I shall endeavor to bring this blog back to life. Health issues, a near-death post surgery internal bleed and a series of three stents in my heart's circulatory system have wrought a lot of absence from blogging. Let's go back and post as the field of topics on which to post grows ever more Bidenesque.....rich and full of really dumb stuff! Onward!
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Long Time No Post.....Here we go again!
Monday, October 14, 2019
Reverse Space Elevator? Sounds reasonable!
My fellow earth-bounders interested in space in all its possibilities are most likely aware of the long-studied potential for a space elevator. Basically the idea has been to tie a super-long nano-tube (they are not yet capable of producing this, but advances come every day) to a well-fortified base on Earth and then extend the tube into space where a station would be built at the top in geosynchronous orbit. Then a car of some fashion would leave Earth and travel to the top. From there space jumps could be launched with materials brought from Earth. This station would be thousands of miles in space.
One problem not near a solution is the 17,000 estimated pieces of satellite and space junk in orbit.
Now a new proposal......hang the elevator from the moon toward the Earth. End it in orbit above the space junk and transport to and from there. Thus two-way shipping could be achieved.....supplies and parts for space ventures go up, and materials mined on the moon come down.
It is being studied....
I find it amazingly possible! No cable from Earth to be exposed to everything from airplanes to space junk. There remains development of the nano-tubes able to be strung in lengths. And, one would still have to carry the materials going and coming by a ship/airplane to and from the Earth and Moon.
Exciting!
One problem not near a solution is the 17,000 estimated pieces of satellite and space junk in orbit.
Now a new proposal......hang the elevator from the moon toward the Earth. End it in orbit above the space junk and transport to and from there. Thus two-way shipping could be achieved.....supplies and parts for space ventures go up, and materials mined on the moon come down.
It is being studied....
I find it amazingly possible! No cable from Earth to be exposed to everything from airplanes to space junk. There remains development of the nano-tubes able to be strung in lengths. And, one would still have to carry the materials going and coming by a ship/airplane to and from the Earth and Moon.
Exciting!
Thursday, July 11, 2019
A Trip Down Ancestry Lane.....
My family tree, long a bit understood due a book published in the year of my birth, 1943, is much expanded because of Ancestry, the program. The truths therein contained, and about which I shall write a lot more in a different post, reveal some interesting facts about DeLand males....
We are, as a rule, long-lived critters.
Going back seven generations from me they average 82.5 years of age...and this includes my Dad who was only 58 when he passed. His life was shortened, almost assuredly, by participation in WWII.
My great-grand George lived to 102, and my name sake Paul, from the 1600-1700 crossover, lived to 97.
Guess I better buckle up for a much-longer ride than anticipated.....
I'll post more on this soon as I find myself fascinated by the facts in Ancestry!
Duke (Paul K., II)
We are, as a rule, long-lived critters.
Going back seven generations from me they average 82.5 years of age...and this includes my Dad who was only 58 when he passed. His life was shortened, almost assuredly, by participation in WWII.
My great-grand George lived to 102, and my name sake Paul, from the 1600-1700 crossover, lived to 97.
Guess I better buckle up for a much-longer ride than anticipated.....
I'll post more on this soon as I find myself fascinated by the facts in Ancestry!
Duke (Paul K., II)
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Spending Billions under Liberal Plans or Making It Simple!
The multi-million(or billion)aires fly extravagantly, and frequently, to meet and chastise us as to our use of the atmosphere, lands, and everything else they so loudly proclaim as destructive and perhaps world-ending!
Trees are gold... the answering cry. Why not cease flying your multi-million dollar jets to far-flung places and instead donate the cost of your fuel to help plant trees. No fanfare, no thousands gathered to celebrate one-another. Just buy small trees for everyone to plant. You might just "save the world!"
It ain't rocket science folks!
Duke
Trees are gold... the answering cry. Why not cease flying your multi-million dollar jets to far-flung places and instead donate the cost of your fuel to help plant trees. No fanfare, no thousands gathered to celebrate one-another. Just buy small trees for everyone to plant. You might just "save the world!"
It ain't rocket science folks!
Duke
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
The Dwindling List
My first and powerful impact of the dwindling list was 1993, some quarter of a century ago.....Wow!, has it been that long? My Mother passed away. She had been in ill health and had numerous problems which plagued her for many years.
We proceeded to the formal ritual of visitation, held in our hometown, followed by the service and the trip to the cemetery where she was interred beside my Father who had passed more than a decade before.
Then to the house for the post-funeral burial ritual of food and drink with family and friends. Some of the friends were those of my parents, from their generation.
I went through the motions and then months later it suddenly hit me, during a time I was reflecting on her loss, that I AM THE OLDEST member of my immediate family.
No longer available to me are any folks who KNOW! Know my family, know its history, its ties, its members.....where we lived.....HOW we lived.....none of that exists.
If my sister, my brother or I don't remember it....it is no longer there. Unless some distant relative knows, or has recorded and MADE PROVISION to pass it on, It is no longer there.
Now, those 25 years later, my Brother, 10 years younger, is gone, and just this past weekend we held the life celebration for his former wife....always a family member....
The dwindling list!
Now....a new tool. For Christmas I received both the DNA test from Ancestry and membership in Ancestry. Suddenly, there I find a treasure trove of family.....History, generations of history. Pictures. Notations about lives, professions, military service, etc.
WOW! I can pass a lot of family along. Not all the details, but more than I ever imagined.
I spent a lot of January just getting into the system......I have located close family missing from my life for 70 YEARS!
I am enjoying this and intend to pass it along to my children/close relatives.
Keep family close because there is a "Dwindling List!"
We proceeded to the formal ritual of visitation, held in our hometown, followed by the service and the trip to the cemetery where she was interred beside my Father who had passed more than a decade before.
Then to the house for the post-funeral burial ritual of food and drink with family and friends. Some of the friends were those of my parents, from their generation.
I went through the motions and then months later it suddenly hit me, during a time I was reflecting on her loss, that I AM THE OLDEST member of my immediate family.
No longer available to me are any folks who KNOW! Know my family, know its history, its ties, its members.....where we lived.....HOW we lived.....none of that exists.
If my sister, my brother or I don't remember it....it is no longer there. Unless some distant relative knows, or has recorded and MADE PROVISION to pass it on, It is no longer there.
Now, those 25 years later, my Brother, 10 years younger, is gone, and just this past weekend we held the life celebration for his former wife....always a family member....
The dwindling list!
Now....a new tool. For Christmas I received both the DNA test from Ancestry and membership in Ancestry. Suddenly, there I find a treasure trove of family.....History, generations of history. Pictures. Notations about lives, professions, military service, etc.
WOW! I can pass a lot of family along. Not all the details, but more than I ever imagined.
I spent a lot of January just getting into the system......I have located close family missing from my life for 70 YEARS!
I am enjoying this and intend to pass it along to my children/close relatives.
Keep family close because there is a "Dwindling List!"
Monday, August 27, 2018
Society to Blame; Sooo, Let's Go After Guns!!!!
The fact is, the headline says it all, succinctly!
To judge the absurdity of the above headline let us put it in another context: Drunken drivers are killing people, so let's go for more car controls/restrictions!
We live in a world being changed so drastically I sometimes just throw my hands up in frustration. What in the heck (insert much stronger word if you choose) happened? How can a 24 year old become so demented, out of touch with reality and mentality unstable as to shot and kill two, deliberately, wound others and then commit suicide OVER A GAME?
Where were this young man's parents/family? Were they too busy at the country club to notice his mental state? Were they even in touch? Had this young man demonstrated problem behavior, or lashed out before?
The gun didn't do it!
The apparently unstable individual did it!
Did no one notice a problem. Was he just fine in his family and home life (he apparently did live at home), and suddenly went round the bend?
Questions to be answered, and i am sure much information to be unveiled in the coming weeks, but one thing is certain.......
The gun didn't do it!
Duke
To judge the absurdity of the above headline let us put it in another context: Drunken drivers are killing people, so let's go for more car controls/restrictions!
We live in a world being changed so drastically I sometimes just throw my hands up in frustration. What in the heck (insert much stronger word if you choose) happened? How can a 24 year old become so demented, out of touch with reality and mentality unstable as to shot and kill two, deliberately, wound others and then commit suicide OVER A GAME?
Where were this young man's parents/family? Were they too busy at the country club to notice his mental state? Were they even in touch? Had this young man demonstrated problem behavior, or lashed out before?
The gun didn't do it!
The apparently unstable individual did it!
Did no one notice a problem. Was he just fine in his family and home life (he apparently did live at home), and suddenly went round the bend?
Questions to be answered, and i am sure much information to be unveiled in the coming weeks, but one thing is certain.......
The gun didn't do it!
Duke
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Someone Please Help Me Understand......???
I simply cannot understand the current uproar over guns...types of guns....age of gun owners and Government interference/regulation of gun ownership.
WHY?....Do folks feel that gun control of any sort will change such things as the infrequent school shootings? YES, they are infrequent....& getting to be less frequent.
The comparisons to cars/knives/type-of-gun, etc. are mostly truthful....as is the statement oft echoed by the gun rights supporters (I am one, and an NRA member for years) "Guns don't kill people; people kill people!"
While there are massive differences in these types of death and/or violence, all can be traced to intent and to such things as societal norms today. It matters not whether a crazed gunman invading a school or a distracted driver texting while driving cause the death. They remain the same. Someone dies. There are, of course, MANY more deaths caused by distracted driving than by guns.
As for the oft-used derogatory comments and shaming of the NRA and its members....remember one thing.....The 2nd Amendment is their basic premise for the "leave-my-guns-alone group (again, in fairness, I am one!) The NRA espouses nothing more than keeping Govt. OUT OF our given constitutional rights!
Government interference almost without exception results in our giving up rights. Using misstated information promulgated by liberals who LOVE big government provide this to a public quick to demand a cure for societal problems....almost always by issuing MORE LAWS!
Most of the mass-shootings (hate that term) result from signs missed by a government, national or state, which could have predicted the event or something similar.
It is time for people to insist that we first ENFORCE the laws and follow the supposed guidelines for operation of our multitude of policing, and societal support. That would have been way more effective in the Parkland shooting than any of the proposed laws being forwarded by a little-informed, and misled public.
As an addendum, I hate literally the anti-gun crowd playing our youth with partial-facts and instant-solution rhetoric....all of which translates into more govt. control.
WHY?....Do folks feel that gun control of any sort will change such things as the infrequent school shootings? YES, they are infrequent....& getting to be less frequent.
The comparisons to cars/knives/type-of-gun, etc. are mostly truthful....as is the statement oft echoed by the gun rights supporters (I am one, and an NRA member for years) "Guns don't kill people; people kill people!"
While there are massive differences in these types of death and/or violence, all can be traced to intent and to such things as societal norms today. It matters not whether a crazed gunman invading a school or a distracted driver texting while driving cause the death. They remain the same. Someone dies. There are, of course, MANY more deaths caused by distracted driving than by guns.
As for the oft-used derogatory comments and shaming of the NRA and its members....remember one thing.....The 2nd Amendment is their basic premise for the "leave-my-guns-alone group (again, in fairness, I am one!) The NRA espouses nothing more than keeping Govt. OUT OF our given constitutional rights!
Government interference almost without exception results in our giving up rights. Using misstated information promulgated by liberals who LOVE big government provide this to a public quick to demand a cure for societal problems....almost always by issuing MORE LAWS!
Most of the mass-shootings (hate that term) result from signs missed by a government, national or state, which could have predicted the event or something similar.
It is time for people to insist that we first ENFORCE the laws and follow the supposed guidelines for operation of our multitude of policing, and societal support. That would have been way more effective in the Parkland shooting than any of the proposed laws being forwarded by a little-informed, and misled public.
As an addendum, I hate literally the anti-gun crowd playing our youth with partial-facts and instant-solution rhetoric....all of which translates into more govt. control.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)