Buffalo National River, Arkansas

Composite of images taken on November 7, 2005, with a Kodak DX4530 Zoom

I’ve added a couple of market indicators on the right sidebar of this blog. One is for tracking the trend of the price of oil and the other shows the nation-wide average price for vehicle fuel.

The price of oil is something I check occasionally and every time that I do, I have had to do a search to find it on line. This time I happened to find a site that let you place an indicator on your own site. Now I don’t have to search and it’s there for anyone else that might be interested in it.

Mesa Falls Recreation Area

Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, Idaho

September 16, 2007 at 10.31am MDT

Devil’s Den State Park, Arkansas

March 1, 2008 at 12.51pm CST; Pentax K10D; Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250); Aperture: f/9.5; Focal Length: 55 mm; ISO Speed: 100

I’m not a scientist. I wanted to be one when I grew up, but, like so many childhood ambitions, it never happened. However, my career — from which I recently retired — was in a fairly technical field that requires knowledge of many scientific principles.

I don’t recall from any of my science classes and courses anything about consensus being a part of any scientific process, unless, of course, one is referring to political science. Science is research. It’s study. It’s going to the ends of the earth and the depths of the sea to find factual information. Science is about taking what is learned and developing hypotheses and theories and proving and disproving them.

Consensus is not science.

A consensus of many scientists and others says that there is a very high probability that global warming is being caused or worsened by the activities of man.

I’ve read a lot of the material associated with their position and some of the conclusions don’t quite add up for me. For instance, carbon dioxide is supposed to be the primary contributor to global warming, yet there is no explanation why it seems to start going up after the temperature rises that it’s supposed to be causing. In my view, it’s more likely that the rise in carbon dioxide is due to gases coming out of solution as the oceans very slowly heat up, which has been occurring for many decades.

Is the climate change that is certainly occurring being caused by man or are we taking credit (blame) for something that is entirely out of our control?

Or is it just consensus?

(more to come on this topic… )

Canyonlands National Park

September 23, 2007 at 12.13pm MDT; Pentax K10D; Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250); Aperture: f/9.5; Focal Length: 50 mm; ISO Speed: 100

I’m finally back to work developing content for Haw Creek. The current page I’m working on is one on the Buffalo National River. It’s part of the National Park System and a really, really neat place, and — I regret to say — we’ve only went there once intentionally, though we’ve crossed the Buffalo on various bridges many times over the last 28 years. If you’re interested in hiking, camping, white water canoing or rafting, kayaking, wildlife viewing, or just in learning about other places, check the page out. While I’m still adding material to it, there is plenty there all ready — it doesn’t have an “under construction” feel about it at all. I plan to have the page complete by June 1st and will be moving on to the next page after that — sooner if this page is done ahead of schedule!

Administrivia details:

I’ve had the page on Haw Creek for quite some time in a different location. However, I’m moving all of my places and images pages and changing their format. I’ve decided to concentrate on optimizing the pages for search engines as well as adding new content. A lot of the content will be available in other places on the web, but, generally, not all on one site. My intent is to provide useful and interesting material as well as valuable links that should be viable for a reasonable period of time.

The format for the places and images pages will be very similar to the rest of the site. I’ve learned that it is difficult to keep up with different design templates, especially when the material isn’t worked on very often. For the time being, on Haw Creek I will just be using one design template. I may change it up a little bit on occasion, but, by using just one design template, I can apply the changes across all of the pages of the site at the same time.

Road from Gros Ventre slide area

September 20, 2007 at 10.45am CDT; Pentax K10D; Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250); Aperture: f/9.5; Focal Length: 55 mm; ISO Speed: 100

Even though we can afford the cost of fuel right now, we are cutting back on our usage.

The price is just too high — and it seems wrong not to cut back when others are suffering from the high cost of buying fuel.

I only use the truck to travel to and from work and for occasion trips to pick up something too large for the car.

I’m driving more conservatively, too: taking a few minutes longer to get where I’m going, slower and smoother acceleration from stops, and staying off the interstate locally where the driving distance is essentially the same — which eliminates acceleration to and driving at higher speeds.  This has resulted in an fuel economy improvement of over 1 mpg in the truck — and, with a total fuel tank capacity of 63 gallons, it’s the equivalent of saving almost 4 gallons of diesel fuel, or about $18.00 at today’s prices.

We’ve also cut back significantly on our travels around the state on days off. 

I believe that the price of oil is largely being caused by investors and speculators and is an investment bubble similar to the tech bubble of the 90s and the housing market bubble that burst so recently.  I don’t think this bubble will burst like those, but I do think that, given time, prices will moderate to more manageable levels. 

I, for one, would not consider investing in oil or natural gas futures — or any other commodities, for that matter — as they are too risky.  On the other hand, it isprobably a good time for investments in oil or natural gas production.  The demand is there and, regardless of the end price, the producers are going to make money.  With the current prices, there are a lot of new wells being drilled in a lot of different places across the country and some formerly marginal wells are being placed back into production.

How are you coping with the cost of fuel?

Arches National Park

September 24, 2007 at 10.43am MDT; Pentax K10D; Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/180); Aperture: f/9.5; Focal Length: 55 mm; ISO Speed: 100