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On the day they bombed Colorado, Rifle mayor Lesley Estes was a guest at the reviewing station, standing under a large circus tent. He knew that important people such as Dr. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, were among the crowd gathered at a remote site in the state's mesa country on September 10, 1969. But he spent most of his time chatting with his friends from town. Like him, they had gathered to witness the biggest thing ever to hit Rifle: the detonation of an underground nuclear device more than twice as powerful as the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima in 1945.
Set off as part of Project Plowshare, a government effort to use nuclear weapons for peacetime purposes, the Rulison bomb was intended to shake loose millions of cubic feet of natural gas for the benefit of two private energy companies. Mayor Estes didn't object to the idea of unleashing the nuclear genie a mile and a half inside the earth. In fact, he won the trucking contract on the job.
"I had a trucking business at the time, and that was a good contract, hauling in all of the rigs and whatnot," Estes remembers. Those rigs were being used by government crews to drill a hole 8,430 feet deep and just fifteen inches wide near the ghost town of Rulison, halfway between Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction.
Estes's company didn't get to haul the long, thin bomb up from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. "They had fellows from the government that were in charge of the bomb the whole time," he says. "I had a pass, though, to go up there any time to see how things were coming along."
Things were coming along just fine, but Estes didn't pay much attention to that. He just made sure the trucks ran on time.
Years later, one of the energy companies that paid for the blast, Austral Oil Company of Houston, invited Estes down to Texas for a dinner honoring those who had worked on the project, which never produced the hoped-for gas bonanza. "They had made some cuff links out of the rock that was right at the blast site, and they gave me the first pair," he says. "I still have them around here someplace." The mayor never tried them on, though. "I don't have the kind of shirt where you use cuff links," he says. "All my shirts have buttons."
Like Lesley Estes's cuff links, the Rulison blast was an awkward fit for Colorado. It sparked an early environmental battle that Dick Lamm lost, but one that he says helped launch the state's environmental movement, along with his own candidacy for governor. Scientists such as Teller still believe the idea was a good one that was hamstrung by people with an irrational fear of nuclear weapons. Local residents generally had the same reaction that Estes did: They hoped to make a buck off the bomb but remained instinctually wary of a proposal that, if successful, could have led to a string of as many as 1,500 nuclear explosions across Colorado.
Today, memories of the blast have resurfaced as part of a new political battle brewing on the Western Slope. Energy companies have returned to the area around the Rulison site and once again are poking holes in the earth in search of natural gas. Some residents fear the new round of exploration is increasing the odds that radioactivity trapped for years in the subterranean rock may be brought to the surface.
Just as it did with the Rulison project three decades ago, the government says the latest effort is perfectly safe. But many residents--along with a Republican lawmaker who represents them at the state legislature--question those claims. And nearly thirty years after the Rulison bomb went off, its aftershocks are still being felt.
For Edward Teller, the road to the Western Slope began in Germany, where the Budapest-born researcher was studying at the University of Leipzig alongside Werner Heisenberg, then known as the world's leading molecular scientist. When Hitler came to power, other physicists told Teller that as a Jew, he would have no future in Germany. He took their advice and moved to America.
Teller's old teacher, Heisenberg, had developed the first theories of how atoms work. And even as American scientists came closer to designing an atom bomb, Teller knew the Germans could be even closer. The odds were good that a bomb of previously unimagined strength could soon be in Hitler's hands.
Teller, though, resisted joining the war effort until the Nazis invaded his native Hungary. After that, he needed no more convincing: He joined the group of physicists working on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico. His work there earned him a reputation as the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb," a title he still bears proudly.
After the war, Teller remained an advocate for the use of nuclear bombs, and his steadfast devotion created a rift among his fellow scientists. By the early 1960s, he proposed Project Plowshare, a reference to the biblical injunction to "beat their swords into plowshares."
Now ninety and living near San Francisco, Teller says he still believes the Plowshare projects he proposed were a good idea. They included plans to use above-ground explosions in Alaska to make a new harbor for oil supertankers and blowing up a large portion of Nicaragua to carve out a new canal.
Rulison was far less flashy than that but, says Teller, held great economic promise. By exploding a nuclear bomb underground, he and others hoped that natural gas trapped in small pockets in the bedrock would be set free and would rise gracefully to the surface, where it could be piped off at a great profit.
Teller watched the explosion at Rulison, but he has seen dozens of such blasts and says that that day in 1969 doesn't stick out. "My memory of the last couple of decades is not that good compared to my memory of the early part of my life," he says.
But Teller remembers that Rulison was important. If it had worked, it would have been the first of a series of projected nuclear explosions in Colorado to "stimulate" gas production. And he's still chagrined that that never happened. "It is a great pity," Teller says, "that these peaceful uses of nuclear power have never been able to become fully mature."
When government officials decided to try the Rulison experiment, they picked a "surface ground zero" site on a mesa south of the Colorado River, not far from Battlement Creek. Although there are millions of acres of federal land in the area, Atomic Energy Commission officials picked a spot that was part of 292 acres owned by Claude Hayward, a 73-year-old potato farmer trying to scratch out a living on ground that scarcely supports the native sage. "This land has damn little anything except for clean, clear water," says Claude's son Lee, now 79.
Still, when emissaries from the AEC came to the elder Hayward and told him they wanted access to his land and would pay him $100 a month for the rest of his life, he initially said no. "I was afraid it would foul up the water, the one good thing we got, so I told him not to sign it," remembers Lee. "But my father was a gullible man."
Claude's grandson, Craig Hayward, was eighteen at the time. Now an accountant living in Boulder, he still has the contract his grandfather signed. People living around Rulison at the time "knew the square root of zip about radioactivity," Craig says. But "these fellas from the AEC came back around with a whiskey bottle and got him good and juiced up and said they would pay him $200 a month for the rest of his life. Well, even though my father had told him not to sign it, he did."
John Green, Kate Donithorne and Chester McQueary knew a little bit about radioactivity--enough, at least, to make them suspicious of plans to ignite a nuclear bomb in their backyard. So they became protesters, though not exactly the "long-haired hippie radicals" described at the time by the local papers.
The 32-year-old Donithorne was a conservatively coiffed mother of two small children. Green was 30, with three kids and a crewcut. Of the three, only the 35-year-old McQueary, a devoted member of the American Friends Service Committee, came close to fitting the newspapers' description.
There were few environmentalists in those days, but McQueary's interest in monitoring the government's nuclear program went back years. He had grown up in the town of Granby, and in his senior year of high school, in 1953, had taken a class trip to Nevada and Utah. One day when the class was on its way to St. George, Utah, McQueary says he witnessed a memorable incident: "These very polite men in white suits came on the bus and told us that if we wanted to drive to St. George, we could, but that we had to keep the windows up the entire time, and if we didn't want to agree to this, that we couldn't go. Then they insisted that it was perfectly safe and there was no danger to any humans."
It wasn't until years later that McQueary learned he and his classmates had stumbled across one of the most troubled nuclear experiments ever. It had the code name of "Harry" and later became known as "Dirty Harry" because of an unexpected wind shift that rained radioactive fallout on the town of St. George. So when McQueary learned of plans for another nuclear experiment sixteen years later, he and his fellow protesters decided to take action.
"Because of their 'deep concern' for human beings, they announced that they would not do any nuclear explosions if there were any people within five miles of the blast site," recalls McQueary. "We decided to hold them to their deal."
McQueary, Green, Donithorne, fellow protester Margaret Puhls and about a dozen other people figured they would sneak into the area near ground zero and set off smoke grenades so that officials would know there were people inside the five-mile buffer zone.
The group had to make a couple of trips to the site, as the blast was delayed several days because of weather. Officials said they wanted to wait for a day when the wind wouldn't carry any radioactive fallout over populated areas. The AEC also promised not to blast on a weekend, when tourists might be delayed by necessary road closures.
"There was a restaurant in Rifle that put 'Thou shall not blast on Sunday' on their sign," says Donithorne. "We got a kick out of that."
After a week of delays, the blast was set to go forward on Monday, September 10. The protesters broke into pairs and fanned out across the site. "We decided to separate so they couldn't pick us all up in one fell swoop," McQueary says. Each pair carried a portable radio and listened to the countdown, which was being broadcast by a Grand Junction radio station.
A few minutes before the blast, the protesters set off their smoke bombs. Moments later, two Air Force helicopters appeared, one for McQueary and Puhls and another for Green and Donithorne, who were at least two miles away.
The chopper that came for McQueary and Puhls wasn't able to land on the steep hillside, but an armed man opened the door and started yelling something to them. "Of course we couldn't hear a word he was saying," McQueary says. He figured out that the federal agent was motioning for him to move to a place where the chopper could land, but McQueary would have none of it. "After all of this, I was not about to just march into their arms," he says. "We had come too far for it to end like that. We were scared, but we weren't going to willingly turn ourselves over."
Green and Donithorne weren't as lucky. A helicopter landed within a few dozen feet of them, and they were forced aboard at gunpoint. Donithorne remembers being exhilarated. "I understand how much fun war games can be," she says. "I can see what makes war so appealing. Aside from getting killed here and there, it's very exciting."
The helicopter carrying Green and Donithorne lifted off, then hovered over the area until the blast.
McQueary and Puhls remained on the ground. "We figured out later that we were the closest to ground zero," he says. The two had consulted several scientists on how to prepare for the blast. As the countdown approached zero, they took the experts' advice: Having cleared all the large rocks away from a patch of ground, they lay on their bellies and waited for the shock wave to hit them.
McQueary says his memories of the seconds before the blast are crystal clear: "I remember looking into [Puhls's] eyes and there was a real sense of fear there, and I'm sure she saw the same."
Tom Lamm was in Washington, D.C., when the bomb exploded, but he, too, was jolted by the blast. Along with his brother Dick, Lamm was fighting the Rulison project in the courts as an attorney for environmental groups. He'd been given the assignment of carrying the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tom Lamm, who today practices law in the Denver area, says it was a great thrill going to Washington. But he admits the only reason he got to appear before the nation's highest court was that he'd lost everywhere else. "We got our butts kicked every step of the way," he recalls.
By the time the Supreme Court agreed to listen to Lamm, the Rulison bomb was already in the ground, and the fissionable matter inside was decaying. A delay of two weeks more would have made it unusable. And because it had been buried under thousands of feet of gravel and concrete, it could never be retrieved.
The court was out of session, and the justice who normally would have presided at the emergency hearing, former University of Colorado football star Byron "Whizzer" White, was on a fishing trip. The case was assigned to Justice Thurgood Marshall. "I was terrified, of course, because I didn't know my ass from third base," Lamm says. If the notion of appearing before the high court wasn't bad enough, there was the press to worry about. A group of reporters were lying in wait when he arrived for his last-minute injunction hearing on September 10.
"There must have been a hundred people out front with cameras and mikes and everything," Lamm recalls. "So I asked the cab driver what was going on, and he said that some lawyer is flying out from Colorado to try to stop the nuclear explosion. Well, I had to tell the cab driver, 'I'm that guy,' and I think even the cab driver knew that I was in serious trouble. He was a grizzled old guy, and he knew I was wet behind the ears. I asked him if knew some back entrance to get into the building, and luckily, he did."
Inside, the situation wasn't much better. "I got kicked all over the court, but everyone was real nice because they all knew that I was just a dumb kid from Colorado," Lamm says. He lost the hearing, an outcome he fully expected.
"I wasn't in any hurry to talk to [the press], so I took my time, and I stopped by as I was leaving and thanked all of the clerks for being so nice," he remembers. "The press people didn't mean to intimidate me, but they did. I got outside and they were all waiting, and the first thing they said was that the bomb just went off and did I have any reaction? All I said is, 'It didn't take them long, did it?'"
Practically the entire populations of Rifle and Grand Valley (later renamed Parachute) turned out for the blast. They'd been told that while there was no real danger, they should probably leave their homes when the time came. Most went to their respective Main Streets and stood around waiting for the detonation.
Mary Satterfield took her two toddlers down to First Street in Grand Valley. She wanted to share the moment with relatives and found much of the rest of the town gathered along the main drag. "Everybody was excited about it," Satterfield says. "It was the big event."
The front lawn of Grand Valley's only school served as another gathering place. "Whenever we had a gathering of any size, we would go down to the school," remembers Bobbi Wambolt, who grew up in the town. She says the wait for the atomic blast was reminiscent of cookouts, carnivals and fairs held on the school lawn.
"Everybody took a picnic and made a fun afternoon out of it," says Wambolt. "At the time, people weren't nervous because they didn't know anything about it, really." She remembers being irritated by the protesters who'd come in from out of town but says that most of her fellow citizens paid them little mind: "Most of the people in town were farmers and ranchers, and they don't tend to get too upset about anything."
Wambolt also remembers an out-of-town reporter standing on the school lawn, trying to find out if a child was crying because he was afraid of the impending blast. "That child wasn't crying out of fear," Wambolt says. "That child was crying because his mother had just hammered him."
The Atomic Energy Commission set up a large tent to host the muckety-mucks from Austral and CER Geonuclear of Las Vegas, the company set up to conduct the actual field operations. Also sampling the doughnuts were a collection of state and local officials, along with some of the residents who lived inside the buffer zone.
Colorado governor John Love was scheduled to be at the tent the day of the blast. The plan was that Love, state natural resources director Tom Ten Eyck and newly appointed state geologist John Rold would fly to the area in a state plane scheduled to leave Stapleton Airport before sunrise.
When Rold, who'd started work only a few months earlier, got to the plane that morning, he found no Love and no Ten Eyck, just a note. "The note said that I was the one that would be going on behalf of the state and that I would have to give a speech," he recalls. Because of the weather delays, the blast was now set for the same day that Love was hosting a national governors' conference in Colorado Springs.
The bomb was going off, though, governor or no governor. "I considered this a pretty momentous occasion, so I wrote a speech in the plane on the way over that to my mind reflected that," Rold says. His speech focused on the risks that Colorado pioneers had faced through history. In his mind, the Rulison project would have made Colorado's early settlers proud.
Environmentalists had hoped that Love would call a halt to the blast, much like commuting a death sentence at the last minute. Rold did speak to Love on the phone before the blast; he recalls the conversation clearly. "He just asked me one question: 'John, is it going to be safe?'" Rold says. "I had studied it quite hard for a few months, and in my opinion it was, and I said so. I didn't go on and on, because I figured what he needed was just the bottom line."
The governor gave his okay, and Rold gave his speech--or at least most of it.
"I was about three-quarters of the way through the speech when these long-hair extremists came in and sat right up on the platform," Rold says. Many were carrying signs that read "No Contamination Without Representation." "I suppose they were trying to intimidate me, and I suppose they did," says Rold. "My main reaction was that I wanted to give them a knuckle sandwich."
Rold restrained himself, though, and arranged a compromise with the protesters: If he could finish his speech, he'd turn the microphone over to one of them.
That deal sounded good to protester Bruce Polich, a World War II veteran who owned a restaurant in Aspen at the time. He says he thought the idea of the blast was crazy, in part because he believed it might threaten a dam upstream from his hometown. "As the crow flies, Rulison wasn't far from Aspen, which was still a town that was worth saving in those days," he says.
So Polich and a group of other locals invaded the tent just as Rold was nearing the end of his speech. Rold and Polich both remember what happened when Rold finished and Polich stood up to speak: Most of the oil-company executives and local contractors got up and migrated toward the coffee and doughnuts.
"I talked for a little while, and I think some of them paid attention," Polich remembers. "I remember saying that I thought [radioactive] gas was nothing to fool around with, and certainly not something I'd want piped into my home."
The only place where Polich's memory disagrees with Rold's is in the state geologist's description of the protesters. "That was no crazy hippie movement," Polich says. "There were no psychedelic buses--we were responsible people."
As the time for detonation drew near, the protesters and politicians all turned into the same thing: spectators.
Unlike the "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" devices that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Rulison bomb never had a nickname. The queerly shaped instrument of destruction measured fifteen feet long but was only nine inches in diameter, manufactured in the approximate shape of a pencil so it could be inserted into the long, skinny blasting hole. Filled with uranium-235, it weighed 1,200 pounds and was encased in a refrigerated, pressurized canister.
Much of the information about the blast is still classified, and the federal Department of Energy, successor to the Atomic Energy Commission, won't say exactly who gave the command to detonate the bomb.
Less reluctant to discuss the project is Hal Aronson, who was president of CER Geonuclear (which no longer exists). "We put in almost all of the money," says Aronson. "But someone from Los Alamos had the final say-so.
"There wasn't really a button to push, anyway," he adds. "It was more like an electronic timing device."
Just before the blast, Lesley Estes says he remembers overhearing a government agent being told that a couple of protesters--Green and Donithorne--had been picked up by a helicopter. "After that, he said, 'I don't see any more of them; start the countdown,'" Estes recalls.
Once it began, the countdown was carried live over KREX radio. Gene Rozelle was the entire news department, covering everything from high-school wrestling to cattle futures. Now retired, he remembers the Rulison countdown as a "dramatic event."
When the electronic timer reached zero, a pulse was sent to the explosives that surrounded the rods of uranium. Forced together, the U-235 molecules turned supercritical and exploded.
The bomb did a little better than the expected 40 kilotons. Scientists later determined that the blast yield was 44 kilotons, or the equivalent of 44,000 tons of TNT. By comparison, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, had a yield of 15 kilotons.
The bomb had been placed in a layer of solid rock. Once detonated, it vaporized the rock all around it, carving out an empty cavity 350 feet high and 76 feet across. It fractured rock for hundreds more feet in all directions, freeing natural gas as expected. (As predicted by opponents, the gas was also rendered radioactive, and millions of cubic feet had to be burned off at the site because it was too dangerous to sell.)
The closest structure to ground zero was a 100-year-old log cabin owned by the Haywards. "It survived, all right, but the whole thing moved about six inches," Craig Hayward says.
The shock wave spread in all directions, including through the air, where the helicopter that had picked up Green and Donithorne was hovering over ground zero.
"Even though we were about 2,500 feet in the air, we could feel that shock wave hit us," Green says. "It bounced us up and down pretty good." Donithorne remembers thinking that she was handling the situation well, but Green told her later that it had taken a couple of days to get the feeling back in his hand because she'd been squeezing it so hard.
The first people on the ground to feel the shock wave were McQueary and Puhls, who were about two miles from ground zero. McQueary was ready for it, because he'd been listening to the countdown on the radio.
The blast hit him at almost the exact moment he heard zero on the radio. "There's no way to describe the strength of the shock wave," says McQueary, who remembers being bounced six or eight inches into the air. "The best analogy I can give is laying down next to some train tracks and having a huge freight train go right past you at unbelievable speed. There was just such a sense of power and noise right near you."
C.W. Byerrum, now a social studies teacher at Parachute High School, saw the shock wave coming from his spot near the official viewing area, where he was hanging out with some friends. Although he was nineteen years old at the time and trying to act cool, he says he remembers his astonishment at seeing the ground move in ways he'd never seen before.
"You could see this wave coming along the ground toward you," Byerrum recalls. "We didn't know it was going to be that severe."
Mayor Estes was braced for the blast, but its strength surprised him, too: "It was like you were getting hit on the bottom of your feet with a sledgehammer."
The people in Grand Valley stayed calm, says Bobbi Wambolt, whose husband worked as a contractor at the blast site. Nearly every brick chimney in town fell down at once, but Wambolt says that wasn't the scariest part. The most frightening thing was the rumbling from the enormous cliffs that hover over town, an ominous noise that continued for 30 or 45 seconds. It was the sound of hundreds of rocks falling.
The tumbling rocks sent up huge plumes of dust, and John Rold at first feared that the blast may have "vented" clouds of radioactive gas to the surface. "But soon we could see that it was just dust," he says.
Marilyn Latham remembers officials telling her family members that they probably wouldn't be able to feel the blast in the town of Rifle, which was farther from ground zero than Grand Valley. "They told my mother that if she wanted to watch it, she should put a pan of water out in the front yard and watch it for ripples when they blew up the bomb," Latham recalls. "Well, she sat there watching that pan, and the shock wave came and splashed water all over her and then put a huge crack in the foundation of the house."
At first, the impact of the Rulison blast seemed to have subsided along with the shock wave. Green and Donithorne were taken to the Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs on a charge that they had set off fireworks (the smoke grenades) in a national forest. But after officials figured out that the two had been plucked off private land, they figured the only thing they could charge them with was trespassing. To press that case, authorities contacted the property owner. "He didn't want to press charges, because his chicken house fell down and he was mad about that," says Donithorne.
The local papers on the Western Slope never did print their names, referring to them only as the "long-haired protesters."
Atomic Energy Commission officials compensated those who had lost chimneys or suffered other damage to their homes. Even people who are still angry at the government agree that those payments were made quickly and without much fuss. "They handled that about three-quarters right," Lee Hayward says, though he's still peeved that the government failed to clean up a holding pond used as a dumping ground by drilling crews.
Hayward also says his father never got the $200 a month promised him. Under the contract Claude Hayward had signed, he got paid only if the well made money for the energy companies. "We never got a dime out of it," Hayward says.
In the long run, neither did Austral or CER Geonuclear, which saw most of their potential profits disappear when they had to burn off the gas that was too radioactive to sell. Some gas was eventually produced for commercial use, but by then Claude Hayward wasn't around to share in the proceeds. He had died of cancer two years after the blast.
It was only after a few years had passed that the lasting effects of the Rulison blast began to be recognized. The explosion helped reshape Colorado's political landscape, says the man who rode the shock wave into the governor's office in 1974.
Dick Lamm says the fact that Rulison never fulfilled the doomsday prophecies of critics--among other things, it was feared that the bomb might irradiate the Colorado River--doesn't change his mind about the project's foolishness. He knew the odds of a disaster were small, but he says that's beside the point. "The point I was making is that what's important is not the odds, but the stakes," Lamm says. "Even small odds are unacceptable if the stakes are too high, and this was a case of blowing up a nuclear bomb in a way that could contaminate the entire Colorado River basin with tritium. It was insanity."
Lamm says he appreciates the genius of people like Teller and the other scientists. "He's obviously got a huge IQ, but he is monomaniacally focused on nuclear energy," says Lamm. "And this wasn't even nuclear energy, this was nuclear bombs."
The group of people who came together to oppose Rulison stuck together afterward. "That battle led the way to the Olympic battle," Lamm says, referring to the successful effort he spearheaded to prevent Colorado from bidding on the 1976 Winter Olympics.
However, the group wasn't able to prevent yet another Project Plowshare blast in Colorado. That one, also funded by Austral and CER and known as Rio Blanco, was even larger than Rulison. On May 17, 1973, three 30-kiloton bombs were exploded in one long hole in a remote section of Rio Blanco County in northwestern Colorado. Again the idea was to release natural gas trapped in subterranean rock; again the effort failed to make money for its investors. It came and went without much fanfare, sparking fewer protests than Rulison and getting lost amid coverage of Watergate and other stories of the day.
Lamm went on to support a citizens' initiative, passed by a wide margin in 1974, that amended the Colorado Constitution by adding a unique clause. If any group wants to blow up a nuclear bomb in Colorado, the measure now must first pass a statewide vote of the people. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Colorado is the only state in the nation with such a provision.
CER Geonuclear's Hal Aronson, who is now retired and living in Palm Springs, California, says the constitutional amendment was a stake through the heart of Project Plowshare. "There was a bunch of crackpots who didn't really understand it, so they were against it," Aronson says. He characterizes the Rulison protesters as "kids driving their BMWs and their Saabs, spending all of their fathers' money, but they hadn't taken a bath for several weeks. They were just a cause looking for a place to happen."
However, the protesters' point of view took hold even in the U.S. Congress, which killed all federal funding for Project Plowshare in 1975.
Rulison remained a forgotten footnote in Colorado history for more than a quarter-century. It came bubbling back to the surface this past September 19, when a column of natural gas blew out a private water well at Wendell Goad's home near Rifle. A plume of water and natural gas shot twenty feet into the air for most of the day before crews could control it.
The blowout at the Goad place quickly got the attention of people in Rifle and the retirement community of Battlement Mesa. That's because the gas had come to the surface about 4,000 feet away from the well where it was being mined. Nearly everyone in the area lives within a mile of a natural gas well--or will, now that the state has given energy companies the green light to drill hundreds of new wellheads. For residents who'd already been protesting the new state guidelines, the Goad geyser was the last straw. "They say it won't happen again, but they also said that it wouldn't happen in the first place," says K.C. Binger, who moved to the area three years ago with her husband and two small children.
Over the past four years, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC) has granted requests by energy companies to increase the legal density of wells in the Rulison and Grand Valley gas fields, from one every 640 acres to one every 20 acres. With the increased drilling have come increased concerns about gas contamination of water wells--and about radioactivity, since crews are poking holes in the same area as the nuclear blast.
In response to those fears, the Department of Energy has run several tests of wells near ground zero. Those tests have found no evidence of radioactivity. However, many residents remain dubious of the DOE's claims; one of them is Russ George, the Republican state representative from Rifle. George was a student at Harvard Law School at the time of the Rulison blast. He says he distinctly remembers going down to the student union to watch it on television. "The people who did the explosion in the first place are now the same people telling us that it's safe," says George. "I have no confidence in them."
George has been negotiating with landowners and the OGCC to force gas companies to better address the concerns of "surface owners" like Binger, who are legally obligated to let energy companies onto their land to pursue mineral-rights claims. As a result of those negotiations, a series of public hearings were held last week in Greeley, Rifle and Durango.
OGCC director Rich Griebling says claims that his agency hasn't taken public complaints seriously are untrue; he points to last week's hearings as evidence that the commission is interested in hearing both sides of the issue. Gas companies working in the area are doing a good job, Griebling insists: "They are going beyond the requirements in reclaiming the environment and doing other things for the good of the surface owners."
Frank Keller, executive vice president of Barrett Resources Corporation, the company doing most of the drilling in the area, says his company has tried "awfully hard" to meet the needs of surface owners. He says most people in the area support the economic development that comes with drilling, but "there are a vocal few who seem to raise a lot of issues. You just can't please everybody."
A prominent burr in the industry's saddle is Meeker attorney Frank Cooley, one of the longest-serving mineral-rights lawyers in Colorado. Meeker studied geology before opening his legal practice in the early 1950s. In 1969 he battled the AEC over the Rulison blast. Now he's working against what he says is an industry-controlled OGCC.
"At least with the Rulison project, we had our say," Cooley says, noting that the battle went to the Supreme Court. "That case couldn't approach the level of contempt and arrogance shown on the issue of well-spacing by the OGCC."
Charles Worley remembers taking time away from his Cedaredge plumbing business in 1969 to protest the Rulison explosion. "We would go down to the Methodist church to use the mimeograph to make copies of our fliers," he says. Those limp leaflets, printed with fading purple ink, contained scientific information about potential negative consequences of the bomb not covered in the local press. There was even some poetry. "We waged quite a propaganda campaign to try to get people to stop and think," Worley says.
In 1980, Worley helped found the Western Colorado Congress, a group that now uses electronic mail, faxes and other high-tech means to fight the expansion of gas drilling. "They're way past that old mimeograph machine," says Worley. Now eighty, Worley says he sees similarities between his battle against the bomb and the current fight against drilling rigs. "It's the same fight," says Worley. "There are just different weapons."
Today Worley's memories of the Rulison blast remain crystal clear. "It shook us all up pretty good," he says. "It shook the cars around us. It sent these huge rocks cascading down the face of the cliffs." Like many other observers, he mentions the wave that came toward him on the ground.
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Craig Hayward remembers seeing that wave, too. "The ripple just moved along the ground like a wave in the water," he says. "It shook the bejeezus out of the whole countryside."
Hayward watched the blast from a distance with his father, Lee, and grandfather Claude, the man beneath whose potato patch the bomb blew up. Claude may already have been regretting letting the government explode an A-bomb on his property for a bottle of whiskey and the promise of a few hundred dollars. But, says Lee Hayward, the old man was still impressed with what he saw.
"I remember my dad saying, 'Goddamn, that was a good one,'" Lee says. "And his face was just white as a sheet."
Visit www.westword.com to read related Westword stories.


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Search results for play with
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Plato, Symposium, Plato, The Republic, Plato, _Phaedrus_, Platte River Networks ', Plautus, Plinio Nastari, Pliny, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Pliny the Younger

subset: commoncrawl


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I've been largely hiding my second-life as a TwiCrack Addict from my real-world friends, because I'm semi-embarrassed to be *this* obsessed with a fictional teenage undead creature.
However, this morning, I get an email entitled, "Am I in Forks, WA?" from one of my BFFs, who *finally* succumbed and read Twilight and has now discovered how dazzling Edward Cullen really is. Moreover, she supplied me with TwiCrack and sent me a link to this interesting NY Times article on the Vampire trend, excerpted here:
Ah, the NY Times tries to validate and dissect our irrational love of Edward Cullen by putting it in the context of a vampire obsession. Heh.
"The vampire is the new James Dean," said Julie Plec, the writer and executive producer of "The Vampire Diaries," a forthcoming series on the CW network based on the popular L. J. Smith novels about high school femmes and hommes fatales. "There is something so still and sexy about these young erotic predators," she said.
This generation of undead prowls high school hallways and dimly lighted dance clubs as menacing — and as seductive — as they have ever been. The June premiere of the second season of "True Blood," in which Sookie, played by Anna Paquin, is reunited with her imperious fanged suitor, drew 3.4 million viewers, making it HBO's most-watched program since the "Sopranos" finale in 2007.
Charlaine Harris has just published "Dead and Gone," the ninth novel in her Sookie Stackhouse series, variations on Southern Gothic fiction on which "True Blood" is based. The publishing world has been intrigued by "The Strain," a first installment in a planned trilogy written by the film director Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, about bloodthirsty predators run amok in Manhattan.
The style world, too, has come under the vampire's spell, in the shape of the gorgeous leather- and lace-clad night crawlers who have crept into the pages of fashion glossies.
Vampires, of course, are part of a hoary tradition that harks back to Nosferatu and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" at least. Anne Rice updated the genre, introducing the ghoulishly aristocratic vampire Lestat. But the undead are returning with a vengeance, in part because they "personify real-world anxieties," said Michael Dylan Foster, an assistant professor in the department of folklore at Indiana University in Bloomington.
"Especially during these post-9/11 times of increased vigilance, representations like the 'Twilight' series reflect a kind of conspiracy-theory mentality, a fear that there is something secret and dangerous going on in our own community, right under our noses."
Given all that baggage, what keeps vampires so alluring?One might point to their combination of deathless good looks and decadent sexuality. Their faces, as described in "Twilight," "were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine."
Read the rest of this interesting article here.


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Want To Design The' Age Of Reason' Secret 7" Artwork?
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If you would like any more information about Secret 7 or would like to
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Found and prepared this annelid earlier this year. I know its ID but does anyone know of any references other than the palate of serpulids in the guide "Fossils of the Chalk" by the Palaeontological Association?
Many thanks,
Hi Thomas
I have found a good reference to annelids in a book called Invertebrate Fossils by Moore, Lalicker and Fischer, published by Mc Graw-Hill Book Company. inc, in 1952
Chapter 11 is called Annelids and other Worms.
I like collecting old Palaeontological books but cannot find many references to annelids especially from the uk.
Just for interest I picked up a book called A Fossil Guide To The east Yorkshire Coast, this came out in 2011 and contains a lot of information about Speeton, Flamborough, RHB and the Holderness.
Good evening all,
Thanks for the publication references. The specimen is definitely a serpulid, it has no structure patterns of the "cat's paw" and ammonite shells do not preserve well in the chalk, only preserved as in internal mould.
Not sure about your specimen Tabfish, could be a worm or maybe a gastropod? I am unable to comment.
Would like to see your specimen Dan, sounds interesting. However - the chalk is a Cretaceous deposit so I would not have thought your specimen came from the chalk.
Have a nice Christmas,
Hi UK Fossil Guy
Turned this over in my shed when i was making some room and remembered finding it at Mappleton North on the Holderness.
I don't realy know what it is but i hope you can help me as I think it could be a 'worm'
The fossil is about 5cm across.
Tabfish, I am almost surtain yours is a worm, and I now think UK fossil guys is. I have spotted several differences between ammonites. I have a very simular piece to what the UK fossil guy has, but it only has a tiny piece of coral matrix, so you can see the whole piece.
I think it could be a chalk fossil. I'm not sure if it is even a fossil, but it comes from mallorca and if it is a fossil it is from the Neogene period (probably miocene to be more pesific.)
Could you help me to make an ID? I will post an image tomorrow.
Hi again tabfish,
I have being looking on the internet, and I am possotive your fossil is a worm.
How to find a simular piece:
Go on the following: www.fossiliferous.co.uk
Go on other fossils.
There is very simular fossils on there, which could help you to make a more accurate ID.
Not sure what happened there, my post ended up half way up the page... oh well.
Hi UK fossil guy,
Here are the fossils/rocks which I found which look a bit like worm burrowings. I found a brachiopod which definietly has worm burrowings, which I have showed in one of my previous posts, but I'm not sure what these are. Could they be something like worm burrowings, bone or coral or are they just rocks which happen to be sercular?


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text: Matt Lawrence wrote: > On Fri, 8 Aug 2008, Jon Forrest wrote: > >> What's weird about this is that the root file system starts >> on cylinder 1, as confirmed by the fdisk command. This is >> using a brand new SuperMicro X7SBE motherboard with the >> newest BIOS. > > I suggest you create a /boot partition of about 200MB. On Monday I'm going to try various combinations of file systems and partition sizes. The first one I'm going to try will be the default CentOS arrangement. This is a really strange problem to me. I'm guessing the problem is in the 3ware BIOS. After all, tons of people use 80GB drives (and larger) with no problems. The fact that an 80GB device carved by the 3ware BIOS/firmware doesn't work makes me suspect the 3ware device. I'm also going to call 3ware. Jon _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf


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Not for CEOs: Rethink in Real Time
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Learn what to re-learn in the latest Not For CEOs Roundtable from Credit Union Times.
Streamed live on Friday, Oct. 18, from 2:40-3:40 p.m. EDT, the session delves into what the industry needs to rethink to get to relevant solutions to today's (and tomorrow's) challenges.
And it takes place onstage at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts during the annual CU Water Cooler Symposium.
Join Credit Union Times Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Sarah Snell Cooke and her guests: James Robert Lay, CEO PTP New Media; Andy Janning, CEO, NO NET Solutions; Jimmy Marks, creative media director, DigitalMailer; Ron Shevlin, senior analyst, Aite Group; and Amy Ethridge, electronic marketing coordinator, Robins Federal Credit Union.
The panel will cover topics ranging from human relations and marketing to getting real about big data. with a singular focus on what needs rethinking and why.
Tweet questions during the event to #NotforCEOs. The event will be live streamed at www.cutimes.com/video and the hashtag for the symposium itself is #CUWCS.
The discussion will be archived at CUTimes.com/NotforCEOs, Other topics in the series included the importance of performance reviews, succession planning, credit union philosophy, personal branding and technology.


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Dreams Happen: 100-year-old dances
BRATTLEBORO -- Bernice Dunbar, a 100-year-old Thompson House resident, recently had the chance to dance with one of her friends that she met at the Guilford Community Church several years ago.
He is a resident of Brattleboro, and his name is Fred Breunig.
"I told him I wouldn't push him around," said Dunbar. "Or I would try not to."
On May 18, a band came to Thompson House to play music for her to dance with Breunig. It is part of the Thompson House's "Dreams Happen" program, which enables some of its residents to fulfill fantasies regardless of the limitations their age might pose.
The dance with Breunig made Dunbar happy. She smiled as she recounted the memory. Her dream was to dance with a partner and that partner ended up being someone who has visited her weekly for the past 10 years.
Dunbar said she's always loved music. As a lifelong resident of Dummerston, she used to go to dance events held in town.
"I've always enjoyed dancing, since I was a little girl," said Dunbar. "We always had dances at the Town Hall."
Both her mother and father participated at those events, where she learned how to fox trot and waltz by watching them as well as other members of the community.
"She's a natural waltzer," said Breunig. "She has been dancing for close to 95 years." Dunbar couldn't remember how long she danced with Breunig, though. The band played for about an hour and she would dance, rest, then get back up again to dance more. One of the songs the band played was "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."
Breunig told the Reformer he thought they danced for about five or six times during the hour.
"It was great. She has a very good rhythm like she's always had or I assume she's always had. She talks about how she danced all her life," said Breunig. "I remember in 2005, when I remarried. She was at the wedding reception, and we had a waltz there."
Breunig said she's been like a surrogate mother. His own mother died at the age of 90 in 2009.
"My wife and I just developed this love for (Dunbar)," he said. "My own mother lived in Ohio and continued to live there after I settled in the East. It's been great, these past 10 years, that I could have someone to visit and sort of fill that role in my life. It's been exceptionally wonderful to continue to have my relationship with (Dunbar.)" Dunbar was born in the same year as his own father, which is another connection Breunig has made. He died "quite a while ago, but he would have been 100 this year as well."
When she was younger, Dunbar played the violin. She played during her school years and then sometimes as an adult.
"We'd have entertainment or something and they'd ask me to play. I was no expert, I can tell you that," she said.
Dunbar was a school teacher and taught all eight grades. She remembers teaching at school houses in Londonderry and Dummerston.
At the Thompson House, Dunbar attends every activity offered to residents. She has art work on display during art shows and does crossword puzzles regularly.
When asked if she feels 100 years old, Dunbar was quick to answer.
"No," she laughed. "I don't know what 100 feels like. I don't know. I'm not sure."
Dunbar has lived by some fundamental rules, which have helped her to grow older graciously and look forward to each and every day.
"No drinking, no smoking and no bad jokes," she said.
Chris Mays can be reached at 802-254-2311, ext. 273, or email@example.com. Follow Chris on Twitter @CMaysReformer.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.


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Archdiocese of Chicago
This is the third of four blogs that will be posted throughout this year, focused on the main issues the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council provided recommendations for, at the request of Cardinal George.
Year two of the Strategic Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Chicago is the Year of Sunday Mass. As part of the preparation for this year, the Cardinal submitted a series of questions (issues) to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council (APC) for its reflection and input. Members of the APC draw on local Parish Pastoral Council and Deanery discussion, as well as their own perspective, for responses to these questions.
These responses are presented at an APC meeting and Cardinal George then offers his reaction to these ideas and recommendations. The third issue – "What specific things can parishes do to make the Sunday Mass a living encounter with the Risen Christ?" – was discussed at the APC meeting on March 24, 2012, in which the Cardinal and approximately 40 APC delegates participated.
At the meeting, it was the general consensus that this is the most difficult of the issues posed by the Cardinal as it asks for ideas on parish solutions/programs to help facilitate an experience that should affect the entire community and yet is intensely personal.
Response to The Issue
The recommendations offered to Cardinal George fell into six categories. In priority order, those were:
Cardinal George's Response
The Cardinal started out his response with the observation that the important part of our encounter is that it is the crucified and risen Lord that we meet at Mass. The rite is not there just for ritual. We use the rite of the Mass as a vehicle to enter into the mystery of Christ. Some do not understand what Eucharist is and we need to reinforce their understanding.. One way could be the teaching Mass. He has asked the Auxiliary Bishops for input on how a teaching Mass could be accomplished without changing the fundamental rhythm and flow of the Mass. This could help the personal encounter. As for study groups, testimonials and generating excitement at Mass, our encounter starts with Christ risen from the tomb and not with each other. Our mission is to give witness to the world by being leaven. Then the question is, "What do we bring to the world from this encounter?" We are to transform the world, and our mission is to witness and live the Gospel. We receive this command as part of the Eucharist and it is here that we need the encounter.
Enhancing the sensory elements is fine; sometimes that takes hold and sometimes not. Everything we do at Mass should lead up to our unique encounter with Christ in the Eucharist. With respect to testimonials, we need to answer the question of how to use homily time for witness talks without interrupting the rhythm and flow of the Mass. As for our suggestion that homilies teach and inspire, the Cardinal noted that when the homily lacks a personal focus, the people sense that. Over time we have moved from a very catechetical to a more inspirational style where people look for the personal message. Both are needed. On the topic of silence, the Cardinal stated that there is a definite need for silence. This is the time when we listen to Christ. If there is no silence, we don't give Christ a chance to speak to us. Our encounter with Christ is the ultimate goal; we are not there yet. We go to Mass not to get a personal experience but to be changed by Christ.
In response to other suggestions from the APC, the Cardinal is glad that we suggested a campaign to have a Bible in every home. This will be given serious thought for implementation. And, we need to accommodate all different cultures in our desire to enable people to experience an encounter with the Risen Christ. The differences in the use of silence, environment and music will come into play here.
Tuesday, August 07, 2012 1:36 AM
Posting a little late on this but absolutely love all the recommendations offered up in this piece. Going to offer some prayers right now before I go to sleep that our Holy Mass be received in an ever more energetic and personal way by all who attend whether regulars, visitors, or guests. That time during Mass might be the only chance on any given Sunday to bring lost sheep home and back into the Faith. Amen and thanks for this post.
— timothy c.
Monday, July 11, 2016
World Youth Day in Chicago
By Juan Pablo Padilla
Tuesday, July 05, 2016
Seeking and Living Justice as Neighbors
By Christopher Cox
Monday, June 20, 2016
Theology of the Body Retreat
By Dawn Fitzpatrick
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Researchers found evidences. Women did metal work in the Bronze Age.
An Austrian museum says skeletal remains found in an ancient grave are that of a woman metal worker – the first indication that women did such work thousands of years ago.
The Museum of Ancient History says the grave originates from the Bronze Age, which began more than 5000 years ago and ended 3200 years ago.
In a statement on Wednesday, it said that although the pelvic bones were missing, examination of the skull and lower jaw bone shows the skeleton is of a woman.
The museum says tools used to make metal ornaments were also found in the grave northwest of Vienna, leading to the conclusion that it was that of a female fine metal worker.
It says such work had been commonly presumed to be in the male domain.
Archaeologists said women were metal workers in the Bronze Age. Women used to make tools and weapons and jewelries. They were hard-working people. The remains of a woman metal worker from the Bronze Age have recently been found. She was buried with an anvil, hammers, flint chisels and some small pieces of dress jewelry. Archaeologists believe this discovery will challenge ideas about the division of labor in prehistoric times. Smithing is a strenuous, physical, manual occupation, so it has always been seen as a male , never a female occupation. But scientists and researchers today are saying the opposite of what people have known for centuries.
Many people would think weapons and tools that were found in female graves do not necessarily prove that females made those weapons and tools. They would say, 'Sometimes the objects could relate to the individual's profession but they could equally be there because they looked good or were put into the grave by relatives and didn't belong to the individual.' Even debates are good rather than conclude prehistoric stories by saying, women did nothing but gathering berries, nuts and seeds, breastfeeding babies, spinning and weaving.
How could you be so sure that women did not hunt woolly mammoths?


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Royal Wedding - Equal Love 7 - April 11
London - 25 April 2011: Equal Love campaign. Supporters of lesbian and gay marriage presented a giant wedding card to Prince William and Kate Middleton outside Buckingham Palace. The card read: "Congratulations William and Kate on your Wedding Day. We wish you a happy life together. You can get married, gay people can't. We are banned by law. We ask you to support marriage equality. Equal=Love."
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Taken on April 25, 2011


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Let's Get Crafty! DIY Place Card Holders
Let's Get Crafty! DIY Place Card Holders
Let's Get Crafty! DIY Place Card Holders
Even when it's just my family at Thanksgiving, I always find it fun to seat everyone by using place card holders. They are simply festive and make it feel more like a holiday. You could run to Williams-Sonoma and buy some, but with a little creativity, you could make them! I quickly made the ones pictured at right using real apples. To see how I made them,
You will need the following supplies:
- mini apples
- cards or cardstock cut down to size
- knife
- cutting board
- glittery pen
Here's what you do:
- Break or cut the cardstock into separate pieces.
- Practice your decorative handwriting. Decide which style suits your table setting: cursive, loopy, sleek, etc.
- Write out the name of each guest on the cards and set aside.
- Cut a small slice in the top of the apples. Make sure to do it on one side of the stem, being careful not to go all the way through. Wiggle the knife a little to make sure the slice is big enough to fit the cardstock.
- Slide the card inside the apple. Voila! Instant and adorable place card holders!
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Hello and welcome to the author page of Oppungo. This is where you have probably come to find out more about Oppungo and/or her stories.
However, if this is a malfunction, the exits are here, here, here and here.
If you are here to find out more about Oppungo, then look around here, fill out form 13b or email her at email@example.com
If you are here to find out more about her stories, she will (generally) post here with their status and which chapters are in queue.
To find out more about both the author and her stories, you will be referred to her livejournal (link above), which hosts random ramblings about life, drabbles and excerpts from upcoming chapters.
Should you wish to know more about anything, please feel free to ask in a review of any or all of her stories, comment in her livejournal, ask in her Duelling Club thread or email her.
Have a nice day.
Story Status'
No Other Way: A new R/Hr story - chapter 3 is with beta, and so should be up soon!
"It hurts, doesn't it?"
"Pretending you've fallen out of love."
At the lead up to Rons wedding, questions start to be asked - by Ron, by Hermione - and by Rons bride-to-be. Over the years, the paths that were once so closely intertwined have separated, leading off in different directions. Meeting at the crossroads, looking back at the journey that has led them there, will Ron and Hermione choose to take a turn that may take them off-course forever, or simply continue straight ahead?
Little fact - this was originally written for the Great Hall Weddings challenge (about 6 months ago!), but I only just finished it - and I'm really pleased with the ending, so I hope you keep reading until then!
Who Believes In Love: One shot. My Bill/Fluer fic that I wrote for Jenna for Secret SPEW. I actually really like this fic, and think it's one of my best - it's about Bill and Fleur's relationship, and how she can't figure out whether she believes in love or not.
I would really recommend reading this out of all of my work.
There Are More Ways Than One To Kill A Man: One shot. My third Gauntlet piece - why does Fred become a Death Eater? There are more ways than one to kill a man, as Fred Weasley well knows, for as the war goes on he's sure he must have experienced nearly every one. But what on earth could have caused him to take such drastic measures as to join his sworn enemies? And how will his story end?
One of my Gauntlet fics that I really like by itself as well - another one I'd recommend over others.
Where Letters Lead: My new Ron/Hermione fic, complete.
With the coming of a new year, Hermione feels that it's time to sort her life out - and so she writes to Ron, whom she hasn't spoken for years when she moved away after a fight they had. But when he doesn't reply - along with not recieving any correspondance since Christmas from either Ginny or Mrs. Weasley - Hermione decides to take things into her own hands. But where will her letters lead?
A mystery/romance chaptered fic that I'm quite proud of - especially the last chapter!
Tragedies, Tears and Black Velvet Boxes: A Ron/Hermione one-shot. Fairly dark, post-war one-shot that I actually really like, as it's quite different from my usual writing.
It's shown from Molly Weasley's point of view as she reflects on the after-effects of the war, and on Ron's news.
Escaping Fate - Alongside Certain Death And Other Such Predicaments: Complete. My submission for the second Gauntlet - now it's Hermione's turn! Complete. When an outbreak of Dragon Pox breaks out, it seems that only Hermione may be able to save the lives of many - but what has all this got to do with with Ron?
When Is Too Late?: My Ron/Hermione WIP. Chapter 8 is now UP!
In this light-hearted chaptered fic (which I'm going to estimate at being about 12 chapters long) Ron has to make the decision about when really is too late for him and Hermione - but Hermione's long-term boyfriend, Terry Boot isn't making it easy.
Ron's Gauntlet: My submission for the first Gauntlet - one-shot. When a new maze appears in the Hogwarts grounds Ron is determined to win the glory he has been robbed of for so long.
Dear Dumby: Complete. This was my first fanfic, a humour story about what would happen if Dumbledore set up an advice column for Hogwarts (as they do seem to have a lot of problems - getting dates for Hogsmead weekends, completing homework on time, avoiding evil overlords who want to kill them and so on), and the effects his advice would have.
To be honest, I'm not too fond of this piece anymore - I feel that my other stories are much better written. However, a lot of people seem to enjoy it, and I don't mind the last few chapters too much, so read at your own peril!
Many thanks to Purplemage for all my lovely banners!


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Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Miss Chicken, Nov 19, 2012.
Welcome back, Miss Chicken! I really like the bookmarks. Hope the physio is helpful.
Thanks everyone for your nice comments - I didn't realise that I was so missed (I have just read the Where's Miss Chicken thread).
Try to think of your disability as an excuse not to be so hard on yourself. You're not working because you need to focus on your health. It's not your fault, and previous employment would have just complicated your ability to get better.
As for your resume: you should absolutely put your volunteer work on the same level as paid work. Some potential employers might not feel the same way, but I guarantee you'll do better in the job market by presenting an image that you believe the work was equivalent to paid work.
Feel better. *hugs*
Welcome back. Hasn't quite been the same without you. The party can start now
Welcome back Miss Chicken. You were missed and those bookmarks look great.
Now I'm glad I've been aggravating you on Facebook. I really would've missed you.
Ugh, sorry to hear you've been feeling so down. But I really admire you for doing something about it. That's usually the hardest thing to do when you feel down.
Welcome back, Miss Chicken. I'm sorry to hear that your arthritis has worsened, but hopefully the physical therapy and medication can mitigate that somewhat so you can return to being able to take those walks, since they sounded like a pleasant way to relax outdoors and get some exercise at the same time. I hope your pain doesn't get you too down. Good luck and best wishes to you on your treatment.
Great to see you back, Miss Chicken...we definitely missed ya! I'll echo the sentiments of everybody else who posted before me and say you're an integral part of the board family who's sorely missed when you're not here!
Yeah. This pretty much sums it up. Nice to have you back, Miss Chicken.
I can relate to both the disability and the arthritis and a feeling of being useless.
But you're not, you know. People contribute in other ways to life other than working a 9-to-5. Sometimes, you don't even know what you do because you're going about your business and may not get feedback.
Hope they sort out your health issues. Spinal arthritis *sucks.* It really limits exercise.
Glad you're back.
Glad to have you back!
I can relate! I've also been making fitful attempts to wean myself off my internet addiction. My presence in a forum I hardly ever visit attests to my vast success in this endeavor.
Screw it, why fight it...
welcome back
I'm glad you're back, Miss C. This place has been much the poorer for a lack of contributions from Hobart. And you'd be one of the very few people here who might fully appreciate my current avatar.
I hope the health crap settles very soon.
Yes, I love Tassie devils.
14 healthy devils have been sent to Maria Island this week, the first of about 50 destined to be released there (in addition to others that have been held in captivity there since 2005). It is possible that there will transfers to other offshore islands in the future.
Also the authorities concerned are looking at sending devils to zoos in Europe, New Zealand and the USA (there are between 200-300 spaces available). Presently the only Tasmanian Devils outside of Australia are are handful in Copenhagen Zoo.
I also read that, as a result of Devil Facial Tumour Disease, Tasmanian Devils are becoming less aggressive. As the disease is spread as a result of fighting the less aggressive Devils have a better chance of surviving and passing that trait on.
Welcome back, Miss Chicken. The place isn't the same without you.
I'm sorry to hear about your health issues. Hopefully the docs can take care of that and you can get back to being pain-free and going for walks.
And I think you underestimate your contribution to society. Anybody who does volunteer work has literally made a priceless contribution.
I'm also glad to hear some good news about the Tasmanian Devils.
^^ in a few generations you'll have to rename them to Tasmanian Angels
Do you happen to know where one can apply for getting a few? Our local zoo just got a license to breed Siberian Tigers. They also are one of less than 10 zoos in the world that breed Short Eared Elephant Shrews (the little chaps tend to get a cardiac arrest when under stress, hence only few zoos dare to keep them). They might be interested in getting a license to breed or at least keep Tasmanian Devils, particularly since the only Australian animals they have are Emus and Bennet Wallabies (a Tasmanian subspecies).
I'm imagining some coordinated anti-violence campaign among the devil leaders; "remember, kids - violence leads to cancer!" The pacifist Tassie regime will denounce the feuding of the past as a relic of an unelightened age that nearly brought ruin to their people, and, lo, a golden age of Tassie cooperation will dawn.
40 devil joeys were born this year at the Devil Ark (Barrington Tops, New South Wales). This brings the amount of devils at the Devil Ark up to more than 100 and they hope to have 360 by 2016.
When the disease dies out on the Tasmanian mainland (either via total extinction of wild devil, or by a cure being found) there is a good chance that many of the healthy devils can be easily released back into the wild here.
Tasmanian Angels LOL.
I imagine, if devils are sent overseas, many zoos will be very eager to get them. Watching them at feeding time is quite amusing (and very noisy).
I have eaten Bennett's Wallabies.
Separate names with a comma.


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Behold the salt marsh harvest mouse.
The mouse weighs only about 20 grams, but its tiny frame is casting a large shadow over the environmental-review process for the flood-control project, which has already received the blessings of all three cities. As an endangered species, it is protected by reams of state and federal regulations, including ones overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These days, as Fish and Wildlife considers granting a permit to the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority for the flood-control project, the safety of the tiny, tawny mouse has become a big concern.
Last month, Fish and Wildlife indicated in a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — the agency coordinating the project on the federal level — that the environmental analysis conducted so far doesn't fully satisfy its concerns about endangered species. Fish and Wildlife is particularly focused on the Faber Tract and the adjacent Laumeister Tract in East Palo Alto, large swaths of marshland in the northwestern portion of the Palo Alto Baylands that is a home to dozens of California clapper rails, an endangered bird, and that boasts "an important population of the salt marsh harvest mouse," according to Fish and Wildlife.
The environmental agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, took issue with the alternative chosen by the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, which would widen channels by reconstructing levees in the downstream area, including at the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course. Another alternative that the creek authority evaluated during the environmental review was creating a new bypass channel on the golf course for flood water.
Fish and Wildlife argue that the selected alternative, by pushing water to the Faber Tract during floods, reduces the land clapper rails and harvest mice would have for escaping predators. It also takes issue with the assertion that the flood-control project "is not likely to adversely affect the California clapper rail and salt marsh harvest mouse."
"Since most predation on California clapper rails and salt marsh harvest mice occur during flood events, the Service believes that the proposed increases in the frequency, duration and height of flood flows within the Faber Tract and loss of availability of upland refugia cover will result in a significant increase in the rates of predation," Fish and Wildlife stated in the July 3 letter.
The project, the agency argues, "has the potential to have severe adverse effects to the California clapper rail and salt marsh harvest mouse."
"The Service believes that the Corps and JPA should implement other alternatives to reduce flood risk in San Francisquito Creek such as passing flood flows through the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course ... rather than through the Faber Tract."
If the creek authority chooses to proceed with the project as designed, it would have to include more than a dozen mitigations, including a new "upland refugia" for the rail and the mouse. This could mean installation of "marsh mounds" for the two species near or within the Faber and Laumeiser tracts. The creek authority was also directed by Fish and Wildlife to regularly monitor rodent traps to ensure that no salt marsh harvest mice were captured and to report any instances of captured harvest mice to the agency.
Len Materman, executive director of the creek authority (an agency that includes elected officials from the three cities, as well as from the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the San Mateo Flood Control District), said the group is in ongoing negotiations with Fish and Wildlife about the proposed mitigations. The creek authority, he noted, already thoroughly studied the golf-course alternative during its environmental review, and officials concluded that it would cause "significantly greater" harm than with the channel-widening option.
Materman told the Weekly the agency doesn't expect the concerns from Fish and Wildlife to ultimately delay the project. However, the criticisms have already prompted the creek authority to change the sequence of its work. The authority applied for the permits in March and was hoping to have them in place in time to start in-channel work in early September. That now seems highly unlikely. And given that the agency isn't allowed to work in the creek after mid-October because of the presence of steelhead trout, in-channel work will now have to be deferred until next year, Materman said.
At the same time, Materman said, the agency is confident that it will get the permits without delays to the overall project. Some of the mitigations proposed by Fish and Wildlife are already part of the project, while others will be integrated into the design. These include the marsh mounds. The creek authority, he said, has been working with Fish and Wildlife and with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission to determine the locations and designs of the mounds.
"We are looking to incorporate new mounds into the design of the project to address that concern," Materman said.
With the channel off limits because of permitting complications, the agency has been focusing on other elements of the project, including work with PG&E on alterations to electric lines crossing the creek and with the East Palo Alto Sanitary District to deal with a sewer line crossing the creek.
"What we're really focused on now is: What kind of things can we do outside the channel so that we can get these things out of the way?" Materman said.
This story contains 960 words.
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A gray Nissan Xterra traveling east on Parkway Drive and a white Nissan Maxima traveling south on Phoenix Avenue collided, causing the Xterra to roll onto its roof. The accident occured around 10:45 a.m. Tuesday.
The passenger was transported to Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center as a result of the accident. The condition of the injured passenger was not released.


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This is about the time the defense starts saying "No matter what we do this offense won't take advantage of it" and get gassed and...
Do I need to spell it out for you?
lmao, I love Landry. A nasty SOB.
Way to go Sanchez...there should be at least 1 more of these tonight.
They keep talking it over, for what? The cameras? Fuken crapfest.
Once again, they can't take advantage of it.
Nice defense, but god, is a sack too much to ask for?
theres coples, now I see him
Once again defense holds up.
Hopefully they won't be on the field the whole game and get gassed so everyone can say they suck though.
they cant even do grass right in friggin Nashville
Jets need to lock up Landry till he retires. He needs to retire a Jet
Kerley leads the league in fair catches.
the defense gave up 7 points this half.
tell me again what the offense did?
Here comes Greene's turn to run one 94 yards himself.
How come every game we play looks like this?


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I really don't have any faith in hunter anymore but it is somewhat encouraging to hear this coming from woody
Damien Woody: Hunter should be right tackle
20 August 2012 01:44
In Week 15 of the 2010 NFL season, Wayne Hunter stepped into the starting lineup for the Jets to replace injured right tackle Damien Woody. It was a seamless transition at the time for Hunter, who had only two other starts in his seven-year career. His performance to close out the season and in the playoffs earned him a long-term contract last summer.
It has been all downhill since then.
Hunter was the weakest link of the offensive line last year, getting constantly beaten and targeted by the opposing pass rush. For Woody, the man whom Hunter replaced, it is a confidence issue that translated to Hunter giving up three sacks in Saturday nights preseason loss to the Giants.
A lot of times what happens -- you have a bad play and its a snowball effect. Its like Oh man. Offensive line is almost like a cornerback, Woody told Metro. When you have a bad play as a cornerback, you have to put it behind you. Theres nothing you can do about it, you have to move on. Its something you definitely have to do.
Performances like the dud against the Giants in preseason game No. 2 arent supposed to happen anymore with Hunter. The Jets spoke all offseason about his improvement and how he would benefit from being involved in team activities unlike last year when the labor negotiations cut into time that would have been vital for Hunter to learn his role as a starter. Woody, now an analyst at ESPN, knows that the player who filled in so admirably for him in 2010 can emerge in 2012 as a consistent part of the unit.
Hes one of the most athletic guys Ive ever been around. Hes one of the most athletic linemen in the league. Ive seen it myself when I was playing with the Jets. The one thing I always told Wayne was to trust his athletic ability. Hes a big, tall, strong guy with great feet -- trust it. Sometimes he has a hard time trusting his athletic ability because hes so athletic, Woody said. When I watch him sometimes it is as if he doesnt want to make a mistake. You cant play that way. You have to go out there and trust your athletic ability and thats how you win your battles. Thats the bottom line. Are you going to get beat sometimes? Yeah. The best of the best get beat.
Having missed portions of training camp due to back stiffness, Hunter did not play against the Bengals in the first game of preseason and then was thrown into the fire against the likes of Justin Tuck and Jason Pierre-Paul, two of the best pass rushers in the league.
A player struggling with confidence after becoming the target of Jets fans much of last season couldnt have asked for a worse opponent to go up against for his first game action since last season.
While Hunter said after the game that his back was OK he was still clearly rusty and the Giants exposed him.
Wayne wishes he could have done better; theres no question about it. I tend to hold back because its still preseason and guys are working out the kinks. A lot of this comes from last year and Wayne was a big figure as far as -- well, fans are still angry about his performance from last year, Woody said. His performance last night, people see the same old stuff happening right now. Its still the preseason and Im not going too caught up in it and other people shouldnt.
I really don't have any faith in hunter anymore but it is somewhat encouraging to hear this coming from woody
Sorry, Damien, nothing you say will make me think otherwise of Hunter.
i would sign woody off his couch right now if he wanted to play.
Woody and Hunter are BFF's.
...lol what?Sometimes he has a hard time trusting his athletic ability because hes so athletic
Bottomline, he sucks. He is not a starter in this league and should not be starting for our team. It's pathetic we haven't done anything to address this glaring hole and if we really go into the season with him at RT we're f**king screwed. Maybe he does have the potential everyone keeps talking about. But what good is this potential and athletic ability if he's inconsistent? There is no way anyone actually has confidence in him and what good is a lineman without reliability? Sanchez is gonna be shell shocked by week 3 if he's still seeing Hunter line up to the right of him.
Sanchez might not get out of game one alive if Hunter is our starting RT this season. Sanchez got destroyed against the giants and that was only in 2 quarters. Imagine was 4 quarters against Mario Williams is gonna look like? I'm scared to even think of it. Our season will be over before it even starts.
... sorry, even if true his confidence is unrecoverable at this point ...
We'd be better off if Catfish Hunter was our starting RT.
All the pats on the back don't change the fact that the guy has been God awful! Good for Woody, he likes his former teammate but all the talent of athletism and potential mean absolutely nothing when he is still the weakess link on the line.
I was never a fan of Wayne Hunter and was cynical when he was quickly lauded for a few good games in 2010.
However Rex, Woody and others have frequently referred to his his outstanding athletic ability . I was subsequently shocked to hear that his fundamentals were so off in the Giants game. How can this happen after years and years of football ? I am not a football pro, and I don't even play one on television, but it appears to my untrained eye that Wayne Hunter has all the physical ability he needs to be a good tackle but his confidence appears shot. Woody said he is not trusting his athletic ability. From what I can see, is that this translates as a loss of confidence leading to Mr. Hunter abandoning fundamentals ... not relying on those same fundamentals to carry him through the game.
It's like a golfer who no longer trusts his game, his mechanics are off and he is stuck in a slump. He may never be able to handle the spotlight despite his god-given abilities.
So for 16 games last season he had not faith in himself. He screwed the pooch last game. It's do or die. Who else do we have?


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Yankees fill need, acquire Pudge
New York trades reliever Farnsworth for 14-time All-Star
By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com
The trade came on the same afternoon that catcher Jorge Posada underwent season-ending surgery on his throwing shoulder, and will provide the Yankees with a proven veteran bat as well as a recognizable name behind the plate.
"It's time for me to take the trade and go somewhere else," Rodriguez said. "Right now, I'm going to be there for two months. I hope I can stay there. We'll see what happens, but at the same time, I'm just going to concentrate every single day there and try to make the Yankees make the playoffs again."
Rodriguez, a 13-time Gold Glove winner, was batting .295 with five home runs and 32 RBIs in 82 games with Detroit. A career .302 hitter, the 36-year-old catcher is in his 18th Major League season.
"It's going to be exciting to play with the Yankees. A lot of players would like to play there and play with guys like A-Rod, [Derek] Jeter and [Jason] Giambi, catching [Mike] Mussina and those guys," Rodriguez said. "It's going to be nice. I'm excited for that. I'm going to be a little nervous in the beginning. Even all the years I've been playing this game, sometimes you get excited, too."
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said that Rodriguez is expected to join the Yankees on Thursday, as they open a four-game series with the Angels.
"He's still an everyday guy and he's a significant upgrade, in all due respect, to everything we've got," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. "How it works out remains to be seen, but he's having a good year. We're excited to have the opportunity to believe that we've addressed an important area of need."
Farnsworth, 32, was having his best season of his three with the Yankees, pitching to a 3.65 ERA in 45 appearances. He struggled in a setup role his first two seasons after joining the Yankees as a free agent before the 2006 season.
Farnsworth pitched for Detroit in '05, registering six saves before being traded to Atlanta at the July 31 Trade Deadline. He was emotional as he discussed the deal, briefly breaking down in tears as he spoke to reporters.
"Nothing surprises me in this game, but it's one of those things you can't really put your finger on," Farnsworth said, his lower lip trembling.
Girardi said that saying goodbye to Farnsworth -- a former batterymate and a pitcher for who he had lobbied all season long -- was especially difficult.
"It was tough," Girardi said. "It's good to see a guy resurrect his career. He was willing to make some changes here and he's been dynamite with us. My relationship with him goes all the way back to 2000. I'm really happy for the success that he's had and I hope it continues for him."
|"It's time for me to take the trade and go somewhere else. Right now, I'm going to be there for two months. I hope I can stay there. We'll see what happens, but at the same time, I'm just going to concentrate every single day there and try to make the Yankees make the playoffs again."
|-- Ivan Rodriguez
Rodriguez, who can be a free agent after this season, played for the 2003 World Series champion Marlins and the American League-champion Tigers in '06.
"You've got an everyday catcher who is still doing extremely well," Cashman said. "He'll catch your staff for nine innings and he's been in championship runs before, versus someone [in Farnsworth] who is doing a tremendous job for us of the eighth inning. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul, there's no doubt about it. There's that risk there."
Rodriguez was the AL MVP in 1999, when he batted .332 with 35 homers and 113 RBIs for the Rangers. He played his first 12 seasons with the Rangers before leaving as a free agent and signing a one-year contract with the Marlins.
"He's been a great player for a long time," Girardi said. "I remember the battles as a player that we had when he was in Texas. He's been a World [Series] champion and also played in another World Series. He knows what it takes, so it's exciting to have him."
The Yankees' setup job had been increasingly filled by right-hander Jose Veras, and the addition of left-hander Damaso Marte gave them two pitchers to fill the role, making Farnsworth expendable. Edwar Ramirez, Dave Robertson and Brian Bruney could also play supporting parts.
"Over time, people emerging and doing the job," Cashman said. "I've got to give [Girardi] credit. He's handed the ball to a lot of guys and created a lot of opportunities. Those guys get a lot of credit for taking advantage."
Cashman said that the trade had developed quickly, saying as recently as Monday that he expected to continue this season with Jose Molina and Chad Moeller as the catching tandem. The move effectively returns Molina to the role of backup catcher, as he'd served behind Posada.
"This is Pudge Rodriguez we're talking about," Cashman said. "Hopefully we get what we need and we'll continue to mix and match, and run into some things internally or externally."
Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski called Cashman on Wednesday morning offering Rodriguez for Farnsworth, and the deal was completed during New York's 13-3 victory over the Orioles. Cashman said that he instructed Girardi not to use Farnsworth in the game.
Both players are free agents after this season and no cash was exchanged in the trade, though Rodriguez did have to waive a no-trade clause to approve the deal. The Yankees plan to remove Moeller from their roster before Thursday's game to address their bullpen, possibly promoting a reliever from the Minor Leagues barring another transaction.
Rodriguez spoke to Cashman on the telephone and told the GM that he was "excited" and would return to Detroit from Cleveland to collect his belongings before reporting to Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Cashman responded by welcoming him to the pinstripes and telling him that the Yankees will need him.
"We want this race to be interesting," Cashman said. "We want to cross that finish line and play a 163rd game this year. Hopefully every move we make will put us closer."
Bryan Hoch is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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Skimmer targets Tulsa resident
TULSA - It's a convenience many of us take for granted, a quick swipe of our credit or debit card to make a purchase.
It was like that for Kalla Debrosse until a scammer skimmed her card.
The next time she checked her bank account online she discovered transactions she hadn't made.
"There was $400 at Walmart, $100 at Walmart, $100 at QuikTrip," said Debrosse.
A total of $1,200 had been taken directly from her bank account.
"I'm a single mother so just getting paid and having $1,200 taken out of your account on payday it was just a nightmare," said Debrosse.
And her card was in her wallet the whole time.
She paid for takeout at a fast food restaurant with her debit card. A former employee of the restaurant is accused of using a device called a skimmer to steal her account information.
What's a skimmer?
It's "a reader-writer. It reads the mag stripe on your card and then it writes it onto another card so you've got a card in hand," said Elaine Dodd, of the Oklahoma Bankers Association Fraud Division.
Certain locations are more popular for scammers looking to place skimmers.
"If it's outside they're more likely to be able to put a skimmer on that," said Dodd.
That of course makes swiping your card at an
outdoor ATM or
pay-at-the-pump gas station among the riskiest places to pay with plastic.
Restaurants are also on the list because a server has access to your card and could be using a skimmer, as suspected in Debrosse's situation.
Shopping online is considered high risk especially if you're not familiar with the site.
businesses that keep your account information on hand to make future purchases easier may also put you at risk. If the business is hacked your information is compromised.
"It's just unfortunate that it came to this to be informed, I've never heard of this type of scam before," said Debrosse.
Knowing the risk, your best defense is keeping a close eye on your finances.
"Some people don't look at statements but once a month," said Dodd. "And I can't understand that, having seen what I've seen."
Dodd suggests that you should
check your bank and credit card accounts several times a week and report incorrect charges immediately.
"You'll always be made whole as long as you've notified them within, generally, a 60-day window," said Dodd.
After a couple of weeks Debrosse's bank did put $1,200 back in her account. But she's still dealing with being victimized.
"It was, hurtful to think here I'm a single mother raising two children and someone, they don't know who the victims are, these scammers," said Debrosse.
Since Debrosse filed a police report four people have been arrested, accused of stealing hundreds of debit and credit card numbers, then using those numbers to re-code other cards.
Credit cards give you more protection because even if they're skimmed at least cash isn't being taken directly from your bank.
Dodd recommends the website
Krebs on Security for more information on skimmers. The website
SCAMADVISOR.com rates online shopping sites for security.


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All Items : Collector Plates : Contemporary item #410268 (stock #T1015)
This Decorative Plate is adorn with a very pretty floral scene. Yellow and pink roses as well as some other pink flowers, berries and a little blue butterfly dress up the plate. It is trimmed with a blue strip and little pink roses and a gold trim around the edge of the entire plate. It is approximately 6 inches in diameter. I do not know the time period for the plate. On the back it reads that it was made in Japan and is for decorative purposes only...


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It looks like there won't be another fissure in Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn's MMA team in Albuquerque, N.M.
Georges St-Pierre (22-2 MMA, 16-2 UFC) and Carlos Condit (28-5 MMA, 5-1 UFC), who previously have shared gym space and fight each other at UFC 154, are working around an agreement that has kept Jackson out of the picture during preparation for their meeting, which takes place Nov. 17 at Bell Centre in Montreal.
"Just for this fight, we changed the protocol, so no problem," undisputed champ St-Pierre said.
Interim titleholder Condit will attempt to take the French-Canadian's belt and bring back the unified title to Albuquerque, where Jackson has bowed out of training either fighter to avoid a potential conflict.
Longtime trainers Chris Luttrell and Winkeljohn have taken a central role in Condit's camp.
"It hasn't been a huge change," Condit said. "I still interact with Greg. He's still at the gym, so it's not like we're not on speaking terms or anything like that. But the guys that I'm training with right now, Chris and Mike, I've been training with them for a long time, and I really feel like I'm in good hands for the preparation."
St-Pierre, who trained at his longtime gym, Montreal's Tristar, for the fight, said he'll return to Jackson's after next Saturday with no hard feelings.
"Of course I will," he said. "I always train in Montreal, but most of the time, Greg was coming to Montreal."
It's not the first time there's been a potential conflict at Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA. As the gym has grown into a powerhouse in the sport, more sparring partners have been turned into opponents. Recently, former teammates Donald Cerrone and Melvin Guillard squared off at UFC 150. In an attempt to keep a potential conflict at bay, Cerrone relocated to Denver to train for the lightweight contest.
Other teammate vs. teammate scenarios weren't as amicable. Former UFC light heavyweight champ Rashad Evans left Jackson-Winkeljohn's MMA when training partner Jon Jones signaled interest in a fight between the two after he won the belt at UFC 128. They met at UFC 145, with Jones emerging victorious, and Evans forever drew the line on a return.
St-Pierre's relationship with the gym is less intimate, which likely averted a similar situation.
For more on UFC 154, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Carlos Condit)


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THERE was nothing unusual about the 4WDs, sports cars and Porsches cruising palm-lined Cranbrook Road in Bellevue Hill on Thursday.
Police at the scene in the eastern Sydney neighbourhood were interested in another car - the one from which someone had fired bullets at the mansion of colourful businessman Jim Byrnes.
One bullet went through an upstairs bedroom window where a child was sleeping, and another hit a wall at the front of the property in a drive-by shooting on Wednesday night.
Rose Bay Local Area Commander Michael Fitzgerald would not confirm the Bellevue Hill house was the home of James "Big Jim" Byrnes, a former financial adviser to Alan Bond.
Mr Byrnes, speaking to reporters outside two-storey property on Thursday, said he was confident those responsible would be caught.
"Police are doing a thorough investigation," he said.
He told Network Ten he had moved his family out of the home and hired private security.
Det Supt Fitzgerald told reporters a 54-year-old man, another adult and two school-aged children were sleeping at the time of the "cowardly" attack.
He said the four people involved were shaken up but "very, very fortunate" to have escaped injury.
"People who carry out these acts are just cowardly. They shoot indiscriminately into houses, not knowing, or not caring, who is inside," Det Supt Fitzgerald said.
Mr Byrnes has made headlines in the past.
In 2007 a magistrate sentenced him to jail and described him as a "standover thug" after he took a baseball bat to a solicitor's window.
The same year, during an inquest into the death of Mr Byrnes's former associate Max Gibson, a witness claimed Mr Byrnes had told him, "I could kill you. I could kill your children. I could kill your wife."
Mr Gibson was found dead in a Marrickville stormwater drain in 2001, while he was on trial for setting fire to a property Mr Byrnes was in the process of buying.
The coroner found Mr Gibson had been murdered with a "hot shot", a lethal dose of heroin, by a person or persons unknown.
In 1998 the Australian Securities and Investments Commission banned Mr Byrnes from being a company director for five years.
Police were called to Cranbrook Road, just metres from the prestigious boys' school Scots College, by residents who reported hearing gunshots or fireworks on Wednesday night.
They returned at 6.30am (AEDT) on Thursday when a bullet hole was discovered in the front of the house.
The street was shut down until Thursday afternoon as detectives combed the area for bullet casings.
A gardener at a nearby property told AAP he was shocked to see police tape rolled out in the "quiet neighbourhood".
"You'd think it would be happening out west," he said.
Det Supt Fitzgerald said many residents in the affluent area had CCTV surveillance systems and footage from neighbours' cameras could offer clues.
Originally published as Big Jim's Sydney mansion shot at


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[QUOTE=November Nolove;10131539]
Now let's go back to the clones. The reason why there was a balance for clones was because of the way the user's chakra is distributed among them. When you have a limited amount of chakra you can only create a certain amount of clones with out draining you own reserves and having fodder clones that can't do anything against an opponent. They are Edo so they have unlimited chakra. Madara would not have been able to give his 25 clones Susanoo if he were not Edo. If he did, he would be left in a weekend state and the 5 kage would have won.
By the way...your fanboyism is showing


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Takes a good three minutes for everything to settle down once the system is booted from a standing start.
This last time I tried to start a program, I finally had to shut ZA all the way off after 10 minutes, just for my app to load.
This is totally unacceptable.
I've uninstalled Symantec according to instructions, I've uninstalled all other anti-spyware and possible HIBS apps. I've run CCleaner multiple times, I've even uninstalled ZASS and re-installed it.
I'm so fed up with this thing I could just gladly toss it, and just re-up my Symantec subscription and to heck with it if I hadn't already bought the 10 user license.
Can someone help me get this DOA to work?
Frustrated and Fuming....
Operating System:Windows XP Pro
Software Version:7.0
Product Name:ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite


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Ostomy Support Group of the Central Counties
The Ostomy Support Group was formed to provide education, information, and support for people who have had or will have intestinal or urinary diversions. It's open to all - including family members and friends - who want to meet to share experiences and expertise in managing ostomy. Discussions range from travel to food and diet and often feature guest speakers. Support groups meet the second Sunday of the month (exceptions: May - on the 3rd Sunday of the month due to Mothers Day; no meetings July and August) from 2p-3pm at the Mount Nittany Medical Center ground floor conference rooms. For more information contact Judy Faux at 814.234.6195.
Location Details
Mount Nittany Medical Center 1800 East Park Avenue, Conference Rooms, Entrance E, State College, PA 16803
For More Information
- Phone
- Judy Faux