Witness Protection Plan

She’s a Jehovah’s Witness they say,

Always speaking in mysterium

I’ll turn the conversation toward rainbows and power dreams

Then she’ll wind it back to

Old Jehovah the grey beard

I’ll ask something like,

“Did you see the double rainbow on Earth Day?"

And she’ll reply with absolute certainly,

“I know who painted it and what type of brush he used.”

She’s attracted to nature and power lines

The other day I saw a photo of her with three

power strings reaching to the sky like a

Cherub strumming cool chords.

I don’t want to be closed-minded –

I wish that she and I could just have a regular conversation

Without her feeling like Jehovah is witnessing everything.

Field of primordial baseball dreams

Had a vivid Tolkien-like dream last night. In it was a stadium full of old baseball players, some of whom lived to play professionally into their mid 100’s. Yes, I mean these grizzled warriors were still playing ball at age 130-150! Their crackled faces and ancient voices testified to their age. The particular game I watched had some retired players actively rooting from sidelines who had retired 30 years before, which would have made them some our earliest baseball competitors.

Jim Dee’s unique power line suggestion

A year ago, I stumbled onto my friend Jim Dee’s suggestion on his blog. With recent improvements in solar power efficiency, and a new administration prepared to listen to constructive ideas, I think his suggestion is now more feasible, than when I first read it.

As promised in the linked letter, here is Jim's suggestion, which I have paraphrased from his blog:

"I had a moment of insight this morning and wanted to share. It does nothing less than solve the entire American/Mexican border issue in a true bipartisan way. Here's the deal:

We take the entire length of the U.S./Mexican border, at a width of a good quarter mile wide or so, and privatize it -- sell it to the highest qualified bidder. And, by "qualified bidder," I mean power generation company.

What no other political commentator (to my knowledge) has seemingly noticed is that the border in question, besides being the source of exhaustive political debate, is also located in a particularly bright, sunny patch of the country. Because that area's so ridiculously bathed in sunshine, it lends itself particularly well to ... wait for it ... solar power development!

(Yeah, it was an "aha!" moment for me, too.)

Anyway, our high bidding Power Company purchases the land, with the sole stipulation that it must develop a solar array spanning pretty much the entire length of the U.S./Mexican border. Along either side of the array, the company would also have to construct a large security wall to serve the primary purpose of keeping out vandals (from both sides); as a bonus, it would also naturally keep anyone from entering the U.S. illegally.

Here's an additional bonus: Part of the power generated by the array could be diverted to the fence itself -- because, let's face it; an electric fence is much more efficient! The rest of the power would be sold, as normal, to nearby communities, thus (1) improving air quality from fewer coal-fired plants; (2) boosting economic development; and (3) furthering solar technology in general.

Since the power company would have their income/profitability at stake, it would be in their best interest to hire armed security patrols. Let's face it: Unlike government-run initiatives, when there's private/stockholder earnings on the line, stuff gets done. (It used to get done poorly, I'll admit. But, hopefully Sarbanes-Oxley fixes some of that.)

It's an elegant bipartisan solution, don't you think? The right gets a Jurassic Park-esque electric fence, the left gets solar power out the wazoo!”

Power lines could also bring other benefits

Two utility companies’ vast plans to cross Idaho with more power lines could actually benefit travelers, by symbiotically bringing improvements to the dangerous dusty Minidoka – Arco jeep road. Ultimately, if planned right, in conjunction with farsighted transportation department leaders, an improved road through that remote area would save motorists who travel between Magic Valley and the Challis / Salmon area, a few hours each trip.

A workable plan like this, reminds me of another unique power-line solution proposed by an idealistic friend, which I would like to elaborate on in the MagicValley.com reader discussion forum, if the Times-News print this letter.

A third item, not many people are blogging about, is another important costly infrastructure aspect, which we will likely be saddled with, inside of 10 years. It’s easy to predict that older power lines across the country will begin deteriorating en masse, due to the reaching of the end of the line of their expected lifespans. As will ancientfied bridges, water, sewerage, gas & oil pipelines.

However, it’s not fashionable for politicians to blow a bunch of hot steam complaining about imminently needed infrastructure improvements, when so few of their constituents are listening to the tedious subject. And why should our elected officials waste their precious time writing the words to a sermon no one wants to hear, until after the collapse? Who wouldn’t agree that liberating expensive ski hills from fires and bringing in truckloads of sand to fill washed out resort beaches are more apt issues of the day for the leaders’ fickle constituents?

In the meantime, notch a friendly reminder onto the beginning of your next Mayan Calendar, to be prepared for frequent brownouts and worse, throughout our country within the decade, due to our infectious infrastructure-deficit-disorder.

Power Dream

Power dream

My brother David and I were walking down an old town hill in Pennsylvania, where every few minutes we would see a different dump truck driving around with the dump section of the truck still up, partially in the air. We realized how dangerous this was, since any second, one of the trucks might snag an overhead power line, resulting in some sort of catastrophe. There was a weird array of power lines all around the area, with some of them holding quite high voltages.

Suddenly, an antique looking lawnmower came toward us, buzzing up the sidewalk. We took a close look as it approached and realized that nobody was operating it. A police car had passed by the self-operating lawnmower seconds before and we wondered why it did not stop to investigate the runaway machine.

Suddenly we floated up in the air, slightly spinning about, like two angels. Now we were dipping near the power lines ourselves. Each time we approached a power line, while we were flying in our bodies, it seemed that we would easily clear it, but then suddenly something would happen, like a gust of wind or some other slight parameter shift, to push my head very close to a power line. These close shaves made me start wishing that I had gone in for that haircut appointment last week when I had the chance.

Although Brother David was floating next to me all of this time, he was having less trouble than I. To attain better steering control; David grabbed my furry forearm, which seemed to have some effect. Finally, it started dawning on me that this all was a big dream, but mostly because of the dump truck and lawnmower clues. The flying part still seemed quite natural and in my core, I thought, you know this flying happens all the time and felt strongly that I was right.