AllergyDoc

Who has the time, or attention span, to read every post in a thread?

Maybe if everyone put something sparkly in their reply it might keep my attention, but, fercryinoutloud, some posters have diarrhea of the fingers--who wants to read all that?

Hard to believe I wore a PAM every day this week (so far).

"I can't take it! It's just too BIG!"

That's what they should have done here, saw it into a couple of pieces.

But they're Canadians, so what can you say?

No soup for you, P4GTR!

My cheapie bling from Tonyxkf:

I remember that one from Mel Gibson's first picture.

"Mad Max"

Col: your client's "Mad Max" truck could move a 2,100 sq. ft. house?

I can arange to have PDiddly mailed over

Col.

That guy is inquisitive. But at least he buys replicas.

Hmm....

Google maps shows my house without a pool, which we put in 3 years ago.

Insurance? We don't need no stinking insurance!

How'd you find out where this took place?

Good stuff. Thank goodness when he was hottubbing with the bear, he had his clothes on.

The wife and I had gone up to Shasta in No. Cal. for the funeral of her grandmother. On the way back we stopped in a national forest, by the dam. We hiked down a path to a stream, took some pictures and made out, or something. On the way back to the car, we rounded a bend in the path and found ourselves face-to-face with a small bear.

Before I knew what happened, the bear took off down the hill, which was very steep, and my wife took off for the parking lot, breaking the land record for sprinting in Birkenstock sandals.

I said, "What'd you run for? It was just a little bear."

She said, "Little bears have mamas."

I charge mine up under a reading lamp for 5 minutes or so and I can easily tell time at 5:00 AM.

They are in a pickle. Not only have they lost their house, pretty much, but they're also going to get a big bill from the county for busting up the only bridge for miles around.

I'll take "perverted Waikiki" over Vegas or central CA any time, and I'd take central CA over Vegas, dumbshit politicians and drought notwithstanding.

I have owned a FG Daytona, seconds-at-nine, from Silix for about 2 years. Runs great, though I don't wear it often. You should know Robert (PWC, T4D) has a sale on his seconds-at-nine Tonas.

To my knowledge, they all have the incorrect subdial spacing. Doesn't bother me because I love the Daytona.

The "Swiss" CHS was $398 at its release. This looks very interesting!

Back to black:

Thanks guys!

I watched that PBS series, Jeff. Well, most of it. They served it up through John Muir's eyes, which gave me a different perspective. I gained a lot of respect and admiration for him, his work and what he stood for.

California is in a pickle with regards to water. We have a water management system built to serve many millions fewer than our current population. And, so typical, our legislature can do nothing more than quarrel about it.

The odds of the O'Shaughnessy Dam being taken down anytime soon are very slim.

Oren bought a Bulova Minute Repeater:

Who will ask all the noob questions? We need a new noob if Oren goes.

Was the ranger there to monitor the protesters or was he in with them?

There were 5 rangers there, 4 of them armed. Some kind of automatic rifle in their trucks.

I heard that guy, who seemed to be the senior officer, say he was curious about the Restore Hetch Hetchy people and the end of their long hike. I also got the distinct impression that because there were 5 of them there, they wanted to make sure the marchers didn't start placing charges around the dam, or some such eco-terrorism nonsense.

RHH is a pretty mellow group.

Lee Stetson was there. He does John Muir impressions and was featured in quite a bit of Ken Burns's recent PBS broadcast on the U.S. National Parks.

The Hetch Hetchy Valley lies several miles northwest of the Yosemite Valley, in the Yosemite National Park. It's a glacier-carved valley, like Yosemite, but is much smaller than it's bigger sister.

The City of San Francisco was given permission to construct a dam, the O'Shaughnessy Dam, across a gorge as the Tuolumne River exits the valley and begins it's 30+ mile run down to the Don Pedro Reservoir. The water stored in Hetch Hetchy is so pure S.F. doesn't have to filter it.

The flooding of Hetch Hetchy Valley broke the heart of the naturalist, John Muir, who had campaigned against its construction. There is a movement today to take the dam down and restore Hetch Hetchy to its original state, which, of course, is impossible. More on that later.

I visited Hetch Hetchy last month to take photos and look around.

Looking at the dam from far away, then closer as I zoomed in:

The white "bathtub" ring around the reservoir was caused by the pure water leaching minerals out of the granite walls.

Like all modern dams, the O'Shaughnessy is an engineering marvel:

This pipe draws water from the bottom of the dam where there is tremendous pressure. The water exits with great force and the "roar" can be heard far

up the access road.

I'm not sure why there is a boat on the lake. No water sports are allowed (it's S.F.'s drinking water, after all) and fishing is allowed only from the shore. You can see some shades of Yosemite, with the mountain formations. They all have Indian names, of course.

There are two magnificent waterfalls that can be seen in the spring, but were dry in Sept.

Here is a group called Restore Hetch Hetchy. A group of them had just finished a 30-40 mile hike up through the back of Yosemite Park, and the Sierras. They just happened to be there on the day I was there. They're a small group, with not a lot of money. The big money groups are the Sierra Club, founded by John Muir, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

See? Not a lot of people there:

I was impressed that the Ranger had a Canon D5, but disappointed he wasn't sporting a nice watch, or any watch for that matter.

The issues for S.F. are, cheap, clean water and power generation. Their drinking water runs downhill, across the valley where I live (right through town, as a matter of fact) in underground pipes, all the way to the East Bay, where they're pumped into a series of small reservoirs. There are 3 pipes carrying water to S.F. now, but the city's grown a bit since 1930, so they're laying another pipe this year. The water is run through 3 hydroelectric plants on its way to S.F., generating enough electricity to satisfy the City's municipal needs.

Environmentalist and naturalists would like the dam taken down the valley allowed to return to its native state. This is impossible as the plant life would be different, never the same. Estimates put removing the dam at about $1.3B; not a popular request during a bad recession.

They have figured out how to store most of the water held in Hetch Hetchy but they haven't figured out how to replace the lost electricity. S.F. was given rights to the water via an act of Congress, so it would take an act of Congress to remove the dam.

I think it's kind of silly. The dam is in excellent shape, with only 10 feet of silt behind it. It provides clean water and clean power generation. The damage has already been done to the valley and it would like take 50+ years for it be somewhat regenerated after the dam was taken down.

Not that I care too much for the people of S.F. or their power needs, I don't. S.F. is the biggest collection of looneys and nut balls outside of Europe.

Can't make up my mind, so they'll split the time:

AllergyDoc's story is true.

I knew a guy who had a friend who's uncle's brother's barber read about it on the internet.

No silly. It was in the Readers Digest.

A ventriloquist is working his act at a nightclub. A beautiful blond and her date are sitting at a table in the front.

The ventriloquist, through his dummy, of course, starts telling dumb blond jokes, and is really hitting it hard.

The blond in the front jumps up and yells, "What gives you the right to make fun of someone because of the color of their hair!? We're all the same inside!"

The ventriloquist begins stammering out an apology, but the blond interrupts him: "You stay out of this! I'm talking to the little man on your knee!"