Quote:
Originally Posted by joveski
Q350 .... living,a ....
Someone to believe in
(living a life of ease
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Q350 - .... living,a .... = Someone to believe in ? - well, it works, its under the outer wire on year of release OK - really just barely snuck in under the '83 outer limt on Salute their, Mende ! Remember this exercise was
'Huge hits and BIG songs of Lightfoot's . But sure enough - you got the last possible year, it wasn't a hit hear but I assume it was there in OZ ? I'll tell you what - I'll split the win between you and Dave - who got the intended songs - CRT. I meant
BIG BIG CAREER-DEFINING SONGS ! But sure as heck - yours works, man. ! OK - 50/50 eh ? I've never turned down a 'first working song in' - but I gotta re-think it if we play another 'format' list of ten ! OK Mende !
I'll post an 'x' for you and Dave, er..somehow lol ! Speaking of Dave, and the fire around your area Mende - I gotta get something off of my chest on wildland fire. its just real important to me. The more knowledge I spread about it, the better I feel I am doing what all the training the gov sent me too for ! Bear with me hear -
Mende - yes, I am sure glad you're OK, definately. You and Dave - I saw that 114 F heat you were having on my windows widget in Melbourne - thought of you, and then bamm - there's the fire. Man, wildfire amd I are old enemies. I worked for a branch of state Gov 20 years so far, and 3 in Federal. Point is, I worked in wildland/urban interface GIS layers/programs in all 3. Each of the 4 agencies I worked for did a start-up project of Wildland Fire Mitigation. Up at the Boulder office I mapped for 10 years and 4 fires.
No point naming them; but The first we contained in 6 acres, 2nd 12 acres, 3rd 114. No 2
factor in fire spread is slope - upwards - hear rises, and all those trees not properly thinned out burst in a first-through flash-braze that charcoals the outside of the tree, leaving the core intact/alive. Its nature's way of thinning slash from forests - very controversial - when they let Yellowstone run naturally that way. Now its lusher than its ever been, with more wildlife populations, nitrogen and potash added to the soil - miraculous, but at what cost ?. We'd tell people we'd help them thin out and clear slash - ladder fuel up to 6 ft high. Few ever took us up on it with the State Regional Forester's help. The Rule of thumb on thinning was take the tree diameter in inches, say 8inches, use that number, and add 10 to it, 18, andthats the optimum minimum spacing there - 18 feet.
Too many people wanted trees around their deck - my Dad included. I begged him to do even the 'donut' thin around their deck - keep 10 -20 ft aesthetic circumference around the house (he had a wrap around deck & view at 10,000 ft) and then do a 'whitewall' outside that 10 - 20 ft ring against the deck, clear an area outside the ring around the deck equal to the height of the taller trees in the area - his elevation made that number less than 30 feet - subalpine firs, engelman spruce, lodgpole pine.
He finally did it, and I got the regional state forester to help him. Then I worked on him to get a jell pack, a foam/jell sprayer to wear like a backpack (looks like scuba gear with no tubes to the face, but it did have a mask to keep blow-back from the face; mildly caustic substance when wet. When heat hits it in the roof, and preferable siding sprayed, too - since he had 12" cedar lap siding, it emits haldon gas to snuff the oxygen out, and is a fire barrier when dry. He at least got the cedar shake roof - a no-no in fire country on a big-a88 slope he was at the TOP of from 1200 feet elev down to the highway. Forester told him that wa the smartest $240 he ever spent.
Sure enough, big fire came thru in the high mountainous canyon to the south, he was in the North ST Vrain Canyon top; and the fire was in the Middle St. Vrain Canyon. It could easily have gone up and over. I've seen fire shoot what looks eerily like a live being thinking - shoot cannonballs of fire in a big arc between canyonwalls, with a thick rope of fire behind the 'ball'. It is weird. Fortunately all the fires I worked, no ever got seriously injured, including the one that made me the maddest. Down....at an office to the south.... where I worked 8 years, I'd worked on gov sharing a software called 'fire' easy enough. The Marines at Camp St Le Jeune in South Carolina sent me their 'unworkable' software for wildland mitigation. Of the over 10,000 fires/year in Colorado - 95% are caused by lightning, and of those, over 98% are self extinguishing. But all it takes is one in the wrong area, like urban/slope interface, and woosh - upslope. That happened in Colorado's biggest fire in history ....down south.... The Heyman fire. In our jurisdiction, where the program I rewrote could have helped. I was just sick over it.
I'd re-written the software before it, too port it to our plaltform, and to change the grid growth model to something called 'Huygen Wave Propagation' I borrowed from my physics days at csu - and it would show a real-world pattern of growth down-wind and up-slope, with live 6 ft and 20 ft fire 'antenna's' in 12 location around that county. The little towers fed live wind speed at those 2 heights - critical for fire spread, along with humidity, wind direction, temp, and the forester took weekly fuel compaction and moisture content readings at those twelve location. But wind is the biggy we wanted. When done - you could 'light a fire' in the program - feed it real-time wind data, and it would show an elliptical growth pattern. It has in other states proven to save millions in home damage, and more importantly - lives of the landowners, and the hearty soles that fight the fire.
Then I mapped the fire probability from running the program about 20 times in the..area.. I was in, and identified the hottest problem was a terraced, tiered custom home development that with only ONE road in and out (same) - mtn subdivision went right up the toe of slope wall, hairpin turns in the road matching the terracing. Its like someone said 'lets see how we could build a sub that would burn in a heartbeat' - I just don't get it. Naivete I know over money and profits, but at what expense. The area EOM Director I worked with on the project had the authority to command fire dep't, sherrifs, and all County agencies until feds took over, and he said " one road only, in and out same road huh ?" - he said then "I'll build them a road allright, if a fire comes through, I'll take 3 D9'er dozers and bulldoze a road out at the other end. Dumb-a88es".
Then, after I was forced to take long-term medical leave/disability, the fire came. I won't name it cause I don't want bad blood with the agency. But then again its a public agency - out taxes support them. Problem is they did not implement the program live. The EOM director quit over it. They thought it needed another set of eyes needed to comb the program because I was fighting doing it with a head injury and more I'll not bore you with. Then the big fire came, turned into over 120,000 acres (44,560 sq ft/acre- here, Dave). And I was fighting mad, helpless. Well - two offices over time have been putting me through wildland fire mitigation-analyst training from the state, and I am one weekend seminar away from certification via a 2 x 8/hr test - 8 hours fed, + 8 hours state.
I'm going to see that program run yet,. It'll be the only Huygen wave pattern program in the US we know of.Camp Le Jeune wants a copy of that version back ! You bet - its gov't sharing the way it ought to be. We'll bollox the next big one if I can help it.
Hearing about that fire Dave got me 'all fired up' over the memories. Fire is the most uncanny, living/breathing thing I have ever seen . It makes roaring noises, sucking sounds, it almost has a carrier sound under the din - its like a slow growl- scary, and weird....
phew - thanks for letting me get that off my chest ! Real glad you OK. I hope the casualties stay.. don't grow - sorry to hear of it...