Local Lore 1.

My first home had a red dog driveway. Most people may not know what red dog is and I intend to straighten that out. I live in an area of southwest Virginia where the big money is in coal. It makes for quite a quandary to think about. The fact that I speak so much of the energy "crisis" and talk of ways to save energy when the truth of the matter is, if we were to quit using coal altogether as a means of energy production it would devastate much of my family.

The process of separating coal from rock was less meticulous in the early days of coal mining. Slate makes the bulk of the rock that was separated from the coal. Even though most of the coal was sifted away a bit of it would end up in the slate pile anyway, far less of it ends up in slate piles today. Coal is made of decaying leaves, dead animals, and rotted trees all covered up over time and with the great deal of pressure among the layers of the earth, the decaying things turn into black rock.

These piles would stay in one place for quite some time. With such a mixture of slate and coal in the early days of coal mining the energy from the continual decaying process of the coal would build up heat and turn the inner part of the pile into a red hot cinder of coal and slate. Once these piles were moved the heated slate inside having been cooled was found to be red. Quite the shock, I'm sure, for the first guy that moved a slate pile. This red rock is called red dog.

According to my Dad, back in the 1960s a young fellow must have had some mischief in him. He was hanging around at a strip mine, probably even though he shouldn't have been, perhaps drunk, and decided to bed down on a slate pile. Perhaps the warmth that emitted from the pile outweighed the fact that it was a bed made of rock, and large ones at that.

So this guy decided to make a slate pile his temporary sleeping quarters. The next day the same man was found on the slate pile dead. Even though it was probably warm to sleep on the pile, the man must not have considered the fact that inhaling the gases that came from the pile would eventually suffocate him.

Investing in music.

This is kind of interesting.

Wired Articled

Slice The Pie: Music Investments

To sum up the article you can write reviews for albums and get paid, and paid more if you are in line with popular views.

You can also invest in bands like the stock market. And you will be paid $2 per 10,000 albums sold per stock you invest in.

You can also listen to a lot of free streaming music.

Man Power.

I've been thinking about how ridiculous our pursuit of improving our lives is and in doing so we have simply thought up ways to both consume more energy than ever before and have also really just made our lives more complex. Think about this, we now have electric can openers, electric pencil sharpeners, and electric tooth brushes. All these thing can be done with our hands just as easily and I'm sure there are many other examples.

In addition to objects such as these consuming more energy than necessary, portable communications devices are also making it more and more difficult to turn off and get away from the job. People are actually dying from being overworked now too. Kiroshi is what they call it in Japan. So does technology and electronics really improve the quality of life?

Can anyone think of more examples of electronics that really don't improve our lives any?

Gift Giving.

Giving the right gifts can be very difficult. It is easy to be given a list and then proceed to get for the person exactly what they want. But I can see a problem in that. Yes it's the easy way and makes for an enjoyable experience for the receiver, but to truly show the person that you love them and know them well is to get them something that they would really like, even though they don't necessarily know that they wanted it.

This shows that person that you are very close to them and understand who they are. It's easy to fall away from that though. Especially if you are not close to that person. It's easier to get them something that you like and think that they will also like it. But that is rarely the case. The gesture of giving someone a gift is something special. But to get them something that they like without them asking for it is the ultimate.

A friend of mine got carving knives for Christmas from his Dad. He didn't ask for them at all. But once he got the gift he realized just how good a gift like that is. It's a timeless gift, one that he may not use immediately but later on could find useful, like when he has kids or even grandkids of his own. He can then use those carving knives to carve his family some timeless gifts of their own. This to me is a perfect example.

I guess what I am saying is that those who give gifts even though receiver may not like the gift just for the gesture can be a bad thing. Giving a bad gift for the gesture can show just how out of touch the giver is with receiver of the gift or likewise. But at least it's nice of them to give something.

So, if you're going the list route, think about getting that person something independent of the list as a way to show them that you are connected to them in a special way.

Tin Man.

Thank God it's not a musical!

I think this is cool.

Mummified Dinosaur

Imagine being able to hold a dinosaur scale in your hand. You'll be hearing a lot more about this because they've made a documentary and have written 2 books about it. To sum up, apparently this dinosaur actually fossilized/mummified faster than it could decompose.

So since that be the case they are able to deal with and study flesh, muscle, scales, and bones instead of just bones. It's so pristine that they can see how the dinosaur was colored, not so much specific colors but they can tell what kind of pattern it had because there are lines on the skin.

Read the article if you want more details. It'd be cool to be 16 years old and find one of the biggest dinosaur finds in history too.

Change.

Starting January 1st, I am going to document all the change I find in 2008. I'll do my best to not actively seek out change by walking up to drive-thrus, coursing through parking lots, and fingering every change return slot. I am quite curious to know how much it's going to amount to however. I may not even crack a dollar unless I get lucky and find several quarters, or bills on the ground.

My prediction is $2.26. Tell me your predictions too. I'd almost like to get a $5 pool going and whoever guesses the closest to total change found would win the pool. I'd probably lose a lot more than I found, but it would make it more interesting. To add to the stipulations, it has to be money found out in public. In the couch, in the car or at someone else's house doesn't count.