Tsunami Hits Port Orford, Oregon - 2011

 

Tsunami Hits Port Orford, Oregon

On March 11, 2011, I awoke to stories about an earthquake and tsunami in Japan. My heart goes out to all who suffered loss in that epic event.

 

By 8:30 AM PST, I was online and watching our live webcam at the MoabLive website. The webcam faces east on to the beach from the Port of Port Orford. I did not have to wait long before the water surged around the Port Orford Heads and into the Port. Over the next ninety minutes I counted at least five surges, most of which rose to cover the entire beach.

 

 Watch the Port Orford Tsunami Video  

In order to capture the moment, I copied a series of JPG images from the webcam. Since the camera uploads a shot every three seconds, there was plenty of action to record. After saving the images, I compiled them in WMV file format. The generic term for such a file is a "wave movie". After uploading the video to YouTube, I embedded it here on my blog.

 

Luckily, there was no apparent damage at Port Orford, although Coos Bay to the North and Brookings Harbor to the south did not fare as well. After all of the excitement was over, we developed a bug in the webcam. In this case, it was a real bug that walked in front of the lens and stayed there until the webcam shut off for the night.

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By James McGillis at 09:15 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | Link

New Orleans - The Lessons of Atlantis Begin to Sink In - 2011

 

 

New Orleans - The Lessons of Atlantis Begin to Sink In

In the early 1980s, then President Ronald Reagan endorsed the idea of creating an International Space Station (ISS). At the time, it appeared to be a make-work project designed to keep the aerospace industry alive during a period of relative peace. As early as 1969, during the Apollo Program, Americans had walked on the Moon, 238,000 miles from Earth. With a planned orbit of only 173 miles above the Earth, the ISS had no such lofty goals. Instead, the solar-powered pressure-vessels of the ISS offered only slow and steady progress toward long-term human habitation in space. Commensurate with its low-key goals, was a bargain price, estimated at less than $10 billion. A lot has changed over the past thirty years. At a current running cost of $150+ billion, the ISS is now the most expensive human engineered structure, either on or above the Earth.

 

As it passes overhead 15.7 times each day, most Americans think little about the ISS mission or its cost. If they knew more about it, many would say, “Who needs an ISS?” All these years later, I now believe that the ISS program is worth its cost. Even though its useful life may be less than ten more years, the ISS serves us as a microcosmic reflection of Earth. There, on a human-created, Earth-orbiting satellite, the ever-rotating crew conducts experiments in biology, chemistry, human biology, astronomy and meteorology.

 

Back on Earth, we find the Mississippi River available for similar, if unplanned experiments. Looking 135 nautical miles upriver from New Orleans, Louisiana, we find the Old River Control Structure. Only the static backpressure of its levees and control gates maintains a precarious balance of life downstream in New Orleans. In allegorical fashion, joints and fasteners connect the various ISS modules. Stressed by the unrelenting vacuum of space, gas leaks on the ISS are potentially deadly to the crew. While the ISS relies on constant atmospheric pressure within its structure, the Old River Control Structure relies on gravity and friction to hold back the kinetic energy of the Mississippi River. Both structures experience unrelenting energy, while entropy assures their ultimate demise and destruction.

 

As Katrina approached the Louisiana coast in August 2005, the hasty evacuation of New Orleans was a debacle. At the time, each city, state and federal official assumed that someone else had called for buses to provide evacuation of a poor and vulnerable population. The public evacuation plan turned out to be a myth. Hundreds of unused school buses later sat ruined by the flood. As affluent and able citizens evacuated structures to the North, a monumental traffic jam ensued. If each bus had carried a full load that day, more people could have evacuated in far less time. As it was, no one remained to assist the most vulnerable and helpless residents. Leaving the sickest in their beds, a hospital physician may have ordered lethal injections for forty-five non-ambulatory patients, prior to abandonment of the hospital.

 

One major difference between the International Space Station and New Orleans is that NASA and the ISS crew cannot afford to employ mythical thinking. If they ran the ISS in similar fashion to pre-Katrina New Orleans, something as simple as a coolant-pump failure could result in loss of both the crew and their quarters. Effective engineering, planning and resupply are essential to maintaining human habitation in space. New Orleans, on the other hand, currently sits in a dry bowl, free from flooding. Since simulations do not work well on a grand scale, we cannot properly assess the efficacy of defenses at New Orleans. Instead, we must wait for the next great storm in order to find out. By then it might be too late for both New Orleans and the federal deficit. Yet today, we maintain the fiction that New Orleans can continue its long-term defiance of the laws of Nature.

 

NASA provided the ISS with spare coolant pumps beyond the number of anticipated failures. Will their planning be sufficient? I believe that the ISS has a better chance of surviving intact for the next ten years than does the City of New Orleans. If New Orleans, Louisiana were to flood again, the cost to revive the city would easily surpass the estimated $160 billion lifetime cost of the ISS.

 

This is not a personal prediction of death, doom and despair, but floods, fire an famine are not out of the question. Humankind has the ability use both its collective memory and its collective consciousness. If we allow a shift in consciousness, newly awakened humankind could change the future of Planet Earth. With both the profit motive and politics at play, it is hard to determine if our current plans are sound. If each stakeholder could reflect upon our overall relationship with the laws of Nature, they might see themselves as part of a larger whole. With a touch of gnost, we can understand Nature and help guide humanity’s relationship with Gaia, our Mother Earth.

 

Centuries ago, at a bend in the Mississippi River, settlers created New Orleans. From that time, forward, humans continued to build structures there with little regard for attendant environmental consequences. As hard and fast as many stakeholder positions seem to be, Nature can lift those stakes and carry them away like driftwood, to the Gulf of Mexico. Since Earth is the only permanent habitat known to humans, it behooves us to acknowledge and accommodate the laws of Nature as supreme to any laws of our own making.

 

Taking the laws of Nature into account, we should study alternate weather and flood scenarios for New Orleans and its environs. Without regard for corporate profits, property values or political gain, independent studies and their recommendations should again see the light of day. Once we understand the likelihood of various weather events, we can then proceed with plans to protect only that which is reasonable to protect. If the hubris and ignorance of our ancestors continues in New Orleans, we risk human-aided devastation and destruction unlike any seen on Earth since the last days of Atlantis.

 

 

 

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Read Chapter Two

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By James McGillis at 11:38 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Sea of Atlantis - The Future City of New Orleans - 2011

 

 

Sea of Atlantis

The Future City of New Orleans 

A characteristic lesson from the fall of Atlantis is that humans can manipulate matter. Furthermore, humans can appear to bend Nature to their needs. However, neither the Atlantean culture nor our own can control the laws of Nature.

 

To demonstrate that human control of nature is an illusion, look no further than the perceived permanence of the Old River Control Structure, 135 miles upriver from New Orleans, Louisiana. Atlantean elite labels and slogans are often so audacious, that their unrealistic goals sound heroic or mythical. Imagine the audacity of using poles stuck in the mud to control the largest river in North America. In anticipation that their designated mounds of earth would stay where expected, the Army Core of Engineers (COE) named it a “river control structure”. Prefacing that moniker, should be the word “temporary”.

 

After the experiences of Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 flooding in Pakistan, it is reasonable to believe that New Orleans might yet experience simultaneous floods of each type. The scenario goes like this:

 

• When a Katrinaesque hurricane makes landfall at New Orleans, resultant storm surge and overflow from Lake Pontchartrain floods much of the city.
• As the storm travels north, it stalls and dumps unprecedented rainfall on the Middle and Upper Mississippi River Valleys.
• When the resulting flood crests at the Old River Control Structure, catastrophic failure ensues, sending one uncontrolled torrent down the Mississippi River Channel and another down the Atchafalaya River.
• As an unprecedented flow reaches New Orleans, the city floods yet again, only this time there are few if any levees still standing to protect it.

 

In the aftermath of a simultaneous Katrina-style storm surge and a Pakistan-style river flood, New Orleans could well be unsalvageable. After such a super flood, the Mississippi River Channel through New Orleans would become a silt-clogged riverbed, rather than the deep channel of today. Unless stakeholders plan now for decreased reliance on river and port traffic for economic vitality, New Orleans faces the possibility of a flood-induced economic collapse.

 

Have we learned our Atlantean lessons? For the most part, the answer is, “No”. We prefer the nostalgia of the French Quarter; a streetcar named Desire and a wonderful cultural history to prudent post-Atlantean and post-Katrina planning. Mythical thinking will not end global warming, higher sea levels or stronger storm surges. Regardless of who or what caused global warming, reputable scientists agree that future weather trends include higher average surface temperatures. From Venice, Italy to Bangladesh, to the Seychelles Islands, the accelerated pace of coastal and island flooding worldwide shows no signs of abating. If the Greenland ice shelf melts away, we may not be discussing the prospects of saving any of those places, as they may already be slipping beneath the waves.

 

Since Katrina in 2005, the federal government has spent an estimated $125 billion in and around New Orleans. As a citizenry, we should now determine how much we plan to spend on any flood prone region. More important, what we wish to accomplish with those funds? As long as the option for rebuilding a full-sized, old style New Orleans is on the table, the cost may well be too high to bear. Currently, few of the local, state or federal stakeholders are willing to downscale their ambitions. Instead, they attempt to resolve the issue with public proclamations, featuring new and soon to be inadequate levees. Dubbed “The Great Wall”, one new storm surge barrier reminds me of the original Great Wall of China. Astronauts report that the original Great Wall is the only manmade structure easily visible from the International Space Station. History showed that those massive bulwarks did little to prevent nomadic groups from entering the Chinese Empire. Likewise, the new Great Walls will not fully protect New Orleans from category-five hurricanes.

 

Extensive dredging and reworking of the watercourses throughout the Mississippi River Delta have made defending New Orleans more difficult. After it snakes through the city, the Mississippi River deposits almost none of its silt in shallow water. Instead, the river rushes past New Orleans on a fast trip to the Gulf of Mexico. Bypassing any remaining wetlands, the silt plunges deep into the Gulf. On its descent to the seafloor, the silt releases a toxic mixture of fertilizer and chemicals. Suspended in the water column above the silt beds is a vast hypoxic dead zone. Not even bacteria can survive in its oxygen-depleted environment.

 

In June 2010, the federal government dedicated over $14 billion to rehabilitation of Louisiana wetlands. At the same time, rumor had it that President Obama supported a redirection of the Mississippi River as a mechanism for providing silt to those wetlands. To accomplish that goal, he might order the COE to flip-flop the water delivery ratios at the Old River Control Structure. New Orleans would henceforth receive huge amounts of silt, but far less water. Concurrently, the Atchafalaya River would take its place as the terminal distributary of the Mississippi River. Upon settling downstream from New Orleans, the newly redirected silt would naturally rebuild fisheries, bayous and marshes. In turn, the larger wetlands would form a natural storm surge barrier for the city.

 

Only the Mississippi River can discharge the silt volume required to rebuild the wetlands. If humans or Nature can slow the velocity of the river, soils from more than a dozen states might begin to precipitate out near New Orleans. Only then would the river become a useful tool for rebuilding the wetlands of the Mississippi River Delta. If ever there was a good argument for letting Nature take her course, this may be it.

 

As a cultural landmark and a great historical city, I love New Orleans. Sadly, it has now become a poster child for Atlantean mythical thinking. As a society, we must be willing to create an infrastructure and investment strategy for New Orleans that has finite goals and limits. What budgetary amount we agree upon is less important than being realistic about our attempts to control Nature. Once realism returns to the process, scientists and engineers can combine efforts and create appropriate defenses for core locations and critical functions throughout the region.

 

Although almost no one wants to hear it, New Orleans should utilize its lowest lying and most vulnerable areas as storm surge basins. After relocating low-income residents to safer areas, the city could afford to sacrifice low-lying areas to flooding, while protecting and preserving a more defensible city core. Ultimately, it will be less expensive to provide a Brad Pitt House in a new neighborhood for each low-lying family than to leave entire neighborhoods in peril. Once the lowest lying residents move out, those areas could become parks or urban farms. With no fulltime residents in harm’s way, the cost of future flood protection and reconstruction would be far lower.

 

Any legitimate plan for New Orleans must recognize the near inevitability of storm surge and river related flooding. Even with a pragmatic plan, rather than a political one, there is no guarantee that a great flood will not inundate New Orleans. The strategy that I suggest would allow a smaller city to survive longer than the current “full city” strategy, while saving both money and the environment in the process.

 

 Read Chapter One

Read Chapter Two

Read Chapter Four

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By James McGillis at 01:43 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

New Orleans - The New Atlantis - 2011

 

New Orleans - The New Atlantis

In America, the profit motive, mythical thinking and political imperative unite to defeat many of our best plans. Realistic assessment of risks and costs associated with our critical programs rarely engender serious discussion in society. The bigger the issue, such as universal healthcare or financial industry reform, the more likely that politics and the profit motive will combine to obscure the underlying issues at stake. In our current political climate, many politicians continue to propose projects and policies that defy the laws of Nature. The liberal politician might make popular promises to fix everything that is wrong. Conservatives, as a group, might promise to obstruct legitimate change. Meanwhile, accumulation of power and attainment of elite status are the real goals of most politicians.

 

Likewise, the profit motive can blind unprincipled business people. Why else would we see a high-pressure natural gas transmission line snaking through the residential neighborhoods of San Bruno, California? In a cost saving measure, the pipeline’s owner skipped a previously funded retrofit of a nearby line. Is it too much to ask that retrofits of high-pressure gas lines running through residential neighborhoods include automatic or remote control shut-off valves? When it ruptured, the thirty-inch San Bruno pipeline ejected explosive natural gas into a peaceful residential neighborhood.

 

As with the Deepwater Horizon Rig, once the gas ignited, a massive explosion was only the start of the catastrophe. Built without automatic shutoff valves, the San Bruno line took almost two hours to close. By that time, the area adjacent to the rupture had burned so hot that four missing persons appear to have vaporized, without a trace. The heat generated was so intense that more than a day later, rescue workers could not enter several former residences.

 

As if struck by mass amnesia, operators, regulators and legislators responsible for the San Bruno gas transmission line ignored the safety needs of thousands of residents. Displaying mythical thinking in their “It cannot happen here” attitude, ignorance and the profit motive combined to allow another human-caused catastrophe. Owner and operator of the gas line, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has only $1 billion in its insurance fund. If recent human-created disaster payouts are any indicator, PG&E’s losses in upcoming litigation could bankrupt the company. For lack of foresight, PG&E now faces downward price pressure on its stock value. Inevitably, the ratepayers whose community went up in flames will pay the price to fix the problem.

 

Five years after Hurricane Katrina battered and flooded New Orleans, Louisiana, conflicting plans, pledges and promises to rebuild the city and wetlands abound. When mythical thinking emanates from so many stakeholders at once, the result is an onslaught of Atlantean elite thinking, right here in the United States.

 

Only 180 of New Orleans’s 350 square miles consist of dry land. Originally built on a knoll surrounded by wetlands and the Mississippi River, decades of groundwater pumping left most of New Orleans below sea level. With a 10,000-mile long hodgepodge of channels, dikes, levees and pumping stations, it is amazing that New Orleans survived intact until Hurricane Katrina flooded it in 2005.

 

Post-Katrina, independent environmental and engineering studies concluded that a pre-Katrina size New Orleans could not stand forever against rising oceans and hurricane-driven storms. In addition to storm surge, the prospect of simultaneous flooding from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain add to the city’s woes. Despite the thoroughness of the studies, self-serving politicians, leading a complicit citizenry, ignored those uncomfortable findings. As we learned from the Lost City of Atlantis, perceived human needs, political fealty and an incipient profit motive can later manifest as both human and ecological catastrophes.

 

Over five years after Katrina, stakeholders ignore the imperative to create a smaller New Orleans, opting for a more costly “full city” approach. Government agencies have bought few, if any of the most vulnerable parcels as buffers to future flooding. Today, costly and incomplete levees only partially protect the city from category five hurricanes. Almost all of us wish to save New Orleans, yet few Americans are aware of its perilous geographic perch. No one knows how much money it might take to fully protect the larger city, let alone rebuild after another flood.

 

In August 2010, the country of Pakistan received unprecedented rainfall in its highlands. A month later, at the peak of flooding, over 62,000 square miles of low-lying countryside were impassible. That inundated area could hold 177 cities the size of New Orleans. Only extreme optimists see Pakistan returning to its pre-flood level of economic activity within five years. With huge losses of natural habitat and farmland, skeptics say that Pakistan may never fully recover. In both size and destructive power, the recent flood in Pakistan represented a quantum leap of destruction in an already troubled economy.

 

Likewise, until Katrina, New Orleans residents had never seen floodwater cover ninety percent of their city’s geographical boundaries. At the time of the city’s founding, vast wetlands defended New Orleans from hurricane-related storm surges. Potential flooding from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain were then unknown. Of paramount importance to early settlers was the ability to defend the city against other humans. Using the river like a moat, early settlers built a town deemed defensible against marauders. To this day, the Mississippi River surrounds a portion of New Orleans on three sides. Now the most likely potential marauder is the river itself.

 

Since 1963, the U.S. Army Core of Engineers (COE) has used the Old River Control Structure to control the flow of the Mississippi River as it approaches the delta. Located 335 nautical miles upriver from the Mississippi River's Gulf outfall, the Old River Control Structure employs floodgates to fix the ratio of water flowing down the Mississippi River and to the Atchafalaya River at 70/30. After an unsuccessful nineteenth century attempt to straighten the flow of the Mississippi River, the Old River's steeper gradient to the sea favored stronger flow into the Atchafalaya River. Over time, siltation blocked more of the Mississippi River flow, resulting in a predicted permanent capture of the Mississippi River by the Atchafalaya River. The “old river” that the Old River Control Structure attempts to thwart is the cutoff to the Atchafalaya River.

 

Siltation, dredging and a lesser gradient to the sea combine to threaten ocean and river navigation in and around New Orleans. At the Old River Control Structure, the COE diverts seventy percent of available Mississippi River water down through New Orleans. Without the combined effects of higher water levels and increased flushing action, New Orleans would no longer remain viable as a deep water port. Without the constant scouring of the Mississippi River Channel at New Orleans, ships entering port might run aground on sandbars or snags, as did the steamboats of olden days.

 

If for any reason, or no reason, the Mississippi River were to retake its natural course, New Orleans would soon become a backwater. A permanent new channel would cut its way through the Atchafalaya Swamp. By permanent, I mean that eons might pass before siltation along Atchafalaya River would block its flow and thus send the main flow back again through New Orleans. Upon losing its unnatural share of river flow, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana would lose their status as deep water ports.

 

What is there to prevent this natural change from happening? Only the Old River Control Structure, built on poles sunk deep into primordial river mud, stands against the flow. Having outlived its expected service life, some sections of the Old River Control Structure vibrate at ever-higher frequencies. If river-induced vibration were to rise, agitation of the support poles might liquefy the underlying mud. Once loosened from its moorings, gravity might not hold the structure firmly in place. Relentlessly, the river seeks its natural course. At a time unknown, the weakness of structure and the power of Nature shall combine to destroy both the floodgates and levees.

 

Read Chapter One

Read Chapter Three

Read Chapter Four

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By James McGillis at 05:40 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

The Story of Atlantis - Myth or Fact? - 2011

 

The Story of Atlantis - Myth or Fact?

Chapter One

What do the Lost City of Atlantis, the Space Shuttle Atlantis and New Orleans, Louisiana have in common?” In this series of four articles, we shall discover how each of their stories intertwines with our own.

Soon to be retired from service, the Space Shuttle Atlantis completed its penultimate mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2010. During that mission, Atlantis delivered a nine-ton Russian habitation module. That new section added cooling capacity and expanded living space within the existing Russian module.  

In July 2010, an ammonia-coolant pump attached to the outside of the ISS failed. The loss of that pump cut cooling capacity inside the U.S. module by half. If necessary, the improved Russian module could have provided life-sustaining shelter for the crew. In order to escape that fate, the crew powered-down all nonessential services. During three spacewalks, conducted over several weeks, two crew members attempted to replace the critical assembly. Not including preparation and recovery time, the third and final spacewalk lasted over seven hours. 

While conducting an earlier spacewalk, ISS astronauts had encountered leaky coolant connections. Upon reentering the vehicle, frozen ammonia crystals adhering to their spacesuits vaporized, creating a poison gas. During the 2010 pump replacement, astronauts observed ammonia crystals emanating like snowflakes from coolant quick-disconnects. In the vacuum of space, the astronauts became gravitational bodies massive enough to attract those tiny crystals. After the earlier contamination event, NASA put new procedures in place. Spacewalkers must now remain outside until sunshine evaporates any adhered ammonia crystals. At the rate of 15.7 orbits of Earth each day, the crew never waits long for another sunrise at the ISS. 

After 2006, a limited number of shuttle missions remained before retirement of the fleet. Using prudent planning, that year mission planners positioned four replacement coolant pumps on board the ISS. After shuttle missions conclude in late 2011, only Russian, or contracted rockets will visit the ISS for at least the following four years. Adequate spares on-board were an appropriate hedge against the need for a resupply via disposable rocket.  

On the third spacewalk of August 2010, the crew successfully replaced the failed pump. If the other functional pump had failed in the interim, heat damage to the ISS was a significant risk. Now we realize that NASA was a single failed-pump away from ordering evacuation of the U.S. Module. Later, calm-voiced NASA’s spokespeople belied the seriousness of the situation, discussing the pump replacement as if it were routine.

With electrical power and cooling capacity reduced for over two weeks, the ISS environment became warmer and darker. Not ironically, that is also happening here on Earth. With a steady increase in human-created carbon emissions floating in our atmosphere, particulate haze further darkens Earth's now warmer sky.

With crew safety uppermost in their minds, NASA and its international partners endeavor to keep the ISS functioning. Unlike the level of public interest during the Space Race, few of us today follow ISS news with regularity. As astounding as spacewalks may be, activities on the ISS appear to happen in slow motion. If we look past the disarming calm of weightlessness, human activity in space provides excellent parallels for our lives on Earth.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis shares its name with the lost or mythical City of Atlantis. Those who believe that Atlantis once existed, call it “lost”. Those who believe that Atlantis was only a story, call it a “myth”. After studying the subject for myself, I believe that the Atlantean culture existed on Earth, ending about 12,000 years ago. During their prominence, the Atlantean elite developed an advanced understanding of crystals as power sources. Lost in the Atlantean deluge, some ancient scientific principles we only now rediscover, as aspects of new energy.

As it happened, hubris and greed were the seeds of Atlantean destruction. In ancient Atlantis, energy often behaved differently than it does on Earth today. After many generations of transcending the effects of friction and heat, the Atlantean elite did not believe that mechanical or thermal failure were possible. Therefore, they expected their mechanical and electrical devices to operate indefinitely. 

Ignored by the elite, rapid-onset global warming had changed the underlying energy principles here on Earth. Like wax melting down the inside of a candle jar, large areas of Atlantis slowly slipped beneath the ocean waves. As the oceans rose around them, the Atlantean elite paid little attention. Possessing both arrogance and supreme self-confidence, they believed that they controlled Nature, not the other way around.

For a while, pumps protected what parts of Atlantean culture remained. However, a relentless period of global warming had overstressed their environment. As Earth energies became hotter and denser, the laws of thermodynamics came fully into play. One by one, water pumps that had worked for millennia began to fail. Similar to the cooling pump failure on Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2010, each Atlantean pump that failed put additional stress on those remaining. Eventually, a cascade of failures brought all Atlantean pumps to a halt. Soon thereafter, the advanced civilization known as Atlantis vanished beneath ocean waves.  

Clinging to both their gold and old energy thinking, most of the Atlantean elite perished in the flood. The few surviving elite embedded knowledge in their DNA regarding their failures. Also embedded was their old addiction to power, with which they had controlled the Atlantean citizenry. In a balancing of fate, an almost equal number of non-elite citizens survived the fall of Atlantis. Although non-elite survivors carried no exploitation gene, they embedded genetic knowledge regarding human-caused disasters. Their progeny held an unspoken desire to avoid catastrophe. Their approach to life on Earth featured forethought and planning.  

Most humans alive today are descendants of Atlantean seed. Therefore, we have a natural predilection towards ‘elite think’, ‘citizen think’ or a combination of both. Both ancient and current elite thinkers exhibit hubris, greed and indifference toward their fellow humans. During World War II, the Nazi elite learned to disguise their message through doublespeak and inflammatory obfuscation, often dressed as entertainment. Through media promotion of their causes, the elite may try to confound, confuse or sedate us. However, each of us retains the ability to detect the ratios of Atlantean elite or Atlantean citizen energies present at any given time and place.  

While reading mass consciousness, we may compare current levels of greed and hubris with those of hope or caring. Where we fall along that scale, ranging from self-serving to selfless indicates how far we have traveled toward enlightenment. When critical systems on the ISS include plans for routine maintenance or replacement, it appears that we have learned our Atlantean lessons. When we observe inadequate planning, testing and operation of critical life-support systems on Earth, we see that Atlantean-elite thinking remains present in our culture. 

Each time we hear, “It can't happen here”, “failsafe” or “unsinkable”, we know that Atlantean elite-thinking is involved. By ignoring safety precautions, one tacitly accepts as truth the magical thinking of the Atlantean elite. By purposefully ignoring salient facts, humans continue to employ Atlantean elite-thinking in a self-serving way.  

On April 15, 2012, the unsinkable steamship Titanic will pass its one hundredth anniversary lying at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. In the 1958 Hollywood production of 'A Night to Remember', Eric Ambler’s screenplay alluded to the horror of death by drowning. In James Cameron’s top-grossing 1998 production of ‘Titanic’, an attractive young star freezes to death before our eyes. Fifty years from now, will yet another filmmaker refloat the Titanic and its Atlantean tale of folly?

More recently, greed and hubris caught up with the owners and operators of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Oil producer BP p.l.c. and its partners came to believe that they were immune to the laws of thermodynamics. In April 2010, while drilling off the coast of Louisiana, uncontrolled venting of hydrocarbon gas from a well resulted in an explosion and fire. Less than two days later, the twisted remains of the rig toppled to the seafloor. In addition to eleven deaths and many injuries that night, an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil poured into gulf waters before operators could seal the well.  

No single person understood how all of the safety systems on the Deepwater Horizon platform worked. Before the explosion, undocumented modifications to on-board safety systems had precipitated numerous false alarms. After extensive undocumented modifications, no one knew if the systems still worked in concert with each other. Even so, top executives in both the owning and the leasing corporations had faith that their machines would not fail. Besides, if a failure occurred, the blowout preventer was there to save the day. Contented that no real emergency might occur, rig operators silenced many of the alarms. Later that night, everyone on-board received a rude awakening. Imagine being the individual who silenced those gas alarms, later to find a nightmare of explosive reality threatening all on-board.  

The Atlantean-elite thinking prevalent on both the Titanic and the Deepwater Horizon resulted in epic sea disasters. Over the energy bridges of time and space, we can almost hear the calls of the few citizens of Atlantis who survived. After triggering as many phantom alarms as they could, our Atlantean citizen ancestors fell silent once again. 

Along with the fall of Atlantis, there was a world population crash. With slow rates of recovery, it was millennia before another advanced civilization arose on Earth. Post Atlantis, only cultures that embraced the “profit motive” could qualify as advanced civilizations. Since that time, Atlantean-elite thinking has combined with the profit motive to create countless scenes of human war, death and destruction. In the tradition of Atlantis, today’s old energy elites hide their real motives, including their lust for both power and profit. 

Read Chapter Two

Read Chapter Three

Read Chapter Four

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By James McGillis at 06:15 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

Trucking Industry Legend Kevin Rutherford Creates the Ultimate Freightliner Coronado RV Custom Rig - 2011

 

Trucking Industry Legend Kevin Rutherford Creates the Ultimate Freightliner Coronado RV Custom Rig

As we pulled in at the Wine Country RV Resort in Paso Robles, California, I noticed something unusual. Squinting in disbelief, I spotted the longest semi pulling a fifth-wheel RV rig I had ever seen.

 

Up front was a new Freightliner Coronado on-highway traditional tractor with a flat top sleeper. Pure white, with lots of chrome and polished aluminum, it featured a full sleeper compartment. With its twin 150-gallon diesel tanks, one could drive this beauty coast-to-coast without a fuel stop. On the dual rear axles, four super-single tires took the place of the usual eight. If this rig were pulling a standard van, with super-singles all around, it would become a 10-wheeler, rather than an 18-wheeler. Fewer tires on the ground create lower rolling resistance, translating into higher highway mileage. The engine of success for the Freightliner Coronado has always been continuous improvement. This custom tractor was no exception to that rule.

 

To the rear, a modified hitch supported a triple-axle, Voltage Toy Hauler fifth wheel, manufactured by Dutchmen. With the Voltage alone measuring over forty-two feet, the full rig measured almost seventy feet. That, of course, did not include the little Smart Car, parked out front.

 

After looking at this astounding road machine, I thought that the owner must be an on-highway trucker on vacation or an eccentric individual, to say the least. Freightliner Diesel tractors mated to fifth wheel RVs are common enough, but most such units look like a modified SUV. This RV tractor was the long-wheelbase type, typically seen pulling a fifty-three foot trailer along our interstate highways. It was not until the next morning that we met the owners of this unusual land yacht.

 

That morning, we sat enjoying a cup of coffee in the warm California sun. Soon, we saw a woman pull up in the Smart Car and unload groceries into the coach. Before we knew it, we were in conversation with Leesa Campbell and her husband, Kevin Rutherford. An accountant, with experience in trucking operations and truck building, Kevin also hosts a daily "Letstruck" Sirius satellite radio show. Even with multiple careers to manage and many trade shows to attend, Kevin and Leesa enjoy a full-time RV lifestyle.

 

Soon, Carrie and I were taking the grand tour, starting with the Freightliner high style sleeper cab and finishing in the palatial Voltage toy hauler. With the floor set low in the coach, the ceilings appeared to be ten feet high. There was no claustrophobia there or forward in the master suite, with its two separate entrances. In the salon, there were generous living, dining and galley spaces.

 

In the stern, the spacious toy-hauler garage also served as Kevin’s broadcast studio. After stopping for the night, Kevin rolls the Smart Car down a full body-width ramp. Then he closes the garage and uses an innovative, piling-rig-sequence to lower his radio studio into position. At show time, Leesa sits amidships, screening the calls, while Kevin chats live with truckers from all over the country.

 

Focusing as he does on “trucking as a business”, Kevin Rutherford is a contributing author on OverDriveOnline, where he has published eighty-three articles to date. On his own http:// LetsTruck.com website, Kevin features forums where members share operating efficiency and mileage tips. That information can make the difference between profit and loss on the road. He also offers a free mileage-minder program, called My Gauges. Freightliner owner or not, members logging in can input their fuel purchases and calculate their mileage statistics. This leads to friendly competition for top positions in the website’s unofficial mileage championship. Although it is nowhere as large as Facebook, Kevin's 31,000-member LetsTruck.com social media website helps owner-operators create efficiency and profitability.

 

Although a casual observer might think that Kevin Rutherford’s rig represents the ultimate RV power trip, it does more than look good on the road. Known for “walking the walk”, Kevin’s personal rig averages close to ten miles per gallon. Few, if any Class A diesel motor coaches attain that level of fuel efficiency.

 

At a "truck of the future" factory in Tennessee, Kevin Rutherford builds innovation into every Freightliner custom Signature Series Truck. Using Freightliner Coronado tractors, he builds the big rig of the future for on-highway use today. Before customer delivery, they install custom tractor sleeper cabs, plus gauges and level-monitoring for fuel and exhaust system modifications, even chrome steps, if you choose. Many of their custom rigs include advanced oil filtering systems and super-single tires. Utilizing those and other modifications, Kevin’s trucks achieve both high mileage and low maintenance costs. Even in today’s economy, demand for fuel-efficient, low maintenance trucks is high. At the time of our meeting, Kevin was working through a backlog of seventy new Freightliners. Currently, his factory delivers two finished units per workday, each for sale at over $100,000.

 

Although it is both a showstopper and fun to drive, Kevin’s personal rig is also a test bed for innovations of all kinds. One example is its Bose Ride vibration-cancelling truck seats, manufactured by the Bose Corporation. Using a technology similar to their noise-cancelling headphones, the seats offer a precise counter-force to road bumps, both large and small. To demonstrate the vibration damping effect, technicians drop a basketball on the seat platform. No matter how hard they throw it down, the basketball sticks without a bounce. Once installed in the cab of a Kevin Rutherford tractor, the Bose ride and perceived noise level are far superior to conventional air-ride seats.

 

After our tour, it was almost time for Leesa and Kevin’s three-hour Saturday afternoon broadcast. After thanking Kevin and Leesa for their hospitality, we departed for San Francisco. Looking back, I laughed at my initial assumptions about Kevin's big rig. Rather than an eccentric, resource-wasting RV nut, our neighbor turned out to be a trucking industry legend and visionary entrepreneur. Can you imagine what might happen if in 2012 Kevin put his talents toward creating the ultimate Freightliner off-road RV?

 

When towing, our pickup truck and travel trailer rig averages about eight miles per gallon. Kevin Rutherford and his Freightliner/Voltage fifth wheel rig consistently average better than that. In both trucking and the RV world, appearances can be deceiving.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 04:31 PM | Technology | Comments (0) | Link

"WindSong" - 1970 Ericson 35 Mk II - Voted Best Liveaboard Sailboat - 2011

 

"WindSong" - 1970 Ericson 35 Mk II - Voted Best Liveaboard Sailboat

In 1995, I became the third owner of WindSong, a 1970 Ericson 35 Mk II sailboat. In the past fifteen years, I have sailed her to Isthmus Cove at Santa Catalina Island over fifty times, often with adventure, but always in safety.

 

What makes a Bruce King Design such a pleasure to sail? First is the sail plan, with plenty of power, even in even a moderate breeze. Second is 5000 lb. of lead, encapsulated in her sleek fin keel. Working together, even under extreme conditions, those two aspects assure safekeeping for captain and crew. In high winds or heavy seas, a King design incorporates such a strong “righting moment” that there is little danger of a knockdown. Even on those rare occasions when her semi-balanced spade rudder shall breached the surface, I know I am in God's hands, and therefore shall not fail. Short of a gravitational eclipse, there is no prospect of turning-turtle. Even when the tattles tail and all sheets are to the wind, a Bruce King yacht shall carry you home. Thank you, Bruce King.

 

Known for designing the most beautiful sailing yachts of the past fifty years, some ask if Bruce King shaved performance in favor of good looks. An observer of Bruce King designs from the 1960s until his retirement in 2004 knows that early in his career, he "got it right". Over the years, he modified his original designs no more than necessary to execute the requirements of any particular project. As time passed, he advanced, rather than hackneyed his developing design aesthetic.

 

Once delivered, Ericson Yachts owned the designs. To his chagrin, Bruce King's artistic and aesthetic control ended when the design left his drawing board. Hence, the chop-shop stern modifications on various later model Ericson sailboats.

 

Whether it was the “Classic Plastic” Ericson 35-2 or one of his later super yachts, we see a gentle evolution of form throughout King’s career. In a testament to the young Bruce King’s abilities, almost 600 of the 7000 yachts attributed to his designs were Ericson 35s.

 

With an overall length of 34’ 8” and only a 27’ 10” waterline, why would the designer give up almost five feet of boat length to the bow and stern overhangs? While heeling moderately under sail, the leeward waterline of the Ericson 35-2 lengthens to nearly thirty-two feet. In the sailing realm, longer waterlines equal greater hull speed. Combining that clever design element with a concentration of weight amidships minimizes the “mass moment of inertia”. In plain English, an Ericson 35 sailor can find peace in the three dimensional time-space reality we call ocean sailing. If you like your peace with a dash of excitement, then WindSong is the boat for you.

 

Known as a racer/cruiser in its early days, most Ericson 35 - 2 sailboats have now transformed into coastal cruisers or unique liveaboard sailboats. Either is a task for which the boat is ideally suited. From Marina del Rey to Two Harbors at Santa Catalina Island is over thirty nautical miles. On many of my transits to the island, I overhauled and passed boats larger and longer than mine. With the élan of a racer and the accommodations of a cruiser, there is no better boat to spend a few leisurely days and nights on a mooring at Isthmus Cove.

 

Finding myself suddenly single in 2003, I became a live-aboard in Marina del Rey, California. After a few sleepless nights, staring at the ceiling of the cabin, I recalled that living aboard WindSong was part of the adventure that I sought in life. As early as 1972, on a visit to the LA Boat Show, I decided that I wanted to live aboard a sailboat. In 2003, with homelessness as my alternative, it took me a while to become comfortable with my dream come true.

 

During the next two years, I spent more hours aboard WindSong than ashore. Rekindling my executive recruiting business, took many hours of telephone and computer time. By late 2004, when I rejoined my recurrent odyssey to the Four Corner States, WindSong became less active as a cruising boat and more of a floating haven for me. By 2007, I had moved on to a new and rewarding relationship with an other. Despite our mutual love for WindSong; we spent only occasional weekends aboard.

 

In 2011, over forty years since her launch in Orange County, California, WindSong calls out to a new owner. She is a good boat overall, so in another forty years, we hope that an interested party will Google, “Ericson 35 WindSong” and read this epistle. If the year is 2048, I will be 100 years old. Even then, I will be happy to discuss all that I know about WindSong and what makes her a great yacht.

 

Author's Note: In May, 2012 I sold the boat WindSong. She now has a new home in San Diego Bay, California. Look for her sailing there, or perhaps anchored at Two Harbors, Catalina Island.

 

In September 2017, I found a link to "Windsong, 1970 Ericson 35-2 for sale" in San Diego, California. Although I have not seen her since 2012, I hope she is still ship-shape and ready to sail.

Email James McGillis

 

 

By James McGillis at 11:20 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link