Sometimes, I mean like every so often, you have to look at coincidences and ask “What does it all mean?”
Yesterday morning ( 8 AM) I posted an article for Peoplenomics subscribers called “What Ever Happened to “Peak Oil?”” Pretty interesting article – and it supports what both comments here (and from Oilman2) have been saying: Peak Oil isn’t gone, it’s just a jagged peak.
So there I was, outside, working on the Never-ending Project (the sun porch) and who calls?
A man identifying himself as being with an oil exploration outfit who wants me to sign off (for $10 bucks an acre) permission for the company he reps to come through and set off seismic charges to see if there’s oil under the property.
Of course there is.
1. This is East Texas which has already been mapped pretty well.
2. I mentioned a couple of years ago that we have friends who pioneered an electromagnetic pulse system of oil exploration so we already know what’s “down there.”
Well, now, this poses certain “difficulties.” I mean yeah, sure, it’s a kind of an odd thing: Write article and within 8-hours, here comes a seismic crew.
But the difficulties go beyond the World of Woo-Woo (WoWW) come-a-knocking.
We didn’t buy our little place in the woods to be disturbed. In Texas, if you’re a surface rights owner (we are) the holder of the subsurface/mineral rights does have the right to develop their property.
That said, they have to do so in a minimally invasive way and compensate the surface rights owner for any damage.
Since our property is a tree farm, if any trees are cut down, then that would be an economic loss for us.
But here’s the delicate part: I’m an extra class ham radio operator and I don’t take kindly to the quiet enjoyment of my hobby being disrupted. And I operate (at times and as conditions warrant) at power levels (on all the HF bans) that go up to 1,8-29 MHz.
And yes, the property is posted with signs that inform people that RF fields here may at time exceed the maximum recommended for the general public.
And that’s the problem: Electric blasting caps.
Typically, these kinds of seismic studies are done using ammonium nitrate explosives placed about 25-feet down a 3-inch diameter hole. Then a web of wiring is stretched out and off goes the shot.
So besides the “normal” issues of surface owners, I’ve got a tree farm and I have radio equipment which may interfere with electric blasting materials.
Is there an alternative? Oh course. There are various “thumpers” that can be used, along with the new electronic pulse technology.
But this is one of those situations where I have to trust someone besides George: So I will have my (local) attorney send them a letter informing them that I don’t take kindly to disruptions, potential damage to property (as had been experienced many places) and I sure wouldn’t want to have any blasting accidents.
Sometimes, it’s better to let an attorney do the talking. Not all the time, but now and then…
What Cost of Living: Canadian Style
From a reader out on the great flatlands who’s enjoying the “negligible change in the cost of living” than Canucks hear from their hype-monster, just like we get here:
So as per usual we are being told that our inflation up here is negligible.
Here’s my list of negligible
Gas is now over $6 a gallon
Packs of cookies have dropped 50 grams out of the packages and are still the same price as the 350 packs
Cheese Whiz was $10.39 a 900 gram jar. I bought it on sale last year for $5
This is just a skim of the increasing food prices around here.
Apartments are over $1000 for a two bedroom
Cheapest crappy war time house is over $250,000
Minimum wage is $10 an hour for comparison.
Apparently, our reader has a serious addiction problem: Eating. Near as I can figure it, governments have worked out “quantitative squeezing” to cure us all of that one.
Speaking of the World Oil Picture
Got a nice lead from a subscriber in response to Wednesday’s report:
George,
This is related to your post today on Peoplenomics. It’s an article describing talks between Gazprom and Turkey about expanding the capacity of the pipeline to Turkey.
Notice the name of the Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee … Alexander Medvedev.
I believe I saw a quote by someone in Congress saying Obama is playing marbles while Putin is playing chess.
I can’t swear to Putin playing chess, or not. But I am bright enough to figure out that our “Golfer in Chief” is just playing a round…
Example: The president is skipping the funeral of an aunt to play golf, reports The Daily Caller.
Oh…and if you’re looking for a real conspiracy to dig your teeth into this morning, how about this one: Why is it the “Obama Golf Counter” site hasn’t been updated since February, huh?
But except for the occasional mention (in articles like this one) the press seems to be giving our favorite duffer a pass.
On the OTHER Weight Loss Program
While I’m presently at a new, lower, weight this morning, a note from Doc Zero came floating across the desk:
Saw your link to the Mega One Meals. They look pretty good. I have read The Gabrielle Method years ago after he was on Coast to Coast. Didn’t help me lose weight. But in the last couple of months I heard one nutritionist on Coast (Who’s name I can’t remember) say, the way to lose weight was easy. Take your weight in lbs. and divide it by 6 and multiply by 10. Then eat that many calories in six meals fairly evenly separated in time. So if you weigh 250 lbs/6 = 42x 10 = 420. Eat 420 Cal in each of 6 meals. (that’s about 2500 K Cals total) Similar to this link:
http://www.askmen.com/sports/foodcourt_60/69_eating_well.html
Besides what they discuss, a reduced calorie diet tends to be counterproductive after a couple of weeks, because your body thinks you are starving and tries to save calories and fat and burns muscle mass. Eating small frequent meals signals your body that you are not starving, so the metabolic slowdown doesn’t happen. This is where Mega One meals comes in. Drinking this highly nutritious meal has everything your body needs in each meal.
One theory is that we are fat because we are not getting the full complement of trace minerals, minerals, amino acids and essential fats, so the body makes us hungry to eat more food to try to get the missing ingredients it needs. Since the foods may still lack some ingredients our body keeps demanding more. Your body doesn’t make you want to eat zinc or chromium or Magnesium. It can’t communicate that to you. In animals if they have iron deficiency anemia they may eat dirt because their body is needing iron. Wasn’t it Geritol for Iron deficiency we as kids heard advertised on TV. I don’t remember them saying, “Take Geritol and you won’t be craving dirt!”
I generally eat enough meat to ensure good iron content (and gout now and then, but that’s a different rant).
Gabriel’s book mentions not only the trace minerals (yes, I take ‘em: Micro-Max -100 day supply-The Ultimate Micronutrient Supplement-Vitamins, Minerals, and Trace Elements-A Powerful Anti-Oxidant-Whole Food Sourced, $17, Amazon) but also I take a good probiotic.
Last, but not least, I have started eating half a can of chili when I get hungry. About 200 calories, but I’m actually now getting food in myself within half an hour of getting up, or so.
I didn’t used to do that, but maybe I just need to eat shortly after rising instead of waiting until 9 AM or so, after I’ve put in 5-hours of work. It’s just [wildly] possible that my old body thought I was starving by not eating until so late after rising…
One thing my friends and I agree on: Being overweight is NOT a symptom of some character flaw…it’s about real, measurable things. Any “skinny” who tells you otherwise is being arrogant and prickish.
Notes From Dreamland
They’re popping up on the radar again…this whole matter of predictive dreams.
Here’s the thing: There are dreams of the general sort which are usually just the left-overs from the day’s thinking (processing “stubs” that didn’t lead anywhere in artificial intelligence design terms).
But then there are the dreams that DO have some predictive content.
I may have had another one last night: Dreams that a male figure I know (family) was getting progressively sicker and – ultimately – was going to the doc’s office, but they grew so concerned about his condition that they ordered him taken to a hospital. I’ll let you know if that one comes to pass, or not. For now, it’s a low-probability because I know a lot of men who are having health issues, so this one could just be left over “logic stubs” that were being repacked for disposal.
On the other hand, this from Chris McCleary over at the National Dream Center site definitely got my attention:
George,
Frankly, I ain’t got time for this, but our dreams and predictive reports are coming true!! Dropping all studying to put this out…
Quick summary: One of our dreamers who insisted that something was about to come true….came true, with evidence!
Don’t forget, the Dream Center is now in “Project August” too. What Chris is trying to do is collect as many dreams as possible about a particular time-frame and then score which dreams come true and which do not and then he’ll work out the math over whether it’s a departure from what randomness would suggest.
I’m sure you’ve read up on the Princeton EGGS/ Global Consciousness project, but that one only sets off dings, bells, and foghorns as the nature of (right word?) coherence changes around large, global, emotionally impacting events.
Anyway, Project August information is posted here and I think Chris has set the site up now so that you don’t have to register to post a dream. When I talked to him yesterday, he was going to work on getting the site to a more responsive design, too. But it’s a balance between school and the Dream Center for him, so patience as things develop…
Time Studies: Inside Fort
Not sure if you’ve taken the time to read The Complete Books of Charles Fort: The Book of the Damned / Lo! / Wild Talents / New Lands, but I’ve got it back on my fixing to get ready to read pile again. His subject matter spans the gray zone “between worlds” if you will.
Not that it is precisely Fortean, but a recent “Before It’s News” piece sure comes close to the genre. It’s a quick read, but some fine mind candy if you believe everything is stable, normal, and science has defined all the boundaries of life nice and neat-like.
The article is about “The Green Skinned Children Who Appeared In An English Village.” It causes us to reflect on the idea (especially when considered in conjunction with all of our recent “missing things”) reports, whether there are mechanisms that move people around in time with less than ideal control.
An d wondered reader John, who spied the article, might it have been a slip between universes or the multiverse?
That’s the kind of question to be posed to whoever the modern-era equivalent of Hugh Everett III might be…
Reading Note:
You may notice the front page of Urban now looks a little better, since the old (unformatted) except is now nice and properly formatted. H/T to Gaye at www.backdoorsurvival.com for spotting the error. One of those goodies that comes from our sharing efforts to make the best combination of prepping and here’s how the world is screwing itself today websites out there.
And thank you for reading our sites…
Around the Ranch
OK, off to finish the insulation in the A/V room and put the last coat of mud in the sun porch.
Elaine (for some unknown reason) didn’t seem terribly thrilled when I disclosed my plan to hang moving mats (new ones, of course) on all four walls, except behind where the Bose 901 mids will go.
Problem is that the cost of acoustical foam is running about $3.75 per square foot.
More than likely, what will happen is we’ll compromise and I will build up some wood sculptures to soak up the sound. I like the look of this idea, for example.
Oh, the bonus here? Harbor Freight has a deal going at the moment on an 8” Radial Arm saw for $230. Toss in a “wobble dado” blade. Naturally, as soon as I ordered it, a good used Sears 10-inch came up on Craigslist, after I’d been looking for one for 6-months!
Oh, well…I’ll take some pictures and do a review with it comes in. Radial arm saws have their place (doing fine dado work, for example) and which I can do it with the router or a table saw, the radial arm saw is much nicer in many ways. We shall see…
More tomorrow, write when you break-even, get creeped-out, of stumble in the World of Woo-Woo….
George george@ure.net