{"id":7304,"date":"2018-06-08T21:31:40","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T04:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/?p=7304"},"modified":"2018-06-08T21:31:40","modified_gmt":"2018-06-09T04:31:40","slug":"a-hodgepodge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/?p=7304","title":{"rendered":"<span style=\"color: #FF0000;\">A hodgepodge<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> This week&#8217;s not so nasty news.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #FF0000;\">Item #1: Plastics<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>The Graduate<\/em>, a 1967 movie, stared a 30 year old Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin, just graduating &#8212; aged 21 \u2013  from college.  A character named Mr. Maguire  whispered career advice to young Ben, and made famous a one word quote, namely &#8220;Plastics.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eaCHH5D74Fs\"><strong>watch 1 minute clip<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many took that advice and plastics proliferated.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W1_plastic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"770\" height=\"388\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7303\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W1_plastic.jpg 770w, http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W1_plastic-300x151.jpg 300w, http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W1_plastic-768x387.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/>Mountains of plastic waste have recently become a resource.  There is opportunity, think $$$ (okay, $), in converting mixed plastics into diesel, gasoline and industrial chemicals.  Heating plastic in a no-air reactor can yield 16 million gallons of useful products from 100,000 tons of waste available cheaply or at no cost.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s not to like? <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W2_licorice.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"259\" height=\"207\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7302\" \/><span style=\"color: #FF0000;\">Item #2: Looks like plastic<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Not nasty &#8211; &#8211; just odd.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mariniscandies.com\/product\/black-kookaburra\/\"><strong>Black Kookaburra, link <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Locally, we see a Belted Kingfisher. He\/she sits on wires over an irrigation canal about 4 miles south of our house. Pictures and information here <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/guide\/Belted_Kingfisher\/id\"><strong>Cornell Lab<\/strong><\/a>. Cute birds.<\/p>\n<p>A related bird is known in Australia, commonly called a Laughing Koolaburra.  Nice photo here: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Dacelo_novaeguineae_waterworks.jpg\"><strong>Photo<\/strong><\/a>, of the normal multi-colored bird. Larger than those found in Kittitas County.<\/p>\n<p>A related, quite rare bird, is all black.  Well, it is rare in Western Australia. Thus, this story: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2018-06-08\/rare-black-kookaburra-spotted-wa-backyard\/9845764\"><strong>Link<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So, what I found most interesting is that searching for Black Kookaburra yields as many hits for the black licorice as for birds. A candy of other colors may have the shape of traditional licorice candy but extract of the root therein, is rarer than the black bird with the Kookaburra name.<br \/>\nI find no special relationship between Licorice and Australia, or the rare black bird.<br \/>\nThis reminds me of the non-existance between Lake Tahoe and the Tahoe area and the Pepperidge Farm &#8216;white chocolate macadamia&#8217; cookie named Tahoe\u00ae. <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #FF0000;\">Item #3: Looked like rain<\/span><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W3_Denny-Creek-slide.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"585\" height=\"312\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7301\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W3_Denny-Creek-slide.jpg 585w, http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/W3_Denny-Creek-slide-300x160.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 585px) 85vw, 585px\" \/>I went to the wet (west) side of the Cascade Crest today to work on the Denny Creek Trail. The trail is a favorite of folks with young children because, when the water is not real high, wet rocks make for a big playground. The photo of summertime is at the &#8220;slide&#8221; several hundred yards up-trail from where we worked.<br \/>\nAn air mass was moving off the Pacific Ocean toward Washington. If the weather folks had the timing wrong we all would have gotten exceedingly muddy.<br \/>\nThe system arrived after our work, and the drive home was lightly sprinkled.  Now, 6 hours later, there is light rain across the region. Not a lot, and it will pass in another couple of hours. We&#8217;ll fall asleep with sounds of drops falling from the roof.<br \/>\nWhat&#8217;s not to like?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #FF0000;\">Item #4: Breaking Cat News <\/span><br \/>\nMy favorite cartoon made me smile today:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gocomics.com\/breaking-cat-news\/2018\/06\/08\"><strong>Clinging to the force field<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #FF0000;\">And that, for this week, is the not so nasty news.<br \/>\nJohn <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week&#8217;s not so nasty news. Item #1: Plastics The Graduate, a 1967 movie, stared a 30 year old Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin, just graduating &#8212; aged 21 \u2013 from college. A character named Mr. Maguire whispered career advice to young Ben, and made famous a one word quote, namely &#8220;Plastics.&#8221; watch 1 minute clip &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/?p=7304\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;<span style=\"color: #FF0000;\">A hodgepodge<\/span>&#8220;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-1TO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7308,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304\/revisions\/7308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}