The Gulf

Here's the stuff I picked up about the Gulf of Mexico, the setting for the sad deaths of three football players this past week.

Size: roughly 950 miles from east to west, and 550 miles from north to south.

Shape: It's described as a large pit, with a broad, shallow rim. This is what I found most fascinating in listening to the Coast Guard description of the area of the search, when the fellow said the CG was searching 30 to 50 miles offshore in 35 to 50 feet of water. So far out, and only 35 to 50 feet deep? That's the shelf that comprises the rim, the light blue area in the graphic above.

The shallows and intertidal areas are 38% of the surface.

Areas more than 3,000 meters in depth represent 20% of the area--with the deepest part estimated at over 12,000 feet deep!

Volume: here's a number so big as to be incomprehensible. The volume of water is 643 quadrillion gallons. Quadrillion is 10 to the 17th power.

Water flow: water enters the Gulf through the Yucatan strait and circulates in a clockwise fashion and exits through the Straits of Florida. 20 river systems--more than 150 rivers--drain into the Gulf. 280 trillion gallons of fresh water annually flows into the gulf, with about 55% of that coming from the Mississippi River.

Energy: 1/8 of U.S. oil and 1/4 of U.S. produced natural gas are produced by offshore drilling operations in the Gulf.

Food: 25% of total U.S. fish production comes from the Gulf, $900 million annually.

States: the Gulf touches 5 U.S. states and 6 Mexican states.

Dead Zones: these are areas of low oxygen, crippling the water's ability to support marine life. At the Mississippi delta there is a dead zone in the Gulf the size of the state of New Jersey. This is the result of the runoff of agricultural chemicals into and through the Mississippi River.

I like to splash on the beach, too.

I Can't Resist

You've surely seen in recent days the sad story coming out of Clearwater, Florida, about the four young men who went fishing on the Gulf. Three of the four didn't come back.


As the Clearwater area is pretty much my favorite place in the world, this story grabbed my attention a bit more rudely than most of your run of the mill holy cow look what these dummies did stories. The story also led me, as do many of these, to doing a bit of research into what these lads were up against. I learned a bit about the Gulf, and I'll share those nuggets another time. I'm staying on the human side right now.


First,the reporting is somewhat amusing. The stories talked about the boaters taking off from Clearwater Pass. If you haven't been there, it may sound like an anglers' hangout where all these grizzled old men of the sea gather before they head out to test their mettle against Mother Nature, sort of a southern version of the Discovery Channel deal where the crab boats all launch before they venture out into the icy Bering Sea. Clearwater Pass, in reality (as opposed to reality show) is a split in the sand dunes that make up the barrier section of that area, an area loaded up with condos and little grocery stores, and lots more condos. Did I mention the condos? The guys motored out into a relatively much less threatening context.



Next, these unfortunate lads went out over 30 miles from shore in a small 21 foot boat. Twenty one feet of length, by itself, isn't all bad. It's a small 21 footer, not really intended for big water situations. Having spent most of my adult life owning some sort of boat, I can say without reluctance that these guys made one of the dumbest human decisions possible. I looked up the brand of boat and found that it is one of substantial quality, evidenced by the fact that the lone survivor of the four, picture above, is perched on the boat that is still floating. The boat performed as promised, but 30+ miles out into the sea is a really, really, really long way, and 21 feet of boat isn't much for four big guys. The numbers are bad: 1 small boat, 4 big men and 3o-something miles of water.

The reports initially have said that the lads were anchored in heavy seas, with waves of 7 to 15 feet. If you have never been bounced around by 7 to 15 foot waves, it is at its best a dramatic experience. Now, one of the neat things about a boat is that it tends to try to stay on top of the water, even when the water is in an uproar, with the surface lurching vertically like mad. If, on the other hand, the boat is tied to the bottom, well, that's gonna retard its ability to stay up on top, and the boat is going to behave less like a flotation device and more like a mechanical bull.

There's a few more questions that have occurred to me, like why didn't they run when the weather began to threaten, did the engine malfunction, why wasn't there a GPS or safety beacon, but the most nagging of them is why didn't the lad who owned the boat spring for a radio? Cell phones, maybe he thought cell phones would be sufficient.

Four young guys, very fit and strong, successful athletes, got a little cash, you know, pro footballers, guys who probably felt that they were bullet proof.

Bad decisions.

Quiz Time

Today's guest author is the one and only Donna Kiebawls. She has provided the quiz Q & A.

This is a quiz for people who think they know everything!

These are not trick questions. They are straight questions with straight answers

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor theparticipants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own forseveral growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted everyyear. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pearinside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle isgenuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside thebottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw'and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There a re 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name atleast half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned,processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

Answers To Quiz:
1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends . Boxing. Is "dating" a sport?

2. North American landmark constantly moving backward. Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it everyminute..). The Chicago Cubs would also qualify.

3. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own forseveral growing seasons . . Asparagus and rhubarb . Personally, I don't believe rhubarb actually exists.

4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside Strawberry.

5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside thebottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and arewired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entiregrowing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.) This explains why there is no watermelon brandy.

6. Three English words beginning with dw Dwarf, dwell and dwindle . Isn't "dweeb" a word, and what about "dwunk"?

7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, questionmark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces,and ellipses. I propose that smiley faces and "..." be added.

8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed,cooked, or in any other form but fresh Lettuce.

Donna Kiebawls, a grateful blog community salutes you.

Econ Lesson

There's no doubt, things are really screwed up, econ-wise. Some basic definitions are interesting, though not necessarily helpful. Kind of like watching people explain the stimulus plan.

Question 1: what's a recession?

Answer: A recession is two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. In other words, when the GDP, the total value of economic goods and services, declines for six months, that's a recession. There could be no growth, or negative movement, for a longer period of time, but until it triggers the magic two quarters measurement, it's not technically a recession.

Question 2; what's a depression?

Answer: there's two answers. One answer is three years of economic downturn. Another answer is a sustained recession during which the populace has to dispose of assets to pay for everyday living.

We are in the 17th recessionary month. People are selling stuff to pay living expenses. So maybe we're in a depression.

Question 3: what happened in The Great Depression?

Answer: from 1929 to 1932 the economy shrank 27%, unemployment hit 25% and the stock market lost 90% of its value. Unemployment today is around 8% and the market is down about 50%. The guys who work on stuff like this are working on calculating how much the economy has shrunk.

Question 4: why is this information valuable?

Answer: it isn't. Like a lot of these data, this is all rear view mirror stuff. You gotta live through it, look back at it and evaluate it in order to figure out if the definitions have been satisfied. It's like reading an autopsy: might be interesting, but the subject is still dead.

The media are screaming all the bad news, as often and as loud as we'll have it. People who have no idea of what composes the Dow track the number daily and seem to obcess about it.

So what really matters?

When the bad stuff happens to you, or me, or someone we know. Like now.

But we still have kids to raise, birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate, games to play...lots of living to do. Start now, time's wastin'.

On Break

Neveradullmoment is on a break today.
My other child was supposed to write today, he didn't. Maybe the excuse will be worth seeing.
Maybe not.