Newsletter #00026

well, it's sunday right now, but i'm bored, so i'm gonna work on the newsletter that will start us back up after that vacation, we figured that most people wouldn't be around or reading these over the vacation, so we decided to just take a week off, which was obviously to give ourselves a break as well.

sometime last week i was watching a show on geoengineering, which combines alot of things, but it basically people working to "engineer" the world we live in. What this particular episode was about was reducing CO2 (carbon dixide) levels in the air, and one of the scientists' ideas was to increase the amount of algea in the oceans. the reason he thought of this was for the next few reasons:

-the ocean takes up what? like seventy-some-odd-percent of the earth?
-with that much surface area, having it suck the CO2 out of the atmosphere would be very efficient
-plankton (or algea, i don't remember which they used, and i know there are differences, but you get what i'm saying) uses up or soaks up a very large amount of CO2 and when it dies, it simply sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

to increase the amount of plankton in the oceans, you would simply need to provide extra nutrients to all the plankton in the ocean, and their numbers would increase exponentially. Now, how would we go about doing this on such a large sacale? well, they found a way, first, you should know that in the ocean, at the approximate depth of 1,000 feet, the waters are nutrient-rich, so this scientist devised a clever, yet simple way of moving this water up to the surface to the plankton, he made a one-way valve, attached to the bottom of a 1,000 foot tube, which is attached to a buoy at the surface of the water, and what powers the pump is the motion of the waves, when the buoy goes down, water is let into the tube, but when it is pushed up by a wave, the water is forced to the surface by the valve that has now closed, similar to the ones in your heart, it serves the same purpose.

well i don't know about all of you, but i am more than happy to get back to school after this vacation, if i happen to be alone on that one, you can leave me that way, i won't be offended. but it was a really long boring weeek, so long, in fact, that i added an extra e. but as i was saying, it's kinda nice to go back, with a bit of a fresh start, a little more rest in us (hopefully). and a little more patience, and willingness, or at least until the week ends and it once again just becomes school, but now it's summer, and things will get brighter. figuratively and literally. the only thing i won't be able to deal with is the heat, i will get used to it eventually, but i cannot sleep at all when it is hot and humid outside, then there is tim, who happens to prefer it, hmm, oh well.

the dvd player at my house recently stopped working, so i was given the pleasure of taking it apart to get all the dvd's it ate, and so we could get the trash people to take it. it was alot of fun, i love looking at all the little parts that go into, i don't understand how any of it works, electricity goes through it, and that is really all i know about it. but it was coool, how all the wires are wrapped, and how those green frames with the little metal lines in them are arranged and connected, i was soo fascinated.

speaking of trash people, i have recently deemed the people that run the waste management office really stupid. we stopped paying for our trash, so they told us to leave out our barrel and they would take the barrel, well, we threw some trash in it too, thinking they might as well take it when they took the barrel. well, when we got home, the barrel was still there, but the trash was gone, so we called the office, and they said they would fix it. so we did the same thing, with the same result, they took our trash. So for about a month now, we have been having our trash taken for free, because the trash guys either didn't get the message, or didn't get the idea, hey, no complaints here.

well, now that i filled you all with a bunch of stories, and less of my usual contemplations on things, let's tell another

for those of you who have not heard of the swine flu, here is what's going on right now:
about a week ago in mexico, a fever sprang up called the swine flu, which occurred in pigs, but what happened now is this, people have been getting it from pigs, and it is passed from human to human extremely easily, so many people have been catching and passing on the disease, and is no light disease, this will kill you.

safety precautions are now being practiced in mexico, and most things are shut down in bad areas. The problem lies in tourism, for all those sad souls that went to mexico to have a nice vacation and happened to catch this flu from someone. the problem is that they have to come back home, most by plane, and what are planes? small enclosed spaces. Many people on the planes can catch it if one person on the plane is infected.

so then all these sick people get off the planes into america, into europe, asia, wherever they came from initially. Then they do everyone the favor of spreading the disease.

right now, there are quite a few documented cases of this in america, mostly in california, many in new york, so far none in MASS, but it probably will. it is expected that there will be deaths from this within days, and if we cannot prevent it soon enough, we ourselves here in gardner may need to wear safety masks to school within the next two weeks. scary huh? this is very serious, and has the potential to reach pandemic status, though many people are working on it already, so we will wait and see what will go on with this.....


okay, ending it here today

quote- it is only with the heart one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

question-
part one- do you like these questions at the end? if yes, continue to part two, and please say so below, if no, please say so below, and do not bother with part two, if you do, you must put a yes, this is a strict rule that will be enforced more strictly than you could imagine.........

part two!!- what is your favorite memory?

i like the questions, i think it generates conversation

April 27-2009
-By Brad