Musings and Diatribes

Book out at last

Administrator — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:54:10 +0000

The poetry book, Seasons of the Mind, 2nd Edition by Wayne Howard, is now out and available at Lulu and at Amazon. Only the marketing is left. Now I can concentrate on editing the novella, Sea-change. It should be available before the end of the year. Writing continues on Starcrossed Legacy, but I think it will some major rewriting, especially in the first couple of chapters.

Are some banks too big to succeed?

Administrator — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:40:42 +0000

We all know that many in the political arena believe that there are some institutions, manufacturing and financial, that are “too big to fail,” but in the case of some banks (e.g. Bank of America, J. P. Morgan Chase), they may be too big to succeed. I have been hearing stories of seemingly straightforward transactions that are botched or not otherwise completed successfully. Mortgage applications on the west coast that dissappear into a “black hole” in a state more than a thousand miles away with the resultant collapse of the property sales contract (in property transactions timing is everything); refinancing papers that disappear for weeks.

A common thread seems to be a total lack of information (even the local branch managers seem to be unable to check the status of any of these processes) about where the loan or refinancing applicant stands and a total disregard for timely action. For these “too big” banks, it would seem that the only thing that matters is loaning money to each other, not to their depositors. The local branch associates are usually helpful in the initial stages but once the transaction is set up the paperwork moves to a location often far from the point of origin. Since banks susposedly make money by loaning money to other people this seems like a crazy way to do business. Deals that aren’t completed bring no money into the bank’s coffers, but apparantly they feel that they don’t need it (“too big to fail” remember?)

Did BP fail to account for overpressured sand?

Administrator — Sun, 23 May 2010 05:36:13 +0000

A thought occured to me that the blowout preventers that failed in the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster might have been insufficiently robust for an unexpected overpressured sand horizon. Since overpressured zones in the Gulf are not that uncommon, it would be strange if such an occurance were not anticipated. One would expect that maybe the number of overpressured horizons would increase as one moves further offshore.

Granted that many overpressured zones are shales with little porosity and permeability and thus can be handled with little extra difficulty. But at that depth (about 5000 feet water) it seems that the extra precautions wold have been worth it ( if it was indeed the failure of BP to anticipate an overpressured sand).

Just a thought and no way to prove it.

Iceland and greenhouse gasses

Administrator — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:46:59 +0000

The recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland have pointed up just how critical getting a handle on greenhouse emissions is. Typically volcanos inject large amounts of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere during eruptions, sometimes dwarfing the rather puny efforts made thus far to reduce the man-made contribution. The really scary part is the large positve feedback potential from methane released from thawing permfrost and decomposing methane hydrates in the ocean bottoms as the climate continues to warm.

Blogging for money–a boon or a trap?

Administrator — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:22:30 +0000

Due to the economy and the need to generate money quickly, I turned to blogging for money by writing regularly on green business matters in the Portland area. The problem with this sort of sideline is that is pays very little considering the amount of work that goes into preparing each article. There is the research, fact checking, interviewing, writing and posting to be done for each offering–not to mention the time spent trying to find appropriate photos that can be used without copyright violations.

The trap comes with the fact that the more you post the more money I earn, and so the time that I could be spnding on potentially more lucrative projects is not available.

Green Primrose Paths

Administrator — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:14:13 +0000

Now that green is “in” and everyone wants to do it and be a part of the revolution, the hucksters are out in force blasting us with information that can best be described as “the good, the bad and the ugly.” The good thing about the internet is that it provides us with access to a lot of good information and good ideas, but at the same time ovewhelms us with ideas that are in some cases just bad ideas, and in other cases just plan ugly ideas designed to fleece the unwary.

As a case in point, I recently ran across a press release from a “green energy” company touting a scheme to recover energy from the warm air exhaust streams from air conditioning systems. This is a scheme akin to perpetual motion in that work has to be done by the AC system to produce the cooling at the condenser and the flow of air carries away the waste heat. Capping that air stream to run turbin would create a back pressure that would cause the AC system to do more work for the same amount of cooling and the energy gained at the turbin would always be less than the extra energy to power the AC system.

A bad idea, but plastered all over the internet. The press release repeated over and over on site after site without any critical review. This company as far as I can tell (they’re not big on details) consists of the CEO, a patent attorney and a very good huckster.

Writers’ conferences

Administrator — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:49:21 +0000

I just returned from a three day marathon of pitching, networking and attending workshops at the Willamette Writers annual conference. The pitches were moderately successful even though I had to pitch from the seat of my pants because the agents that were taking what I was prepared to pitch were not available (I registered rather late). The workshops were great for the most part, but by the end of the third day my eyes had glazed over and I was moving like a zombie.

It’s definitely an experience I would reccomend to any aspiring writer.

Roaming Robots

Administrator — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:26:50 +0000

I just completed a story on Examiner.com about a project to produce (under government sponsership) an autonomously ranging robot with sponsorship of the U. S. military, which refuels itself by foraging for suitable burnable materials. My take was that the proposed application is some sort of a mobile recon platform that doesn’t require the presense of a human operator…the original drones were just for recon and now they are weapons…I wonder how long before these things are armed?

I had a vision of herds of these things roaming through grasslands taking the grass for fuel sort of like a herd of bison. Just a dream?

Magnatude Nine-plus Earthquakes

Administrator — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:58:42 +0000

I hear a lot, off and on, about the expected magnitude nine-plus earthquake that is likely to happen sometime in the geological near future of the coast of Oregon. Such a quake and the resulting tsunami has all the makings of a disaster movie or book, and I’m now in the process of doingsome preliminary research. I’ll need engineering, architectural, seismic and geological info–sol it’s off to the races

Writing for Examiner.com

Administrator — Fri, 29 May 2009 05:16:32 +0000

I’ve now been writing for Examiner.com for about a month and am just now feeling like Im beginning to get a handle on time management. There is the necessity to do research finding stories and checking them out as well as the actual writing. Then there is the marketing piece, i.e. getting the word out to a plethora of book marking sites, social networking sites etc. And, of course, finding available pictures to enhance the story. Until recently this has left little time to spend on the novel or on short stories. I think I’ve turned the corner on the time thing this week. Good way to approach the weekend.