Mountain Lake dries up and reveals secrets

Remember that beautiful lake in the movie Dirty Dancing? The lush green of the mountain and the dark blue of the lake were very relaxing. The lake is gone now. It sounds impossible but it is, and no it’s not global warming. Apparently scientists believe that the lake naturally drains and disappears. Historical records seem to back this up too. The Roanoke Times article, with an excerpt shown below, explains in more detail.

Mountain Lake may be the only known lake in the world to periodically disappear, sometimes for decades. This phenomenon has been recorded since the 18th century and may be related to earthquakes.

The first reference to what is now called Mountain Lake dates to 1751, when British surveyor Christopher Gist explored Giles County and West Virginia for the Ohio Company. In his journals, Gist describes climbing a mountain and finding a clear-water lake, a gravel shore and “fine meadow.” By 1768, however, settlers said such a lake was nowhere to be found in what is now Giles County. Instead, they used the site as a salt lick for cattle, hence the name Salt Pond Mountain.

Photographer Richard Cobb shows the dramatic change in photographs.

Mountain Lake Before and After

With the drop in water previously lost items are being found, including a body. It is believed to be a man from the 1930’s. The Roanoke Times describes the personal effects found with the bones.

He wore a belt with a silver buckle and carried a fancy silver cigarette box, both engraved with elaborate cursive initials that appear to be “SCF.”

His old McCreery wingtip shoes had Sullivan’s Safety Cushion heels held in place with six nails.

His gold class ring carried the initials “MC” on one side and “CA” on the other, above images of trees carved into the metal. It bore a date on top that appears to signify that it is from the Class of ‘04 — most likely 1904, Giles County sheriff’s investigators say.

Hopefully someone will recognize the class ring, cigarette box. Maybe someone will remember something from half a century ago when the stone hotel was new. Perhaps this mystery will help bring tourists to the wonderful Mountain Lake Hotel that is now by a lovely grassy meadow.

********************* Update 10/16/08************************

The class ring found near the bones proved to be the biggest help. Investigators say it’s from Clemson University in South Carolina. University officials have provided Giles authorities a picture of a 1904 class ring matching the type found at Mountain Lake. Investigators say they have the person’s identity narrowed down to three possible names from that Clemson class.

************************Update 10/21/08**********************

Watch video from WSLS here

The layered mystery at Mountain Lake is unfolding.Two brothers, one from Virginia and one from Maryland say they’ve successfully closed the case and have the name everyone has been waiting for, Samuel Felder.

All the evidence found served as small clues into an unknown man’s life, but two tokens gave this mystery legs. “The main item was the ring, because once you can identify what college it came from it clearly on the ring 04, so that would have been 1904 and then the belt buckle initials were the clue that allowed you to find out what the guys name was,” said Jim Dalmas, in a phone interview from Maryland.

Dalmas makes it sound easy, but many questions have been looming since the remains, class ring, watch, shoes and belt buckle were found almost exactly a month ago.Dalmas took the initials and ring and called a number of schools searching for answers. “I hadn’t gotten to Clemson when the sheriff’s office discovered that the ring had come from Clemson University,” he said.

Clemson had three graduates of 1904 with the initials S.F.

After Dalmas narrowed it down to who he thought the mystery man was he did some searching and found a newspaper article from 1921 and in the headline it said “S. I. Felder, Troy, N.Y. Falls Overboard at Mountain Lake; Drowns.”

“As far as I was concern once we found the newspaper article from South Carolina it was a slam dunk,” Dalmas said.

Giles County investigators aren’t confirming the identity of the mystery man.

They tell 10 On Your Side they’re still waiting for a family member to come forward, so they can make a DNA match. – By Lindsey Ward

Desert Botanical Gardens

Giving Blood

I gave blood a few days ago it was an eventful experience. I’ve been trying to give blood for the past 4 months. Every time I go my iron count is 35 and I get rejected. I was rejected the last 3 tries. However my difficulty in giving blood does not deter the callers from the United Blood Services. They call every week unless I already have an appointment on their books.

This time I made it; my iron was 38. I have been taking iron pills and didn’t drink any caffeine that day, only orange juice and water. The lack of caffeine probably was the cause of my headache and thus the new problems passing other requirements. My temp was 99 and my heart rate was 105. The 99 was okay but I wasn’t going to pass with 105 hear rate. It wasn’t that I so desperately want to give blood, I’m neutral there. I just didn’t want to get more phone calls and have to come in again in a week or two. The guy was nice and let me relax for a few minutes. Amazingly I got it down to 92, a normal rate for me, I always am running fast. Finally I made it to the long list of questions then out to the donor chair.

I got situated, the nurse checked for a long time to make sure she could find my vein. Mine apparently hide very well but I have been lucky to have always had good nurses that get it on the first try. Unfortunately for my shirt we took so long looking with the tourniquet tight before starting that I shot out blood. It was a work shirt, not important to me so it was kind of funny to me. I was thinking up some horror story to tell husband when I got home.

The last time that I actually passed the iron test, I almost passed out when I finished giving blood. Loud buzzing in the ears room going dark. Not a happy feeling. Still they keep calling sweet as sugar asking when they can put me down for an appointment. I was more careful this time. I ate before going in and had an apple pie and Gatorade afterwards.

It was after driving half and hour back to my town and stopping by an office close to home that I had problems. Jane and I had been talking inside then walked outside to the mailboxes for the storefront and were finishing up our conversation in the shade in front of her office. I’m not sure why we stood outside, perhaps we both had other things to do and figured we would talk for much longer if we went inside. It was a typical hot AZ summer afternoon. I was perfectly fine until we said goodbye. Then the buzzing started, I couldn’t focus. I was stubborn and thought I could walk it off. I took a few steps and then (I think, based on the pain) smacked chest first into the glass front of the neighboring nail salon. I must have scared them and caused a few nails to be repainted. Something Jane had seen in me made her come back outside immediately and saw the last of my fall. She was such a sweetheart and gathered me back into her office, into the cool air and gave me a coke. We called my husband to drive me home. Here I sat, embarrassed, hair everywhere, blood on my shirt and white as a sheet. This is what I get for trying to do a good deed. At least this good deed I am not allowed to attempt again for 8 weeks. The phone calls will gloriously stop for a couple of months.

http://www.unitedbloodservices.org/

On a tangent: Why can’t more men man up and give blood so those of us who only succeed in giving blood a quarter of the times we try can be left alone. Men have more blood to give, rarely have too low of an iron count and generally do better after giving blood. Women endure child birth; men should at least give blood. I know low blow, but I’m desperate here. I can’t force my husband. He gets a pass because he might have mad cow disease from living in England. In 40 years when he’s cleared I’ll drag him in.

WAKA – World Adult Kickball Association

I never knew such a thing existed as the World Adult Kickball Association until a few weeks ago. I thought kickball was a game that we sadly left in grade school as we moved up into sports with harder balls that hurt more when you get hit.

Softball is a good example of one of those sports we moved up to. Unfortunately for me my softball career consisted of two attempts, 8th grade and the company team two years ago. The first attempt was marred by the fact that my head seemed to be a homing beacon for the ball, even if I was in the stands. The second attempt, I didn’t get hit but my legs reminded me that I am not 18 anymore, buckled in a sprint, and I rolled into home base. At least I scored in that embarrassing moment and had some good wounds to show for it.

Soccer was my other sport of choice for getting hurt. I broke my nose by stopping a shot with it and split my thigh muscle on the knee of a brat that didn’t like girls playing in a boys league. I was terrible at the game but enjoyed it anyway. I was really only good at being an obstacle that wasn’t afraid of getting hit. To this day my leg still hates me for that.

So I once again have ventured into the world of organized sports. I joined a team with WAKA. I shall be hurting myself on a weekly basis this Fall and hopefully enjoying it. Unlike the kickball we remember as children, these leagues seem to revolve around drinking and are sponsored by Rolling Rock. The names in the leagues are also quite entertaining. Imagine flocks of people with shirts reading: Booze Hound Gang, Rubber Balls and Liquor, Train-A-Balls, Remedial Runners, and Sir Kix-A-Lot. I must say if you are going to combine sports and liquor at least it’s on grass and with big rubber balls. Wish me luck and that the booze dulls the pain.

So sad, so many

Chalupa

Animal cruelty is so wretched yet is so common; from the dog fighting to the puppy mills to the individual case of abuse on a single animal it breaks your heart. If we let ourselves see the true horror that is out there everyday I think we would huddle into little balls and hide in our beds. I don’t normally bring this topic up other than to speak out about the need to adopt rescue animals rather than purchasing them because that is one tiny thing that we can do in the sea of cruelty that too many animals endure. In adopting a rescue you are able to make a difference to one animal and not encourage puppy mills. My greatest four legged companions that I love to the point that they can make me cry in happiness, were rescues. While I loved all the animals in my life immensely, two touched me more than others, Audrey and Chalupa.

Chalupa is with me now, sleeping on the desk. He is an ancient but still kicking, half bald, toothless Chihuahua rescued about 5 years ago from the swamps of GA. He wasn’t wanted anymore when he was too old to produce puppies. He’s a funny guy that has recently discovered that chewing on his front left leg makes his back ones shake and he’s a bit obsessed with it.

Audrey was a kitten abandoned near our house when I was a child. She helped me through loss of loved ones and the always horrific pre-teen and teen years. She slept in my arms and nuzzled my face. She even comforted me before her death as if she knew she wouldn’t be around tomorrow.

Audrey is the reason I am sharing the video below. She looked like the little kitten. So watch, and then remember the next time you hear someone say they want a kitten or puppy to tell them to go to the pound or shelter to save a little furry life.

So, now we don’t even have to walk?

Has anyone seen Wall-E and the people that don’t walk anymore and have food brought to them? We’re heading that direction.
Americans don’t get enough exercise already. We drive everywhere, sit behind computers or game consoles and have food delivered because it would expend too much energy to actually prepare and cook a meal. Then we complain that we are overweight and join a gym. So now we pack our exercise into one hour sadomasochistic sessions to suppress our guilt. Over time we give up on the gym and just expand. Now we don’t even have to exercise during the few times we would actually get exercise when we have to walk. I wonder if these inventions are funded by diet scam companies and the pharmaceutical industry?

I must say I am guilty of all of the above except the game console and I do find Winglet really cool. Am I going to hell in a hand basket of deep fried gluttony?

MIT’s major breakthrough: Storing solar energy when the sun doesn’t shine

By Jess Zielinski
Photo: Solar hot water panels atop Fenway Park in Boston. By Brian Snyder, Reuters

In the span of an hour, enough sunlight strikes Earth to satisfy the whole planet’s energy requirements for a year. Thanks to MIT research, we now have a way to turn solar power into a major energy source.

Researchers there have found a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient way to store energy for use when the sun isn’t shining.

“That’s why I know this is going to work. It’s so easy to implement,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper in Science about the work.

Solar power hasn’t been a large-scale energy solution because storing extra solar energy has been hugely expensive and terribly inefficient up until now.

“This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said Nocera. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

How’d they do it? They were inspired by the photosynthesis plants do. Nocera and a colleage crafted a process that lets the sun’s energy be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. A water split occurs naturally during photosynthesis. The oxygen and hydrogen can later be recombined inside a fuel cell. Fuel cells make carbon-free electricity to power our gadgets, homes, and electric cars.

Their work employs a new catalyst that works at room temperature in neutral pH water. That’s what makes it so easy to set up.

They still need to do more engineering work to integrate this tech into the photovalic systems we already have, but Nocera predicts that will soon be a reality. He hopes that within a decade, we’ll be able to power our homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells and the solar energy we don’t use will produce hydrogen and oxygen to power a household’s fuel cell.

What could that mean for current power companies? Electricity sent by a central source via wire could one day be like rotary phones.

Nocera’s project was part of the MIT Energy Initiative. It’s a program that aims to improve our energy systems now so we won’t be so strained in the future. The program’s success may be in part attributed to the fact that it relies on mixed funding sources — governmental, philanthropic, and industrial.

This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Chesonis Family Foundation. The foundation gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project.

It stipulated the goal would be large-scale implementation of solar energy within ten years.

Originally Posted at 02:00 PM/ET, July 31, 2008 in Environment and climate | Permalink

Glow in the Dark Tomato

non-safety matches (phosphorous), bleach, hydrogen peroxide and a tomato.

a raccoon?

My husband tells me I am a raccoon because I am easily distracted by pretty things but especially distracted by shiny things. Lucky for him it’s not necessarily expensive things it could be an interesting piece of glass or a flower. Here’s some evidence of the shiny obsession. During the first few years with me my silver car had a disco ball hanging from the mirror. If I am lost I can probably be found in the lighting area of Ikea. Christmas time is great just because all of the gaudy shiny things can come out of hiding and run rampant through the house. If my husband would allow it I would still have an arch of twinkle lights over my bed.
I don’t have an unusual attachment to raccoons or collect little raccoon figurines obsessively. In fact I don’t think there is a single raccoon anything in this house, and I like it that way. I could just as easily be described as being Hammy the Squirrel from the movie ‘Over the Hedge’. I do love cookies and I have the same attention span, roughly 5 seconds. That makes me remember that there are oreos in the other room…