I know that a lot of you see this as the first long weekend of summer…
But, it’s more than that. Much more.
If one more person wishes me “Happy Memorial Day”, I swear I’m going to hit them in the teeth.
There is nothing HAPPY about it. When I think of Memorial Day, I think of those who fell alongside me and many like me, in places many of wish we could forget… as we faced our lives and deaths, from dawn till dusk on fields covered with blood. I think of family buried in places like Arlington National Cemetery. I think of tears and sadness.
Memorial Day is about the sacrifice of soldiers… soldiers who cast themselves into the fire, to preserve our freedom.
Soldiers are not “sacrificial objects”. Our soldiers are Americans with the same rights, morals, and virtues as the rest of us. Each of them wants to pursue their own goals, their own dreams, and their own happiness. Soldiers aren’t mindless drones, they enjoy the work of military service, they take pride in their abilities, and they gain profound satisfaction in the knowledge that they are protecting the freedom of every single American, including themselves. They are motivated by the knowledge that they are making the world a better place, for everyone.
And some of them make the supreme sacrifice, to insure it.
Memorial Day is a very solemn and sad occasion that honors the American soldiers who lost their lives in war. It’s a hallowed day too; like the blood running thru their veins, the values those men and women who “fought to defend”… form the very core of our nations principles:
Democracy, freedom for all, and the protected rights of the individual.
They were men and women from all walks of life…
They were Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers, Husbands and Wives…
Some were drafted and some volunteered.
They fought for all sorts of reasons. Some did things that they would only forget in death. Many more became heroes.
Some fought wars with meanings far beyond imagination or understanding. Some actually changed the world. And some were actually changed forever.
You may question WHY they served. You may question the wars they fought. You may even question the leaders that gave them their orders.
But, you can NEVER EVER question their sacrifices.
Please take a moment to remember our fallen. Without their sacrifices, the world you live in would be a much different place, indeed.
Most people who read this blog know that I live near the beach in Biloxi MS, right in the path of the oil spill.
So, my email is just jammed with questions about what is happening here. And one question is getting asked over and over again:
Everyone is asking me what a “Top Kill” is.
They’re referring to the new “solution” that British Petroleum (BP) has put into play, to find a way to make it look like they are actually trying to do something besides make matters worse.
This animation will give you an idea of what they’re planning;
And yet, for all the grandstanding, they’re trying to “hide their hand”. There’s a lot that isn’t being seen, and even more that’s trying to be covered up.
BP started the “Top Kill” yesterday. BP, once again, trying to cover their proverbial asses, kept saying over and over again…
“Don’t worry. It’s working. It’s going to be fine.”
But, when all of us watched the oil spill “leak cam” that you can link to from all over the Internet, it was apparent that the Top Kill solution was just making matters worse.
You can actually see mud and oil escaping thru the mouth of the riser as they pump the Top Kill “junk” in.
Here’s what is happening:
The fluid coming out of the top of the riser is indeed a mix of mud and oil. Scientists and experts all over the planet right now are worried that the amount of mud and oil escaping through the leak is just making the leak worse.
So, BP engineers will try to adjust the mixture in an attempt to stop the flow of oil thru the leak. If that doesn’t work, engineers may try;
[quote] “putting solids in the mixture as a variation of the “junk shot” maneuver”. [unquote]
In other words, they’ll resort to trying to plug the hole with concrete.
It’s getting bad, folks. Those booms you can see offshore aren’t helping. In fact, they’ve been deployed for cameras, and NOT oil. Anyone that has ever worked an oil spill, or gone to “Boom school” will tell you that they are doing it completely wrong, in every single instance.
Once again, BP is just going thru the motions, and has no real intention of “doing the right thing”. Doing the right thing is too expensive, apparently.
I just saw an “intensely good” Youtube video on “Booming for oil spills”. If I can find a version that isn’t filled with profanity (I’ve never heard the “F” word used so many times in 8 minutes – in my life, not even at a boxing match!), I’ll post it so you can see what I’m talking about.
(Send me an email if you want me to just send you the link. I won’t post it, it’s just “too nasty”, even for ME.)
This is the worst oil spill in the history of oil production, folks.
And, it’s heading for the beach in front of my house. I am already at the point of weeping over what it’s doing to Louisiana as I type this.
But I don’t have time to cry. I have to get prepared.
I just hope that I’m successful in getting my wife and son to a safe place, before I have to try and stop it. Char’s system is beaten down by the cancer she carries, the chemo and treatments only make things worse. Joshua is 2, and his little body just isn’t prepared for this kind of battle. The harm to him would be irreversible. I am praying for ALL the kids in the path of this monster. It’s going to absolutely wreak havoc on them.
If British Petroleum dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil per day into the waters off the beach in my front yard wasn’t bad enough…
Building a home out of shipping container is tough.
If it’s not the building inspectors, it’s the neighbors, who think you’re trying to turn “their” neighborhood into a “Mad Max Nightmare”.
Finally, somebody had enough of all the whining and complaining, and used one of those beautiful containers to solve the problem. Permanently.
I give you the…
“Get outta my yard…” Corten Club.
An ISBU Cruise Missile…
That’s just peachy.
Now, I have to be careful who I honk at, because that tractor trailer in front of me, doing 35 miles an hour up the Techachapi Grade… might just be hauling a doomsday device. Oy.
A cruise missile can take out an aircraft carrier, so blasting a hole in that “allegedly biofuel powered Hummer Wagon” hogging two lanes in front of you should be a cinch, huh?
But who’d “really” buy this Corten Club?
Who wouldn’t? This opens up a whole new avenue for the terrorist in your neighborhood. A container ship could become a warship.
A train pulling miles of ISBU’s stacked on those flatbeds could become a country killer.
Beyond terrorists like Hamas, Al Qaeda, and the Boy Scouts…
(Not to mention Mary Kay ladies…)
Countries like Iran and Venezuela would love to have something like this in their arsenal. Can you imagine? This takes “U.S. Customs Container Inspection” to a whole new level.
And, they’d be affordable enough to trickle down into the hands of bad guys without flags…
We’re talking $20 million, folks. Chump change, if you want to start a really big fight.
But as someone else pointed out, maybe this is really just a viral video on YouTube touting a new up and coming video game, like “Command and Conquer”… “Final Front.”
One can only hope…
Me? I want one.
“Honest, Mr. Building Code Inspector…
It’s just a Shipping Container “staircase tower”…
The windows are at the top…” [wink!]
For the “war geeks” among us that want spec’s:
The Club-K Container Missile System is designated for hitting surface and land targets by 3М-54ТE, 3М-54ТE1 and 3М-14ТE cruise missiles.
Club-K Missile System can be installed on coastal positions, surface ships and vessels of different classes, railway and automobile platforms.
Club-K Missile System is housed in 40-feet standard marine container.
Functionally Club-K Missile System consists of Universal Launching Module (ULM), Combat Management Module (CMM) and Energy-Supply and Life-Support Module (ES&LSM).
The launcher with 4 missiles is housed in the Universal Launching Module. The ULM is designed for preparation and missile start-off from transport-launching containers.
Combat Management Module provides:
every day servicing and scheduled missile control;
receiving of target detection and commands to open fire
combat support computation;
pre-launch preparation;
launch mission defining and cruise missile launching.
CMM and ES&LSM can be constructively arranged and made in the form of separate standard marine containers.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Capability of usage from any land and sea platforms
- Efficiency of delivery and installation on carrier or coastal positions
- Hitting of surface and land targets
- Ability to increase the number of ammunition loads
While I have been trying for quite some time to remove my family from this part of the South, now I must.
Even the fumes from the oil are a threat. My wife, as many of you know, has Stage Three Cervical Cancer. It doesn’t get much worse. We have done all that there is to do. Now, we wait for the end.
The hardest part is watching her with our young son, a two year old terror, who runs and plays like he thinks he’s on some soccer or football field, vanquishing his foes at each foot fall.
Their lungs, their respiratory systems won’t take the contaminants that will come with this oil. The spill will literally reach out from the coastline, to harm those it can’t reach any other way.
And our gardens? Plants are filters. Food grown in contaminated soil, plants that will filter contaminated air… cannot be consumed.
It is heartache after heartache.
So, what to do? The unemployment rate here is astronomical. That’s about to change, but it’s a bitter pill, none the less. The damage that will be done cannot be undone by simply throwing dollars at it.
It will allow Me to move my family out of harms way, while I work to help fight this battle. The revenue it brings will help us take that big step we need, to begin building what will be the last home my wife ever lives in, should she survive to see it completed.
But, where do you build?
After a long life with spells of city, suburban and rural living, I read something recently that reminded me of a truth that has guided me for much of my life. It’s quite possibly MY “ultimate truth”;
“Only in certain rural locations can one live free, unencumbered and annoyed by unnecessary bureaucracy, power mongers, fees, applications, approvals, regulations.”
If you think about it, it may occur to you that this is how we are DESIGNED to live. And, the benefits, from a life lived in self-responsibility and self-reliance… are both psychological and environmentally invaluable. You cannot put a price on “inner peace.”
As a tradesman/idiot savant, I do what many do. I design homes to capitalize on safety, comfort, affordability, sustainability, energy efficiency and again… serenity.
The Internet is a wonderful thing, easily the largest reference library in the world. Just surfing cyberspace will provide you with enough so that almost anyone could feel quite comfortable not consulting any “building code” books.
I for one embrace a “rural existence”, a place where you can be quite happy to live a life free of the scorn and approval of “inspectors”.
If you don’t believe me, I was recently reminded of this site, a veritable gold mine of information:
Let’s face it, for all the hustle and bustle, cities are becoming “graveyards”.
How many foreclosed homes are there, on your street? Are you seeing houses change hands around you? It seems to me that the “economy” (or lack thereof) doesn’t seem to help much either. Where I live, there aren’t enough jobs available to allow those empty houses to fill back up. So, they sit, carefully recorded on bankers spreadsheets, while families go on being homeless, staring into empty windows. It’s just tragic.
I have a very good friend (more like an “adopted” daughter) that has a grandmother who lives in Detroit. “H” and her husband drive to Detroit regularly to visit her. Her grandmother is an amazing woman, a woman full of “life and art”, who has watched Detroit rise, and now… she’s watching Detroit fail…
Detroit had already lost half of its population before the economy collapsed. Now, it appears that the best thing for the city will be to “downsize”, and dismantle the city politically, into a few separate governments, with large greenspaces stuffed in between them.
Has anyone thought this thru? Yep. This “transformation” has actually been predicted for several decades…
Some prophecies apparently DO come true.
Much of the “inner city” of Detroit, is turning into fields of garbage and debris. The people who owned homes there, are often losing every single penny of their investment, and then some.
And with economic failure comes despair, heartache, and “the predators” that prey on the weak, to make their own ends…
My friends had thought to take one of those “bargain” homes in Detroit and renovate it…
Until I warned them that they needed to go see that potential “new home” after darkness had fallen, possibly with a cop in tow, for protection. Many places are not passable at night, without risk. Between the drugs, the gangs, and the prostitution… it can be a life-threatening event to go to the corner store for a gallon of milk, after night falls.
It’s like New Orleans, but without being able to use Nature as an excuse.
Detroit was hit by an economic hurricane.
And it appears that the Hurricane Season is beginning again…
20 acres and a mule is sounding better and better…
I wonder how many mules it would take to drag a shipping container into place?
My thanks to Laren Corie and his Little House cronies for reminding me of “more things” that will assuredly keep me up nights…
This is a Shipping Container Home construction blog. I swear it is. I know that I’ve been doing the oil spill thing lately, but frankly, in part, it’s because I have about 200 emails a day asking me if there is oil on my beach yet.
Yes, we have oil on the beaches.
It’s the beginning of the storm… It’s the trace that gets here first, carried by the tide. In the next few days, the “real oil” (“The OMG – This is HORRIBLE” stuff) will start to get here.
We’re already seeing dead and dying wildlife.
Oy… I really don’t want to be thinking about this right now. It just breaks my heart…
So, let’s shift gears, shall we?
I actually get so much email that I could use a clerk. I swear it’s true.
Some of it is the typical “Can you really live in a an ISBU Shipping Container? Really?” kinda stuff… but some of it is grass roots;
“How in the hell do I convince my kid to sleep in an 8′ metal box” kinda stuff.
In fact, I get asked that question a LOT. People see the box as “a crate”, and they just can’t imagine sleeping in it comfortably.
One set of parents I know are on the fence, and the hold-out is the 12 year old son, who is scared to death that they’re going to ask him to sleep in “the end of a metal crate”, and get teased by all his friends.
So, just to pour more gasoline on that fire…
Today I’m gonna show you how you can build a really cool teen bedroom, that takes up a little tiny amount of space. By little tiny, I’m talking like 7 ’9″ x 12′ and change.
How do I come up with 12′?
I like to put a regular 8′ sliding glass door in the room, to “open it up” to the outside, and let in a ton of light. I like to start that sliding glass door at the edge of the bed/desk system to provide some privacy and a place to hang the bookcases that will form one end of the work/sleep unit.
That means I’m gonna leave about 4′ of wall, and then start my glazing. Voila… 12′ and change.
You still get a good sized closet that measures 5′ wide, by 8′ 9″ tall.
Devote 2′ of that closet to “long hanging”, and then divide that other side up into two hanging rods, and you still have a ton of hanging space. Plus, you have room across the top and bottom for shoes, and baskets to put clothes in.
In fact, that closet you build will form the divider that provides the doorway into the room.
Now, to give the room some character, instead of using a traditional door, consider using a rolling barn type door. It’s fun, it doesn’t SLAM… and it doesn’t eat up any space… just the few inches it actually travels in, behind that closet.
If you do it right, it can look like this:
Any kid would love a room like this, to do homework, play computer games, and snooze after long weekends of chores and festivities…
Kids will envy him/her for their room, and the cool GREEN house they live in…
Like the minks and feather boas that Mae West wore… it’s all about “flowing plumes”…
But not plumes of feathers, this time.
There are GIANT plumes of oil forming under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
When Summer starts to roll in, all hearts and minds turn to the beach…
At least that’s what happens here in Mississippi. The Gulf is our respite from the heat, the humity and the boredom of living in a place where there isn’t really anything else to do, unless you like casinos… or drinking…
Around here… tourism has become as extinct as the Tyrannosaurus.
As Spring Break turns to Summer Vacation, around here, we all start humming “the theme song…”
“Duh-dum… duh-dum… duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum…”
And we start watching the tide, looking for fins…
But, this year… it isn’t the sharks you have to worry about, in the Gulf Of Mexico…
No, I’m not making this up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?
They keep telling that “It isn’t that bad…”
I can’t imagine it getting much worse.
“Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given…”
Well, DUH!
“The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.
And.. everywhere the plumes spread, in effect sterilizing huge tracts of “sea territory”.
Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.” “
And I’ll remind you that they’ve said repeatedly that it will take months to stop the leak, if they can, at all…
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.
Gee, does this surprise anyone?
From what I’ve seen, the Gov’t response has been half-assed since this started.
After all, Obama and BP are pals. You only have to look at Obama’s “Donation” listing, to prove that. BP is up there in the “Mt. Everest Air” of that list…
Once again, those knuckledraggers in DC don’t seem to get the real picture. I suspect that it’s because they live on another planet. “Planet Posh” (not related to the Spice Girls), where all they have to worry about is whether or not their martini’s are dry enough, while their minions prep them with “propaganda” to spout at the “media junkets.”
They won’t breathe the toxic fumes, or have to wade in the sludge, except in front of a national news camera (for about thirty seconds) as they get their “congressional moments in the sun.”
They won’t have to work tirelessly to dispose of all the bodies, bodies of all the sea creatures killed by this horror.
They won’t have to till their gardens under, (in our case, my family’s hedge against inflation and the failing economy), as those plants filter out the toxic chemicals in the air and then “store” it in the produce, making it all contaminated and inedible.
Don’t worry… “We’re making a big deal out of nothing. It’s not going to be that bad…”
Apparently, British Petroleum doesn’t want to know how bad it is, either…
BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.
“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”
Of course not. Knowing how large the spill is, and what the potential for damage is, couldn’t possibly be useful in trying to create a solution… Oy, what a bunch of idiots…
Wait, it COULD expose them to more losses, in litigation… Or even pave the way for their eventual demise, as this gets completely out of control. Oh… now I get it…
And while we’re on the topic of permission… why do we even need British Petroleum’s permission to inspect the damage? I don’t recall them waving around a deed to the Gulf of Mexico.
It occurs to me that “the greater good” is served by defining the danger. The Southern Coast of America is at stake here.
“The undersea plumes may go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between the flow estimates, suggesting that much of the oil emerging from the well could be lingering far below the sea surface.
The scientists on the Pelican mission, which is backed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that monitors the health of the oceans, are not certain why that would be. They say they suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly.”
“Many scientists had hoped the dispersants would cause oil droplets to spread so widely that they would be less of a problem in any one place. If it turns out that is not happening, the strategy could come under greater scrutiny. Dispersants have never been used in an oil leak of this size a mile under the ocean, and their effects at such depth are largely unknown.”
Yet, BP continues to dump hundreds of thousands of gallons of that toxic garbage into the sea… despite the fact that is is doing little good, at all.
The coming days in the Gulf Of Mexico, on American beaches, are going to make us remember times in history, days like “D-Day…”
Scientists are estimating that this could prove to be the largest oil spill (and clean up) in the history of oil production.
WE are going to see days (that turn into months, perhaps even years) when valiant people, determined to succeed against all odds… are sorely tested.
Many of you know that I preach the “Corten Chronicles” from Biloxi, Mississippi, on the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, I live about 1000 feet from the beach.
It used to look like this…
Recently, a Deepwater Horizon oil rig (leased to British Petroleum) exploded in the Gulf, and then sank into the sea, killing several oil workers.
If that wasn’t terribly enough, the oil well started leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Not a little oil, but so much oil that this may become the largest oil disaster in history.
The Deepwater Horizon Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico approaches Mississippi shores.
And then, it will look like this.
The oil leak, which looks likely to be the worst environmental disaster in American history, came after an explosion on April 20 on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. The rig, which sank two days later, is owned by Transocean but leased by BP, which has the drilling rights in the oil field.
Thousands of gallons of oil a day are seeping into the Gulf from a leak 5,000ft below the surface, which is making the clean-up operation extremely difficult.
The appearance of the heads of all the companies involved recently before Congress (all perched on the edges of their chairs, like schoolkids in the principals office) was comical, if not tragic. They all simply blamed each other.
BP has been keen to stress that even though the oil rig was leased to the company, it was operated by Transocean so ‘it was not our accident’.
It is however OUR accident. “We, the people”… are going to inherit those multi-national profiteers lack of judgment (or common sense), and the “evidence” is going to wash up on our beaches killing virtually everything it touches, in the next few days.
We are now just “victims of the tide, and the British… again…”Oy.
This is going to make the Exxon Valdex oil disaster look like “olive oil poured into a hot skillet.”
BP claims that they’re doing all they can, but their “efforts” aren’t working, or even helping.
My blood pressure is boiling as I watch the gyrations of these guys, who are pretending that they are actually acting to stop this crisis, but in reality are simply going thru the motions.
I see the tankers flying dumping dispersion chemicals on the spill. But is it helping, or simply making matters even worse? They are dumping poison onto poison…
Here’s a quote from the “New York Times”;
“So far, BP has told federal agencies that it has applied more than 400,000 gallons of a dispersant sold under the trade name Corexit and manufactured by Nalco Co., a company that was once part of Exxon Mobil Corp. and whose current leadership includes executives at both BP and Exxon.
Another 805,000 gallons of Corexit are on order, the company said, with the possibility that hundreds of thousands of more gallons may be needed if the well continues spewing oil for weeks or months.
But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.
Of 18 dispersants whose use EPA has approved, 12 were found to be more effective on southern Louisiana crude than Corexit, EPA data show.”
That said, let’s look at reality.
I grew up in Southern California as a kid, when we were stationed in the US. We lived in a area surrounded by oil fields, processing centers, and earthquakes. And there WERE spills.
They didn’t dump chemicals into the sea. They used HAY, to clean up the mess, or at least start mitigating it.
Hay was used successfully to clean up a major oil spill off of California’s Santa Barbara coastline in 1969. How do I know? I saw it with my own (young) eyes. I was there. Many, many local US Marines, Boy Scouts, and even “Devil Pups” helped clean up that spill.
Hay could indeed be used to help protect and even cleanse the beaches here. But are there any hay bales sitting out there waiting to be used? No.
I mean, hay is bio-degradable, non-toxic, easily handled, and there’s a lot of it. HELLO? A LOT of it.
But, instead, they want to further compound the problem, by making a toxic soup that will kill everything it touches, while they literally throw hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic goo onto an already toxic mess…
Virtually guaranteeing that nothing will live, or have anything even remotely resembling a hope or chance of recovering from it.
And remember, that “toxic soup” is going to be carried all over the planet, by the Gulf current, killing all over the globe.
They’re pouring gasoline onto a fire.
And WE will ALL pay the price, while BP laughs it’s way to the bank, as they continue to makes hundreds of millions of dollars a day in oil profits as the price of oil shoots up… as a direct result of this spill.
And, WE will have to figure out how to fix this. Obviously, British Petroleum can’t be trusted.
Now, I’m sure that you’re all just thinking that I’m “grasping at straw”.
But… Watch this short video, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
As the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico grows in size…
As it approaches our beaches here in the Gulf Coast region of the United States, all I’m hearing is “boom this, and boom that…”
But, just putting booms in the water around the spill so that they can suck up the oil, isn’t going to do the whole job.
Where I live, you can see the C-130s (air tankers) actually coming and going, they fly over the oil spill, to dump chemicals on to it, to help “disperse it.”
This “dispersal agent” is EXTREMELY toxic. It HAS to be, it’s job is to break down the oil.
But, don’t be fooled. That “chemical soup” doesn’t get rid of the oil, it just breaks it up into smaller pieces, and then… some of that oil sinks to the bottom of the seabed, to sit there killing anything and everything around it, for a LONG, LONG time.
The “oil control chemicals” that are being used will kill fish, fowl, and anything else near them.
So, it’s like pouring gasoline onto an already raging inferno.
And, since BP’s liability in this is already capped at $75 million dollars, it’s Americans who will bear the brunt of the clean-up (I’m hearing numbers like $10 billion dollars before this is “thru” at least a decade from now), and the after effects of this horror, both physically and financially.
By the way… do you know how long it takes BP to make $75 million dollars in profits? Less than 1/2 hour. A HALF HOUR.
The Gulf Coast of the United States will change, as we once knew it. We thrive on fisheries, tourism, and the Marine Industries. All of those will be dead for years after this “clean-up” is over.
And, worst, it’s Mother Nature that will have to heal from this, for a long time. “Ole Mom Earth” is going to need some serious antibiotics to cure this ill. Oy.
The Gulf Coastal Current covers 3/4ths of the planet as it makes it’s big loop…
So, if we just skim the surface (as some have proposed), scraping the toxic sludge off the top of the water, will that solve the problem?
No.
Crude oil has two parts;
One part is the marketable crude oil itself. That crude oil gets refined to make gasoline and other petroleum based products.
The other part is “waste product”. It’s toxic water. Crude oil is made up of 2% crude oil and 98% waste water… and that waste water contains high concentrations of some of the most toxic and lethal carcinogens known to mankind.
That “waste product” is a deadly soup that will MIX with the seawater in the Gulf of Mexico, and then be circulated by the Gulf Current… spreading it all over the globe, to harm, maim and kill everything in it’s path…
Petrochemical Engineers call that waste water “Armageddon Ale“. That should tell you something.
Millions of gallons of toxic water, diluted to become billions of gallons of toxic water…
And nobody is talking about the toxic fumes…
Those petrochemical fumes off the oil slick will get blown in off our Gulf Shores (further increased in toxicity by dumping other toxic chemicals onto them) to taint and contaminate everything they encounter.
Like plants. You know… the ones in your garden.
Hello? PLANTS are FILTERS.
I TEACH people to use plants as a filtration element when creating GREEN water treatment centers that deal with sewage and graywater reclamation.
We all remember High School Biology, right?
If you live in this part of the South… you won’t be able to eat what you grow!
The petrochemicals will end up in the fruit and vegetable PRODUCED by those plants. It will be POISON. How many farms will be turned to dust, over this? Around here, if it’s not tourism based, it FARMING based. Oy.
And, each and every one of us will be breathing the very same air those plants get… contaminated air… right into our lungs.
I’m betting that in a month or so of the oil’s “arrival”… we’ll all be emulating Michael Jackson, wearing a paper surgical mask everywhere we go…
Are those surgical masks up to the task? I’m going to have to “Google” it.
We are talking about an environmental disaster the likes of which this planet has never SEEN before.
And the Oil Lawyers for British Petroleum (BTW: this is the same company behind the Exxon Valdez disaster… a company that has a history of drilling and pumping American oil – to sell to “other” nations – while doing everything that it can to save money… by cutting back on safety precautions), and the Politicians (most out glad-handing and shaking hands, taking advantage of the “media moment”), too… spin it down… and tell us not to worry…
“It’s all under control…”
Sorry about the “run-on sentences”. My English Teacher, Miss Hooper, would be SO proud…
Who are the “Oil People” kidding?
They tell us that “it’ll all be okay.”
It’s a lie. It won’t be OKAY. It MAY become “manageable”, but we are a LONG way from OKAY.
As we wait for the oil to arrive (“trace” oil is already here), we work as fast as we can, to get ISBU galleys built, and a Children’s Center stocked (The Levin Love Center – or “the LLC”, for short), so that our kids will be safe while WE try to make the coastlines they live on… “safe… ish”.
If you can help, do it. Don’t make excuses. This will change lives far from Biloxi. Far from New Orleans. If you eat seafood, or farmed produce, you are going to feel the effects.
There’s lots of ways to help.
On this end… We need stuff to keep kids occupied.
Children’s Movie and activity DVD’s, Playstations and games (you know… video games and even the game stations themselves), toys, sleeping mats, sleeping bags, games, books, laptop computers (because they are smaller and more easily managed) to run games, play DVD movies and allow kids to SEE the rest of the world, sheltered from the “doom and gloom”, that will bombard cable TV broadcasts… you name it.
The age range is from 3 to 12 years old. We need INSIDE Stuff. It may soon be a very bad idea to have kids out running around in the air outside for hours on end, breathing in big gulps of toxic air. We’re thinking we may have to actually minimalize their exposure.
If you can help, DO IT. We NEED this.
If you don’t have stuff laying around collecting dust that we can recycle, perhaps you can hit that Paypal button and contribute a few bucks. If our kids are safe, it’s one less thing to worry about, as we try desperately to clean up this mess.
If you HAVE kid’s stuff that can be recycled for this worthy and desperately needed cause, then email me here:
renaissanceronin@gmail.com
We’re working as fast as we can to establish a mechanism to support this project.
I’m also urging you to check out “The Greenest Dollar” for more ways to save the wildlife, deal with the oil and it’s horrid effects, and come to the aid of the families of the South as we battle this oil “in our front yards”.
Heather is doing a great job of keeping everyone moving in the right direction. She should have called her blog “The Greenest Thumb” because if it’s “GREEN” she has her thumbprint on it…
Me? I have to get back to the Plasma Cutter… These ISBU Kitchen boxes aren’t going to build themselves.
As we prep for whatever floats up onto our beaches, I’m processing blog email as fast as possible.
I get a LOT of email, in fact over 200 a day now, from the “blog and beyond”.
I literally live a thousand feet from miles and miles of Mississippi Coastline. And lately, I’ve been standing vigil, watching for anything that looks like oil spill debris…
For those of you who are unfamiliar with “what went wrong” in the Gulf of Mexico…
An Oil Well on an offshore rig has two sets of “pipes”. A large string of casing is pounded into the soil, and then pipe is fed down thru this outer casing, to form the “pipeline” for the oil to come out of.
Once this happens, the oil workers pump concrete into the gap between the two pipes, to create a hardened shaft, an then they put a cap on top of the whole enchilada.
And that’s where is all turned to a firey sludge that killed the workers, and sank the rig. The most logical explanation of the accident is that when Haliburton was trying to cap the well… (I know, I know… here we go again… Cheney is gonna eat us all alive!) unbeknownst to the crew – a hole blew out thru the exterior pipe casing wall and the cement flowed right out of it and into the sea, to settle on the sea floor. According to onlookers, the pressure readings up top were not of the cement, but of the pressure from the well itself. There WERE safety precautions that were supposed to be employed to prevent this, but they are expensive, and labor intensive. So…
How could this happen?
Once again, greed overcomes common sense, and safety steps that should have been taken, weren’t. And the money flows… to multi-national corporations, as American citizens, once again, are going to be tasked with dealing with the mess. BP (British Petroleum) must be laughing their way to the bank, right about now…
The BP/Transocean/Deepwater Horizon oil rig sinking and subsequent spill drove up the price of crude. That means that for every dollar BP spends on “clean-up”, they’ll make three dollars in profits. And, because they don’t have to pay more than $25 million dollars of the clean-up costs (there is a clearly defined federal cap on how much of the damages they will legally have to pay), WE will pay, and they will continue to get rich. In England.
This is the same company behind the Exxon Valdez oil spill, folks. This is the same company that processes most of the oil in the Alaskan Oil Fields, that sells 80% of THAT oil to JAPAN.
American Oil, sold by the British, to the Japanese… while we get stuck holding the bag when things get oily… um… ugly.
By the way, that oil that flows through the Alaskan Oil Pipeline was supposed to go to the United States, but Clinton killed that part of the legislation and law. So now, we fuel Asia, as laborers for the British…
Wasn’t the American Revolution supposed to get these parasites off our backs? Maybe it’s time for another one…
According to the Los Angeles Times;
“BP officials Tuesday told congressional representatives that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could grow at a rate more than 10 times current estimates in a worst-case scenario — greatly enlarging the potential scope of the disaster.”
10 Times!
And, the really, really terrible part of this is that you can’t put a price on the environmental disaster and ecological damages that will occur, as a result of this spill. Hundreds of thousands of animals will die. Fisheries will be wiped out. Wetlands will be damaged beyond repair. Oy.
People (who are paid to know) are already saying that this could very well be the worst spill in Oil Production History.
Say goodbye to Gulf Shrimp for a decade. Say goodbye to Oysters, too. Seafood fresh from the Gulf? Bye-bye.
And, thousand of families will lose their businesses, as the marine, fishing and tourist industries in the United State’s South Coast… grind to a halt for years.
(Wow… a Jew mourning the death of Shrimp and Oysters. Never thought I’d see that coming…)
As tides move the spill toward us, we wait to see just how much of the oil we’ll get, as we try to prepare ourselves for what may be a fight to save this coast of the United States, for our children.
I wonder what the petrochemical fumes are going to do to my young son Joshua’s little lungs. (He’s 2 and a half.) I wonder how the petrochemical fumes will affect my wife’s already failing health. Being terminally ill with Cervical Cancer is bad enough, and now this. We’re being told that the clean-up could take a year, once it starts washing up on our shores.
Some of us are old enough now that we may never fish these waters again. Some of us are old enough that we’ll never see an edible shrimp or oyster pulled from these waters again. And, some of us are old enough that we wish we were young enough, to work the hundreds of hours each of use needs to invest, to help manage and restore these beaches, estuaries and wetlands, after the oil arrives.
Almost all of my time is being spent lately getting ISBU galleys built to feed the workers that will flock here, in search of oil, and much needed jobs. This is a terrible way to supplement a failing economy, but it is the only bright side I see so far. Many of us may be able to get back on our feet, fighting the sludge.
I’m building these galleys because it’s what I can do. I don’t have resources beyond a few tools, and a few 20′ Corten Steel boxes. So, we’ll turn them into much needed comfort for workers who are going to be knee deep in the fight, every day and night, for months on end… desperately trying to save our shores.
And, I’m racing against the clock.
So, like I’ve done in the past, I’m going to answer some of your ISBU email here, so you can ALL see the answers to the questions I get asked.
Here’s today’s question, from a friend and “Supporter of the Blog”… We’ll call him “D”:
Dear Ronin,
I recently saw this video on youtube of a home being constructed in Upland, CA. Tthey used some kind of locking pins to lock the second story containers to the base containers.
What are these connectors called? I Googled everything I can think and haven’t found them. Seems like a good idea to use them or I guess welding would do the trick cheaper.
Signed,
“D”
**
Hi “D”!
Those mysterious levered connectors in between the containers are industrial shipping container “twistlocks”.
The come in all shapes and sizes, but as you can see, there are quite a few to choose from.
And just like you saw on the Youtube video, they go one in each corner, and they serve as the connection point between the end frames of the containers, to couple them together.
Remember that the end frame of an ISBU is where virtually ALL the strength comes from. So, those container connectors, called “twistlocks” are designed to be tough, tough, tough.
I ALWAYS use them to make the primary connection between containers. They’re strong, and add a huge amount of “peace of mind” to my connections.
Here’s a simplified view of how they actually work;
These get put into play, to lock the boxes together…
THEN… I weld that “ISBU assembly” together, using plate steel applied along the rails. This not only closes the gap between the containers (they don’t fit flush), it also increases the strength of the boxes, by creating “beams” (if you will) out of the existing rails. Ronin doesn’t like creating “point loading” problems…
(I also shoot SPF foam into that gap between those rails… Ronin hates cold spots… )
As hardware goes, these are pretty standard stuff in the ISBU world, you can find them on the internet (or just ask… I have a crate full of them) and they’re relatively inexpensive.
Hope this helps.
**
Speaking of helping, if you’d like to help with the clean-up, or donate to an agency that is helping save animals, or you just want to know more about oil… I encourage you to hit this link:
The author is a personal friend of mine (more than a friend, really… more like close family) and she’s always a great source for information on “Things Green”… and other really cool stuff.
Ronin
Seriously, if this blog is helping you, entertaining you, or just giving you something (someone) to laugh at…
We could use your help to keep it running. We had our hands full as it was, and now, it looks like the oil spill is going to make matters even worse.
A donation of a few bucks will go a long way towards keeping this blog alive, as we try to deal with the day to day struggle to secure and reclaim our coastlines. There’s a Paypal button at the top of the page. I hope and I pray that some of you will help us keep going.
As we sit here, turning ISBUs into Emergency Kitchens, to feed hungry workers tasked with cleaning up thousands of gallons of oil spill…
Our breaks from the Plasma Cutters and grinders are used up on the phone, trying to get supplies in place, things like chickens, meat, vegetables, canned goods, beverages, and the lot.
Although the oil isn’t here yet, it will be soon.
And those workers are going to want something more than MRE’s… let me tell you.
So you think YOU have problems…
Instead of dwelling on “OMG Projects”, let’s look at another adventure into engineering, shall we?
We talk about ISBUs all the time. It’s a “Shipping Container” blog… hello?
And one of the biggest mysteries in the ISBU arena is whether or not you can “cantilever” containers, to build “willy nilly – helter skelter” buildings, with containers sticking out everywhere, in every direction.
It’s not a mystery. You CAN’T do it, without some additional support, and a lot of engineering in the background. Those containers aren’t designed to do that. You can cantilever a container, IF you have a ton of cash to throw at it. But on most of my friends budgets, it’s not bloody likely.
But, sometimes the idea of a cantilever can be fun, and even cool. For instance:
This guy in Greece decided that he wanted to really tick off his neighbors, by building a big pool sticking out of his house. I guess some middle aged guys deal with getting old by buying a Red Corvette. Evidently, in Greece, other phallic symbols do the trick.
See?
Just try and tell me that you wouldn’t kill to have this pool in your backyard… um… on your roof… um… er… never mind.
Designed by Ensamble Studio & Antón García-Abril, this gravity-defying cantilevered swimming pool at Hemeroscopium House in Greece was constructed out of a single concrete slab, and then picked up by a crane and lowered into place. Amazing stuff, huh?
Now, you can swim laps, and give yourself a coronary (by “swimming into the “abyss”) at the same time. I don’t know about you, but that kick-turn on the glass wall end would stop my heart every time!
People call it “stunning”. Me? Um… I think it’s just nuts.
For all you DIY’ers out there… Here’s how they built it:
I wonder IF you COULD do this with a Corten box…. Nahhhhhh!
For the record, let me make this perfectly clear...
Blogs are about opinions. And some of us, myself included, have strong ones.
Some of us, myself included, can't be counted on to be "politically correct" all the time. So be advised that I call 'em like I see 'em, and sometimes I use strong language to make a point...
If you don't like that, I suggest you change the channel. If you DO like that, I appreciate your patronage.
This has been a public service announcement from the "We care... we really, really care..." foundation.
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