~A view thru my eyes~: May 2010

Just a quote

Quote of the day: "The edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." Hunter S. Thompson

Found this quote and liked it. LOL. Have nothing else to say.

no apple apple pie, trick the senses

"This is a recipe for apple pie made without apples. It has all the characteristics of an apple pie with apples. If you didn't know better, you'd think that there really were apples in it. This is an old chemistry lab experiment to teach the limits of human senses."

Ingredients

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
25 buttery round crackers
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (225 degrees C).
Roll out pastry and set aside. Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan.
In a small bowl mix together sugar and cream of tartar. Add mixture to boiling water. Stir, then add crackers, one at a time. Boil for 3 minutes, but do not stir.
Pour cracker mixture into pastry-lined pie pan. Sprinkle crackers with cinnamon and dot with butter or margarine. Cover with top pastry. Seal edges and cut steam vents in top.
Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, until crust is golden brown. May need to cover top pastry partway through baking to prevent overbrowning.

Labels: apple pie

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University
of Washington
chemistry mid-term.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs
heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of
their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is
compressed) or some v...variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the ... See More different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

BOYCOTT TIDE

At Tide's website they claim loads of hope will be here on the 12th. You know what tide? By the 12th we won't need your stinking help because all the wet clothes will be mildew and you can never get that smell out.

I do not personally plan on giving you anymore of my business. You should be here now helping not next week.

Labels: boycott tide, loads for hope, tide

From an Email From a PERSON that lives here too

If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.

The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.

Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite probably the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.

But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.

Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.

Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.

And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

Because we are Nashville.

By Patten Fuqua - Section 303 – May 4, 2010

Thank You America

Song of the day: "War Pigs" Black Sabbath

Quote of the day: "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it" Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

DONATE TO FLOOD RELIEF

There are a few things I have to say. I am sure that does not surprise my readers. Those of you that stumble upon this might be shocked by a few things I have to say. Well, I am going to be quite blunt.

Fuck off America. You gave to Haiti, you gave to Hurricane Katrina, you adopt your babies from China, but you neglect to acknowledge the devastation of a 500 year flood. We are a level 6 disaster. The second worse disaster next to Katrina in the last 50 years.

Let me tell you this. Our little state is more UNITED than the entire United States of America. Neighbors helping Neighbors. Strangers helping strangers. Hands on Nashville had 4,000 people show up to volunteer the first week. The first week they had 14,500 volunteer man hours vested in cleaning up at ground zero. This does not count the man hours not logged.

LAST WEEK
On Saturday May 1 2010 the forecast was for 3-4 INCHES of rain, severe thunderstorms, and tornado watches. I was very apprehensive because Doc had to work and I in general do not do well in inclement weather.

On Sunday May 2 2010 the reality of imminent doom started to wane when local flash flooding was coming in waves and motorist were trapped on interstate and downtown started to flood. Around 11pm we lost power and thus lost contact with the outside world. We had no idea it was so bad.

A neighbor sent us a txt message that school was going to be closed on Monday. She also sent us a message that the water department was shutting off water and to draw some.

On Monday, May 3 2010, we had no power and no way to cook food. We made the snap decision to run to the store and get sandwich food and ice for the cooler. What we saw was unbelievable.

First was the shell shocked visions of mass amounts of running water. In the creeks. We saw small groups of people coming out in the rain and surveying their damage. We got our food and hunny stopped at Dunkin Donuts so I could have a coffee. All the stores in Goodlettsville had signs up "Closed due to Flood" written on any paper in different pens and water logged taped to the intercoms. But not DD. Thank God for that. I was in desperate need of coffee.

I spent Monday Night on the Cell phone calling people and letting them know we are OK. See we are Uphill from Nashville. If it was this bad here, what was it like there. I charged cell in car.

On Tuesday May 4th Doc got home really late. All access roads to the plant were blocked. They left via the rail road access road in a 4x4. Tuesday I had to take him to work. What I saw will haunt me for a long time. Ok what I kinda saw, I was driving and had the whole family in the car.

Inside the car were echos of OMG OMG from the back seat. When we crossed the bridge over Dickerson Pike, "Daddy E... is that a roof?" Admittedly I goose necked to see... IT was the roof of a gas station canopy. Next to it was a building with tractor trailers hooked up to be loaded. The water covered everything and the rig part of the trucks were waving back and forth and floating. Near the gas station the street lights were still lit and hovering inches above the water. It was eerie. And that is the only word to describe it. Eerie.

After we exited the interstate we made several turn around's (me not being familiar with the area was really relying on my memory to get back out of there and to get it right the first time) and Dropped E off at work. We did make it back to highway on first try, yea me! Going back home it was easier to get a look because there was no traffic. On the bridge water was lapping at the shoulder and there was a lake between west and east bound traffic. You could smell the tell tale smell of rotten eggs as you went past the natural gas utility building (that really scared me) and we saw the metro link under water. We saw school buses under water.

Let me back up a second. "E" works at the only water plant still working. His was in danger of flooding but had not flooded yet.

The closer we got to Goodlettsville, the drier it was. I felt a tremendous relief seeing road I knew were dry. What I was not prepared for happened when I turned off of Madison Creek Rd and on to Patton Branch road. It brought tears to my eyes.

The victems were cleaning up their yards. In front of each area being cleaned were 5-6 cars just randomly pulled over. People dragging rakes and shovels out of their trunks. Walking to help. And you could tell it was random acts of kindness because of the way people were dressed and they way they were parked and the way they walked and approached the ones working.

That is how the week went here. People helping people. The power came back on on Monday evening. We got a good look at the news. I called our mom's. I appologized for being short with them. (we had been talking at least 3 times a day) and informed them I saw what they were seeing. Yes. Panic is a good word for a mom! LOL. I'd have panic'd too if I saw that by either of their homes!

Tuesday school was cancled again. We spent time cleaning sticks out of the yard and watching TV. I just let the kids watch what they wanted on both TV's when they wanted.

I just really wanted to tell America to piss off. You guys went out of your way to help people in other countries during natural disasters but have done nothing to help us, your fellow countrymen, people in YOUR back yard. BUT we the people of Tennessee have taken care of that and have helped each other. I hope you can learn from that.

For more Info on the FLOOD, please goto NewsChannel5.com

Labels: good samartians, Hands on Nashville, NASHVILLE DONATIONS, nashville flood, WE are NASHVILLE