Rick_Sharpless

Definitely cannot do the early june dates - my brother is marrying a lady from thailand and the feng shui man says the wedding has to be June 6 - so I'll be elsewhere a week or so either side of that date. Late may is problematic because of a professional comittment but maybe it will resolve. The late June date is a possible.

so you are a mod.... tell us who is behind it, from what IP address used by a frequent poster Do tell - Inquiring minds . . . Has Ms. Behavin returned?

What's pathetic is that it still works

Tyler, If you want to meet in the nc mountains sometime and practice escaping a belay, climbing out, etc with real, live weight, or just go cragging, pm me. June may be out for me unless it's late but we can train - whatever.

Tyler: What bug said. Depending on route and conditions the technical problems may not be that significant but it is a BIG hill and coming from flatlands to 5000' to 10000' and over the top is a serious aerobic challenge. You will enjoy it way more (as will your partners) if you are in the best aerobic shape you have ever been. Been there twice - one summit (first time). Best analogy I can come up with is it's like doing two mountain cycling centuries or two marathons on back-to-back days. Enjoy. Depending on how my summer shapes up I might join you.

Rat in a drain ditch caught on a limb you know better but I know him hes gone . . . .and nothin's gonna bring him back

we could call Mexico and tell them that we have realized that they won at the alamo so it's only fair that they take texas But banning vibrators in TX could have some interesting electoral consequences - is there a vibrator constituency

Check this out - the Christian Right knows no limits

The cute alaska girl makes me wonder why no one has yet started a photo-post website www.greatassonskis.com or something like it. Seems like there might be good traffic and commercial possibilites

what do you say jon and timmy? Cal it the "seance" forum

Jim: PURPA only requires payment at avoided cost - in NC that's (Now - as opposed to 1981) likely to be so low as to be a joke (most likely less than .01 / kwh compared with current consumer rates of .08-.09/kwh. PURPA looks like something on paper but has ZERO practical value for a wind producer, at least here (or in any state that has not adopted some unusual local interpretation of avoided cost, and FERC has pretty much shut that down). For the most part, only producers who jumped on the PURPA gravy train very early received contracts for enough to make money (and some made a lot - which is why PURPA may be repealed yet - it's good for established producers but bad for the ratepayers). Not to mention that a PURPA application by RobBob would result in the company proposing such a low rate as to be either not worth the time to do the work, or guarantee him a long fight in front of the Utilities Commission. I don't think there has been a non-cogen PURPA application here in years (a search found NONE since 1996). Lets see - to pay back a 30,000 wind turbine making 20000 excess kwh per year at even .02 / kwh - RobBob would get a check for $400 per year, for a return on investment of 1.3%/year. Except the turbine would cost more and the utility would pay less under PURPA. Hmm - not all business is good business. If the green power rate were .10/kwh the check would be 2000 /year, or 6.67%, which begins to make sense. NC does not have net metering in ANY form and even the site to which you referred acknowledges that. The NC Green power program is it, for now. If RobBob can get in on it it MAY pay well above market rates - depends on how other potential producers bid on wind and solar. It's not a bad program if it works. PURPA is now a joke for a new producer. It's bad joke for the ratepayers for those who jumped in on it early.

RobBob: Contact these folks - Duke and Progress previously had a tariff for buying solar but not wind. Other than whatever the "green power program" will do, I don't think any of the utilities will (anymore) buy back anything other than solar power (though you can reduce what you buy down to 0). Although the initial deadline for small green power generator proposals passed, the NC green power folks claim that they have an "ongoing" program and really need wind and solar producers. Wind, esp if you want to tie to the grid while running your turbine, is not for the faint-hearted. There are some ongoing maintentance and monitoring issues. If you are on the coast, though, you might have enough consistent wind to get some sort of sensible payback. DK which util you are on but the link has a list of participating "green power" folks. Good luck

Boarders sideslipping on the steeps or worse yet, sitting down just below the lip, make excellent "gates." A close turn at speed does more to exncourage them to board elsewhere than any invective, which they ignore, anyway. Leaves them What I want to know is why when in 100 feet of a lift they feel they MUST board over all nearby skis.

Actually Scott's explanation of "justification through faith" is classic 1st Century (Pauls letter to the Romans) - also Augustinian (came a little later). But . . . to bring back some past thread drift: Advanced humans will not arise in Georgia. The raw material for further evolution may be in short supply. If the Georgia business community has any cojones - which remains to be seen - they will squelch this "creation science" voodoo real quick - as happened in Kansas ( I think Boeing - for example - and Garmin - passed Kansas politicos the word that about 50,000 jobs might just leave unless . . .). Those who know better need to stand up on their hind legs when this kind of thing comes along and play hard, dirty and for keeps with the christian right - when they start trying to take over the educational agenda the gloves need to come off. Just because we live in the south does not mean we need to operate at the Deliverance level.

Marriage is a lot of work (or mine is) for which there is a lot of reward. What Bug said - it takes a lot of committment to the marriage by both to make it work, and both have to want it to work. For me, after 21 years "we've had our ups and downs but were still playing together," and I think we love each other even more than when we were married. I know we know each other a whole lot better.