Well, I was going to do an entry about do-it-yourself mole traps resulting in death by electrocution, but Kevin beat me to it in this entry (with hilarious animated gif of a gopher.) So, I thought there must be another interesting animal story out there and my spouse referred me to the Starlings of San Rafael.

It seems that a large flock of starlings has taken to gathering over a cemetery in the town of San Rafael in Marin County California. This flock of birds then orchestrates itself into a number of Hitchcock-inspired designs before flying away again. See for yourself below in these pictures published in the Marin Independent Journal.












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Tune: Birds by Neil Young
Technorati Tags: Starlings | Formation | Acrobatics | Mike Harding Blog

Cargill subsidiary Emerald Renewable Energy announced recently it plans to build 4 new ethanol plants in the US each with 100 million gallon per year throughput.

Each plant will use nearly 40 million bushels of corn annually and produce 100 million gallons of ethanol and over 300,000 tons of dry distillers grains for animal feed each year. The plant sites being considered include greenfield locations as well as co-locations with Cargill grain elevators and other utility infrastructure providers. The plants are expected to create about 40 jobs per location.

I think that Cargill and other ethanol producers ought to be focused on the distribution problem. This is the time (new Congress and all) to get something interesting to happen; like mandating E85 replaces the useless middle grade at US gas stations. We’ll see how it goes.


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Tune: Oh Marie by Sheryl Crow
Technorati Tags: Ethanol | Transportation | Biomass | Mike Harding Blog

Chevy’s Volt


Forget the current breed of hybrid, the Chevy Volt is a new approach. It’s got a 3 cylinder 1.0 liter turbocharged gas (E85) engine attached to a 53 KW generator, batteries that store 16KWh, and a 120KW (160hp) electric motor. The gas powered motor is not attached to the drivetrain, only to the generator. The range on pure electric is 40 miles, when the generator kicks it, it extends to 640 miles. It plugs into standard 110v power for recharge. If only they’d stop trying to make things look futuristic and just make a sensible car design with this power train, I would think they’re on to something…


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Tune: Seniorita by Los Lonely Boys
Technorati Tags: Electric | Car | Hybrid | Mike Harding Blog

For the second time in as many weeks, we’ve got a reference from Deadspin. I love Deadspin, it makes me laugh and keeps me informed on happenings in the sports world. If you haven’t checked it out and are a sports fan, you’re missing out.


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Tune: Poor Me by Charlie Patton
Technorati Tags: Deadspin | Sports | Humor | Mike Harding Blog

Well, after having a little time to reflect on the debacle that was last night’s game, I’ve come to the conclusion that these are the things that went wrong:

• Emotionally flat and rusty team, and the 51 day layoff clearly did not help.
• Field position in the first half. When giving a team fields of 5, 6, 32, 34, & 46 yards in the first half it’s no surprise that it leads to 27 points.
• Penalties. See above. Big contributing factor to field position on two drives.
• Ted Ginn’s injury. It shrunk the field dramatically.
• Turnovers. The Bucks turned it over through fumbles and interceptions. Florida did not.
• Befuddled defense, thinking too much rather than reacting. Applying no pressure to the opposing QB. It’s a mystery to me why we were only rushing 3 and 4 and not blitzing.
• Offensive play calling, we weren’t attacking their weaknesses nor were we taking advantage of the mismatch in the run game to free up passing lanes.
• And the key problem: Offensive line play. Tackles Alex Boone and Kirk Barton didn’t stop the Florida defensive ends all night. As a consequence, any advantage held by the Buckeyes of receiver vs. secondary was negated. The O line flat out stunk it up last night.

To their credit, the defense got it together and played a strong 2nd half holding Florida to 7 points after the bloodbath that was the first half. But the offense, and in particular, the line, never got it together. Credit Florida, they played a great game. But I think the Bucks contributed to their success.

That’s it, no more about this game until next season.


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Tune: Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2
Technorati Tags: Ohio State | Florida | National Championship | Mike Harding Blog