So, Here We Are

Trump is the apparent winner of the election. Somewhere, by the 25th of December, all the electoral duties will be completed and the official acts placing Trump in office will start, or not. Until then, in my opinion, there will be some efforts to cause problems, those wiser than political rhetoric will realize they need to turn from their evil ways, and many rats will leave the sinking ship of Democrat subterfuge. Time will tell, but whatever happens, things will be different, and those wishing to cause problems will find a citizenry unwilling to put up with their shenanigans.  

Calm Before The Storm

Early voting is out of the way, and the anticipation of the election on Tuesday is creating a lot of anxiety. How it turns out is yet to be seen, but considering things up to this point, the conjecture, projections and outright lies will fill the news for a long time. That, and the start of the next election cycle will begin for the next four years of B.S.

Bleh!

Extreme Accuracy

Below is a photo of my rain gauge. My wife bought it a few years ago, and it had better markings, but the sun faded them into oblivion. Not wanting to throw away my favorite rain gauge, I pulled out my Sharpie, measured for the markings, and turned it into the most accurate rain gauge ever made. I know some may disagree, and I understand their concern of what appears as exaggeration, but I can assure you my skills allow me to use the markings to accurately measure accumulated rainfall down to the thousands of an inch. Of course I don't record the rainfall, since my memory is so well developed I can tell you the exact amount for any day up to two days ago.

I had a family member read, and question me about my facetious post. I can ascertain my sanity hasn't been compromised, and I'm not trying to mislead about my weather abilities. It was all in fun, and no animals were injured in the process of creating this post.

I Despise Spammers

 After getting the same phishing email multiple times, I decided to block it, and opened up the gates of spammer hell. Otherwise, I notified whoever keeps the spammer list to update my email as a good email for spam, and they've double-teamed my email . 

I despise spammers, and think they should all be punished by hand writing every spam they ever sent, to every mailbox that received one of their spams, and then chop off their fingers...maybe that's too harsh. Just chop off their fingers. 

A Local Sinkhole

Near to where I live is a sinkhole. It's on private property, so access isn't allowed. Since it's in an old, still producing oilfield, oilfield workers still have access, which bring me to what crossed my mind this morning. 

I met a man that had the opportunity to work near the sinkhole. There was a boat accessible, so he, and a coworker, decided to see how deep the water was. After tying a heavy bolt to the end of a 1000' roll of nylon string, they let it out, until he was holding the very end of the roll. They never determined how deep the sinkhole was, but knew it was over 1000' deep. From what I've read, the sinkhole started about a century ago, and has steadily grown since that time.

The sinkhole, from what I know, is the result of the collapse of a salt dome that was structurally compromised after years of oil extraction. One of many in the area, the empty domes are used for storing brine, or ethylene. They usually hold, and no problems appear, but I'm glad I'm a long distance away from the area. I do know the sinkhole started to have a rising water level a few decades ago, which prompted the stoppage of a brine injection process. Otherwise, there was leakage between the salt domes, and what was being injected was coming back up. The same thing happened years ago in Mont Belview, Texas, except the leakage was from a propane storage dome. They evacuated much of the city, placed flares in yards, and a trip through the area on the highway allowed to stay open at night was a macabre experience. All the electricity was turned off, the darkened area was only lit by the pipes protruding from the ground with open flames burning off propane.

We had another sinkhole appear in another local community a few years ago. Due to the proximity to the highway running through the community, TxDot monitored the area closely, and would have closed the highway if the sinkhole had continued growing. 

We don't have the same type of sinkholes that are found in Florida. Those here are not caused by erosion of subterranean limestone deposits. They're caused by the removal of oil from salt domes, without injecting brine to continue the upward pressure. This leads to settlement, which may be gradual, and lead to a large area of land sinking over time, or a rapid settlement creating a sinkhole. It's sobering to think of where they might appear, and with directional drilling, there's no way to completely rule out an unsuspecting landowner finding a hole thousands of feet deep appearing in a short period of time.