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PTINS

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by PTINS

  1. Everything in New Orleans between Lake Pontchartrain through the French Quarter and to the bank of the Mississippi River, is basically at sea level. The River itself is ~70 river miles from the Gulf, and ~20-50 feet above sea level. When you stand on a ship in the river and look over the dike, you are looking down into the City of New Orleans, at sea level, 20+ feet below the river level. When the 10+ foot Katrina storm surge filled Lake Pontchartrain ~ 10 feet above sea level, it was well above the city elevation, some of the dikes failed, and water poured into the low lying areas in and around New Orleans. Houston will flood along the bays and bayous and lower elevations, but nothing like New Orleans. The flooding from Harvey's rainfall was different than any hurricane related storm surge.
  2. "Current track spares Tampa from the storm surge." I don't think so. Tampa may not get hit head on, but a hurricane 200 miles in diameter cuts a swath ~ 200 miles in diameter, and pushes a huge layer of water well beyond that. That is a storm surge 1,000's of square miles in area spread across the Florida's west coast, up to 15 feet high, but gradually tapering to a few feet, hundreds of miles away. Milton will push water into the bay well before the eye makes landfall. This pic shows a 150 mile path across Florida, generally along the forecast track of Milton. Milton has moved ~ 250 miles in the past 24 hours, roughly 10 miles/hour. The entire area across Florida is forecast to have hurricane force winds at the same time, for an extended period. Below is the elevation profile of that path. The fact that the 2 peaks represent 2 highways tells you everything you need to know about Milton and Florida, that Milton will go through and across Florida "like shit through a goose." What's it going to look like when it gets to the Atlantic? Helene hit Valdosta, GA with 90+ mph winds 70 miles from the coast, and Augusta with 69 mph wind gusts 250 miles inland, crossing a 350' elevation. Odd are we will have Milton 2.0 on the east coast.
  3. Good thread, and I don't want to derail it. TLDR, or if you read it, a simple like or a fuck you will suffice. My wife came home from work last night and said a co-worker stormed out of work, with a parting comment of "I'm going to kill myself." Fuck!!! My biggest dilemma was what time can I leave for Dallas Friday? There is so much shit in the world, in no particular order; our polarized political leadership, Ukraine, Israel and their neighbors, etc., a constant barrage of extreme weather events and the hardships they bring, corporate greed run amuck, social upheavals, daily mass shootings, and so many personal things that make so many feel that life is not worth living. Please, for yourself, and family & friends, slowly push away from the table, find a quiet place and take a few deep breaths. Life is short and precious, and much better when enjoyed. I generally agree. But with no grandkids on the horizon, I bought some really nice guitars. I don't play, just listen and watch. One good thing about having all the shit around is it helps me remember all the things about all the shit. It is also evidence of a lifetime of experiences. I had been working in SLC leading up to Rita and cut my trip short to fly home to Katy. My colleagues said don't go there, you saw what Katrina did. I had to get home first, to the wife and kids, before I did anything else. Katrina & Rita, similar situations, but different. Similar w/ a massive hurricanes barreling down on a large coastal city. Different? Don't ever equate Louisiana w/ Texas or Houston (Katy) w/ New Orleans. New Orleans is below sea level, like a bathtub surrounded by water, and people choose to live there. 'Nuff said? In SE Texas, it made sense for people in low lying area's and proximate to the water to leave. More than half our neighborhood, and a lot of Houston, evacuated. Why? Our neighbors, because they wanted to, and had a place to go. For a lot of people, they evacuated because they had to and were just trying to get to a safer place. For many, the evacuation was a bigger disaster than the hurricane, as it brought the trauma right smack into their personal lives. When I got to Houston, the streets were empty and the airport was closed. We were one of the last incoming flights, everybody was gone from the airport but a skeleton crew and the national guard, w/ weapons. All the gas stations along the way were already out of gas. I was an O&G executive, and could not get gas from the energy capital and largest refining complex in the world. WTF? I drove to the west side, but didn't have enough diesel to make it home. A wrecker driver kindly told of a station that had some. I had to ask a family that had evacuated, w/ young kids in a car packed to the gills, to move their car so I could get some diesel to feed by F-250 and go home to take care of my family, in a safe, dry place. It was very surreal, for many reasons, the contrast in lives and livelyhoods, a realization of where I came from and where I was. The reality that so many normal people, when put in an uncomfortable or stressful situation, will make poor decisions (not yoga practitoneers). Troph, your "40 year" comment hit a nerve (my lasts semester at UT). My family continued a cycle that has existed since Columbus and the explorers. The 1st generation struggled for survival and a simple existence, giving the 2nd generation a chance to learn a trade, a carpenter, a teacher, a doctor, etc, so the 3rd generation has freedom of choice, to be an artist, a musician, a thinker, a poet, and the cycle repeats. I'm the second generation, both parents raised on the farm, moved to the city. I gave plasma every week my last semester, because $10/wk was meaningful, "Do I buy gas or eat?", and I got orange juice and cookies. In one generation, we went from middle lower class to middle upper class, lived in Oklahoma 3 different times (both kids born in there, on Texas soil), Louisiana and Colorado (Yes!!!). Now, I'm retired in the Hill Country, posting on message boards, making bank, and getting ready for OU. And collectively, we, My Generation of Boomers, are the reason for the worlds ills. Sorry, but I think I paid my dues and have a hard time accepting that elevating and providing for my family the best way I know how was a bad thing. I don't think it is so much what we are doing is so bad, but the reality that there are so, so many people doing it, and the cumulative affect to provide for all that is not sustainable.
  4. J-Whitt, LA Rams, 7 Rec, 89 yads
  5. Our uneven performance against Mississippi State was still good enough to win by 3 TD's. Those same performances this week ended up with a lot of upsets. It was hard to tell if A&M is good or Missouri is that bad. A&M played good, but they didn't magically get bigger or stronger or faster. Mizzou was butt ugly, couldn't run or pass, which plays to A&M strengths. Ha! Ha! For the SEC being a line of scrimmage league, there was a lot of mediocre line play yesterday. I like violent and fast.
  6. As always, consider the source. A nuke is always going to have the highest installed cost per kw of generation capacity. That is not anywhere close to the same thing as the cost per kw-hr, the actual cost of the produced power. But "$10,000 per kw" sure makes a good headline when your paying $0.10/kw-hr. Yes, directional drilling has made a lot of things better, including minimizing the impact of buried utilities. A collaboration of No-Nukes entities generated a report aligned with their interest? Who woulda thunk? The China Syndrome movie was released 2 weeks before the 3 Mile Island accident happened. After that, the City of Austin tried to back out of their ownership in the South Texas Nuclear Project. They literally couldn't give it away. Similar issues with the sunk cost with nothing to off set it. Austin Energy is an owner of the plant that has generated ~ 20,000 Giga-watts-hours pf power every year since 2001. The reaction to 3 Mile Island necessitated a review of all Nuclear Projects, with good reason. However, that review included adding huge costs to plants under construction, including some changes that were way beyond reason, but still required. To be clear, I took Nuclear Engineering classes and toured Comanche Peak and TVA facilities. Then, the 3MI accident happened. My interest in Nukes ... zero. My job offers ... from every entity looking for nuclear engineers. The NRC called me at home. I swore I would never work for an O&G company and never live in Houston. I wanted to build solar houses on Lake Travis. My job offers ... zero. Maybe computers? No one told me IBM was "Big Blue." I wore a khaki suite to me interview. Then, the Iranian revolution exploded. "No Nukes", and oil prices quadrupled. Demand for engineers peaked. 250+ companies recruited Texas for Engineers. Some of those that came at the end of the semester couldn't get anybody to interview. Best time in history to be an engineering graduate. $in City (Hou$ton), here I come. Of all the complaints consumers in Texas have with their electric power providers, the cost of electricity barely moves the needle.
  7. From the videos, this looks like more of a fire at the storage of a refinery rather than just a remote oil depot. One can only hope. The geolocation provided is within a mile of the 260,000 Bbl/day Lukoil Perm refinery, ~ 975 miles from Kharkiv. That refinery is ~ 3 square miles in size, or 1,900 acres. The round tanks (Horton spheres) are usually located where the products are produced (refineries or gas processing plants, high volume/footprint ratio) and not just stored (depots/terminals). You've heard me reference finding the guys (dead guys) camera when these Natural Gas Liquid tanks rupture. Those plumes on the top of the tanks are indicative of a relief valve venting vapors from the top of the tank due to the pressure increase from the surrounding fires. At some point, the vapors cannot vent fast enough to relieve the rising pressure, and ...big bada boom. If the fireman is close enough to get water on the fire, he is way to close. The sphere on the left engulfed in flames? Run, Forest, Run!!! The long, cylindrical pressure vessels (not shown here) rupture into 3 pieces, hence the nickname, "bullets". Not sure what is left when the spheres rupture, other than the camera. Found this on the internet. This is a simulation; no idea on the size of the tank or the product in it. On the plot, LEL = Lower Explosion Limit (minimum fuel/air ratio for combustion). Red cloud, fuel/air ratio is too high for combustion. Orange = incomplete combustion. Yellow = huge fuel air bomb.
  8. In talks with the Israeli government, the White House was expected to point to the relatively light damage caused by the Iranian missile attack on Tuesday and urge Israeli restraint, the U.S. official said. These pleas were expected to have little impact, the official added. This wasn't proxies crossing the border on motorcycles with machine guns. A simple way of looking at this is, "What should the Israeli response be if none of the incoming Iranian missiles were shot down and all of them hit their targets in Tel Aviv?" That is what Israel's response should be. Anything other than civilian targets is fair game. FAFO
  9. He is not leaving until he has started 25 college starts behind him. That is the same thing Oliver Lick told his son Andrew. Don't go unless you are ready to give up the social life for film sessions and studying the play book. Arch will not go against the advice of the people that have been behind him all his life. Arch will step into an extremely rare situation, following Quinn & Sark, and leading a well oiled Texas Football machine on and off the field. That situation will only improve over the next few years. He is positioned to be the Poster Child of Texas Football. Why rush to get away from it. I wouldn't know about this, but I always thought Arch coming to Texas got the elder Manning's into some choice Texas Real Estate development opportunities in Texas.
  10. I lived in Jester East in ‘74, and that lot is usually where I had to park, ~ 3,000 steps from my car to my room. Now, I may not have walked a straight line, but it was a long ass walk to make in the wee hours of the morning.
  11. Yeah, I thought about that when I posted, but "pegged" was the correct word. My story on pegging the meter: Back in the 80's, I traveled a lot in west Texas & Oklahoma, in cars that had a speedometer that only went to 85. I ran those cars flat out on the laser straight open roads, to the point that the needle had a bend to it, caused by the speedometer needle pushing so hard on the little peg.
  12. I did see this on one of the threads. 19th Century - Barnaul Ammunition has a rich history dating back to the 19th century. Its origins stem from Saint Petersburg where one of Russia's first cartridge plants was founded. This ammunition factory, which was designated as Arsenal P, provided the Russian army with ammunition during World War I. In 1918, Arsenal P was evacuated because of the Russian Civil War and was re-established in Podolsk. In 1941, during World War II, the plant was again evacuated and re-established in its current location in Barnaul. For decades, Barnaul ammunition has been used by military personnel around the world. Today, Backed by years of manufacturing experience and battlefield testing, Barnaul Ammunition Company offers a broad range of ammunition for sporting, hunting, and personal protection.
  13. 100% This. The Mariachi band leading Thunderstuck kicked ass! Put that fiddle to work!!! Glad I didn't see that shit. Yes, Saturday was the perfect day to be outdoors ... in the shade. Clear blue sky and not a cloud to be seen all damn day.
  14. Georgia Meloni speaking English makes it sound like a romance language. Quoting Ronald Reagan? Damn girl, you already pegged the meter a long time ago. Suddenly, "F*ck Georgia!" takes on a whole new meaning, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
  15. The Barnaul Fire from the link is 2,000 miles east of Donetsk. The comments in the link say it is a furniture factory, but info from Google suggests it might be some kind of cable/wire manufacturing plant, or maybe they just make wooden crates. From the footage, this does not look like there was an explosion. The building looks somewhat intact, other than the fire, which favors Special forces rather than drones.
  16. The silicon boom in Houston was one of the reasons Bottom-Line-Bud and the Oilers left Houston (too much?). The explosion of “Gentleman’s Clubs” and the pull of the discretionary income from the 18-50 male demographic was huge, and the accompanying wave of stripper dance music was the result. That’s my theory and I’m not changing it.
  17. PTINS

    Getting old sucks

    Take up yoga. I started when I was 41, and by my 50’s, I was an instructor and in the best shape since I was college. Its the best exercise there is. Stress relief, physical symmetry, skeletal alignment, cardio (astanga yoga). My yoga friends are my best friends. Not even close. Ptins, age 52. In the group photo, I’m the one w/ the ‘stache.
  18. Speaking of running backs ... Can one of you photo shop wizards please put Reggie in USC colors w/ VY tattooing his ass? Much appreciated. I want to supplement Elisha when we get a commitment.
  19. Consider the possibility that is was an empty that was full of water. Not really a tough choice, though. Leave the game or pacify the kid? You gotta do what you gotta do.
  20. This UNLV thing and is a big ball of shit and I'm glad we are not in it. Sark deferring this conversation until the end of the process is one of the smartest things he's done. It identifies the NIL chasers early and keeps them away from the more forward thinking players that are a better fit. Government regulation is not the answer. It will be so rigid it won't work, some people will always break the law, and we are back to the bag game we just got away from. It seems like most schools have decent alignment between the Athletic Departments and their collectives, which minimizes a lot of issues. The most common theme seems to be funding the collectives, whether its Texas or Ohio State or UNLV.
  21. From what I read, the Sluka family, or their agent, never talked directly to the UNLV Collective, and I put 100% of the blame on the Sluka family. At some point in the process, before you sign the UNLV paperwork, the Sluka's should have had some follow-up conversations to confirm what was understood. This in not buying a stolen TV in an alley behind a restaurant. Get something in writing, anything. All agreements are verbal. This would be similar to an oral agreement, though it is not obvious that anything was agreed upon, other than playing football and moving expenses. After the fact, there are a lot of different ways this could have played out. The first thing I saw was the kid decided to quit and not play, redshirt and transfer, all very publicly. Game over. This has probably been an issue for 2-3 months. The statement UNLV released is very clear in their position. Anything they said or did after the fact was going to be very public. Letting the third party pay them off? Reminds be of Bill Clements, former Governor of Texas and SMU Alumnus, when asked why SMU kept paying players after they got caught; "We made a commitment to those kids." That statement, as much as anything, is why they deserved what they got.
  22. FIFY If not for this genre of music, all those sweet things in the tittie bars would have nothing to dance too.
  23. 100% agree that a player and coach are different situations. High School recruits are kids, until they aren't. I was agreeing with the notion that the people that attacked Simms and Sark are still here, in some cases may be the same people. Coaches are paid to do a job, no different than most people. They are open to criticism, no doubt. Early Mack built a great program, late Mack let it crumble beneath him. This. The "I told you so!" crowd after Arkansas. Sark made his own mistakes. He was obviously surprised by the reception in Fayetteville. He shouldn't have been. There are plenty of people here (at Texas, not necessarily Surly) who knew the depth of passion between Arkansas and Texas. Too bad Sark didn't hear, or believe, those opinions. But Sark was a first year coach, not late Mack that mailed it in. Thank you for the time you and others put into this, as well as the insights you share for our benefit. Watching a coaching decline is like the frog in boiling water. By the time you realize it, it's too late. There's a time and place for everything. I spent 30+ years in the commercial side of O&G, most of that time competing against bigger and more established companies. We identified deficiencies, and tried to minimize their impact. Don't recall anybody ever sending messages to our competitors highlighting our weaknesses. I've also provided expert witness analysis and testimony for 20+ years. There are many thoughts and ideas I discussed internally that were never memorialized in writing. You know, discovery and smoking guns.
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