to administer construction contracts in Iraq. In 2007 a vehicle she was traveling in was hit by a roadside bomb. Her book Application of Impossible Things details her experience with that incident. About the Book: This is an amazing true story of a female civilian employee of the Army Corps of Engineers in Basrah and Nasiriyah, Iraq. She was riding in a truck with other men when a roadside bomb destroyed the vehicle. Her body was so severely damaged that there was no possible way she could live. She vividly recounts her Near Death Experience (NDE) when she went out of the body to the spirit world.There it was decided that her work on Earth was not done, and with the help of spirit guides, they repaired the body so she could reenter it. She retained the conscious memory of what happened, and more details returned during her time in the hospital. This is an amazing story of survival in wartime conditions.This has happened to many others in Iraq, but how many remember the spiritual side of the experience? Before this experience, Sudman was dubious about anything that smacked of the paranormal. This experience made her a believer. She shares her story here for the first time to demonstrate that the paranormal is normal and to assist others who have had similar experiences.This book is for anyone interested in near death experiences and out-of-body experiences. It is one of the first such books to come out of the Iraq conflict.Please enjoy my conversation with Natalie Sudman.

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time is a bestselling book on urban planning from the last decade. Author Jeff Speck joins us for a look at what Louisiana can learn from other cities about improving roads and pedestrian safety. For 40 years, coastal researchers and advocates have called for the use of the muddy Mississippi River to combat land loss in south Louisiana. In December, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed off on a first-of-its-kind project to do just that. Our Coastal Desk's Halle Parker spoke with Bren Haase, executive director of the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, for more. Today's episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Karl Lengel. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and our digital editor is Katelyn Umholtz. Our engineers are Garrett Pittman, Aubry Procell, and Thomas Walsh.  You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12:00 and 7:30 pm. It's available on Spotify, Google Play, and wherever you get your podcasts.  Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you're at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you'd like to listen to. Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Check out this episode on YouTube!A compilation of sasquatch videos, audio, and documents reviewed and contemplated by the guys and various guests.Trail cam video of giant bigfoot.1959 State Department dispatch on Yeti in Nepal.Sasquatch or werewolf howl?The "Patty" bigfoot video enhanced with AI.Washington State Department of Transportation traffic cam video of Sasquatch.The Provo Canyon thrower video.Giant footprint in granite outcrop image 1; image 2.Todd Standing's Sasquatch videos.Cave drawing 1, 2, 3, 4.Army Corps of Engineers Sasquatch page from Washington State field manual.Three not-so-great Sasquatch videos.Go here for the show website.If you have a story to tell, get in touch.------------Become a Basement VIP for access to bonus content and ad-free listening on Apple Podcasts or Patreon.Buy us a beer!

In this episode, we're diving deep into all things water hyacinth! Dr. Ferrell and Christine are joined by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research Biologist Dr. Ben Sperry as they break down this plant's physiology, growth habits, reproduction functions, previous research, and more. To learn more about water hyacinth, visit our website's Plant Directory. Featured Resources: How women are turning one of the world's worst invasive plants into handbags and rugs — Working In The Weeds is a podcast by the University of Florida/IFAS Center for Aquatics and Invasive Plants. This series connects scientists with stakeholders to clarify and discuss issues surrounding aquatic and invasive plants, while also highlighting the research being conducted at the Center. Do you have topics or questions you would like us to discuss on this podcast? Email us at caip@ifas.ufl.edu. For more information and resources, visit our website. Follow UF/IFAS CAIP on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

In an era of chaotic politics, roller coaster economic indicators and historic inflation, individuals would be smart to keep an eye on their holistic financial situation. For many public servants, financial wellness programs can be a way that they get more in touch with their finances and many agencies offer these programs for employees. Sidney and Saundra Curry are co-founders BC Holdings of Tennessee, a financial wellness and workforce training company. BCH has worked with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Labor and the Defense Department to provide financial literacy training programming. As part of our #MoneyMonday series, they joined the podcast now to discuss financial literacy programs for public servants. *** Follow GovExec on Twitter! https://twitter.com/govexec

 Powder Springs man found guilty in a 2018 armed robbery in Cobb was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison on Tuesday. Romero Lindley received a 20-year sentence with 12 to be served in custody. Lindley was found guilty of two counts of armed robbery and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony on Dec. 9 of last year. Lindley's charges stemmed from a home invasion incident on June 5, 2018, when Cobb police were dispatched to an armed robbery in progress at an apartment located in Marietta. A neighbor said at the time that four armed men entered the apartment. During an investigation into the incident, three victims and the neighbor told the officers that two of the men drove away prior to police arrival, while the other two fled through the woods toward a church parking lot, prosecutors said. Officers found Lindley hiding in bushes near the apartment following a K-9 tracking. He was found with a black ski mask and black sweatpants, which contained one of the victim's necklaces, per prosecutors. The ski mask, found within arm's reach of Lindley, was sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for DNA matching, and found to contain Lindley's saliva. In Lindley's arrest warrant from 2018, he was accused of taking a laptop, a Louis Vuitton travel bag and approximately $300 from the residence. Prosecutors said one victim testified at trial and stated that Lindley “put a gun to [his] forehead and took the necklace right off [his] neck.” Lindley was arrested again last May, accused in an arrest warrant of jumping bail by fleeing to South Carolina after he failed to appear in Cobb Superior Court on the armed robbery charges. In 2019, Lindley's co-defendant Marcellis Richardson pleaded guilty to charges related to the incident. Another co-defendant, Donquail Williams, pleaded guilty to charges in 2021. Democrats Nichelle Davis and Becky Sayler were sworn in as the two newest members of the Cobb County Board of Education on Thursday. Sayler, who previously taught English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in Cobb and now teaches preschool, represents Post 2. She replaces Democrat Dr. Jaha Howard, who did not seek reelection after a single term in order to run for state school superintendent, a race he lost. Sayler won 68.6% of the vote in the November general election to Republican Stephen George, Jr.'s 31.4%. Davis, meanwhile, was a Teach for America teacher before becoming a staffer at the education nonprofit Achieve Atlanta, and represents Post 6. She replaces Democrat Charisse Davis, who decided against running for reelection after serving one term. Sayler was sworn in by Cobb State Court Judge Ashley Palmer, while Davis was sworn in by Cobb Superior Court Judge Kellie Hill. Sayler told the MDJ two of her priorities on the board will be expanding pre-K and revising a policy passed in July that paved the way for armed, non-police security personnel at schools, which was billed as a way to improve safety in case of a mass shooting. Sayler added that, as a former ESOL teacher, she is passionate about the district's dual-language immersion program, which enables students to develop literacy skills in English and a foreign language at the same time. Davis said she will prioritize “building relationships” as she begins her term on the board. At their first meeting, Sayler and Davis got a taste of the partisan divide on the board, with party-line votes leading to the election of the new board chair, Republican Brad Wheeler, and vice chair, Republican David Banks. A vote on the board meeting calendar also passed 4-3, with the Republican members in favor and Democrats opposed. The discussion for instant replay at the high school state championship football games will begin in earnest Monday. It is one of the items that will be talked about at the Georgia High School Association Board of Trustees' meeting in Thomaston. During a news conference last month to announce that the GHSA's football state championships would be moved to Mercedes-Benz Stadium, executive director Robin Hines said the issue of replay would be looked into. The topic came into the forefront following the Class AAA title game between Sandy Creek and Cedar Grove. A touchdown was allowed to stand despite the Georgia Public Broadcasting television replay showing that the Sandy Creek ball-carrier appeared to be tackled at the 1-yard line. Sandy Creek went on to win the game 21-17. With playing the title games in an NFL stadium, it gives the GHSA an opportunity to potentially utilize its system to make sure calls are correctly made in the biggest games of the year. Hines also said he hopes he would be able to use the games in August's season-opening Corky Kell Classic — also at Mercedes-Benz Stadium — as a trial for the state championships. Another item that will be discussed by the GHSA Board of Trustees is a motion brought forth by the Fulton County School System to do away with the minimum seating requirements for schools to host state semifinal football playoff games. This year, three state semifinal games involving Fulton County schools had to be moved to neutral sites because the host schools' stadium capacities did not meet the GHSA's minimum standard of 6,000. Milton, whose stadium seats 3,000, was set to host Mill Creek in one Class AAAAAAA semifinal. After numerous discussions of options, which included the possibility of Mill Creek agreeing to waive the seating requirement or moving the band seating into the end zone to open up additional seating space, the game was played at Lakewood Stadium in Atlanta, with a 5 p.m. scheduled start. It became the first game of a semifinal doubleheader, which was followed by Hughes, another Fulton County school that could not fulfill the GHSA seating requirement, facing Rome at 8 p.m. The other Class AAAAAAA semifinal between Roswell and Gainesville was moved to McEachern's Walter Cantrell Stadium. Ethan Bourdon became the first child to ride Kennesaw's brand-new swing at Swift-Cantrell Park, one that allows kids with disabilities to get in on the fun. Bourdon's mother, Shawna Grimes, told the MDJ this is “huge” for Bourdon, who is wheelchair-bound with a rare genetic disorder, MeCP2 Duplication Syndrome. Mayor Derek Easterling said the swing's ribbon-cutting was the culmination of a five-year effort by the city to transform the park, located on Old Highway 41 across from Kennesaw Elementary School, into one that is inclusive of all children. According to the city, the park is home to one of the largest inclusive playgrounds in the country. It includes 40 feet of shade, wheelchair accessible ramps that lead to a ropes tower, sensory stations, an eight-person, wheelchair-accessible, swaying structure, a slide and the new swing. About $450,000 from the city's 2016 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax projects was put toward upgrading the 18,500-square-foot park with features that would make it accessible for all under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Easterling said Kennesaw Councilman Pat Ferris had first lobbied for the inclusive swing after the idea for making the park inclusive of those with disabilities came up about five years ago. The swing, which was the final touch on the park's upgrades, came together thanks to Ferris and Kennesaw resident Ann Pratt, who is active in the North Cobb Civitan and was recognized by the city in June 2022 for her leadership. The swing was made possible by a grant from T-Mobile, created to fund improvement projects for small towns across the U.S. Kennesaw received a grant of roughly $47,000 to implement the swing. Former Hillgrove point guard Jeremiah Wilkinson committed this week to play his college basketball at Mississippi State. Wilkinson, a 6-foot, 175-pound junior from Powder Springs who now plays at The Skill Factory, a basketball developmental organization in Atlanta, posted his decision on social media Wednesday. Wilkinson was the first commitment to Mississippi State from the class of 2024. The three-star recruit selected the Bulldogs over a number of other Division I programs, including Georgia State, Florida, Mississippi, Butler, Murry State, Rice and Saint Louis, among others. He was also garnering interest from interest from Marquette, Loyola-Chicago and Providence. Wilkinson is averaging 14.3 points, 3.1 assists and 3.1 rebounds a game this season against similar basketball prep programs. Last year, he helped lead Hillgrove to a 23-4 record, averaging a team-high 16.8 points per game to go with 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists. Jordan Ridley is ready to hit the ground running as one of newest members to represent Cobb and Cherokee counties in the Georgia House. Ridley is “super great guy,” according to Cobb GOP Chair Salleigh Grubbs. Ridley, 30, was elected to represent House District 22 in November with 14,685 votes, or 61.5%, to Democrat Stacee Hill's 9,190 votes, or 38.5%. Ridley won 52.4% of the vote in Cobb. Ridley replaces Wes Cantrell, a Republican from Woodstock, who decided not to seek reelection after eight years under the Gold Dome. Before the 2020 redistricting cycle, House District 22 included eastern Cherokee County and a slice of southwest Forsyth County. Under the redrawn legislative map, Ridley will represent southwest Cherokee County and a sliver of north Cobb. A Cherokee County native, Ridley went to Etowah High School before attending Georgia State University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in public policy. Previously, Ridley served as the chair of the Cherokee County Republican Party from 2021 to 2022. Before that, he was a legislative aide for state Representative Charlice Byrd, a Republican from Woodstock, who represents House District 20. Ridley said he looks forward to leveraging the connections he established while working for Byrd in the General Assembly. Ridley worked on a wide range of issues as Byrd's aide, and he said appropriations is his biggest interest entering the 2022 session. That said, Ridley is looking to take advantage of other work experience in his new role. On his preference sheet for committee assignments, he listed the Game, Fish, and Parks Committee — Ridley was a park ranger for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and worked for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. #CobbCounty #Georgia #LocalNews      -            -            -            -            -            The Marietta Daily Journal Podcast is local news for Marietta, Kennesaw, Smyrna, and all of Cobb County.             Subscribe today, so you don't miss an episode! MDJOnline            Register Here for your essential digital news.            https://www.chattahoocheetech.edu/  https://cuofga.org/ https://www.esogrepair.com/ https://www.drakerealty.com/           Find additional episodes of the MDJ Podcast here.             This Podcast was produced and published for the Marietta Daily Journal and MDJ Online by BG Ad Group   For more information be sure to visit https://www.bgpodcastnetwork.com              See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The federal government has denied an application for $1.88 billion to replace the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. The aging bridges were deemed “functionally obsolete” by the U.S. Army Corps, who recommended they be replaced rather than repaired. Dan shared his thoughts on the bridges' financial setback.

The federal government has denied an application for $1.88 billion to replace the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. The aging bridges were deemed “functionally obsolete” by the U.S. Army Corps, who recommended they be replaced rather than repaired. Dan shared his thoughts on the bridges' financial setback.

If you know that you are right about something, don't be afraid to speak up. It is not easy being the David in a world of Goliaths, but you have to fight for what you stand for. Don't be afraid to find your voice. This is what today's guest just did. Join Elizabeth Bachman as she talks to the author of Words Whispered in Water, Sandy Rosenthal, about how Sandy spoke out against the Army Corps of Engineers during the events of Hurricane Katrina. Learn the true reason why the levees broke (it was not because of Mother Nature). Find out how the Goliaths of the world will try to shut you up. Learn how to speak up to find the truth today.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the Federal government's largest water resources development and management agency. The Planning Assistance to States allows the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide states, local governments, other non-Federal entities, and eligible Native American Indian tribes assistance in the preparation of comprehensive plans for the development, utilization, and conversation of water and related land resources. Listen in as Sharon Sartor, the National Program Manager for Planning Assistance to States, talks about the program and how the Corps can use this program to assistance local communities.

Repairing the Whittier Narrows Dam was reclassified in 2016 from “high urgency” to “very high urgency” by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. If the dam fails, the damage could be catastrophic. With major infrastructure projects underway and a wave of new female mayors in Orange County's biggest cities, will 2023 bring big changes or more of the same? Varissa Brum — known as Miso Hungry on TikTok — shares her LA food experiences with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Two children were pulled from a partially frozen lake in Kennesaw after falling into the water, MDJ news partner Fox 5 reported. Authorities say one of two children has died, and the other is expected to survice. Cobb County fire said the children were playing on the lake when they fell into the water. A large police presence responded to the lake, located off Ellison Lakes Drive near Cobb Parkway, Fox 5 reported. Shortly before 5 p.m., residents reported seeing about a half-dozen children playing near the south side of the lake just off a trail that runs beside it. Alex Pollard says he was bringing groceries in when he noticed the children. Moments later, neighbors would report hearing screams. The two children had fallen through the ice. Pollard yelled for his roommate to call 911. The named and ages of the children were not released. Three members of Cobb Fire were also treated at the scene for cold exposure that they suffered when they entered the freezing water to try and rescue the second victim. Fire Department spokesperson Nick Danz urged people not to go out on frozen bodies of water, as it may be hard to know the thickness and sturdiness of the ice. A Marietta man was arrested Monday for allegedly molesting two children. Tyquan Kent, 38, is charged with 11 counts of child molestation, two counts of rape and one count of furnishing obscene materials to minors, all felonies. He is accused of molesting and raping an 8-year-old and 10-year-old sometime between August and December. A warrant for Kent's arrest said the alleged crimes took place at a Motel 6 on South Cobb Drive and a Red Roof Inn on Corporate Plaza Parkway in Smyrna. According to the warrant, a 7-year-old child was present when Kent allegedly molested the two children at the Red Roof Inn, resulting in an additional child molestation charge. Kent is being held at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center without bond, according to jail records. In 2010, when Foxes and Fossils played their first gig, there were about 50 people in the audience. Most of crowd was there for pizza. A cohort of family members, church colleagues and friends helped swell the cheering section. And yet, said videographer Terry Heinlein, this group of supporters, filling up the seats at Bella's pizza parlor in Smyrna, was probably the largest bunch of fans that ever came to a Foxes and Fossils show just to see the band. Heinlein added that at all the other Foxes and Fossils gigs, at Twisted Taco and the Crafty Hog and Keswik Park, there were people there to see the band, but plenty of other people were there just for the barbecue. Vocalist Maggie Adams, one of the “Foxes,” was 16 years old at the time of the Bella's gig. She agreed: “We were mostly background music for pizza and tacos.” The “Foxes” were the young female members of the band, including Adams, Sammie Purcell and Chase Truron. They all grew up and went to college. The “Fossils,” including Sammie's father Tim Purcell, the founder of the band, recognized that without the Foxes, they weren't going to draw a crowd. The band essentially broke up. They existed only on YouTube, where Tim posted videos of their old performances. Quietly, those videos began to gain an audience. More than a year after they stopped performing, Foxes and Fossils started tasting fame and began earning revenue from their internet views and merchandise. Twelve years and 83 million YouTube views later, Foxes and Fossils is staging its first ticketed concert as a headliner. The most famous unknown cover band from Smyrna is charging $100 a seat for two shows, the first was last night and the second is tonight. That's what Billy Strings is charging at State Farm Arena. The venue is the Legendary Ford Hall, a 500-capacity facility in Hapeville that began as a car dealership and has served as a church. Both shows are almost sold out. Tickets can be purchased at Rebelity dot com. Pope got its second win over Kennesaw Mountain in a little over a week, defeating its county rival 55-47 in the first round of the Hounds Holiday Hoop Classic at Pope High School on Wednesday. The Greyhounds defeated the Mustangs 66-58 in the championship game of the Alpharetta-Pope Holiday Classic on Dec. 20. After a close first half, Pope pulled away from Kennesaw Mountain) in the third quarter to take control of the game and advance to the semifinals. Ryan Luttrell scored 20 points, including six 3-pointers, while Devin Royal added 10 points and Zach Bleshoy – who scored 36 points in the first game against Kennesaw Mountain – contributed nine points, despite playing with an injured back, to lead Pope. Elijah Ford led the Mustangs with 19 points, while Hayden Hall added 10. Kennesaw Mountain held the early advantage with a 14-12 lead at the end of the first quarter and increased its advantage to 17-12 at the beginning of the second on a 3-pointer by Hall with 7:08 remaining. However, Pope caught fire as it proceeded to go on a 13-3 run – fueled by four 3-pointers, including back-to-back 3s by Colby West – to take a 25-20 lead and the Greyhounds ended the first half ahead 27-25. Pope continued to stretch its advantage in the third quarter as it made three more 3-pointers – two of them by Luttrell – to finish the period with a 41-31 lead. The Greyhounds led by as much as 12 points – 47-35 with 4:43 remaining in the game. President Joe Biden has signed legislation aimed at protecting the Chattahoochee River. The first-of-its-kind measure authorizes $90 million in federal funds for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to work with local partners on water projects throughout the Chattahoochee River system. Biden signed the bill last week as part of congressional reauthorization of the Water Resources and Development Act. According to the Georgia River Network, the Chattahoochee supplies 70% of metro Atlanta's drinking water. The river is also a key source of water for farmers and an important source of power generation through hydroelectric dams. However, more than 1,000 miles of waterway within the Chattahoochee watershed do not meet water quality standards, creating potential health risks to humans and wildlife. In 2019, the National Park Service reported visitors to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area added more than $200 million to the metro region's economy, supporting more than 2,000 local jobs.        See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ronald Gene Simmons "CHRISTMAS FAMILY INCEST MASSACRE" murdersOn December 22, 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons began a killing spree that would be the worst mass murder in Arkansas history and the worst crime involving one family in the history of the country. His rampage ended on December 28, 1987, leaving dead fourteen members of his immediate family and two former coworkers.Ronald Gene Simmons was born on July 15, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois, to Loretta and William Simmons. On January 31, 1943, William Simmons died of a stroke. Within a year, Simmons's mother married again, this time to William D. Griffen, a civil engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The corps moved Griffen to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1946, the first of several transfers that would take the family across central Arkansas over the next decade. On September 15, 1957, Simmons dropped out of school and joined the U.S. Navy. His first station was Bremerton Naval Base in Washington, where he met Bersabe Rebecca “Becky” Ulibarri, whom he married in New Mexico on July 9, 1960.Over the next eighteen years, the couple had seven children. In 1963, Simmons left the navy and approximately two years later, he joined the air force. During his twenty-two-year military career, Simmons was awarded a Bronze Star, the Republic of Vietnam Cross for his service as an airman, and the Air Force Ribbon for excellent marksmanship. Simmons retired on November 30, 1979, at the rank of master sergeant.On April 3, 1981, Simmons was being investigated by the Cloudcroft, New Mexico, Department of Human Services for allegations that he had fathered a child with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Sheila. Fearing arrest, Simmons fled first to Ward (Lonoke County) in late 1981 and then to Dover (Pope County) in the summer of 1983. The family took up residence on a thirteen-acre tract of land that would become known as “Mockingbird Hill.” The residence was constructed of two older-model mobile homes joined to form one large home and was surrounded by a makeshift privacy fence, as high as ten feet tall in some places. The home did not have a telephone or indoor plumbing.Simmons worked a string of low-paying jobs in the nearby town of Russellville (Pope County). He quit a position as an accounts receivable clerk at Woodline Motor Freight after numerous reports of inappropriate sexual advances. He went to work at a Sinclair Mini Mart for approximately a year and a half before quitting on December 18, 1987.Evidence indicates that Simmons bludgeoned and shot his wife on December 22, 1987. Simmons also bludgeoned and shot his visiting son, twenty-nine-year-old Ronald Gene Simmons Jr. He then strangled his three-year-old granddaughter. All three bodies were later found in a shallow pit Simmons had instructed the children to dig months before for a third family outhouse.Later the same day, the Dover school bus dropped off the younger Simmons children for their Christmas break from school. Based on crime scene investigation, it is believed the Simmons children (ages seventeen, fourteen, eleven, and eight) were separated and killed individually, by strangulation and/or drowning in a rain barrel. Their bodies, too, were found in the hole for the outhouse.The older Simmons children had been invited to the Simmons home on December 26, 1987, for an after-Christmas dinner. Twenty-three-year-old William H. Simmons II, his twenty-one-year-old wife, Renata May Simmons, and their twenty-month-old son, all of Fordyce (Dallas County), were likely the first to arrive. William and Renata were shot, and their bodies were left by the dining room table, and covered with their own coats and some bedding. The child was killed and placed into the trunk of a car behind the Simmons home.Next to arrive were Simmons's twenty-four-year-old daughter, Sheila, and her husband, thirty-three-year-old Dennis Raymond McNulty, as well as their children, seven-year-old Sylvia (the daughter of Sheila and her father) and twenty-one-month-old Michael. Sheila was shot, and her body was laid on the dining room table and covered with a tablecloth. Simmons shot Dennis and strangled Sylvia. Michael was strangled and placed into the trunk of yet another parked car.Later this same day, Simmons drove to Russellville, where he stopped at a Sears store and picked up Christmas gifts that had been ordered but had not made it in before the holiday. Later that night, he drove to a private club in Russellville. Then he went home and waited out the weekend.On Monday, December 28, 1987, Simmons drove a car that had belonged to his son, Ronald Jr., to Russellville. He purchased a second gun from Walmart Inc. His next stop was the Peel, Eddy and Gibbons Law Firm. After entering the building, Simmons shot and killed receptionist/secretary Kathy Cribbins Kendrick. He next went to the Taylor Oil Company, where he shot and wounded Russell “Rusty” Taylor, the owner of the Sinclair Mini Mart where he had worked, and then shot and killed J. D. (Jim) Chaffin, a fireman and part-time truck driver for Taylor Oil. Simmons shot at and missed another employee before exiting the building. Simmons then went to the Sinclair Mini Mart, where he shot and wounded Roberta Woolery and David Salyer. His last stop was the Woodline Motor Freight company. Simmons located his former supervisor, Joyce Butts, and wounded her in the head and chest. He then took worker Vicky Jackson at gunpoint into the computer office and advised her to phone the police. Simmons allegedly told Jackson: “I've come to do what I wanted to do. It's all over now. I've gotten everybody who wanted to hurt me.” He surrendered to Russellville police when they arrived.Simmons was sent to the Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock (Pulaski County) for a competency evaluation by staff psychiatrist Dr. Irving Kuo. Kuo found Simmons to be sane and capable of standing trial. Robert E. “Doc” Irwin and John Harris were appointed by the court to represent Simmons. The prosecuting attorney was John Bynum. Jury selection for the first trial took less than six hours. Simmons was convicted on May 12, 1988, in the Franklin County Circuit Court for the deaths of Kendrick and Chaffin. On May 16 Judge John Samuel Patterson sentenced Simmons to death by lethal injection plus 147 years. Simmons refused all rights to appeal.Simmons was found guilty of fourteen counts of capital murder in the deaths of his family members on February 10, 1989, in the Johnson County Circuit Court, with Judge Patterson presiding. Bynum offered a possible motive when he presented an undated note that was discovered in a safe deposit box at a Russellville bank after Simmons's arrest. The letter seemed to indicate a strong love/hate relationship between Simmons and his daughter Sheila. After the judge ruled the letter admissible, Simmons lashed out at Bynum, punching him the face, and then unsuccessfully struggled for a deputy's handgun. Officers rushed him out of the courtroom in chains. Simmons was sentenced to death by lethal injection on March 16, 1989. He again waived all rights to appeal.KTHV reporter Anne Jensen conducted a series of interviews with Simmons in February and March 1989. On March 1, 1989, Simmons was found competent to waive his rights to appeal his conviction. However the filing of Whitmore v. Arkansas challenged this right. Reverend Louis Franz and Jonas Whitmore contended that Simmons using his right to refuse appeal in fact jeopardized the appellate rights of other death row inmates. By 7–2 vote, the Supreme Court justices threw out this appeal; however, the ongoing legal proceedings had prevented the execution of Simmons from being carried out. Simmons was watching television and eating what he thought would be his last meal when the news of his stay of execution was announced.On May 31, 1990, Governor Bill Clinton signed Simmons's second execution warrant for June 25, 1990. This was the quickest sentence-to-execution-to-death time in United States history since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Simmons refused all visitors, including legal counsel and clergy. His last words were: “Justice delayed finally be done is justifiable homicide.” No family members claimed the body, so Simmons was buried in a paupers' plot at Lincoln Memorial Lawn in Varner (Lincoln County).Ronald Gene Simmons CHRISTMAS FAMILY INCEST MASSACRE murdersTrue Crime Podcast 2022 Police Interrogations, 911 Calls and True Police Stories Podcast

Nicole Hill, EIT Project Engineer U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Far East District  In this episode, Nicole Hill talks about her experiences working as a project engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in South Korea. Previously she worked for the USACE Wilmington District. Her recent accomplishments include two housing tower complexes that accommodate over 400 military families, a barracks complex with a capacity for over 600 unaccompanied soldiers, a pet care center, and other infrastructure improvements. She was the recipient of the 2021 Women of Color STEM Conference Technology Rising Star Award. 

Brannen Parrish interviews Michael Ware about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Regulatory Authority under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Ware is a supervisory regulatory specialist at the Tulsa District. He is a graduate of Langston University and began his career with the Tulsa District as a Park Ranger in the 1990s. In 1995 he became a regulatory specialist based upon his biology background. He talks about the Regulatory Program's role in minimizing human impacts to natural habitats and ecosystems as well as its other Congressionally protected mandated authorities and responsibilities.

The Lynnhaven River Basin Ecosystem Restoration Project has been in the making for over two decades. The Army Corps will hold a community meeting about it on Monday.

7 sick days a year & a fair schedule. That is all the Railroad workers of the United States have asked for.Despite this, President Biden and Congress have seen fit to force a contract on the railroaders. Both the Senate and House voted for the contract. However, 52 senators (all of which have unlimited sick time and make $174,000) saw fit to vote down the sick time amendment to the contract. This left all the rail workers stuck with a hellish scheduling system (Precision Scheduled Railroading) and a contract that the rank and file have resoundingly rejected over and over.To really understand this battle, we needed to call in support. Luckily, friend-of-the-show Dr. Andrea Haverkamp came in clutch. Andrea takes us all the way back to some of the earliest railroad strikes in US history to help us get the whole perspective of the incredibly nuanced topic.Dr. Haverkamp is a Labor organizer for the American Federation of Teachers as well as a professor of Climate justice, queer student experiences in STEM, and engineering ethics at the University of San Diago. She has extensive experience in workplace organizing in higher education and healthcare, as well as coalition political organizing for environmental and social justice in the Pacific Northwest. Her research and teaching centers intersectional queer, trans, and feminist frameworks and an organizing approach towards social transformation. Her primary topics of research and teaching are climate justice, trans and gender nonconforming student experiences in STEM, and engineering ethics.Her engineering experience prior to academia and the labor movement includes environmental engineering positions in the federal government, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She has also served as a chemistry and physics high school teacher in Kolahun, Liberia in the Peace Corps.Dr. Haverkamp holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering with a doctoral minor in Queer Studies, a graduate certificate in College and University Teaching, and a Master of Engineering in Environmental Engineering from Oregon State University. She also holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas.The whole Rik's Mind family wants to express our HUGE support for the railroaders in this fight against the Feds. Godspeed and give'em hellLike and subscribe to us on Youtube for more fun and exclusive content!https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuM080VqVCe0gAns9V9WK9wSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/00gCjGhq8qrAEkraZnMwGR?go=1&sp_cid=ce203d55369588581151ec13011b84ac&utm_source=embed_player_pGoogle Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/u/1/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmlrc21pbmQuY29tL2xpc3Rlbj9mb3JtYXQ9cnNz?Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/riks-mind-podcast/id1460215365Show Notes:Dr. Andrea Haverkamp | University of San DiagoGreat Railroad Strike of 1877 | Encyclopedia BritannicaThe Pullman Strike of 1894 | US National Park ServiceEight Hour Day (1916) | US Library of CongressGreat Railroad Strike of 1922 | WikipediaFrom an 8-hour workday to Labor Day: Rail strikes that changed America | The Washington PostAdamson Act | WikipediaRailway Labor Act | WikipediaFair Labor Standards Act of 1938 | Wikipedia1992 United States railroad strike | WikipediaThe Postwar Strike Wave of 1945-46 | American History USAFor Minimum Decency, a Maximum Wage | Institute for Policy StudiesHuey Long | Encyclopedia BritannicaLawmakers consider how a Kroger-Albertsons merger would affect consumers | NPRWhat the proposed Kroger and Albertsons merger could mean for shoppers and food prices | PBS News HourWealth Inequality in Oregon Is Extreme | Oregon Center for Public PolicyIncome inequality in Oregon hits new record | Oregon Center for Public PolicyHow European-Style Public Housing Could Help Solve The Affordability Crisis | NPRImagine a Seattle that can house all of our neighbors in a collective effort | House Our NeighborsBuilding Resilient Organizations by Maurice Mitchell | The ForgeRail workers say quality-of-life concerns not resolved under deal imposed by Congress | PBS News HourShare Our Wealth | WikipediaTaft–Hartley Act | WikipediaWages and Working Conditions: The Railroad Strike of 1946 | The National World War II MuseumNo-Strike Pledge | CQ ResearcherWeekly Digest Number 49 - December 6th, 2022 | Rail & Labor News from Rail Workers UnitedLabor Rights or Labor Freedoms? A Conversation with Matthew Dimick | Laborwave RadioTags: andrea haverkamp, university of san diago, labor rights, workers rights ,railway strike, train strike, biden railway strike, railroad carriers, railroad bargaining, railroad unions, train infrastructure, breaking news, congress railway deal, politics, world news, news, laborwave radio, labor organizing, railroad strike 2022, railroad strike 1877, railway labor act of 1926, union workers rights, railroad workers sick time, senate votes down sick time Title: Rail Strikes, Labor Rights & Non-lethal Restraint NFTs w Dr. Andrea Haverkamp | Rik's Mind Ep 111

After graduating from Memphis University (formerly Memphis State University), Lee Conley embarked on a 10 year career of active duty service with the U.S. Army. He then went on to work for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at various locations while advancing to positions of progressively greater responsibility within the Southwestern Division. He started out with the Fort Worth District and worked at the Southwestern Division in Dallas, Texas, then the Little Rock District and eventually arrived at the Tulsa District where he served as the Deputy District Engineer for Programs and Management. We spoke to Lee Conley about his 35 year career, what he helped the District accomplish, and his future plans.

Infrastructure is the glue that holds our supply chain and economy together. The Army Corps of Engineers rates our roads at a grade of D, and our Public Transport at a D-. 43% of US roads are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition.With a growing backlog ($786 million) of repairs and upgrades needed, it's no mystery that our infrastructure is in a freefall of decay.  This episode helps make the case for why a feedback loop of decaying infrastructure leads to collapse.Learn More:Transportation Infrastructure | ASCE's 2021 Infrastructure Report CardRoad Infrastructure | ASCE's 2021 Infrastructure Report CardThe State of America's Roads | Busbud bloghttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/why-building-roads-and-transit-costs-more-in-the-u-shttps://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter3/transportation-and-economic-development/https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter3/transportation-and-economic-development/https://transportationtodaynews.com/news/21079-failure-to-address-infrastructure-could-cost-the-10-trillion-in-gdp-report-says/https://www.motortrend.com/features/american-roads-bridges-need-repairs-now/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2021/commute-calculator-pandemic/https://www.history.com/news/8-ways-roads-helped-rome-rule-the-ancient-worldhttps://www.valuepenguin.com/highway-spending-studyScuba Diver MagazineGet your weekly fix of all things scuba diving!Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

The Texas coast could permanently be altered by a storm surge barrier plan called the Ike Dike. In July, The U.S. Senate approved the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin planning the massive multibillion-dollar coastal project.

Cybersixgill Presents an encore episode of George McPherson's Blak Cyber podcast. Subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS | DownloadThis week, Blak Cyber's George McPherson sits down with Michael A. Echols, CEO and Founder of MAX Cybersecurity LLC, an 8a company whose clients include the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Homeland Security, and Transportation Security Administration, to name a few. Michael is a senior cybersecurity executive and critical infrastructure protection strategist. He works with senior corporate leaders and government officials to make the nation more resilient through enhanced threat information sharing, CMMC requirements, and expanding cyber domain control in education, health, transportation, and government sectors. Previously, Michael managed cyber resiliency programs for the Department of Homeland Security and served as the point person for the rollout of President Obama's Executive Order Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing. He developed a national program for risk management and cyber education and chaired the Communications Sector Government Coordinating Council (GCC)  and the Network Security Information Exchange.Michael discusses how he went from telecom to government work thwarting terrorists with technology. He shares why mentorship is important, how to use your skills to build yourself up, and why you need to study to excel. Learn why the average person needs to protect their digital lives and more.Originally premiered Mar 26, 2020ABOUT THIS EPISODE: The Blak Cyber podcast sits down to talk to Michael A. Echols, He dropped some jewels, and decoded the matrix!Michael A. Echols is the founder on Max Cybersecurity LLC, a Washington DC 8a company with clients including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Homeland Security, APTA, and Transportation Security Administration. Mr. Echols is a senior cybersecurity executive and critical infrastructure protection strategist working with senior corporate leaders and government officials to make the nation more resilient. He offers cybersecurity consultation through Max Cybersecurity LLC. He is leading a revolution to stand up and support leading security practices, enhance threat Information Sharing, meet CMMC requirements and expand cyber domain control for the Education, Health, Transportation, and Government Sectors. As such, Mr. Echols leads a global effort to holistically harmonize cyber management. Previously, Mr. Echols managed cyber resiliency programs for the Department of Homeland Security while assisting in the advancement of national risk reduction practices. As the point person for the rollout of President Obama's EO 13691, he developed a national program for risk management and cyber education. Mr. Echols Chaired the Communications Sector GCC and the Network Security Information Exchange.

Democrats gathering to consider shaking up the order of their 2024 presidential primary are waiting on President Joe Biden. An immigrant-led activist group is organizing Congolese residents to pressure Johnson County to reopen its Direct Assistance Program. Plus, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is agreeing to consider changes to levees along the Missouri River in an effort to avoid a repeat of recent major floods.

Imagine scientists and engineers using 3D printing technology to create nature-inspired structures and to produce more effective, economic, and aesthetically pleasing solutions. In the premier episode of Season 5 of the Engineering With Nature® Podcast, host Sarah Thorne, and Burton Suedel, Research Biologist at the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), are talking with two ERDC colleagues - Alan Kennedy, who is in the risk branch of the Environmental Lab, and Zackery McClelland, who is in the concrete and materials branch of the Geotechnical and Structures Lab.   Additive manufacturing (AM) creates objects by adding material layer by layer through computer aided design. This contrasts with traditional, or subtractive manufacturing that starts with something larger and chips away at material to create the final product. 3D printing is a subset of the larger AM field. Applying AM to Engineering With Nature (EWN), creates an opportunity to go beyond the conventional approaches that use steel and rock, to achieve the multiple social, economic and environmental benefits that are an objective of EWN.   The use of 3D printing unlocks the ability to make complex, overlapping, nature-inspired geometries that are impossible to make with traditional methods. This allows mimicking natural, asymmetric structures such as coral-like stubs and mangrove roots. These structures can provide habitat enhancements and erosion controls, while being aesthetically pleasing in recreational areas. They can also blend and composite synthetic and natural biopolymers. This allows scientists to tune the material's structure and mechanical properties, as well as its surface chemistry and porosity for whatever the site-specific need or application may be.   These advances can be thought of as a natural evolution of collaborative thinking which is key to the ERDC culture and are emerging, in part, related to the reduced costs and improved user friendliness of the 3D printing equipment, plus recent capital investments made at all three ERDC labs. Novel 3D printing technologies that can use natural materials such as sand and clay, have the potential to incorporate beneficial use of dredge material as a feed stock for 3D printing.   While there are lots of hobbyists, universities and even companies doing 3D printing, the application at the Army Corps in an infrastructure context is unique and the potential for beneficial use of dredge material can be a real game changer. One of the goals of work in this area is to make additive manufacturing a mission enabler for novel solutions by creating interagency partnerships and making use of natural materials standard at EWN Proving Grounds. As Burton notes: “By combining the efforts of the Geotechnical Structures Laboratory and the Environmental Laboratories, bringing together the disparate disciplines, we're going to learn a lot from each other and we're going be able to accomplish more in this space. From an EWN perspective, there are a lot of applications for this type of research and this type of capability.”   For more information, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/   Related Links Burton Suedel at LinkedIn Alan Kennedy at LinkedIn Environmental Laboratory, ERDC Zackery McClelland at LinkedIn Geotechnical and Structures Lab, ERDC

Kim Reyher joins Tommy to talk about the Neptune Pass and the future of it.

On today's Midday Report with host Terry Haines: A surveyor got stuck in the mudflats near Girdwood yesterday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says they are moving forward with dredging Unalaska Bay. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture is granting $3.6 million to Interior Alaska villages to help improve water systems and landfills.

In this episode, Inside the Castle talk with Nicole Comisky, Program Manager for Environmental Infrastructure at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters, to learn more about the Corps environmental infrastructure authority. Listen in to hear how this authority for water related infrastructure assists local communities.

November is Veteran's Month at FM Talk 106.5! On Midday Mobile Sean Sullivan talked to veterans to get their stories. This "A Moment in Time" features Robert Kennedy Jr and his time in the Navy. He credited growing up with his father in the Army and moving around and his mother served in the Army Corps of Engineers.  Brought to you by Express Employment Professionals - Mobile, AL and L & S Air Conditioning, Refrigeration, Heating & Duct Cleaning

Episode: 00133 Release Date: November 14, 2022 Description: The military sure does prepare you for civilian law enforcement work, but how did that look like in the 90s when technology wasn't so advanced as it is today? Rich Kilburn gives us insights on how the military and law enforcement analysis was when he first started, and how it evolved over his three decades of experience in each. Rich presents us with a couple of analyst badge stories this week, one involving a patrol workload assessment that improved workflow and promoted efficiency, and the other about the (caught and convicted) Fast Food Serial Killer, Paul Dennis Reid. Rich walks us through how emerging technology helped investigate and solve the case, in addition to great police work of course! Rich is currently the research manager for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, a position he held for almost 30 years! Rich also has 30 years as an Army Corps engineer officer, and retired as a colonel.  CHALLENGE: There are Easter eggs in one of the tables of the Excel chapter that Jason wrote for the IACA textbook. First-person to email us at leapodcasts@gmail.com about what the Easter eggs are will receive a $20 gift card from us. Happy hunting! Name Drops: Mark Stallo (00:19:40), Christine Talley (00:51:27) Public Service Announcements: Manny San Pedro (https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-manny-san-pedro-the-penalty-box-analyst/) Brian Napolitano (https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-brain-napolitano-the-legend-of-tomorrow/) Shawn Fisher (https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/shawn-fisher-the-geographer/) Related Links: The Fast Food KIller:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dennis_Reid https://www.nashville.gov/departments/police/executive-services/strategic-development/crime-analysis/reports https://www.coronasolutions.com/ Association(s) Mentioned: IACA Vendor(s) Mentioned:  Corona Solutions Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-kilburn-7b21ab72/  Transcript: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/9ccqvj/RichardKilburn_transcript.pdf  Podcast Writer: Mindy Duong Podcast Researcher:  Theme Song: Written and Recorded by The Rough & Tumble. Find more of their music at www.theroughandtumble.com. Logo: Designed by Kyle McMullen. Please visit www.moderntype.com for any printable business forms and planners.  Podcast Email: leapodcasts@gmail.com   Podcast Webpage: www.leapodcasts.com   Podcast Twitter: @leapodcasts YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/NACABxQWdPk  00:00:17 – Introducing Rich 00:07:57 – Applying for Closed Position 00:17:41 – ABS:  Allocation Assessment 00:26:12 – ABS:  Fast Food Killer 00:30:23 – Break:  Manny San Pedro & Brian Napolitano 00:31:35 – ABS:  Rank of Prisoner Release Program 00:39:11 – Iraq Deployments 00:43:27 – Advice 00:52:06 – Leaders:  Nature or Nurture  00:54:37 – Education Requirement 00:57:21 – Personal Interests:  Bourbon Snob  01:00:28 – Words to the World 01:01:19 – Break:  Shawn Fisher

(Bonus) The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the placename gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939 but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $23 billion in 2020). Over 90 percent of the cost was for building factories and producing fissile material, with less than 10 percent for developing and producing weapons. Research and production took place at more than thirty sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

The Corps of Engineers says results from a preliminary analysis show the school is safe for students and staff. Some parents and environmental activists doubt that information following a private report showing dangerous radiation levels.

Open source software and sharing code continues to grow in importance that unlocks tremendous potential for Federal programs. Expert practitioners from across Federal agencies discuss lessons learned, best practices and real world examples of open source in action. Moderator:Sophia B Liu, Ph.D. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Science & Decisions Center Participatory Innovation Specialist Panelists: Amanda Bright National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Lead Artificial Intelligence Data Scientist Chris Rasmussen National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Tearline Project Founder & Program Manager Justin Rice, Ph.D. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Deputy Manager for ESDIS Project's Science Systems Development Office Nathan Frantz U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineer R&D Center (ERDC) TAK.gov Geographer & Program Manager Rory Nealon U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) GeoCenter Senior GIS Analyst & YouthMappers Activity Manager For more FedGeoDay content go to www.projectgeospatial.com/fedgeoday --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/projectgeo/support

Allyship produces fair-weather commoraderie. Allegience is about supporting historically marginalized groups, even when it doesn't serve you. In today's episode DEI Strategist, Dethra Giles, talks us through how allyship is not enough when it comes to progressing the DEI movement. Allyship is only present when it's beneficial for the person holding the most privilege to be supporting others. The moment it stops being beneficial, that allyship goes away. The idea of allegiance proclaims something much more holistic. What would unwavering support do for historically marginalized communities in workspaces? What would the impact be on issues like age discrimination? bias based on a person's accent? If you've been wondering how to move DEI efforts from frantic reactions brought on by world events, to a sustained effort that can be maintained over time, this is the episode for you. THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS SHOWDethra Giles talks about her superpower of seeing things in people that they cannot see in themselves [02:58] Why haven't we made better progress towards DEI? [09:13] Giles talks about the two camps within DEI and how they can learn to collaborate on lasting systems and change. [11:51] What factors keep the DEI Community from seeing their allies? [17:01] Where is DEI headed in the future? [27:09] How do I move the needle as a middle manager? [30:57] KEEP UP WITH GUESThttps://www.dethragiles.org/dethra-speaks-1 (Listen to Dethra Gile's Podcast Happily Ever Employed) https://www.linkedin.com/in/dethragiles/ (Follow Dethra Giles on Linkedin) EPISODE RESOURCEShttps://remarkable-leadership-lessons.mn.co/plans/221111?bundle_token=4b95ffe2499218bea24341d2cab48999&utm_source=manual (Join the Remarkable Leadership Lessons Community Now) https://rllessons.com/ (Visit the Remarkable Leadership Lessons Site) Got questions? Send them here Interested in being a guest? https://calendly.com/denisecooperspeaks/podcast-overview-referral (Schedule an introduction call)! Subscribe on https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1453921255?ign-itscg=30200&ign-itsct=lt_p (Apple Podcasts), https://open.spotify.com/show/52hAJHuGUXlyhKuOyuon3U (Spotify), or https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5jYXB0aXZhdGUuZm0vY2xvc2luZy10aGUtZ2FwLw (Google Podcasts), and leave us a rating or review GUEST BIOA floppy disk! When Dethra was looking through her book closet, she came across a manual from one of her first certifications on diversity. In the back of the manual was a floppy disk; that is how long Dethra has been committed to the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial justice. Dethra Giles has been striving to make DEI part of the workforce DNA for over two decades. Dethra is a four-time TEDx speaker, ranked Engagedly's Top 100 Influencers for outstanding contributions towards promoting a culture of diversity and inclusion, selected as HR Gazette's HRchat Pod Top 22 most influential experts in HR is a host of the Happily Ever Employed podcast. As the CEO of ExecuPrep, she leads an international Performance Optimization Consulting firm specializing in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Her methods and impact have earned her the title “University tested, and industry approved.” Her unique blend of advanced education and industry experience provides her the needed expertise to impact executives and high potential teams.   Her clients have included Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, Kaiser Permanente, The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Army Corp of Engineers, and the Salvation Army. Dethra takes her education and years of experience and turns them into results-driven actions for her clients.   According to her, every organization has what it needs for optimum performance; her job is to make what is already present work in a way it had not worked before. By optimizing employee performance, organization structure, and leadership Dethra makes magic happen within organizations. She is a top-rated...

Ryan Duffy, with the Enbridge Communication Team. Home heating costs predicted to be way up this year. Army Corps was taking public comment on the tunnel project, where are we at in the permitting process? what candidates are saying about the tunnel?

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story, the Tale of the Memphis U.S. Marine Hospital.  The year was 1798 and President Adams decreed there needed to be a hospital for the sick, injured, and disabled maritime men. This Marine Hospital cared for the seamen who worked on the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, the original plot of land, in Napoleon Arkansas, washed away when the river changed course and the new hospital was built in Fort Pickering, south of Memphis in 1884.It consisted of a stable, two wards, the surgeon's house, nurses' quarters, and an executive building. This hospital was the city's first federally-funded public health facility and the only government hospital in the area at that time. It remained so until after WWI. Not only did the hospital treat those who worked the river, it also served Civil War Veterans and Yellow Fever victims. The hospital played a vital role in trying to find a cure for Yellow Fever.  Be sure to come back for season three which is all about Yellow Fever and learn why this sickness had such an impact on our city and why we wanted to find a cure.  In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration built a new hospital building on the site, moving the remaining original buildings 300 feet to the west. Over the years, the facility was used by the Coast Guard, active military, public health officials, cadets from state maritime activities, Army Corps of Engineers, and government employees injured in the line of duty.  The hospital closed in the 1960s and part of the grounds were leased to the Metal Museum in 1979. As recently as the 1990s, the grounds were used to house Desert Storm soldiers. Sadly, the hospital sat derelict until a developer decided to purchase the buildings and land in 2003. It wasn't until almost 20 years later that anything was done with it after that.  So what about the spooky parts? So a little history as to what happened in the area now known as French Fort.  Battles of the Civil War raged along the Mississippi River in the area around where the Marine Hospital was to sit. The Confederate army set up camp in the area and turned one of the ceremonial mounds into an artillery bunker. The Union army then quickly overtook the area and turned it into a camp.Battles mean tragic death and tragic death generally means restless spirits.  Since its inception, over 100,000 soldiers were treated at the hospital and 40,000 died there. There were also over 10,000 deaths from Yellow Fever.  So it's fair to say, from all the death that occured on the land as well as in the hospital itself, there is bound to be some paranormal activity.  We watched an episode of Ghost Asylum for research and while it was a little campy, what ghost hunting show isn't, they seemed to get a lot of evidence of spirit activity.  Supposedly, a civil war soldier by the name of Henry Wood haunts the second floor of the hospital, wandering the hallways.Maybe he was a soldier killed in battle and couldn't find his way home. Or maybe he was a former soldier that was treated at the hospital but succumbed to an illness and since he was well cared for at the hospital, he just stuck around.  There was also a presence felt in the basement. One of the investigators was talking to the spirits and he felt something pass behind him. The basement housed the morgue, which assuredly is haunted. Or at least I think it would be. All of the lives that were lost passed through that room. But there was also something more strange down there, cages. The cages were apparently used for keeping the yellow fever victims separated.  They cleaned up the recordings from the basement investigations and when one of the guys asked, “did they keep you in here to die”, they heard a response saying something along the lines of “kept us caged”, indicating that they did cage them in to die.  I'm not really sure what they thought a cage would do,

Dylan Peters is a spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers. He says the way the oil leaked was unusual.

Episode Summary Dr. Devin Drown, associate professor of biology and faculty director of the Institute of Arctic Biology Genomics Core at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, discusses how soil disturbance gradients in the permafrost layer impact microbial communities. He also explains the larger impacts of his research on local plant, animal and human populations, and shares his experience surveilling SARS-CoV-2 variants in Alaska, where he and colleagues have observed a repeat pattern of founder events in the state. Ashley's Biggest Takeaways Permafrost is loosely defined as soil that has been frozen for 2 or more years in a row. Some permafrost can be quite young, but a lot of it is much older—1000s of years old. This frozen soil possesses large storage capacity for walking carbon and other kinds of nutrients that can be metabolized by microbes as well as other organisms living above the frozen ground. About 85% of the landmass in Alaska is underlined by permafrost. Some is continuous permafrost, while other areas of landmass are discontinuous permafrost—locations where both unfrozen soil and frozen soil are present. As this frozen resource is thawing as a result of climate change, it is releasing carbon and changing soil hydrology and nutrient composition, in the active layer in the soil surrounding it. Changes in the nutrients and availability of those nutrients are also likely changing the structure of the microbial communities. Drown and team are using a combination of traditional (amplicon sequencing) and 3rd generation (nanopore) next sequencing (NGS) techniques to characterize the microbes and genes that are in thawing permafrost soil. Featured Quotes: “Globally, we've seen temperatures increase here in the Arctic. Changes in global temperatures are rising even faster, 2-3 times, and I've heard recent estimates that are even higher than that.” “These large changes in temperatures are causing direct impacts on the thaw of the permafrost. But they're also generating changes in other patterns, like increases in wildfires. We just had a substantial wildfire season here in Alaska, and those wildfires certainly contribute to additional permafrost thaw by sometimes removing that insulating layer of soil that might keep that ground frozen, as well as directly adding heat to the to the soil.” “There are other changes that might be causing permafrost thaw, like anthropogenic changes, changes in land use patterns. As we build and develop roads into areas that haven't been touched by humans in a long time. We're seeing changes in disruption to permafrost.” “Some people are quite interested in what might be coming out of the permafrost. We might see nutrients, as well as microorganisms that are moving from this frozen bank of soil into the active layer.” “We're using next generation sequencing techniques to characterize not only who is in these soils, but also what they're doing.” “I started as a faculty member in 2015. As I moved up to Alaska, I got some really great advice from a postdoctoral mentor that said, make sure you choose something local. I'm fortunate enough that I have access to permafrost thaw gradient, that's effectively in the backyard of my office.” “Just a few miles from campus, we have access to a site that's managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. They have a cold regions group up here that runs a more famous permafrost tunnel. So they've dug a deep tunnel into the side of a hill that stretches back about 40,000 years into permafrost. They also have a great field site that has an artificially induced permafrost thaw gradient, and a majority of our published work has been generated by taking soil cores from that field site.” “Maintaining that cold chain, whether it's experimental reagents or experimental samples, is a challenge for everyone. We're collecting active layer soil—the soil directly beneath our feet—so that's not at terribly extreme temperatures. But we do put it in coolers immediately upon extracting from the from the environment. Then we can bring it back to our lab where we can freeze it if we're going to use it for later analysis, or we can keep it at appropriately cool temperatures, if we're going to be working with the microbial community directly.” “We were most interested in looking for microbes that might have impacts on the above ground. ecosystem. So when we were characterizing the microbial community, we were doing that because we also wanted to link it to above ground changes.” “Changes in vegetation that might be driven by changes in microorganisms would certainly have an impact on the wildlife that are that are present at the site. So, just as an example, if we see a decrease in berries that might be present, that might decrease the interest from animals that rely on that [food source]. And so we might see changes in who's there.” “Outside of my research, we've seen changes in the types of plants present across northern latitudes. So different willows, for instance, are moving farther north, and that is leading animals, like moose, to move farther north. And so we might see changes in those kinds of patterns directly as a result of the microorganisms as well.” “We're really working to expand our efforts to move to other kinds of disturbances. I mentioned wildfires before, these are an important source of disturbance for boreal forest ecosystems. We have a project here in the interior, looking at the impacts of wildfires on microbial communities and how [these disturbances] might be changing the functional potential of microbial communities.” Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us @ASMicrobiology or leaving a comment on facebook.com/asmfan.

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Justin Giles, Chief of the Water Management Section with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District, talks about current and future Mississippi River Levels.

Environmentalists and parents of Jana Elementary students are concerned about a study that shows radioactive contamination from World War II-era nuclear waste in nearby Coldwater Creek. STLPR education reporter Kate Grumke, Missouri Coalition for the Environment Executive Director Jared Opsal and Community Outreach Specialist Christen Commusso discuss what's next — and steps the Army Corps of Engineers should take to reverse the damage.

Episode Notes Episode Summary For this episode of This Month in the Apocalypse, Brooke, Margaret, and Casandra chat about more horrible things and some fixes. They talk about supply chain shortages, corn, ways to keep your house warmer without using a ton of energy or resources, dubious debunked how warming myths that also might burn it down, and a thorough introduction to hurricane preparedness. Host Info Casandra can be found on Twitter @hey_casandra or Instagram @House.Of.Hands. Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Brooke is just great and can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter @ogemakweBrooke Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode Hopefully will come out Friday, October 4th, and every two weeks there after. Transcript An easier to read version is available on our website TangledWilderness.org. This Month In the Apocalypse: October Brooke Hello and welcome to Live Like The World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, one of your hosts today, along with the brilliant Margaret Killjoy and the iridescent Casandra. This is October 2022 installment of your most favorite Live Like The World Is Dying sub-segment, This Month In The Apocalypse. Today, we're going to talk about the latest shortages, the looming crisis in energy, fuel sources and what can be done about the crisis, war, climate disasters and probably some shit about the economy. But first, we'd like to celebrate being a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts by playing a little jingle from one of the other luminous podcasts on our network. Doo doo doo. Jingle Speaker 1 Kiteline is a weekly 30 minute radio program focusing on issues in the prison system, you'll hear news along with stories from prisoners and former prisoners as well as their loved ones. You'll learn what prison is, how it functions and how it impacts all of us. Margaret Behind the prison walls, a message is called a kite, whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, a request submitted the guards for medical care. Illicit or not, sending a kite means trusting that other people will bare it farther along until it reaches its destination. Here on Kiteline, we hope to share these words across the prison walls. Jingle Speaker 1 You can hear us on the Channel Zero Network and find out more at Kiteline radio.no blogs.org. Brooke And we're back. Quick introductions for those of you who might not remember each of us or might be listening for the first time. I'm Brooke an indigenous, baby anarchist woman who loves spreadsheets home remodeling and connecting with the land. And I'm going to toss to Margaret. Margaret I'm Margaret, and I am someone who writes a lot and is on podcasts a lot. And does useful stuff too. But, those are some of the things I do. And I will pass it to Casandra. Casandra I wasn't prepared for an introduction. Margaret Neither was I. Casandra My name is Cassandra. I garden and weave. Check! Margaret Yay. Brooke And do amazing art. Casandra Yeah, I make books. And drink tea. Okay. Margaret That's good tea. Casandra Yeah. Margaret Back to you, Brooke. Casandra Oh, yeah, we're supposed to remember to plug things. Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness is putting out our...Well, it's not really technically our first book is it, Margaret? Brooke Speaking of books, I feel like there's a book that you've been working on lately. I know we're supposed to plug things at the end. But this sounds great to mention it now. Margaret No, but it's our first book is a new collective. Casandra Okay, we're putting out our first book as the new collective. And also, first book in a long time, called "Try Anarchism For Life: The Beauty Of Our Circle" by Cindy Barukh Milstein. And I think I sent it to the printer yesterday. So fingers crossed. Brooke If people want to preorder that, Casandra, where can they do that? Casandra On the Stranger's site. And if you preorder it, you'll get some cute little book plates, which I didn't realize other people didn't know what book plates are. But, they're like the little stamps or stickers, you can put at the beginning of books. And it says "ex libris," which means 'from the library of,' and you can write your name so everyone knows it's your book. Brooke Nice. So check out our website for that awesome book, which is beautifully designed, and actually a really, really good read. I really enjoyed it. All right, in our very first episode of This Month In The Apocalypse, one of the things we talked about was things that were in shortage, and surprise, surprise, we are continuing to have supply chain shortages. The thing that made me recall this and want to bring it up, again, is that I saw an NPR article in the last week about the fact that Adderall is facing a shortage, which is interesting, and did a little more digging on what's going on there. And part of it is that they had labor shortages. So, they fell behind in their production. And then the part that was super interesting to me that I've never thought about, Adderall is a highly controlled substance. It's probably a well known fact, part of the part of the highly controlled portion of it is that manufacturers are regulated in how much of it they can produce. So, if they fall behind their schedule, it's not as easy as just like, "Oh, we're gonna do a double shift and make extra this month," they have to get like, special dispensation to be able to make more. So they can make the amount that they're allowed to, but not more than that without special permission. Margaret So they can't catch up? Brooke They can if like they apply for FDA approval and get, you know, temporary approval or whatever to make extra, assuming they can get the ingredients they need and workers to actually make the extra. But yeah, it's not as easy as just like, "Oh, we need to make extra." There's a whole bunch of extra stuff going on that they have to do to do that. Casandra Yay, bureaucracy. Brooke Yeah, totally. So ration your Adderall? That's probably probably not how that works. There are other medical supplies that are still in shortage too. This, I also found interesting because we haven't seen it in the headlines as much, or at least I haven't, right.? Like, it hasn't been in the news. But, there have been things that have continued to be in short supply of the throughout the whole pandemic. One of the items is gloves. There's lots of different kinds of gloves that medical providers use, you know, you've got vinyl gloves, and nitrile gloves, and powdered, and non powdered, and the thicker and thinner, and all of that kind of stuff. And so there's like several different types of specific gloves that are in short supply that.... Casandra When you said gloves, I was picturing like knitted gloves. Like why? Brooke Sorry, no, like medical gloves. Casandra That makes much more sense. Brooke Just get your grandma's to start knitting, and it'll be okay. Casandra Yep. Brooke Also, testing supplies are in short supply for medical providers. And specifically, it was like the equipment used to collect samples, store samples, transport samples, for medical tests, that portion of it. And then I guess, ventilator parts are still in short supply, as well. Margaret I guess that makes sense, since everyone wants that. Brooke Yeah. So that's the medical side of things. And then other things out in the real world, this is one I hadn't heard about, but tampons, I guess I've been in short supply. So it's good time to learn menstrual extraction. If you know somebody that can teach you that if you want to learn, or looking for other options, if you haven't previously been open to trying things like menstrual cups, might be a time to do that. Margaret, this is a fun throwback to our first one, there was this thing that was in short supply that you mentioned, and that each of us have two have on our respective homes. Margaret Um, wind...I'm trying to come up with something clever, I know the actual answer, but trying to come up with something funny. Casandra Garage doors? Margaret Yeah, it's garage doors. Brooke To the point where like, if you're a contractor, and you're going to build a house, they're recommending that before you start with anything related to the building of your house, the very first thing you do is order the garage doors, because it will take basically the whole time for them to get there. Like the last thing that will arrive and that you will install in the house is the garage door because of how long they taking. Casandra I knew it! Casandra Okay, I feel like every, like it's a running joke, and you all will always bring up garage doors. And every time I'm like, But, why is there a shortage? And then every time I forget, so I'm gonna ask again. Why? Brooke I don't think we talked about why last time. Margaret I don't think we have a 'why.' I think that there's just a lot of shit that is like, my guess is because it's so specialized that they make a certain amount. And then I don't know, but it might be something more about new homes? I don't know, The answer is I don't know, Brooke Part of it is lumber. Because remember, lumber was in short supply, like lumber mills shut down early in the pandemic. And so there was like a lot of lumber that was not being produced. And then when they started up again, because the price of lumber has gone up the price of garage doors are like two or three times higher, depending on where you live than they were pre pandemic. And part of that's because the lumber is so much more expensive. Margaret Okay, but hear me out. It'd be prettier anyway, it's instead of having the kind that rolls up above, just have like big old barn doors that swing open, and just make them out of two by fours. And it will totally work. And I'm sure there's no specific reason that people have developed a much more specialized solution. Brooke Yeah, definitely not. Casandra And there can just be like a rope from the door to your fence. So when you drive up to your fence, you can just grab the rope and pull it. Margaret Yeah, totally. Casandra And that will open the garage door. Margaret Yeah, or some sort of like system where you like knock something over as you're driving up towards your house. It like knocks over the ball, that rolls down the hill and it hits the thing and then it does the thing. And then the garage door swings open and then hits something that it shouldn't have and then starts another chain reaction and then the whole neighborhoods on fire. Casandra Yeah, totally secure Brooke I was with you till the end. So a real nice Rube Goldberg type of garage door opening. Margaret Yeah, I think that is the solution for most of these things that we're missing. Like for example, lack of gloves. Have doctors considered using knit gloves? Brooke Really great point, Margaret. Really great point. Moving on. Computer chips continue to be in short supply.That was an issue like this time last year. It got a little better. Casandra Wait, what news? Brooke Computer chips, Casandra Computer ships? I'm sorry, I... Brooke The ones that go into like everything, like not just computers, but like they go into cars now, they go into your television, they go you know... Casandra My contribution today is going to be to mishear everything. Brooke That's alright, it's going to be way more fun that way. Margaret Okay, so tortilla chips, also chips conduct electricity, probably if you put enough electricity into them. Brooke I don't know if they have any conductive materials in them, Margaret. Maybe we need to add some metal to our tortilla chips. Brooke And then they can do this. Margaret Yeah. Margaret It's good for everyone. And just mark it for anyone who has braces that they should avoid them. Brooke Okay, yeah. Excellent. Renewable too because corn. Margaret That's not something I'm going to talk about later about. Anyway. Brooke Sadly, baby formula continues to be in shortage. Again, that's not making the headlines like it was when it first started. But, that is still a major issue. So, check on your people. Do what you can to help out there. Unfortunately, that's ongoing and doesn't still doesn't have a solution in sight right now. They've been...like they ramped up production on it and stuff, but it's just still not enough. And then the raw ingredients that go into make it too, of course, have continued to have problems. Here's a really sad one for you, Margaret. It's it's one of your favorite things. And the concept of this item tends to be a sponsor of one of those other podcasts. Casandra Guns. Margaret Oh no, smiling children? Brooke No, there's plenty of them. You only really need one. So that's, that's okay. Margaret Don't tell me that there's no potatoes. Brooke Potatoes are in short supply. Margaret This has gone historically badly for my people. Brooke There was like a whole famine or something. Except there wasn't. Casandra Something. Brooke Yeah, sorry. potatoes, potatoes in short supply. Okay. Casandra But it's like harvest potato season right now? Are they just already anticipating that there won't be enough potatoes? Brooke Yeah, that's part of it. Again, we've talked about in previous episodes, how like, there have been really weird climate shit happening, especially like in the US that's affected the growth and production of things. Like here where we live, our Spring was way long and cold and wet. And it really fucked up the growing cycles of things. So, loss. Casandra Yeah, my potatoes didn't do great. Brooke Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there were losses due to that early in the season of like potato plants. And then they're not anticipating, you know, what they are getting out of the ground to be, excuse me, as plentiful as it might otherwise be. Or normally be. Yeah, that's sad. Less sad, Christmas trees are probably going to be in short supply again, this year, they're not sure. But, they were last year, and the conditions that cause that are looking to be much the same. So yeah, living things that get chopped down in order to decorate your house for a month, fewer of those. Sorry? Margaret Alternatives include decorating a living tree, or moving into a house that some old weird person left a fake Christmas tree in the attic. Or using last year's tree. Casandra I'm a big fan of rosemary trees, and then you just plant it. Brooke You can also paint a tree on your wall somewhere and then just set out presents. You can make out of cardboard with your children. Margaret Or, you can realize its pagan idols idolatry and realize that a true Christian would never celebrate Christmas. Casandra Or you can convert, and do Hanukkah, because they overlap this year. Brooke Yes, I love it when they overlap. Casandra Menorahs are pretty. Margaret There's so many options. Yeah. Brooke Okay, cool. And then our last supply chain thing, which will be a nice toss is that energy and fuel are in short supply and expected to be in even shorter supply, which means I can toss this to Margaret to talk more about that issue. Margaret Yay, everything's doomed. I mean, everything's gonna be fine. Somewhere in between these two extremes is the truth. Okay, so Europe is having a power crisis. And not the old fashioned kind where people decide they don't want kings anymore, but kinda about natural gas mostly. And, it is the worst energy crisis since World War II. And, there's a lot of causes of it. The most immediate cause, that is absolutely the most immediate cause, and it's, it's not the straw that broke the camel's back, it's like the two by four that broke the camel's back, is the is that Russia has responded...Okay, so no, I'm gonna start at the beginning instead. Okay, so for 20 years or so... Brooke No, start in the middle! Margaret So for 20 years or so, Euroupe has been trying to use fossil fuels...If I was really starting at the beginning it would be like: the economic project that is Europe was caused by stripping all of the natural resources out of the developing world. But, for the last 26 years, Europe has been like, "We want to be the seen as the people who are really good. And so we're going to use fewer fossil fuels." And so, for about 20 years, they've been trying to work on that. However, this has basically increased their dependence on other places, like Russia, primarily Russia, in this case, where natural gas imports cheap, natural gas imports from Russia have been absolutely a mainstay. However, this has been crisis for the past two Winters too, even before the Ukrainian war, basically. Because, if you're going to have renewables as the way that you're trying to make a sustainable world, it has to be coupled with degrowth, instead of just like continuing to have a growing thing, because like, actually, renewables create less power overall at the moment, right. So, increased dependence on Russia, and then Russia has not officially cut off natural gas exports to Europe, what they did instead is they stopped 89% of their natural gas exports. And, they did it by saying, "Oh, we have a leak, and we can't fix it because of the sanctions. So, I guess you have to stop the economic sanctions against us, or you don't get any natural gas." And so they're blackmailing the West, and I don't know, whatever, I mean, I don't expect better of them. They're in the middle of fucking fading and genociding Ukraine, so whatever. But, this is a problem. And also increasing drought that's been hitting Europe really badly, it fucks up a bunch of other things, too. It fucks up their hydroelectric. And then, it even fucks up their coal, because coal is transported by river. And, they can't if the rivers are too low. And so the Right wing wants to blame a lot of this on Germany's shutdown of like the completely safe nuclear power plants or whatever. But, I think that that's worth contrasting with...France is actually at half nuclear power right now, because corrosion, lagging repairs, and general lack of safety have caused the nuclear power plants about to...to have to operate at about half capacity. So nucular, actually, sometimes complicated. And the heatwave has also meant that they can't use river water to cool the plants, because there's the nuclear power plants, and the other, I think other power plants too, because they use river water to cool it. But, I think it's a combination of the river water being much hotter than it usually is. And then also much less of it. Though, the one weird thing that people are like hoping will like pull it through at the last minute is there's now this new micro nucular reactor that's supposed to be safe, because it uses molten salts and fuel rods. And it fits onto a tractor trailer and powers 1000 homes, and is not yet being produced commercially. But, it's like a thing that people say that they've developed. So, the UK has seen energy prices, the energy price increase has doubled since last year's increase. So, it's not like...energy prices aren't double, but they have grown at double the rate, protests are breaking out, people are starting to burn their utility bills. And what's kind of cool is that you'd sort of expect this kind of protest to kind of go in a Right wing direction about like, you know, fuck you, let's go frack or whatever. But, actually, it's, at least what I've seen is that the protests are mostly coming out of a Left wing and a-political position. And, a lot of is like pushing to nationalize gas, and basically say like, "This is fucked up. This is affecting the poor people more than anyone else." Gas being, in this case used for heating, but also is used for power generation, and then a lot of industrial manufacturing. And, this is not just a matter of rising costs, it's literally a potential in the next couple of weeks, there might be blackouts and power rationing. Various places are limiting power use, like businesses are being encouraged to turn off their air conditioners, and all this kind of stuff. And of course, everything happens in a vacuum with this kind of thing. So, there's no way...wait, no, no, this will cause stagnation economically and could easily trigger a recession. Margaret And the other thing that it does, is it creates this awful fucking feedback loop. We talked about last time where like the feedback loop of like, all this flooding, destroying Pakistan, causing them to get IMF loans, which cause more austerity, which cause more, you know, climate change or whatever, you have a very similar feedback cycle, in that it's the...because of this stuff that's happening, more fossil fuel production is happening, coal plants are coming back online. Fracking is no longer banned in the UK. And of course, the pipeline attack that didn't help any of this, that was probably Russia, but Russia blames it on the US, was the largest methane release in documented history. So, even though the pipes weren't even an active use, the fact that they were ruptured caused the largest methane release in documented history. And of course, it was the heatwave the summer that spiked power usage. And so, climate change causes people to get more desperate for power. So, we enter to a vicious cycle, which will definitely not have any effects anywhere but Europe, and we can probably be done with that issue unless someone else has something to say about it affecting elsewhere. Casandra Yeah, I was reading about how the domino effect is impacting the US. It sort of seems self evident, but I'll talk about it anyway. So it looks like 40% of the US of our electricity is generated by natural gas, which I didn't realize. So, you know, in the US, we either heat our homes with natural gas or electric, but natural gas prices impact electricity prices, maybe someone else can explain that to me, because I don't quite get it. But, the moral of the story is that when natural gas prices go up, all of the other prices go up as well. Yeah, they're expecting anything from a 17% increase to a third increase? I don't understand. Yeah, thank you. 33%. So that sucks. It's not as bad as Europe, like I'm looking at...I was looking at Germany in the UK, and it sounds like their prices are way, way, way, way higher, but it's still not gonna be great here. So, I was hoping we could talk about things that people can do. Like ways they can keep their home warm, and insulated and stuff like that. Brooke and I are both in the Pacific Northwest, which is known for its mild winters, but we also get lots of rain and damp and then Margaret is on the East Coast and has much harsher winters. So maybe between the three of us, we can come up with some good ideas. Brooke Let me start with what I tell my kid which is put on some socks and a goddamn sweater. Casandra And a hat. Feet and head. Margaret And then what I tell your kid which is, "If you if you make a...if you build a fire, if you build a man a fire, he's warm for a day, but if you set a man on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life. Brooke Well we do like to set men on fire in this house, so that's that's perfectly acceptable here. If any men come in, you can be set on fire for our warmth. Margaret Yeah, yeah, that's a renewable resource. Casandra Because, I mean, we know that lumber and wood prices have gotten up and you got to use something in your fireplace, Margaret And I hear that they're made out of wood. That's why we throw them in the lake to find out. Cause men are witches. Wait, hold on. Okay, so sweaters and hats, okay. Okay. Casandra Some things I learned. So clothes dryers can be up to 20% of a home's energy bill. I had no idea. And in my head, a dry...like drying racks aren't good idea where we live because it's so damp here. But maybe that's not the case. So, I'm gonna try that this winter. Checking...I've always rented so the the idea of like checking the filters and shit on my whatever way your home is heated has never occurred to me, but apparently that's super important. Right, Brooke? Brooke Absolutely. I'm gonna be totally honest, I don't know if that has anything to do with the, I guess it probably helps the efficiency of the device. Yeah, I do it every six months, because I know it helps the air quality in my house. And that's important. Casandra I don't even know how to do that. So you should come over. Margaret There's both filters in the HVAC. Sorry. Casandra Let me know, tell me more, I don't understand. Margaret As far as I understand, there's both the filters that are like the big screen filters that people are like run out and strap to their fans to do air filter cleaning, right? And then there's like, at least in my house has an oil heater and in an oil heater, there's a filter, an oil filter, and so my presumption is that it just takes more power to push things through a clogged up filter, both air filter and oil filter. That's my guess. The main thing I learned the hard way by moving somewhere with harsh winters and an oil furnace is that if you let your furnace run dry, it breaks. And so you actually have to keep it full, which is cool because my gauge is broken, so I just need to every now and then like call and be like, "Hey, can you fill it up?" And they're like, "How much do you need?" And I'm like, "I don't know. You fill it up." I did learn that heating oil and diesel are functionally the same thing, although you're not allowed to put heating oil in your car, because that they'd like stain it red so that you can get caught if you do that. Casandra Weird. Margaret Yeah, and there are some diff...please don't run out and put diesel in your home oil filter because you heard some girl who lives in the mountains tell you to. I haven't fucking done this. And but, some people I think sometimes like top off, like in a hurry. They'll do that if they keep diesel around for like their tractor or whatever the fuck. Brooke I mean, it's probably better than...may be....I'm guessing, totally guessing, that it might be better than letting it run dry, because that can be an expensive fuckup. Margaret Yeah, if you do that you have to change at very least the oil filter. And then if not the also the fucking spark plugs and all this shit and the parts are cheap, the capacity to do it without exploding things is harder. This is sort of beside the point that only applies to oil. Let's talk about other ways to heat homes. Casandra So, yeah, other ways to heat your homes or more like how to keep heat in. I was researching this anyway, because my house has lots of windows like huge, like walls of windows, which is beautiful, but they're all single pane and none of them seal. Like literally, there's no, I don't even, I still haven't figured out what this type of window's called, but it's like slats of...horizontal slats of glass sort of layered on top of each other, and you can crank it so they tilt open or crank it so they tilt shut, but there's nothing actually...like air just you know, comes in. So using that fun, classy plastic stuff that's temporary to cover your windows. That's one of my plans this year, the few windows that don't have that tilty glass, that's an official term, I'm going around the edges and caulking them. I checked on my door seals. I learned that they're like energy efficient electric blankets. Casandra I'm anticipating that if I set my set my thermostat a lot lower and like use those while I'm working during the day or even at night, maybe that will be helpful. Margaret Oh, that's cool. Brooke Heavy curtains can help too. With Windows. Casandra Yeah! Inulated curtains! Brooke That can be a real trade off if you have any like seasonal effective disorder, light issues, but like they can do a lot to keep the cold back if you have a heavy curtain that you hang over the window. Casandra Totally, yeah, those are super effective. Margaret And then you can play the fun game of opening them when the sun's out and then closing them when the sun's gone. Casandra Though here when the sun's out, it's colder. Margaret Oh, okay. Yeah. Casandra So, that's why we're all sad all winter. Margaret Yeah. Casandra Let's see, did I find anything else exciting? People are on social media right now sharing all of these like wild ideas about how to heat your house. And, I haven't tried these. I'm not going to vouch for them. But some of them are really interesting. So, one is like, when you're baking, you put very, already dry, that's important, bricks in the bottom of your oven, because they hold in heat. So, when you're done baking, you can open your oven and turn your oven off and the bricks will keep your house apparently. People are making a little like tea light and flower pot heaters. Margaret Can I talk shit on those really quick? Casandra Yeah, please do. Margaret They're bullshit. They're absolutely bullshit. Casandra I kind of figured. Also, like open flames? Margaret Yeah, no. And like actually, a lot of them the the actual clay pot can get hot enough to catch the candle wax on fire. And so, there's been like a bunch of houses, people have like burned down their houses trying to use these fucking things. And it would take like, I think it I looked this up the other day, it would take like hundreds of these to heat a small room. The time in which that this is a reasonably efficient thing to do is an emergency or survival situation. If you make...if you're in a fucking tent, if you're in, if you're in your house, you can do this, you can throw a blanket. If you're trying to heat up the space hidden under a blanket. A candle can be a meaningful part of that. But, if you're trying to heat up even a small room, they're not a meaningful part of it in terms of the trade off, but the stuff about thermal mass like these bricks, sorry, is it okay to just tangent on this? Casandra No please do. These are my like things that people are talking about that kind of sketched me out. Margaret Yeah, and so it's like in that I haven't specifically researched putting the bricks in the oven. What I would probably do, I mean, you want thermal mass thermal mass doesn't heat things. It's like a battery. It's a heat battery, right? And so like for example, what a lot of people do is if you put like...thermal mass is often like clay or something like that. Some people even historically use like stored jugs of water and stuff where the sun comes in and heats it up or wherever your passive heating comes from. Then it radiates out that heat once the heat sources gone. And so, you can keep your house cooler at night by having a lot of thermal mass. This is one reason why cob houses have some advantages in a lot of climates and adobe and all that stuff right. And concrete even, can actually act as thermal mass, although I don't know as much about the efficiency of that. Brick houses have an advantage for this. But yeah, like a lot of the hacks around like, "Oh, light a candle," are like just a really good way to burn your house down. Casandra Well, it's not even just a candle. People are like building...like constructing these like...you take a flower pot. You know what I'm talking about? Margaret Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, so and that doesn't actually amplify...Okay, so this idea where you take the candle and you put the flower pot on top of it and the terracotta flower pot is amplifies the heat, it doesn't amplify shit, you can't amplify heat. That's like one of the laws of thermodynamics. But you can't store the heat and you can centralize the, so it doesn't get lost as much, right? So in some weird ways as maybe like a handwarmer, it would like be maybe a little bit more effective, right? Because Casandra That's an expensive handwarmer. I'm gonna knit gloves. Margaret Yeah, totally. And so it, the, the flower pot itself does get so hot, and especially if you put enough candles under it to make it useful. And you can see there's a bunch of like research that people have done, where they're like, "Oh, the flower pot gets up to 170 degrees with one candle or like 400 something degrees with four candles," or something roughly like that. I don't have the numbers in front of me. But, it doesn't make enough heat to fill a space. It instead is actually specifically preventing that heat from going out into the space, which is... Casandra Which is why it gets so hot. Margaret Yeah, totally. And again, like I mean, I don't know, and there's some advantages to it. But overall, however, I think the alcohol lamps that people make, the like DIY, there's like, like the heater block, and I think it's Philly, I can't remember. Brooke Portland has one. Margaret They like make...you can make alcohol lamps, as little portable heaters. And, and when you're talking about like a tent or something in a survival situation, they are fairly effective. I actually don't know enough about the BTUs that they put out to, to in terms of heating and other spaces. That that's beyond what I know. That what's my rant about candles, sorry. Casandra No, I appreciate the rant. My contribution was gonna be like, people are talking about sketchy shit that I don't know about. So confirming that it's sketchy shit is great. Yeah, I don't know. Do y'all know any other fun ways? I'm trying to think about like, my grandparents live in a really old house, and they have a wood stove, which heats one room. And the house is very long and thin. So, it heats one room on one end of the house and their bedrooms on the other end. So, all of the weird shit I've seen them do over the years to stay warm, like the window plastic, or those like long sock things that you put at the bottom of doors, you know, I'm talking about? Margaret Oh, yeah, totally. My house. I mean, I clearly bought my house with like 'prepper' in mind, but my house has the two different wood burning stoves, or one's a pellet stove, which are more like human energy efficient, but they require electricity, so a little bit more complicated. It's like a wood burning stove, but it's a little pellets of fuel that you can buy super cheap, but you have to buy them. You can make them yourself, but it's super labor intensive and complicated. I looked into it for a while. And then I have a regular wood burning stove in the basement and the wood burning stove is actually hooked into the HVAC like vent system in my house. And so that is something you can do is you can put a wood burning stove and hook it up to...this is not a simple retrofit. Installation in general, just fucking add insulation to your house however you can, which sometimes means like, you know, tearing open the walls and putting in more insulation or putting more insulation in your attic. If you have an attic or Casandra Covering your fireplace when you're not using it, that's one I'm learning. Margaret Oh, really? Oh, that makes sense. Because it just goes up out into the...Yeah, Casandra Yeah, even when it's closed, it can still suck heat out. Not using fans for too long, which sucks. I'm thinking about like bathrooms. You know? Margaret I see Yeah, yeah. Casandra Like, above your kitchen stove. Margaret Yeah, hmm, that makes sense. Brooke One thing I've done for the last several years to conserve energy use is to consolidate where in the house I am located and or with my person, or people are located to a single room or a portion of the house and then closing up the rest of it and closing the vents that go there and all of that and just focusing the heat on wherever I am or I am with my kid or whatever it is. Casandra Oh, closing the vents you're not using as a good idea. Brooke Yeah, so like when she's off at school while I'm working, I close the door to my office, close most of the rest of the house. And then when it's like the two of us, we'll hang out in just her room with the vent open, or just our two bedrooms that are next to each other with vents open. Margaret And it's it's another advantage of people who choose to live communally is that I mean more people in a house is just going to warm things up a lot, like putting a bunch of people into a room with closed...that's like closed off and insulated is a real good way to stay warm. So like, I don't know, use this as an opportunity to get close to someone, I mean, very consensually and stuff. Brooke I was gonna say cuddling. Cuddling is a good way to provide heat. Margaret Get a dog. Brooke Or fucking Margaret I take back the part about the dog. Okay. Casandra They're also, both in Europe and I know state by state and the US, there're also energy and utility assistance programs and grants that have always been available, but it's seems like more are starting to become available. So, if you live somewhere colder than me, it's a good thing to look into. Margaret Well, and then also in Oregon, starting in 2024, Medicaid is going to cover expenses related to climate change in terms of like, generators and air filters and shit like that. Brooke That's amazing. I haven't heard that. Margaret I just read about it while I was getting ready for this episode. Brooke If you think you may qualify for one of the energy assistance programs, that's something to look into sooner rather than later, like, Now, instead of before the colds get real high, or the bills get real high. I know that one of the programs here in our town, for instance, only has a few days a month in which they accept applications. And we'll even close that, you know, for the next month if they got too many in the previous month kind of a thing. Casandra Yeah. Yeah, then, yeah. The The only other thing I wanted to bring up with all of this is that, you know, we've talked in past episodes about how expensive food is getting and how expensive everything's getting, and with rising energy costs, that's just going to contribute to inflation more because of businesses are having to pay more money to stay open. You know? Margaret Yeah. Brooke But Biden just passed the Inflation Reduction Act, so everything's gonna be fine now. Casandra Right? Brooke He did it. Casandra Okay? Brooke He solved it. Margaret Yeah, thanks, O-Biden. Casandra 'O-Biden?' is that what you said? Brooke Haven't you heard that joke? Margaret Usually, it's because you want to complain about something. The gas prices are high, like, "Thanks, O-Biden," because people always said, "Thanks, Obama." Casandra Okay. Yeah. Thanks for explaining jokes to me. Brooke Well, Biden's just Obama's puppet. I mean, haven't you heard that he's old and senile, and it's actually just secretly Obama still running the country through Biden? Margaret Who's totally not old and senile. Casandra I mean, according to Tulsi this morning, it's it's actually the elite Cabal. So. Brooke There's a whole other conversation I want to have with you about why everyone is so anti--fucking-semetic. But that's like not on our topic list. Casandra Oh, gosh, the French Revolution. Brooke If we want to do a segue I really really want to talk about it. Casandra Now we're gonna segue to talk about the French Revolution. Margaret Welcome to Mediocre People Who Made Lateral Moves, the new podcast about all the revolutions that have happened Casandra and how people blamed it all on the Jews. Margaret The only revolutions accepted are the Haitian Revolution, the Mexican Revolution kinda, yeah. Anyway, Brooke This is the thing I don't understand. Like, why why is anti-semitism been such a global thing for fucking ever? Like, I can't think of another group of people that have had it quite like the Jews. Casandra It's called the coldest hatred for a reason. Margaret I mean, everyone has it different. I think anti-blackness is also real fucking old and anti-indigenous as soon as we find y'all. Casandra There's these interesting accounts of of...We should not go on this tangent. Brooke But it's interesting. Casandra I could talk for too long. Brooke It's topical. Casandra It's always topical. Brooke Exactly. Casandra Oh, what were some of our other fun topics? Margaret Okay, let's talk about hurricanes. Can I talk about hurricanes? Casandra Hurray! Margaret Oh, wait first I wanna talk about about corn really quickly. It's like a short note. Okay, so by 2053, the Corn Belt won't be able to grow corn. Brooke What? Casandra Wow. Margaret Because there will be days 125 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. And of course, corn is already having trouble now. It's not like a switch that will be flipped in 30 years. And also, my cynical ass has been proven right every time someone's like, "All of the X will happen by 2080." I'm like, that's gonna be way sooner. And then like 2020 comes around, they're like, "Yeah, nevermind this is sooner." And then so some of the solutions that people are trying to come up with around this, some of them are like make a lot of sense about like, being a little less monocroppy and like, and people are like getting really into perennial grains. But, of course they're doing it in like weird capitalist ways. So there's like weird named ways to be less monocrappy. And there's also this perennial grain that's like trademarked called Kernza which is a plant name with a little reserved symbol after his name. So that's how you know, it's good. And basically, a lot of the existing perennial grains are actually more like hays and things are for foraging. And so intermediate wheat grass is Kernza. It's a type of intermediate wheat grass, which is not actually wheat, but has a similar grains. However, they're currently trying to hybridize it with wheat and it's hard to bake with because it's not as gluttony. Unfortunately, it still has some gluten, so it's not the solution for that problem, either. But, people are trying to do some weird shit. Then I could talk about hurricanes unless y'all wanna talk about corn. Casandra Most grass seed is edible. That's my contribution. Brooke Also tubers. So plant yourself some day-lilies, dahlias. Casandra Turnips. Brooke They're pretty and then you can eat them. Casandra We should bring back neeps as a instead of mashed potatoes, mashed neeps. Margaret Y'all are just making up things. Casandra We're listening now. Margaret Casandra's always making up plants that don't exist. There's only three plants: corn, potato, and grapes. Casandra I thought it was wheat. Margaret Oh, yeah, and wheat. Brooke I know you've seen apples. And also, I've given you kale. So. Margaret That's just fancy. It's just different forms of...okay to be fair, broccoli, kale...Can you help me list off all of these things that are the same plant? Casandra Brassicas? Margaret Yeah. Brooke Cauliflower? Brussels sprouts, cabbage, mustard. Margaret Everything is already secretly...the the secret cabal that we should be blaming is the brassicas. Casandra Plant families? Margaret No, just brassicas, because they're everything. Everywhere you look, it's brassicas. Casandra Unless it's a nightshade. Brooke I get what you're looking for. And I'm with you. Margaret Okay, so hurricanes. So, there's two things about hurricane survival. And one is like this, like promising thing, although it ties into some bougie shit is that like....cause obviously, people who are listening this...a lot of people are listening to us have dealt with hurricanes more immediately and recently than any of the three of us have. And so I don't mean to be light hearted about like, you know, like, whatever I want to say that, like people are dealing with this shit...I, I'm not trying to...It's a big fucking deal. Okay. One thing is that communities absolutely can be built to survive hurricanes. And it isn't done because people aren't rich enough. And because doing so is incentivized, and because people don't value this, right. It's like a combination of these things. Have you heard of this small town called Babcock Ranch that survived Hurricane Ian? Brooke Nope. Margaret Okay, there's this. It was built in 2015 People started moving into in 2018. It's a 2000 home community. And it's, it's sort of like actually mixed class a little bit. The houses start at 200,000 and go up to a million dollars. And it's, and they're like working on building condos and stuff. And it is meant to survive hurricanes. This is in fucking Florida. And it got hit by Ian. And so it makes sense to build things are meant to survive hurricanes. The streets are designed to absorb water. I think that they're designed to absorb water into like, basically almost a French drain system that runs underneath where there's like pipes or whatever. I know that they are capable of making this like some kind of concrete that water can just like flow right through. And I think that's what's happening. Yeah, Brooke Yeah, pervious concrete. yeah. Casandra What is that not everywhere? Brooke More expensive, Margaret Because people don't value infrastructure in this country. And and then there's, they use native landscaping everywhere to like limit flooding. They do all this stuff to like, make sure that...because flooding kills more people in hurricanes than wind. And so they do all of this stuff with native landscaping to limit flooding. The power and all the communication lines are buried, which is another thing that should just be happening everywhere, but isn't. Like where I live, I lose power all the fucking time, because like, "Oh, sorry, a tree fell on a power plant. Power Pole." Casandra Are you laughing at me Brooke? Brooke I'm picturing your backyard right now where you could like, garrote yourself with your power lines in your back yard. Casandra That my landlord is like, "This is not a problem." Yeah. Margaret Yeah, no, totally. And like, every...where I live like a tree falls on...it's like, it's like once a month, I lose power for a day, because I'm in the fucking mountains with really shallow soil, and so the trees fall over every time there's a windstorm, but we're in the fucking mountain. So there's wind storms all the time. Anyway, so they bury their power and internet lines. And the whole town has it's own solar array that powers like all of it, and 8000 other nearby homes. And so, to that 2.6 million people lost power during Hurricane Ian but not Babcock Ranch. And this was its first like trial by fire. And to be and to be fair to them they weren't total assholes about it. It wasn't like "I've got mine fuck you." They turned their school into a shelter for all the nearby folks, because it still had power even though, it like I think I think it couldn't be registered as an official storm shelter because didn't have a generator. But, it didn't need one. Casandra Cause it didn't need one? Margaret Because it had its own fucking micro grid. Casandra Wow, amazing. Bureaucracy. Margaret Yeah. So that's like, what we could be doing, right? We could have a society that like, prepares for these things, you know, and like there are ways to build things if people are able, if people are able to have the resources or like institutions are willing to give resources to make things that are appropriate to their area you know, you can have fire resistant homes you can have...I mean everything would just be concrete domes if I had my way as of the past six months, but then I'm sure get over this particular infatuation with concrete domes, but they're like everything proof. Okay, anyway. Except aesthetic proof. Okay, so actually, okay, whatever. The other thing that's... Brooke Also concrete is not great for the environment and climate change. It's really bad, actually. Margaret Yeah, but it has actually weirdly, I haven't looked in this little while, there's the embedded greenhouse gases and in terms of how long it lasts are like, compare favorably in a lot of ways. And also in terms of its insulating...Well, its insulating properties because of thickness. The way it's constructed is...the way it's made is not nice. You can you can also disagree with me about this. Brooke No, that's fair. And there's been recent research and work into putting cellulose into concrete mixtures that actually helps. I can't remember all the beneficial properties of it, but some really cool research that's out there about about mixing wood fibers. Margaret That's cool. Plus brutalism is way cooler than...anyways Okay, whatever. Now everyone's gonna hate me if I start talking about liking brutalism. Alright, so hurricanes, I have never survived a hurricane, just to be really clear. And so I'm not trying to tell everyone....okay, but I it's my disclaimer, I researched... Brooke You've also never not survived a hurricane. Margaret That's true. Oh, I see what you're saying. Every time I'm in a hurricane, I die. I've been playing this...I want...this video game I've been playing called...Okay. So, God, what if I was...the ultimate prepper would be Groundhog Day guy. That's what he really should have done. Margaret You ever seen that movie "Hurricane Day" where the person has no...groundhog, whatever, as a movie,... Casandra What? Casandra What does Groundhog Day have to do with hurricanes? Margaret Okay, but if you died and came back every single day, you could do so much research. The ultimate scientist Casandra No one can see me putting my head in my hands. Brooke They just heard the thunk of your skull on the table there. Margaret Alright, so what to do if you live in the path of a hurricane and you don't live in a little weird prepper neighborhood. First of all, if you live in a mobile home, I'm sure you already know that life sucks, because classism is real and awful, but mobile homes are in a really bad situation. And I'm sure you already know that. Hurricane timing is forcastable, but its course is less predictable. So, you can start knowing that a hurricane is possible, but you won't necessarily know where it exactly where it's going and exactly what kind of power it will have by the time it lands. Flooding kills more people than wind. And basically the best that I've been able to read and find different people have researched this is that like overall evacuating if the instructions say you should evacuate is probably the best move. And, voluntary evac happens before mandatory evac. Voluntary often comes earlier to basically give people to get a head start, because when everyone tries to leave an area all at once it fucking sucks. I'd love to at some point, talk to someone who has done more work into evac, and like talk about like what it means to transport oneself over a roads during those kinds of crises. But, and to be clear, mandatory evacuation doesn't mean they come around at gunpoint to force you out, it means that no one will help you while you stay. At least that's the official version of it. If you're going to stay or rather, if you like think that you might be stuck, consider being able to survive two weeks without outside help or without the grid. And the grid in this case means water. And it means probably the ability to heat food if you run on a municipal gas line or power, right. And that also means electricity. And so you want like for example 15 gallons of water per person in storage containers. You want two weeks of non refrigerated food that doesn't require utility cooking gas, because maybe you have a separate gas stove you know, or you're planning a cold cans of chili or whatever. You want a battery or hand crank radio, you want to get medical kit. If you're trained, you want a chainsaw, but one of the main ways that people kill themselves in the wake of disasters is using chainsaws incorrectly to try and like move down trees and stuff. One of the other main ways is like propane and propane accessories, and people trying to use like shit that you shouldn't use inside inside. Don't run a fucking generator in your house or your garage. Make sure everyone has a flashlight. When you're prepping your house. You want to bring in everything in your yard like furniture and tools. You want to get directions to local evacuation shelters and you want to have them printed out and or like saved offline in Google's maps. You want to prepare your house for internal flooding by moving shit up off the floor, and like getting everything that you don't want to get wet available. Make sure it's able to stay dry. You want to know how to shut off your utility gas, water and electric in your house. You do want to fill up your bathtubs for extra water, but don't fucking rely on this. This isn't the like "Haha," everyone's like , "Oh it's cool I got like you know this bathtub filled with water." You usually want to use bathtub water more for sanitation water. You want to turn your fridge and freezer to the coldest settings and make sure they're packed full of thermal mass like we were talking about. Thermal mass is also a battery for cold as well as heat. So for example, your freezer works way less hard if it's full of frozen bottles of water. And so, if you feel plastic water bottles like 90% full, and this is true generally speaking, right? A full fridge or freezer works way less hard. And, because you know it's not stuff that disappears every time you open the fucking door whatever. In general, your fridge or freezer can last about two days without power if they're like real packed full of thermal mass and set to the coldest. In terms of long term preparation for your house, if you live somewhere and you're trying to retrofit shit, you kind of want to go through and make sure that there's hurricane ties attaching your roof to your house. And do the same with your deck and shit, which are just basically these like metal straps that attach one piece of wood to another piece of wood. If you look up hurricane ties, you'll see pictures of them. And then you can go up to your attic or whatever and look to see if you have them. And you can you can retro actively add this, because what happens, the way that wind destroys a house, first, it like pulls off like shingles and siding and stuff that only sort of matter. And then it starts breaking out windows with debris, and doors flying open because of wind, and stuff like that. But then eventually you get to the point where the fucking roof rips off your house is like one of the main things, and then once the roof rips off your house, then the walls have nothing supporting them, so then they fall over. And so you can do a lot of stuff with your doors also to help protect them, especially if you have like double doors, you can add bolts to the inactive door, the door that doesn't open, or the door that doesn't have the handle or whatever, and you had bolts that go up into the ceiling and through the floor. It's also stuff that makes your house harder to break into, which is like cool bonus, right? And garage doors, our old friend garage doors. Casandra Why we're really talking about this. Margaret I know Margaret They they can be storm proofed, but it means you buy a new one. And, I have a feeling that they are expensive and hard to get right now. Like old articles are like "Oh, they cost between $1,000 and $5,000 for a storm proof garage door and I assume that that is not easily the case right now. Okay, and in terms of covering your windows, you want to cover all the windows in your house, not just the ones facing the water. And ideally, if you live there like long term, you want to actually get storm shutters, but those can be expensive. Worst case scenario, you can screw plywood or metal roofing over the windows and glass doors. With plywood you want to aim for about a half inch thick at least, half inch to five eighths. And particle board, don't use particle board or MDF, because probably not strong enough. I don't know and there's just like other shit right like you keep your car packed and facing outward with gas in it. However also, you might want to keep it in a garage and or at least next to a solid building, so that it doesn't fucking blow away or get destroyed by things. Fill up an extra gas can or two because fuck it there's often gonna be gas shortages after these sorts of things. Don't fucking drive through floodwater, that is another way that people die all the fucking time. Like it's about a foot or something of flood that will move a car that will like take a car away. It's way less than you think. Don't fucking drink floodwater. Most of the ways that people water filter don't filter out like gasoline and all kinds of other shit. With a generator, don't fucking run it inside. During the storm, don't go outside during the Eye of the Storm, it'll come back suddenly. Stay away from your windows and glass doors and such. Don't take a shower or a bath because of electrical risk. Kill the power of the main breaker if flooding is coming. And that is what I learned not through direct experience, because again I've died every time I've tried these...I've never been in a hurricane. I've been on the coast rain some storms, right, some tropical storms and shit. But I've never personally been through a hurricane. Brooke Full circle. Casandra We should add like Hurricane Preparedness Guide to our list along with the First Aid Guide. That'd be cool. We should talk to like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief folks or someone. Margaret Yeah. Agreed. Casandra Cool. But this isn't a Strangers meeting, so... Margaret No. Welcome to our Strangers meeting. Brooke You hurri-'can' survive. Margaret Hurri-'can't.' It's a hurri-'can', not a hurri-'can't.' But, that's...the hurricane itself can destroy houses. It can't...It's a hurri-'can' destroy houses not a hurric-'can't' destroy houses. Got it. You see what I'm getting at. It's a funny joke. Brooke You're hurri-canceled. Love it. Casandra When Margaret makes jokes... Brooke Margaret makes great dad jokes and I love it. So does my kid. Casandra It's us, not you. Margaret I say a few short things with our last five minutes. Margaret No, no, it's fine. It's fine. I mean, I'm trying to make you laugh, so you all laughing works. Okay, so I don't know, what other what other shit? I got. I got like some like little short things. Is anyone else have a major topic? We should talk about it? Should we go into short things? Margaret Okay, here's the ones I've got. Other people add them at the end. Monkeypox transmission is slowing. There's a small chance it's gonna go endemic, but like overall. monkeypox transmission is slowing. And that's cool. You should still go get fucking vaccinated, though. I should go get vaccinated. LA is installing water restrictors in houses of people who break their water limit, including like including rich people, which is great. Like basically if anyone is using more than 150% of their limit like they're going around and just like literally being like, "You get less water now." The Mississippi River is currently so low that grain and fertilizer transports are halted. Brooke And that's contributing to supply chain shortages in all kinds of ways, because they can't get stuff up here. Margaret It also fucks up China. They apparently...a lot of them...They get a lot of soybeans from the US, and 40% of the US soybean export to China comes through the Mississippi River. The Army Corps of Engineers, don't worry as dredging the river to deepen it. Brooke Great. Margaret So that they can still ship things there. Brooke I'm sure that no part of the Mississippi River is a Superfund site or anything like that, and highly toxic. Margaret Nah, it's fine. I'm sure it's good. I bet everyone who's working that job will be treated well. And a British Columbia river has dried up, and I think a bunch of British Columbia rivers have dried up. They're facing like one of the worst fucking droughts ever, which has killed 65,000 salmon, and has cut spawning by 70%, at least in this area. Bird flu in California is killing a ton of birds. I saw this thing, I was like reading oh, it's like a bird flu again. Goddamnit. And then I'm like, Oh, it's just killing birds...Wait, no, birds are good. Casandra Yeah, we need birds. Margaret Yeah. Oil prices might go up again, because OPEC countries are cutting oil production more. Thanks. O-Biden. Inflation is causing manufacturers to start using cheaper ingredients. That's like one of the main ways that like manufacturers are getting around this. And so like a lot of shit they're used to using and trust might now be made like shit. Casandra I've read about new homes they're building as well. Margaret Oh, great, because that's what we need is cheaper designed homes. Casandra Yeah, they're like, A) don't buy a home right now. But B) when you can buy a home in the future, maybe someday don't buy homes built right now. Brooke I hear that. Margaret That makes sense. Brooke But Biden passed the inflation Reduction Act, you guys, so it's gonna be fine. Margaret Yeah, the fine print is like, "Now use refined," I don't know, whatever, "corn syrup instead of..." Brooke And the Federal Reserve is raising the target interest rate. So, it's gonna be fine. Casandra Have you all seen the new like COVID antivax study that just came out? Margaret No. Brooke Nope. Oh, we were supposed to die yesterday. Casandra Apparently, I'm using air quotes, a study came out linking the risk of like heart disease with COVID vaccines in 'men' in particular, something like that. And so, you know, anti vaxxers are like, "See!" Margaret I wonder if it came out because...the the one that I had heard was that there was a study that came out and I don't have these numbers in front of me, and I'm sorry, audience. I think it's, I think that the the rate of death among Republicans is 18% higher than the rate of death among Democrats, with all other factors considered, as soon as the vaccine came out. And like, yeah, exactly just the vaccine came out people who didn't get it just fucking die more. Brooke Comparative Study. Margaret Conspiracy, to try and kill all the Republicans, by the Republican leaders. No, no, wait, go ahead, Brooke. Sorry. Brooke No, I was gonna give more details on the study. But y'all can y'all can look it up. It was definitely aninteresting study. And it's not like 100% due to COVID for sure. At least they can't like rule out... because it was like measure of excess deaths. And they don't have all the specifics on that. But yeah, a large portion of that is due to vaccine versus not vaccine. Than also there was some tweet that made the rounds that that we were all going to die on October 10 because something was gonna get activated in the vaccine. Y'all see this on Twitter at all? Margaret That explains why I died in the hurricane. Casandra I want to back up to the study I mentioned because I didn't clarify that there were like major issues with it. That's all. I didn't want. I didn't want to bring up like this study antivaxxers are using without saying like there were major issues with the study. Margaret Yeah. That makes sense. Casandra Yeah, that tracks. Margaret Well, does that do it for us this month? Casandra That was a lot. It really was a lot of bad things. Margaret Oh, one good final thing. Tankers that go around with like, all the stuff that they ship around, are starting to add sails back, and it saves about 10% of their fuel. This is a really minor thing. Brooke Sailing sails? Margaret Yeah, yeah. Brooke Math. Nice. Margaret Like all the container ships and shit. Not all of them, but they're starting to add sails to container ships to help alleviate the cost of fuel to move everything around. Whatever it is a really minor thing. I just thought was neat. This is my final note. Casandra Yay, sailboats. Margaret Yeah. The global economy that got us into this mess in the first place trudging along. Casandra Ohhhh. Well, stay warm out there, everyone. Margaret Brooke, you want to lead us out? Brooke Yeah, I do. So, I took your outro from from the last episode and transcribed it. I'm just gonna I'm gonna read it word for word, Margaret. Margaret Oh, God. Brooke Are you ready for how great this is gonna be? Margaret Yeah, let me hold on to something. Alright. Brooke And then maybe I'll do a real one after I do this. Thanks so much for listening. Algorithms suck, but if you like this podcast, please like comment, review, blah, blah, blah. It makes the algorithms give our show to more people. It's kind of the only way people end up hearing about our shows is word of mouth. All of that stuff's true. I'm not just saying it cynically, it's just that I have said it, like, whatever, I'm on Episode 50, or whatever. So I've said it like 50 times, and you can support us on Patreon by supporting our publisher, our publisher is Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. The three of us are collective members of a collectively run publisher called Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. It's been around for like 20 years, but it's like getting new mega forces Voltron combines version of itself lately, and it's primarily supported by Patreon. Brooke I think that was perfect. Flawless. And also, that means that Inmn doesn't have to transcribe it again. Margaret Yeah. Brooke You're welcome, Inmn. Just copy/paste. But more seriously, this podcast is produced by the anarchist publishing collective Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. And you can connect with us on Twitter at Tangledwild. And I think we have like Instagram and stuff too. But I don't do Instagram and I think Instagram's

Joshua Rosenberg explains the Army Corps of Engineers' concerns about the potential cumulative environmental and public health impacts a grain elevator project in St. John may impose on the surrounding community. Nick Chrastil on a new study that found only around a quarter of calls NOPD responded to were crime related at all. The post Behind The Lens episode 182: ‘police aren't being utilized correctly' appeared first on The Lens.

Bike Report… Here is a slightly more scripted version of my 2 day ride across Massachusetts.   I scheduled it as a 4-day adventure.  This is one of those things that you learn from doing long or hard or ultra-type events.  Give yourself some buffer time. I have always violated this rule.  Partly because my life has always been busy, or I have convinced myself that it was, and I had to rush to get to events and then rush back.  I have always tried to not be that guy who talks too much about this stuff at work.  I realized early on that this is my obsession, and the rest of the world may or may not give a shit.  I've been more than willing to talk about it in depth when asked, or in this purpose-built forum for that outlet, but I have always taken pains not to be THAT GUY in the office.  As a result, most of the people I've worked with know vaguely that I train all the time, but seldom have the gift of knowing exactly what or when I'm doing an event.  That vagueness allows work activity to crowd around the events and I find myself running a marathon in the morning and jumping on a plane in the afternoon.  I think it also fits that egoistic self-image I have had of being the indestructible man that can pop in and out of events that other people can't even fathom.  Even my acts of humility are ego-centric! There are advantages to not buffering time around an event.  If you show up just in time for the event it doesn't give you time to think too much about it.  You can get much more adventure in the day by not being prepared and not knowing the course, etc.  Just show up doesn't fit many peoples' brains but I enjoy the adventure of it.  If you jet off after the event you don't have time to wallow in your misery. But the disadvantages of this cramming in events, especially big events, are manifold.  You can make mistakes that you could have avoided by being just a bit more prepared.  Like, for instance, not thinking about how the temperature drops below freezing in the mountains at night.  And, most regretfully, you don't really get a chance to let it sink in.  Many of those races I've run are just blurry memories of a fast weekend spent somewhere doing something hard.  I've found that no matter how good shape you're in, a multi-day event will mess with your thinking ability.  It's best to take a day off after because you're going to be useless anyhow. For this ride, I took 4 days off to ride around 250 miles in 2 days.  I enlisted my wife to crew for me.  I suppose this is one of the advantages of having a long-term relationship.  You can just casually drop something like this… “Hey, take Friday and Monday off we're going out to Western Mass and you're going to follow me while I ride across the state for 2 days.” And that doesn't end the relationship.  … Day one was Friday.  We got up and I took Ollie down to the local kennel when it opened at 9AM.  This was Ollie's first time being kenneled – so it was a bit like first day of school for your kids.  I had a pang of sadness driving back to the house in my truck with the passenger seat empty.  I had done my best to make sure all my stuff was organized.  We drove out a pretty section of Rte 2 west into the Berkshires and the Mohawk Trail.  Western Mass is a pretty place.  All hills and farms and little; towns. Those same little towns that you'll find in Vermont or New Hampshire.  A bit of a tourist trap but really pretty without being entirely off the map. We took the new truck with my bike in the back. I prepped my bike earlier in the week.  I washed it and cleaned the chain and derailleurs as best I could.  It's a messy and dirty job.  It requires using a degreaser and a toothbrush.  Kids, this degreaser chemical is very dangerous.  Remember to wear rubber gloves and safety glasses when you're cleaning your bike chain.  Once you get it all sparkly clean then you can rub a little bike grease back into the chain and sprocket.  This really helps the efficiency of the drivetrain and keeps the shifting action clean.  You can ride on a dirty chain, but it will slow you down and eventually something will break. I wore my old Northface water backpack.  I think it holds more than a liter.  It has enough room to carry my tools and food and whatever else I need comfortably.  That old pack is like a second skin for me.  I've worn it in many, many ultras.  For tools I carry a small pump and a multitool.  In my underseat pack I carry an extra tube, levers and a patch kit.  I had one bike bottle in the cage on the bike for just water.  I actually found this bike bottle by the side of the road after the local triathlon.  It was perfectly new from one of the local bike shops.  You may think I'm crazy, and you'd be correct, but I washed it out and it's fine.  I prepped up enough 24 oz water bottles with Ucan for the ride and put those in a cooler with ice.  I made some protein smoothies too, for emergency meals, extra fuel if needed and recovery.  Smoothies are a good source of clean calories.  The 24 oz bottles of Ucan mix I stuck in the back of my bike shirt on both sides for the ride.  This provides clean fuel with some electrolytes. This sounds like a lot of stuff, but it was all the result of what I had learned in my training over the summer.  I knew I could get 4+ hours of hard work in the heat with that set up.  A liter or so of clean water in the pack.  A full bottle of water in the cage and 2 X 24oz bottles of fuel mix in my shirt.  That may sound uncomfortable to carry, but it really isn't bad on a bike.  You've got the mechanical advantage and can carry a lot of stuff comfortably.  I stopped at a grocery on the way out and bought a handful of Cliff bars and other packaged edibles.  I also had my favorite pitted dates in a baggy.  All this fuel went into the back pack.  Then there was the electronics. I decided to use Google Maps with the bike route option selected.  This meant I would have to have my phone with me, and it would have to stay charged.  This is a challenge because having the maps open for navigation all day long drains your phone battery very fast.  Especially when you're riding through the mountains in the middle of nowhere.  Yes, it also uses a ton of data.  If you don't have an unlimited plan, don't do this at home kids.  Where to put the phone?  While I was training, I started out putting the phone in a plastic bag in my backpack. But that is a pain in the ass because you have to stop and get it out of the pack to use it.  So I bought a fairly inexpensive handlebar mount for it.  It's basically a stretchy rubber cage that I attached right in the center of the handlebar.  In this set up the phone is inches from my face and easy to access. If it rains you can put the phone in a plastic bag before you put it into the holder.  That plastic bag makes it harder to use the touch screen, but for my ride both day were sunny, so I mounted it au naturel. Next question was how to keep power in the battery.  This worked out way better than I expected.  I bought a pair of those charging bricks from the internet.  I didn't know how long they would last.  I had a plan to swap the charge brick out for a fresh one if needed in the middle of the ride.  I put one in the under-seat pack with the cable running along the frame tube up to the phone.  At first, I thought I'd have to zip tie the phone cable in place, but I was able to snake the cable around the top tube in such a way that it was attached to the phone and the battery pack with no slack.  That worked great.  I didn't know if this pack would give me 30 minutes of juice or 30 hours of juice.  That's why I got two.  I figured I could hot swap them out when I met Yvonne during the ride.  But as it turns out I had nothing to fear.  Even burning all that data with the GPS and radio on the whole time the charge pack kept the phone at 100%.  To cap this all off I had my Mifo ear pods.  These are little, wireless ear pods, that I trained all summer in.  They fit snuggly in the ear and had both the stereo headphones and a microphone for talking. It was a great set up. I listened to podcasts and audio books all day.  I had my phone right in front of me so I could even skip commercials!  I could also make and receive phone calls without even slowing down.  And the Google maps lady was instructing me with turn-by-turn voice commands the whole time, so I wouldn't get lost.  It was awesome! Besides that, I wore normal bike Chamois shorts with underarmour sport undergarments.  I lathered up all the risky bits and my under carriage with Squirrel's Nut Butter.  I had this left over from my last ultra.  It works great as an under-carriage lube.  I also wore a knee sleeve on my left knee, which is the one that was giving me trouble.  I wore my Garmin 235 watch but did not use the chest strap.  I don't really need to know my heart rate with that much precision when I'm riding.  It never gets anywhere near max.  That was my set up.  Was I nervous?  No, not at all.  I was confident I could do it.  It wasn't that much of a stretch.  I was happy to be off on an adventure.  To be spending some time out of my home office with my wife.  Friday we got out to North Adams in the afternoon after a casual drive on a nice day.  We had a nice lunch.  We drove around North Adams, Williamstown and Williams college.  We had an early dinner and I set the alarm for 5:00 AM. … Saturday morning I got up with the alarm and made a cup of coffee.  The sun wasn't going to come up until closer to 6:00.  Making room-coffee in the dark I mistakenly had a cup of decaf before I realized my mistake.  I loaded up all my stuff and woke my wife up to drive me to the starting point.  … I'll cover the ride itself in a subsequent episode.  … Continuing with my bike report.  Let's pick it up at Day 1 of the ride. This is the one part of the ride that I had done some actual research on.  My original plan had been to find the marker for where Massachusetts, New York and Vermont touch in the western corner of Massachusetts.  But, on Googling the map I saw that the point was actually back in the woods a good distance with no real road access.  And it looked like the access trail was on the Vermont side which added significant miles to the trip. Given that I was riding my mountain bike I could probably find a way to make that work; but consulting the map again it would make the trip very long.   It would add some unknown trail miles right out of the gate and I didn't really think I'd have the time to go up and plot the route. To avoid that little bit of drama and the extra miles, I looked around the map to see what the closest town was to that point.  I discovered that Williamstown was right there in the upper corner and had a hotel I could use points at.  So, I booked that.  This was probably about a month out.  Then I started looking at potential bike routes.  I did this by using the bicycle option on Google maps.  It's a swell tool, Google maps.  If you choose the bicycle option it will keep you off the highways and find any available rail trails.  The first pass route, starting from the hotel was 256 miles, which seemed doable in 2 days.  Unfortunately Gooogle Maps also provides the elevation profile.  You have to understand that Massachusetts is relatively flat state.  We've got rolling hills.  Lots of rolling hills.  But we don't have any mountains.  Any real mountains.  As it turns out our tallest mountain is mount Greylock.  Mount Greylock is only 3489 feet tall.  As it also turns out Mount Greylock is in Adams Massachusetts.  Adams, as it turns out is just to the east of Williamstown.  I had, in my hubris created a route that had me climbing the highest point in the state first thing in the morning on the first day.  I have not doubt I could do it, but it caused some consideration.  I decided that it might be a good idea to start on the top of the mountain ridge.  Which, in fact would shave about 20 miles off the ride.  That seemed like a reasonable thing to do.  My race, my rules – as McGillvray always says. I really wanted to get out and drive some of the route, but did not really have the bandwidth.  An opportunity arose, like they sometimes do, when my running Buddy Frank suggested we go for a motorcycle ride one Friday afternoon a couple weeks before my scheduled ride.  I took him up on it.  On a brilliant August afternoon we rode the length of Route 2 out to North Adams and Williamstown.  I checked out the hotel.  We did a bit of poking around the towns.  My plan was to ride as much of the bike route as possible on the way back home.  Frank had to bail but I was able to trace the route up out of Adams on an old 2-lane highway, 8A. I knew that where 8A met 116 would be about the peak elevation and I rode to that point on my motore cycle. Let me tell you it was not an encouraging route.  It was a few thousand feet of steady climb, some of it quite steep, on roads with no shoulder.  Bad roads too,  beat to crap roads.  And in places the Google route actually routed me through some old hilltop farms on a dirt road, which was quite scenic and everything but not good for making time on a bicycle.  That reconnoiter of the climb up and out of Adams over the steepest, highest ridge in the state sealed the deal for me.  I made a mental note to have my wife drop me off at the high point. I mean it wasn't that I thought I couldn't do it, it just seemed unnecessary to the project.  If that climb had been in the middle of the ride, or even at the end, I would have been more optimistic about it. But given I was planning on a century a day, I didn't want to burn all my matches in the first hour.  … Going into the ride I had trained over the summer.  Basically 3-4 rides week with one of those being along ride on the Saturday.  I managed to get my long ride up to somewhere around 70-something miles.  I also got some good data on nutrition and fluid consumption, especially in the heat of the summer.  A couple of those long rides were really hot days  This is how I figured out that I could carry enough to get through 4-5 hours on a hot day before I needed a pit stop.  On a cool day I could ride all day on the same water and fuel.  Back to the route.  Since I was shanghaiing my wife into this adventure I thought I should at least consider making things palatable.  Looking at the possible routes and where we would end up at the end of the first day I realized that it was close to Foxboro, which of course is the home of the New England Patriots, who my wife loves.  And the Hotel at Patriot's Place, it turned out, was another I could use points at.  Now it was coming together.  Looking at the revised route, with the new start point and the planned end point, that gave me about 120ish miles for Day 1.  That seemed reasonable.  Next I had to figure out how long that would take me.  Since I was riding my mountain bike I wouldn't be able to go as fast.  I knew form my training I was averaging around 15 miles an hour.   Doing the math on that would give me a 8 hour day.  But, in training, I knew the routes and was pushing pretty hard.  I didn't want to push that hard on the ride, because I had a long way to go and didn't want to burn out.  If 15 was the top end guesstimate, what was the worst case?  I figured if I really got in trouble and slowed way down, I'd still be able to manage 10 miles an hour.  That would give me a 12 ish hour day.  Which was still within the daylight hours.  I definitely didn't want to be out on the roads exhausted in the dark.  I wasn't as concerned about the second day.  I knew that part of the ride was pretty flat and when I got onto Cape Cod I would know where I was.  I would be in familiar territory.  … On the morning I got all my stuff packed up and ready and loaded into the truck.  She wasn't super happy about being woken up at the crack of dawn from her comfy hotel bed to drive me to the drop off.  She got exceedingly less happy as we wound through the old farm roads and up the mountain.  Finally as she dropped me off I was bubbling with excitement.  I was nervous and happy and ready to roll. She was in a foul mood.  From her point of view, I had just driven her into the middle of nowhere and abandoned her.  I had to stop her and give her a speech.  Something like “Listen, your role here is to support me, not to bitch at me.”  Which seemed to bring her around. And I was off… It was cool, in the 60's and after 6:00 AM when I finally launched.  The first sections flew by.  Literally.  Because I had started on the top of the ridge there were these long downhills where I was probably holding 30 miles per hour for miles at a time without touching the pedals.  Of course what goes up must eventually come down and there were some good size climbs as well.  For those climbs I took it easy, stayed in the seat and used my gears to conserve energy.  My strategy on this first day was to not do anything stupid.  I had looked at the maps and tried to find some really obvious places for my wife to meet me.  I settled on a grocery store in North Hampton that was about 25 miles in and then another grocery store in Worcester about 77 miles in.  That would give me 3-4 hours of riding before each pit stop.  I wrote all the stop addresses and approximate distances and times out for her – which if you know me, is probably the most organized I've ever been for an event.  I usually just wing it. That first 25 miles was wonderful.  Lots of downhill, some interesting back roads.  The traffic was light.  I took it easy and enjoyed myself.  Pulling over when I needed to, pull over and staying hydrated.  The ear buds and the phone worked like a champ.  The phone stayed fully charged and the nice lady from Google was reading turn by turn directions into my ears.  I had my phone right in front of me on the handlebars and could sort through podcasts and fast forward when I needed to skip commercials.  This is where my first logistical mistake got me.  With my wife needing to go back to the hotel to check out, she couldn't catch me for the first stop.  I had just assumed that with me being out on the road for 8-12 hours she would be able to leisurely follow along and take side trips as she wanted and still have plenty of time to catch me.  But this first morning with here having to go back to the hotel and me flying down the hills there was no way she was going to make that 25 mile stop.  It was ok.  I had her on the phone through the earbuds, so we weren't lost or panicking, I was just going to need to push through.  I had my wallet and my phone with me, so I probably wasn't going to die. At the same time as this stop got aborted another wonderful thing happened.  I found the Norwottuck Rail trail that runs 11 miles from North Hampton through Amherst on a beautifully maintained trail.  Amherst is where the University of Massachusetts is.  The trail has a nice bridge over the Connecticut River.  It was a joy to be spinning along on a rail trail.  They even had porta-potties.  I stopped and ate some food and enjoyed myself immensely in this section.  It was now mid-morning.  And it was starting to heat up.  The next section through the hills towards Worcester was challenging.  Lots of construction.  Lots of hills.  More traffic and bigger roads without much tree cover.  The day peaked out around 95 degrees and sunny.  It was hot.  As I was grinding the hills in the heat I realized I wasn't going to have enough fluids to make it to the next stop.  I was losing too much sweat in the baking heat.  My energy was good but I was getting dehydrated.  With another 40-50 miles to ride and another long day coming I uncharacteristically pulled over to a gas-station convenience store.  I bought a liter of water and a Gatorade.  They were ice cold.  I drank all the Gatorade right there and it was mana from heaven.  My feet were falling asleep from all the climbing.  I was soaked with sweat.  My butt was sore.  Back on the bike feeling hot and tired and a little bit nauseous I cranked through the city hills to where my wife was waiting in the parking lot of a big grocery store.  I drank some more water, filled up my fluids and swapped out two more bottles of UCann.  I was beat.  I took my shoes off and let my feet air out a bit.  It was a welcome respite.  Knowing the evils of spending too much time in the aid station I bid her adieu and mounted back up for the final push of the day.  But, I did feel a bit refreshed.  The last chunk was a bit of a grind.  I had another 40-something miles to push.  At least the sun was starting to go down, but I was worn out.  Two things happened that made the day longer.  The first one was I lost one of my earbuds.  I was screaming down a hill and felt it coming loose.  I tried to grab it with one hand.  I thought I had caught it and trapped it in