TS Allison’s 10 Year Anniversary
Many of my friends in Houston might recall that on this day 10 years ago in 2001, Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston. You normally read about named storms that are hurricanes but Allison was a unique storm in many ways. She formed early in the season, only a week into it. She started out in the southern Gulf of Mexico and never made it to hurricane strength. More importantly, however, is when she arrived on land she just stayed there for a few days.... didn't move. While stationary she dumped over 8 inches of rain in just a few days, inundating the city of Houston before she finally moved off to the east.
Tunnel System Flooded during Allison
There are a lot of stories in the real estate industry about the cleanup of that storm, especially for those downtown properties that were connected to the underground tunnel system. Buffalo Bayou flooded early on and sent bayou water through the downtown tunnels, flooding the basements of buildings which included building power plants and parking garages. One woman was killed when she stepped into an elevator that serviced an area of a flooded garage. The elevator went down underwater and she was unable to escape. Her body was recovered a few days later.
All in all Allison killed 50 people and left devastation in the amount of $5 billion. Just goes to show you cannot take any of these tropical systems lightly.
D-Day Remembered?
Today started like any other Monday for me. Up early, shower, shave, dressed, and off to work. It wasn't until late in the morning that I was reminded by a friend's Facebook post that today was the the anniversary of "D-Day". For those of you like me who can be historically challenged at times, D-Day was the day that the allied forces stormed the beach at Normandy, France, and began the liberation of Europe. This was the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime. 160,000 Allied Troops landed on the European continent that day and over 10,000 causalities. It forced Hitler to fight a war on two fronts, not just the eastern front against the Russians. Within one year of June 6, 1944, Hitler would commit suicide and Germany would fall.
General Eisenhower talks to a group of paratroopers before the invasion.
Here are some impressive facts about the invasion (from PBS.org)
An invading army had not crossed the unpredictable, dangerous English Channel since 1688 -- and once the massive force set out, there was no turning back. The 5000-vessel armada stretched as far as the eye could see, transporting over 150,000 men and nearly 30,000 vehicles across the channel to the French beaches. Six parachute regiments -- over 13,000 men -- were flown from nine British airfields in over 800 planes. More than 300 planes dropped 13,000 bombs over coastal Normandy immediately in advance of the invasion.
War planners had projected that 5,000 tons of gasoline would be needed daily for the first 20 days after the initial assault. In one planning scenario, 3,489 long tons of soap would be required for the first four months in France.
By nightfall on June 6, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, but more than 100,000 had made it ashore, securing French coastal villages. And within weeks, supplies were being unloaded at UTAH and OMAHA beachheads at the rate of over 20,000 tons per day.
Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner of war camps at the rate of 30,000 POWs per month from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Thirty-three detention facilities were in Texas alone.
I think an event like this at least deserves a cute little Google logo, don't you? After all, if they can do it for Issac Newton's birthday they certainly can do it for the 160,000 soldiers involved in D-Day, eh?
God bless our men and women in uniform, past and present, American and our Allies.
Update: Pool Heater
Update: The White Trash Pool Heater mentioned in the previous post seems to be working! The day after installation the pool water was at 70 degrees, and as of Sunday afternoon (1 week later) it had reached 76 degrees. Sure, not a huge jump, but if I get 6 degrees a week I will be a happy camper. I took a reader's advice and doubled the length of the black hose used for the heat transfer and that seems to have made quite a difference. With any luck, we'll be swimming again by next weekend. Redneck ingenuity at it's finest.
Thanks for checking in!
White Trash Pool Heater
I wouldn't say I am by nature a cheapskate. However, I have been known to be impatient from time to time. Now that it is warming up outside in North Texas I don't want to wait around for my pool water temperature to catch up with the outside air temperature. My pool does not have a heater and I do not want to spend the money plumbing one in. Hence, this weekend, me and my faithful 12 year old sidekick built our first White Trash Pool Heater.
What's that you say? It's simple really, working on the same principal as the air conditioning unit in your house. In your air conditioner, freon is pumped through several tubes where it comes into contact with the warmer air that is being blown through your fan. The heat attaches itself to the cold freon, hence removing the heat from the air, and the result is colder air. The warmer freon transfers outside to your condenser unit into more coils around the fan. The fan makes the air cooler than the freon, so the heat transfers to the outside air and cools the freon back down, which then returns to your air conditioning unit.
Here is how my heater unit works on the pool:
1. Water from one of the pool returns is pumped into an attachment that is connected to a black garden hose. The black (black because it absorbs heat) garden hose then runs back to the side of the house where the "heater" is set up. This spot on the side of the house gets full sun almost all day long which is critical to the heating process.
Pool Return Attachment - Black hose is the supply to the heater, and the green hose is the "heated" water returning to the pool. (click the image to see a full size picture)
2. The black garden hose is then routed along a large piece of plywood (painted black to absorb heat), covering as much surface as possible to maximize heating.
3. The black hose ends at the bottom of the board where it is attached to a green hose. The green hose runs the warmed water back into the pool.
The "heating" element
Pretty simple, eh? I think so. Best part is that all in it has cost me less than $75. It will not heat the pool in the matter of a day or two like an expensive gas or electric heater, but it will speed up the process. Mrs. Bubba has her doubts on whether or not my design will work. I'll need a few full sun days in North Texas before I will see any results. The beginning pool temperature when I installed the unit was 70 degrees. I'll post back here in a about a week and update you on my progress.
Please post your comments below. I love to hear what you think of my design.
Recent Posts
- Stupid Tenant Tricks
- Sitting on the Hurricane Sidelines
- Page 2: Designated Passenger
- Page 2: A “Boobie” Trap
- Page 2: Suspicious Package? It “Depends”…
Categories
Share TxBubba.com
Calendar of Posts
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Sep | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
On a Personal Note…
On my Nook Now:
Follow Me on Twitter!
Spamming with Stealth
One of the fun things about being a blogger is reading feedback about your work. Positive or negative, it gives a blogger a warm fuzzy inside that people are actually reading what your write and those readers are motivated enough to comment on your work.
Not very stealthy...
Alas, unfortunately, the spammers think that by commenting on your blog they will get published along with a link to their website. Because of this, I moderate all of the comments on my site before they are published. The spammers have figured this out and try to get their comments approved by making it seem legit. I save the really good ones and now I will share a few of them with you:
On my review of the book Decision Points by President Bush:
"An interesting discussion is worth comment. I think that you need to write extra on this matter, it won't be a taboo subject but usually persons are not sufficient to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers"
Never mind that his user name linked to an overseas pharmaceutical distributor where I could get some cheap Viagra.
This next message comes from a user named "Boris Splatt" and he was commenting on my article regarding my select baseball Dad observations:
"Hello! I just found your blog via Google. What a nice blog you have! I like it very much! since you have this fantastic blog, why not turn it into steady income? Thank you for supplying such priceless service to the entire internet community!"
Priceless service? Really? I can make money at this? How does your website regarding printer ink cartridge refills accomplish that?
This next comment was regarding my article on my engineering feats in pool heaters. The user's name is "bar supplies" and his email address was a link to a website that sold just that.
"What’s Taking place i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I have found It positively helpful and it has aided me out loads. I'm hoping to give a contribution; assist other users like its aided me. Good job."
What's taking place is I am new to this too but I know spam when I see it. Good job.
And finally, this one had a link embedded to an overseas loan outfit.
"I took 1 st when I was 32 and it aided my family very much. However, I need the commercial loan over again."
How clever.
-Jeff