And then it just walked right on by…
Not a LOL Cat
Pretty Cat
Took a while to spot this one
Space-Time Continuum
It it very hard to describe the difference in scale between East and West. Back East, time is the critical factor; out West, it is space. The balance of the time-space continuum defines how we allocate resources. In the East it may take 10 minutes to go a mile, just popping down to the grocery store. Out West, I’ve gone 10 miles in 10 minutes and I still haven’t got to the grocery store.
When trying to solve the problems of traffic, pollution, and public transportation, please remember that one size does not fit all.
Distance as a matter of perspective
I was doodling around, as I sometimes do, thinking about the differences between East Coast Travel and Western Travel. What brought this up is an upcoming trip to NYC and I realized I do not know the relationship of the area airports to the city. When I lived back in the DC area, I would usually drive to NYC, or take a train. I never really thought about flying unless there were extraordinary circumstances.
But I worked out some charts to compare a drive from DC to Boston with a drive from Albuquerque to Denver. Both routes by Interstate A-D on I-25 and D-B on I-95, I-84,and I-90 (I could have taken I-95 all the way but the distance would be different.) Both routes are about 445 miles.
To give some context to the routes, I noted the population of the different MSAs (Metro Statistical Area) each route went through or by.
| Interstate | Distance | Cities | MSA Pop |
| DC | 446 | Washington | 5,358,000 |
| I-95 | Baltimore | 2,667,000 | |
| Philadelphia | 5,838,000 | ||
| Trenton | 367,000 | ||
| New York City | 19,000,000 | ||
| I-84 | Bridgeport | 900,000 | |
| I-90 | New Haven | 845,000 | |
| Hartford | 1,190,000 | ||
| BOS | Boston | 4,523,000 | |
| Total | 40,688,000 |
There are more than 40 million people living along the DC-Boston route.That is a mind-numbingly lot of people.
Out here:
| Interstate | Distance | Cities | MSA Pop |
| Albuquerque | 448 | Albuquerque | 846,000 |
| Santa Fe | 144,000 | ||
| I-25 | Pueblo | 157,000 | |
| Colorado Springs | 617,000 | ||
| Denver | Denver | 2,506,000 | |
| Total | 4,270,000 |
The total number of people living along the Albuquerque-Denver route is less that the population of the Boston MSA. More than half of Colorado lives in the Denver MSA. About half of New Mexico lives in the ABQ and Santa Fe MSAs.
And the Western route is only in 2 states. The Eastern route passes through 7 states and districts.
Battery Backup
I was listening to the radio a few days ago and they were talking about the difficulties of building a power grid that is sized to handle the peak load in the middle of the day. For 18 out of the 24 hours the electric needs are relatively low and then in the middle of the business day the load can grow another 80%. One idea might be to use solar or wind to cover the peak, but they aren’t always reliably available.
My first thought was to build a giant battery, charge it up at night and let it discharge during the day. I imagine that the batteries would have to be immense, multitudes of them, each the size the Pentagon. Might be none too feasible, potentially unsafe and esthetically challenging.
The next day, they were talking about the upcoming future of electric cars. Especially intra-city commuter vehicles. Then I had a vision of parking garages full of batteries. Just sitting there plugged into the grid topping off. They could be the peak power reservoir. The Utilities would actually have an incentive to distribute recharging stations to every parking slot in every garage in the city. Drivers could get free electricity in exchange for the use of their batteries for the day. The report ended with a blurb that some city planners were already thinking of using the car batteries that way. Drat, another idea stolen.
Smoke on the Water
Sunday we got off to an early start and we said one last goodbye to Arnica.
Smoky
Saturday we had a rather convoluted day of ensuring we were on the right side of the fire so we could safely exit the park. We had originally planned to spend Saturday night in Grant Village, but the road between Grant Village and Lake Village was under threat from the fire. The road did end up being closed for several days.
Fire where there’s smoke
Friday we had moved to Grant Village, south of the fire
Partly Cloudy?
The forecast for Thursday was sunny. But I noticed a large cloud a few miles away from the Lake Village area.
I am trying to get the hand of inserting images in eg so they pass on to LJ
OK, we seem to be working again
This is the post I wanted to get through to LJ
I feel like such a ninny this evening. Here I am rushing home to see the new Ken Burns The National Parks film, not even trying to get the picture of the sunrise from Fishing Bridge since the sun wasn’t going to be rising at Fishing Bridge – thanks to Arnica – and when I get home at 6:30, I found out I needn’t have rushed. See, I figured that Mystery comes on at 9 PM, so that 2-hour National Parks episode would have to start at 7. And I made it home with half an hour to spare. Then I find out that they aren’t showing Mystery tonight and that they were showing Burns’ film at 8, repeating at 10. I am such a ninny. Even if the sun wasn’t going to rise this morning, I may have been able to get some pictures of early morning in the Grand Canyon. But Arnica probably was going to bollix that too.
I hope to have some pictures of my vacation on-line shortly. I downloaded them to Elaine’s laptop and haven’t retrieved them yet. (What did you do on your vacation? I spent 5 days traipsing around in the caldera of the world’s largest active volcano! It’s really cool!)