Montana Bears Joining Democrat Party

I was talking to a co-worker the other day about the water controversy in the state of California. You know the story. It's the problem that the environmentalists have created in their efforts to save a sardine size fish that lives in the Sacramento River Delta. They have cut off water to the farmlands of California and turned much of the state into a dust bowl like they had in Oklahoma in the 1930's. The environmentalists are hurting the people, the economy, and the state, and still they haven't figured out how to save this tiny fish. Meanwhile the price of vegetables is rising and we are forced to buy more of our food from foreign countries including China.

Soon our conversation wondered over to the subject of how Man is impacting the behaviour of wild animals such as dear, bears, and wolves, by feeding them in our National Parks. He mentioned that it is now legal to hunt wolves. I reminded him that most wolves are big and bad, like we remember from the story of The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. He rejected my claim that wolves are bad, and we went back to our separate cubicles to work.

When I got back to my desk, I had a new Email from a friend of mine. It was related to the discussion I had just finished and I was amazed at the timing. The Email described the problem created as people are feeding wild animals in our National Parks. The poor animals are becoming dependent on the food they receive from people in the parks, and they have forgotten how to forage for themselves. The Email included the photo below, which shows evidence of this disturbing trend.

Animals such as this black bear, that were previously self-sufficient are now showing signs of belonging to the Democrat Party. They have learned to just sit and wait for the government to step in and provide for their needs. In the Email it claimed that the Democrat black bear in Montana, in the above photo, had been nicknamed "Bearack Obearma". I am not sure I believe all of this, but he sure looks helpless sitting there at the table waiting for his dinner.

City of Thousand Oaks Misplaces Highway Bridge

"How could the City of Thousand Oaks lose a million dollar bridge?" you might ask. Well they didn't actually lose it...they just built it in the wrong location. Anyone who has driven over the new bridge knows what I am talking about. For some reason the city built the new bridge about 20 feet north of its intended location. Maybe it was a surveying error. Maybe it was a math error. Maybe the engineer got his plans mixed up. Whatever the reason, after the bridge was completed, the entrance and exit roads had to be modified so that they crossed the bridge. This requires drivers to make a number of "S" turns on the bridge approach as well as when they leave the bridge. And if you cross over the bridge at the posted speed limit you better have driving gloves and a good set of radial tires.

The first photo below is taken as you approach the bridge from the East, heading West towards Lake Sherwood. You can see the bridge off to the right in the photo and in the center of the photo you can see the old road heading off in the distance. As you approach the bridge you must make a hard right turn to enter the bridge and a hard left turn as you exit. In addition, you must pass a right turn only lane which requires an additional left turn as you approach the bridge.

Driving from the West, heading East across the bridge is even more exciting, as shown below. Coming from the Lake Sherwood area you follow a gradual left curve down a hill. At the bottom of the hill you must immediately turn to the right to cross an old narrow bridge (foreground), and then jog to the left to cross the new bridge. Upon exiting the new bridge, you must turn right to get back to the original road and then left to straighten out and proceed down the highway.

In the photo below, the bicyclist is heading in the direction where the old bridge use to be located. If they had built the new bridge where the old bridge used to be, the biker would be able to travel in a straight line across the bridge and join the old road that you can see off in the distance on the other side of the bridge.

Being the civic minded person that I am, I recently contacted the City of Thousand Oaks to discuss the error. The city engineer to whom I spoke was totally unaware of the mistake, and in fact he treated me with great contempt for making such an accusation. I had him get on his computer and look up Google Maps where we zoomed in on the bridge. When he saw the degree of the error his jaw dropped. Together we estimated that the bridge is located about 20 feet to the North of the correct location. In the aerial photo referenced below you can see the white concrete bridge in the center of the photo. It is clear to see that for some reason, the City of Thousand Oaks misplaced their $1M bridge by about half of its width.

(http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=westlake+village+CA++91362&sll=41.450961,-81.922302&sspn=0.09058,0.15398&ie=UTF8&ll=34.143511,-118.857608&spn=0.003237,0.004812&t=k&z=18

"How Did He Know?"

After graduating from college I took my first REAL job at a computer manufacturing company in Southern California. For a while our new little family rented a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment in Ventura County. We had two little boys at the time, the youngest was just over six months old, and the older had just turned three.

One night when I came home from work, my beautiful wife informed me that the toilet was clogged and that her efforts to unplug it with the standard toilet plunger had been unsuccessful. I went upstairs to check it out and found it was true, but it was not the usual clog. For some reason, this clog allowed water to pass down the drain, but not solids. It was very strange and I could see why my wife was frustrated. My three year old son, joined me in the bathroom and sat in the corner watching me at work. He seemed very interested in how I was going to unclog the toilet.

First I continued with my wife's technique and used our toilet plunger. I tried to force the clog down and I tried to bring it back up. Nothing worked. Then I poured water down the toilet from a large plastic bucket, but that didn't work either. I tried hot water and and more plunging, but still no success. I was getting frustrated and very tired. The entire time, my son sat quietly in the corner watching my every action. I tried more hot water and harder plunging. Still nothing. It was so odd to me that the water was going down but not the paper or the other various items in the bowl.

Finally in exhaustion I sat down on the floor next to my little three year old son. He looked at me but said nothing. I spoke to him as I thought out loud about what I could try next. I am sure that he could sense my frustration as he listened to me discuss removing the toilet from the floor or renting a roto-rooter machine. Being an engineer I was determined that I was NOT going to hire a plumber to unclog our toilet, and I am sure he understood that as well.

Finally he spoke up and what he said was a stroke of genius! It was almost as if he had known all along what was clogging the toilet, and how the toilet had become clogged in the first place. With the tiny voice of a three year old he looked up at me and said....

"Maybe there's a comb in the toilet."

It was brilliant! It made so much sense, too. Why hadn't I thought of that. A comb! A simple comb. Like a filter which allowed the water to pass through, but which trapped the solids and kept them from passing down the drain.

I rolled up my sleeve and held my breath as I stuck my bare hand down into the toilet. Into the murky water I reached, past the toilet paper and other items, down into the bottom of the bowl. I reached into the drain as far as I could, until I was afraid I might get my hand stuck. I pushed harder and deeper and stretched my fingers into the unknown. Finally I felt something with my finger tips. I twisted around to get more room for my elbow which was now well into the toilet bowl as well. That extra twist was just what I needed to reach the object and grab it with the tips of my fingers. The object was wedged in the drain pretty good, but I was able to wiggle it around and finally it came loose. I carefully withdrew my arm from the drain and the toilet bowl and pulled the object out of the water.

There it was...

A large plastic comb.

How did he know?

"Are You A Dancer?" - Cowboy's Sobriety Test

This is a funny video which shows a big tall cowboy trying to pass a roadside sobriety test. The better he does the more difficult the test becomes. I don't know if the recording is real, but it is pretty funny.

"Why Didn't The Trunk Lid Shut?"

Many years ago I was preparing to travel with a group of men from the company where I worked. My boss offered to drive all of us to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in his full-size Buick and we gladly accepted. Since he was the president of the company, it also saved him and the company money. We all brought our luggage to work with us on the day that we were to leave.

At the prescribed time we loaded our luggage in the large trunk of his car. My luggage consisted of a carry-on suitcase and a garment bag which held my suit and a couple of white shirts. I remember that I waited until everyone else had loaded their stuff so that I could carefully lay my garment bag on the top of the heavy suitcases. My engineering brain had told me that this would help to keep my suit and white shirts from getting wrinkled.

After I had put my garment bag into the trunk my boss arranged a few more items in the trunk while we climbed into his car. I remember that I was sitting in the back seat of the car with two other engineers from our company. After a few minutes we realized that our boss was still outside trying to get the trunk lid to shut. He kept slamming and slamming the lid with all his might. It just wouldn't close.

Being typical engineers we saw this as an opportunity to apply our vast knowledge of mechanical things and help to find out why the trunk lid wouldn't shut. We all piled out of the car and went around the trunk where the company president was preparing to slam the trunk lid one more time. He grabbed the trunk firmly with both hands, took a deep breath and with every ounce of force he could muster, he threw down the trunk lid to the closed position.

I remember that the lid was about 6 inches from hitting the locking latch when I noticed that part of my garment bag was covering the latch mechanism. It as too late. The lid came down with a solid thud and finally it locked.

"You hit my bag!" I shouted. "That's why it wouldn't shut!"

My boss had not even noticed that my bag had moved around in the trunk as he was arranging a few last items and that it finally had moved so that the edge of it was covering the latching mechanism.

You need to understand that the trunk latch mechanism of a full-size Buick at that time consisted of a steel post about 3/4 of an inch in diameter and about 3 inches long. The post mated with a round steel plate with a hole in it. When you shut the trunk the post went into the hole and a latch closed onto the post and held it tight. To make sure that the post would go into the hole, the post had been formed with a rather sharp point at the end and was coated with a light layer of black grease.

It was getting late so my boss did not want to waste time opening the trunk and checking for damage. Besides he was afraid that he might not be able to get the trunk shut if he opened it again.

When we got to LAX we opened the trunk and all of us grabbed our luggage. I was first since my garment bag was on top of everything else. I immediately noticed a beautifully punched 3/4 inch hole through the edge of my bag. When I opened it up to survey the damage, I couldn't believe what I found!

There was my nice blue wool suit with a greasy 3/4 inch diameter hole punched right through the left sleeve. The hole went through both sides of the sleeve and it was perfectly formed.

As I shifted the contents of the garment bag around to check for further damage I noticed a similar hole in the side of one white shirt and the sleeve of another white shirt. The black grease from the steel post had been wiped clean as it had passed through my suit and shirts.

As I look back on that day I remember thinking to myself how grateful I was that my suit or shirts hadn't been folded double or my boss might never been able to get the trunk shut and we might not have been able to get to the airport on time.

Lions' Dinner Delivered To The Doorstep

Here is a video that someone sent me the other day. It was filmed in Africa. Gazelles can run very fast but I guess their eyesight isn't so good.

Bird Makes Wonderful Sound Effects

I received this video the other day which shows a bird on TV making wonderful Sound Effects. I like how he has to clear his throat before he begins his presentation.

Human Bottle Launcher

Most of us may remember launching those plastic rockets that you filled with water and then pumped air inside. When you released the rocket, the compressed air inside pushed out the water and the reaction launched the rocket in the opposite direction.

We have used 1 or 2 liter pop bottles to do the same thing. Using PVC pipe we construct a stand as shown in the photo. Fill the bottle 1/3 full of water and quickly turn it upside down on the launcher. Hook up a bicycle pump and pump air into the bottle through the PVC pipe structure. The bottle will release itself from the launcher when pressure overcomes the holding force on the mouth of the bottle. The air inside the bottle forces out the water and the reaction launches the bottle in the opposite direction. It is not uncommon to reach a height of 50 feet with a 2 liter bottle.

I found this short video on the Internet the other day. It shows a young kid being hooked up to what appears to be a system of about twenty 2 liter bottles hooked together on some type of common air/plumbing assembly. The assembly is pumped up as I have described and attached to the kid's back. Somehow, all of the bottles are released simultaneously and the kid is launched out over a body of water, where he is quickly rescued.

I have run through the numbers to see if it is possible to launch the kid into the air. By my first order calculations, it would take more than 50 bottles to lift even a skinny kid off the ground, let alone that far over the water. Therefore I believe this video is fake. But it sure looks impressive. Don't you agree?