TheSaint

Everything is vaporware until, well, it isn't vaporware anymore. I thought that was understood by now?

One of my friends in high school loved Young Frankenstein so much she named her dog Abbie Normal.

Aw man, Teri Garr passed.

Space shuttle was supposed to make everything cheaper....

If your stupid plan works then it wasn't stupid.

Well, yeah, that's all part of the equation when it comes to "cost effectiveness". With a nuclear-powered vessel your maintenance costs go up, your crew salaries go up, your port fees go up. You're not allowed to discharge primary loop coolant overboard anywhere at sea anymore, so you have to store it onboard and transfer it in port to a decontamination facility, that's an added cost. Your midlife overhaul is now years instead of months, and that is downtime that the ship isn't earning money, so that needs to be calculated into the cost of ownership as well. It isn't just a simple matter of trading the cost of the reactor for the cost of fuel oil.

The problem is that nuclear-powered ships aren't cost effective. Only four nuclear-powered merchant ships have ever been built, and the chief takeaway from them was that there was no way to make a profitable nuclear-powered merchant ship. The reason the military uses them is because the military isn't concerned with being cost effective. For proof see, well, just about anything that the military does. And even given that the US Navy stopped using nuclear power for cruisers because it was more efficient to power ships of that size with gas turbines. I seem to remember a bunch of design studies from back in the 90s about using vertical wind turbines to drive a conventional screw. So the ship is wind-powered, but it can travel in any direction, it isn't restricted like a rigged sailing ship. Slow, but if you make the ship autonomous and only use it to ship low priority cargo, you don't really care.

Got back this afternoon from hunting all weekend with Thing #1 and Thing #3. It's #1's last year as a junior, he has to apply for tags as an adult starting next year. <sniff> It's #3's first year out, so I guess it is a passing of the torch of sorts. Everybody has struck out so far, although #1 did take a shot at a beautiful 4x3 buck, but it was a tough shot and he missed. We have all week.

Well, you remember him your way. I'll remember him mine. I miss them both.

Kris Kristofferson has passed. You've heard a lot of his songs, just sung by other people. Also starred in a lot of films in the 70s.

I did watch all three of them. If you could somehow manage to forget that they were based on J.R.R. Tolkien, they were sort of fun summer action flicks. That's about the highest praise I can muster for them.

And then Warner Brothers backed a dump truck full of money up to Peter Jackson's house, and he went on to take The Hobbit, which could have easily been one movie, maybe two, and turn it into a trilogy.

Today was a good day. We got up early (for a Sunday) went out to the shooting spot, only to discover that it was taken. So we went to the alternate shooting spot, set up, and the kids spent the day practicing. (Thing #1 and Thing #3 drew deer tags this year, and hunting season is in two weeks. So they really need to practice.) We came home at about 1:00, cleaned guns, took showers, did church online (sometimes I love technology), and then dinner. Whole chickens were on sale this week, so we decided that Sunday dinner would be Middle Eastern. Yesterday we made tabbouleh, tzatziki, hummus, toum, and pita bread from scratch. And I butterflied two whole chickens and put them in the fridge with toum under and over the skin. So this afternoon the chickens got grilled, and we had the Middle Eastern feast for dinner. Amazing. Then we watched A Fish Called Wanda together after dinner, which is one of the funniest movies ever made, kids had never seen it. Just one of those great days together as a family.

I'm very sorry for your loss. I will say a prayer for you and your mother tonight.