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Julie believes Bob took her to Gilhooey's near Galveston sometime this year
Bob and grandson Logan visiting in June
Bob was helping Elsa fix up her Dickenson house
Bob and Elsa stayed at this house when fixing up Elsa's house -- Bob actually bought this house on Nevada St. for this purpose
Jef, Bob, Kathy, Holley & Stacey at the San Jacinto Monument
Bob's car, the Cube, was chosen for its ease-of-entry. Behind his car is the San Jacinto Monument capped by its unique star
Bob working on his version of the San Jacinto Monument star
Bob treated his guests and Elsa to a fancy dinner at Willy G's on Galveston Harbor
In May of this year, Elsa got a job on the other side of Houston, so Bob and Elsa rented a house there, so that Elsa didn't have too long a commute.
In November of this year, for the dual purpose of celebrating Bob's 90th birthday (belatedly) and prematurely celbrating Thanksgiving, son Jef visited with wife Kathy and step-daughters Stacey and Holley, getting a whirlwind 2 day tour of the area by Bob and Elsa.
Bob wrote in a journal this year:
"Last year, I came from California to live with my daughter Elsa near Galveston, Texas. Driving my little car around, I would frequently become disoriented , hesitating before asking my passenger or passers-by for directions, all of which reminded me of an old joke, told to me by Leo Batris many years ago, with the final words being...."Y'all Cain't git t' Texas frum hee-are".
"One day Elsa and I were in the big-box hardware store, "Lowes", and found ourselves obstructed from proceeding toward the cash register by an inconvenient barrier some employee had set up, and I commented "You cant get to Texas from here" and Elsa asked me, "Is that a quotation from a song?" And I explained, "No, that comes from a joke told to me many years ago".
"Later she asked me to tell the joke,and I tried, but was no good at telling it properly as it had got me to laugh good when I heard it told, Elsa said that I ought to Google it, and this is what I got:
- "You can find him out there. You know how to get there?"
- "No, ma'am."
- "Let me think a minute." She looked up at the ceiling. "Well, you drive west on the Screwbean Draw Road, know where that is? Good. Then you go until you come to the junction with 943, then I'm pretty sure you turn right, that's north, and go about three or four or five miles until you hit Peeler Flats Road. Let's see. You turn right on Peeler Flats and go another ten or twelve miles until you see a big ranch gate with five or six cow skulls nailed on it. That's the main entrance. But you don't want a go in there. You want the other entrance, the north entrance, so go past the main gate and bear right at Jimmy Rim Springs Road where Powper Lane cuts in. About three miles up Jimmy Rim there's the back turnoff onto the ranch, big green metal gate, and that's what you want. Ace is out in what they call the Black Draw pasture. You should be able a see his truck out there and a course you will see the mill. You want me to write that down for you?" she asked at his confused expression. "Please, if you don't mind."
- She scribbled sentences, crossed one out, wrote again and handed him the paper. "It might be you'll turn left at Peeler Flats."
- When he read the directions in the car they did not seem to tally with what she had said.
- An hour later he was lost in a tangle of pale dusty roads ...
- "Say pardner, how do you get to Texas from here?"
- "From here?" – "Yep"
- "You go straight down the road about a mile..." – "Yep"
- "No, you go back the other way about two miles..." – "Yep"
- "...make a right – or is it a left? You know what: you can't get to Texas from here!"
Robert on "Revenge":
"A way to obtain revenge....
Buy yourself a bunch of pistachio nuts....
Shell and eat the ones that are easy to shell....
set aside in a box the nuts that seem difficult or impossible to open....
Come XMAS or a birthday of some one deserving, wrap up the box prettily and send.
Another strategy....
Go on an archaeological expedition to the upper Nile....
Discover and enter an ancient tomb....
Find some very well preserved pistachio nuts....
Clean them up and put them in a box....
Jef & Bob around this time
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Bob completed his first star early this year and turned it into a night light in front of his rented house
Bob's second star was made with the more easily worked foamboard. This one was completed in May of this year
Son Jef came down with family to visit Bob in August. Here they are in Galveston at Willy G's. L to R: Elsa, David, Bob, Jef, Kathy, Stacey [Holley off camera]
Bob continued working on his Texas star projects, leaving Elsa to do most of the work on her Dickenson house.
Daughter Elsa was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer and had a thyroidectomy early this year. Bob was taking care of her during this time.
In July, Jef, Kathy, Stacey & Holley flew out for a "pre-Thanksgiving/birthday" visit. They spent a few nights in Houston and 3 at the beach in Galveston. Jef helped on a few projects with Bob in Dickenson - installing A/C, and working on "tetrahedral space" model.
Bob continued making "Texas Stars" thruout the year.
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Visiting dinasaur, April 14, 2012
Dad in front of WestStar house, April 15, 2012
Dad was present at a little dinner party this evening
Bob sitting in WestStar living room with Tiki to keep him company, April 16, 2012
Bob visited Jef and Kathy in Borrego mid April this year, driving his Cube. Later this year, Jef received this message via e-mail from his dad:
When I returned to Houston, it was time for an oil change, the car was a smear of bug juice, crazed windshield, inside matted with Ripley's shed hair, and Nissan wanted an arm and a leg to fix all this, so I meditated in their showroom during the oilchange, and my little boy in a candy store took over and I dickered with the car salesman about the blue Juke on the showroom floor. So I got a reasonable trade-in for 40% of the cost. They were hungry and after the sign-up, the manager confessed that he was too fast and had given me too good a deal.
When I got home, I googled Juke in Wikipedia... Juke is a Gullah adjective meaning loud, boistrous and roudy. Gullah is the lingua-franca of west Africa...think Angola. The greater portion of black slaves came from Africa's west coast and so Gullah is melded into the talk of African Americans evidenced by
words such as Jazz, Brer, Kumbaya and Juke box. "Don't throw me into the briar patch, Brer Fox!"
Thank you for the lovely hospitality.
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Partaking in one of Julie's Easter feasts
Doug and Bob out and about near Socorro
Bob and daughter Julie at a local bar
Bob sitting outside at happy hour at WestStar house in Borrego
Bob read a lot in this chair while at the WestStar house
Bob visiting office where Jef & Kathy work
Jef and dad Bob arriving home from eating out
Kathy got around to cutting Bob's neglected toe nails
Bob visited Julie and her family in Socorro NM in early April of this year, and Jef and his family in Borrego in early December this year.
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Julie giving Elsa instruction on water aerobics as David watches
Julie going over financial stuff with Bob
Julie clowning around at a bank
The whole family
A farewell dinner at a local Chinese eatery
2 Elsas?
Julie demonstrating belly dancing while Elsa and David provide the music
Bob continued living in Houston. Jef flew out July 10 of this year, and visited. Julie also flew out, so all of Bob's kids were briefly reunited. The purpose of the trip was to establish a "poor man's trust" for Bob's estate. Julie, it was decided, became the executor, and various accounts were set up for Jef and Julie to share with Bob - Elsa already had such an account.
Jef received an email from Bob January 27 of this year, where he talked of the nature of our universe:
Space, time, matter, energy, motion, life and cognizance, ultimate explanations of any of these words seem impossible, unless conjecture is allowed. We have no information about the various forms of infinity, so we must suppose. Let us construct suppositions as follows:
Euclid assumed that infinite extension of two separate straight lines that were parallel. Modern people have assumed that, because straight lines are not found in the presence of matter that straight lines are impossibility and therefore, all lines are curved. That assumption of some people can be dismissed if each curve in the line is corrected to agree with an assumption that any line which is the shortest distance between any two points along that line is our basis for defining straightness. Descartes defined space as three systems of infinitely long straight parallel lines each system intersecting the other two systems at right angles. Thus, infinite space may exist in the mind of a cognizant being.
Einstein, somehow discounting the above and observing the effect of the attraction of matter on a ray of energy and measuring the time required for a ray of energy to move between two points assumed that the path of the ray of energy was a basis for extending our perception of space. His construct is perhaps the limit of a concept based exclusively upon the scientific method of testing every observation. This limit may one day be extended when our tools of observation extend farther.
An understandable construction of the infinity of space, answering the question “If space has an edge: what lies beyond the edge?” Is simply “More space”, ad infinitum. Let us begin by dividing space into compartments, proceeding in all directions, ad infinitum. Each compartment of space is defined by the mass-density of matter-energy within each compartment. Let us assume that the quantity of matter-energy in each compartment varies, while each compartment undergoes a cycle described as a singularity within the compartment exploding to fill the space between adjacent compartments, then imploding back into a singularity. Assume that the explosion-implosions are not in phase with the cycles of adjacent compartments and that, during some intercompartmental phases, matter-energy is exchanged by compartments. A probable shape of the compartments might be modeled by a mass of soap bubbles. The compartment boundaries would be points where the inverse square law of attraction of each adjacent compartment balances at net zero, causing the boundaries to waver and occasionally to transfer matter-energy through the common boundary. A possible situation might occur when the explosion phase pressure against a neighboring imploding compartment causes mingling of matter-energy that then causes perhaps extinction or birth of compartments. It also may be assumed that some compartments have become completely devoid of matter-energy and are infinitely extensive while there is a pressure for matter-energy compartments to expand toward the emptiness.
In our compartment, we have the motion of matter and the radiant transfer of energy to measure time. Some say that, in the absence of a time measurement device, time does not exist. Perhaps somewhere far distant from any field of gravitational attraction or radiant energy, measurement of time is nearly impossible if not meaningful but the mere proximity of moving matter and radiance must be acknowledged and out there space, if nothing else, is awaiting an intrusion.
Most of the time, between a big bang singularity exploding and an implosion returning a space compartment’s matter and energy to another singularity the environment, is hostile to the existence of life. Rarely, the firey turbulence of the explosion endures a period of quiescent tranquility where concentrations of the right kind of matter and radiation permit the long term evolution of replicating chemical matter to evolve to a living state of cognizance. The period of tranquility we live in, as well as our very lives are brief. Elsewhere within or without our vast compartment, cognizant matter seeks to understand. Be happy. With understanding, even if based upon overlapping assumptions we may give thanks for the rare gift of cognizance.
On 6/18 of this year, Bob provided another idea for an invention:
I worry about the bolted joints of the trusses in the ceiling of the Sewanee house every time someone speaks about the San Jacinto Fault. Such worry is related to my latest invention.........On the slab checkerboard floor of a Borrego room (Out of the wind) sits a series of cylindrical objects, each in its own checkerboard square.Each of these Oatmeal boxes, having the same circular base has a different weight sitting on its top. Each box has been tested on a special 'earthquake tabletop' to calibrate its 'overturning momentum' which is related to something like the Richter Scale.
A follow up email later that day:
STANDARD CHEAP EARTHQUAKE INTENSITY SCALE
Think of a bowling pin array, Instead of pins, use tennis ball containers. Set pins vertical on any available quiet (windless) level closet floorslab. Atop each container in the series, center various weights... for example, go buy at your hardware store a box of steel washers, say about 1/16th inch thick x I/4th inch holes, and 1 inch outside diameter (standard unit weights). On pin#1 no washer, #2 1 washer, #3 2 washers -----#X X+1 washers. Shut the closet door and wait for an earthquake. (keep the chiwawas out of the closet). Every time there is a local earthquake, note the reported intensity and inspect your array of pins for overturning. calibrating the overturned maximum number of washers against the reported Richter Scale intensity
After his 96th birthday, Jef received an e-mail of a proposed "Mega Project" (received 10/15 of this year):
A RED SEA DAM, A 3rd Millennium MEGA-PROJECT
The Red Sea fills a depression of the Earth's crust located between northeast Africa and southwest Asia, This depression was caused by spreading of the Earth's crustal plates due to sub-crustal thermal convection flows during some past 20 millions of years. The depression is kept filled with sea water from the Indian Ocean at its south end, through the Bab el Mandeb Straits (bordering Djibouti and Yemen). The straits total 28 kilometers in width and bottom 30 meters below sea level for 3 of those kilometers and 300 meters for the remaining 25 kilometers. The depression extends northerly from the straits 2250 kilometers to the Suez Canal in Egypt.
The surface area of the sea is 437700 square kilometers (larger than the State of California).The water volume of the sea is 69000 cubic kilometers. Forty percent of the sea's area averages a depth of 100 meters. The sea has an average width of 280 kilometers. The climate of this area is extremely arid averaging less than 76 millimeters of annual rainfall and about 200 millimeters of evaporation from the sea surface each year.
An earth-fill dam across the straits would cause the Red Sea level to drop about 100 meters after 50 years of evaporation, thus making available permanently thereafter an annual hydroelectric power source of kinetic energy from the Indian Ocean, renewed each year by the further evaporation of lowered Red Sea water. Removal of 100 meters of water from the Red Sea, however would raise the sea level of the World's remaining oceans about 12 centimeters.
The hydroelectric project would stop all except local marine commerce through the Suez-Red Sea route unless a lock system is subsidized by the project. The project's efficiency might be improved if the source of the earth fill dam material was sea bottom material dredged along the sea shore slopes so that the evaporation area of the sea was extended, increasing the available potential energy. Barge transport of the fill material at present sea level would certainly lower the project cost. The yield of energy would not vary, as it does in riparian dam projects, where there are randomly diminishing yields because of either flood control duty or of drought cycles. The evaporation rate and the ocean level are more constant factors.
There are other mega-projects to consider: 1. The Gibraltar Dam, 2. A Gulf of California Dam, 3. A Persian Gulf Dam, 4. A Caspian Basin Sea Tunnel, 5.A Dead Sea Basin Tunnel, A Salton Basin Sea Tunnel......?
On October 29 of this year, Bob emailed Jef regarding the potential "Salton Sea Mega Project":
The Salton Basin was once a part of the Gulf of California until the delta of the Colorado River became a dam that prevented ocean tides from replacing the water loss due to evaporation. The delta alluvial dam is about 37 feet above the gulf sea level. One very feasible electric power project might be to construct a gravity pipeline from the Laguna Salada, Mexico to the Salton Sea shore, USA and use the potential energy of sea water to replace the annual 6 feet of evaporation from the 340 square mile surface of the 40 foot deep Salton Sea as a source of electric power while maintaining the desired Salton Sea level.
That required continuous inflow of sea water would be 6 cubic meters per second to meet this demand through an 85 mile long 5 foot diameter pressure pipe buried underground, 50 miles covered by up to 50 feet, 20 miles of cover tapering to 10 foot cover and the remainder near or at the surface. The sea water intake could be from a proposed an inland commercial marina connected to the gulf by a navigable canal with an access road covering the entire pipeline route. Operating with pressure head of 230 feet, minus 10 feet of head lost to pipe friction, turbines could produce a dependable international revenue while the status quo of conservationalists. recreation and farm communities are preserved.
Alternatives to this suggestion to be considered are: 1. Allow the Salton Sea to evaporate. The Colorado River's potable water will be appropriated be growing populations that will diminish the crop irrigation drainage that is at present failing to sustain that Sea. 2. Appropriate the entire Colorado River delta discharge to fill the Salton Basin up to the 37foot above gulf sea level eventually in the next millenium, converting the Salton sea into 700 square mile freshwater lake. 3. Cut a navigable 90 mile long canal through the delta and allow the Salton Basin to again be a part of the Gulf of California and an inland seaport community.
after Jef pointed out a few problems with this, Bob replied on 10/30/24
All things considered, we follow the cataract of consensus, The USA growing population,, facing a fixed water supply, chooses potable water rations; The farmers of Imperial Valley flop because of upstream appropriation of all the water for the thirsty people; The Salton Sea bottom becomes a whirlwind source of perennial toxic dust storms and the border fence area becomes a war-torn no mans land.
On November 29, Bob remembered his days involved with civil defense in the '50 in L.A.:
In November, 1954 I was an Engineer -in-training working for the County Engineer of Los Angeles County, California. Pretty low in Bill Fox's Department, I was routinely assigned jobs disliked by my superiors. One such assignment was to attend and report on the County's monthly Civil Defense meeting requiring attention of all department heads by the County Supervisors.
I found these meetings usually to be boring, but the subject of the discussion that November was the interesting panic caused by the USSR's reported test of their H bomb. That week, I had inspected a bomb shelter that a citizen had constructed in his backyard, a steel boxcar, buried and covered with 20 feet of earth, its interior filled with necessities, accessible through a laddered vertical steel pipe with an armored entrance trapdoor. One department head had suggested that L. A. County, being occupied by 6 million souls concentrated in an area of about 500 square miles, was a prime target for The USSR's ICBMs armed with their new bomb that was hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The meeting therefor moved and seconded that the County Engineer should draft an evacuation plan that might thin out L. A.'s population density. When I reported this to General Fox, he instructed me to draft the evacuation plan for his approval and for presentation at the next scheduled Civil Defense meeting. I submitted the approved plan and you need not ask why it was 'Tabled' and the matter was forgotten.
I do not have a copy of that plan but the following is the gist of it:
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L. A.'s population could be disbursed from its 500 square miles inland into an area of about 30000 square miles by means of a rehearsed planned evacuation using privately owned autos.
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Each auto owner could be given a unique destination selected in that area and a unique map showing the access route together with a roster of passengers designated for that destination.
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One percent of that population could be selected at random and dispatched to make a trial run in their car to their destination, there to bury a cache of survival necessities for some future emergency run, hopefully to return that same day, aware and prepared.
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Each following day another one percent could be so dispatched, this process continuing until the entire population is aware and prepared.
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When an emergency is forecast, the population could then be dispersed to their destinations in the same order as were their trial runs, avoiding the traffic jamming which could be as lethal as the bomb strike.
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Notice that any forecast bomb attack time should allow several day's time to accomplish a dispersion, and that such dispersion success is possible only if the attack expected is in retaliation to a first strike planned by the USA.
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Elsa demonstrating the digeridoo
Talking in the sitting room with Elsa, David, Bob & Kathy (photo by Jef)
Bob showing off his new Seabee cap
After Bob's phone interview on someone making a documentary of the Interstate Cadet, he received this cap.
Kathy joined Bob's usual concert makers by playing David's violin
Bob wanted this piece of art he framed as one of his last projects on Landa Street hung in his bathroom, where he could see its reflecting in the mirror while sitting on his "throne"
Elsa is actually working at home so that she could be with Jef and Kathy while they visited this week (Xmas to NYE)
Jef and Kathy toured Bob's neighborhood. This is nearby, but they found after a few blocks areas that had been flooded, and many(perhaps hundreds) houses in this subdivision had to be gutted and re-done.
On February 13 Bob sent Jef this email regarding the dangers of the Oroville Reservoir above Sacramento:
Oroville Lake, a reservoir built to supply domestic water to distant cities, to irrigate farm crops , to provide recreation opportunities to visitors, to generate power for a wide power grid, to reduce the threat of natural flooding of lands and people living downstream, all while preserving the continued breeding of migrating fish, has been in operation for fifty years.
The lake is located below its rain watershed of the Sierra Nevada Mountains known as the Feather River Canyon behind Oroville Dam. The dam and power plant construction was finished in 1967 with a storage capacity of 3.6 million acre-feet of water and spillways at an elevation of 900 feet above sea level. The dam is located at a bend of the river which has a safe capacity of 160,000 cubic feet per second. The 700 foot tall structure is an earth fill dam. The downstream edge of the lake is a natural ridge of bedrock extending from the west side of the canyon to the dam which connects to the east side of the canyon. The spillways are constructed atop this ridge so that the dam is protected from being over topped by the stream flow.
Dam structure foundation design depends on an opinion that the underlying bedrock is competent to give permanent support to the structure above and to resist any seepage of reservoir water which would enlarge or erode natural small cracks existing in said bedrock. Exploratory excavations attempt to find and remove incompetent rock to minimize future leakage.
When the structure is completed, the operators of the dam structure inherit the task of continuously monitoring the small seepages that respond to the upstream varying water pressures. Pressure variations in a reservoir are caused by seasonal use of water followed by refilling during rainy seasons. The cracked bedrock of deep reservoirs endures stress that affects crack size, not only because of varying reservoir water pressure but also because of seismic disturbances and seasonal temperature change, particularly after prolonged drought. Small cracks tend to continuously enlarge because of sediment wedging and never permitting the crack space to shrink. Inspectors and supervisors monitoring the outside exposed bedrock and structure faces containing the water measure and log the small seepages and should immediately respond to increased flows by plugging the small cracks. Negligence of such duty is suspected to have caused catastrophic release of water.
The spillways of Lake Oroville, when the lake is overflowing, and when the watershed has been saturated by a series of rain and snowstorms must handle, perhaps one inch of rainfall per hour on a watershed area of about 3500 square miles. With nowhere else to go, these spillways could receive 27 million cubic feet of water each second. That is about 150 times the design flow of the Feather River's downstream flood control channels.
R. A. Johnson, retired California Professional Engineer No. C 11538
Bob continued living in Houston. That Christmas, Jef & Kathy visited. Both came home with colds, but nobody else did.
Bob came up with this description of how the Cyclodyne blades might work this year
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Bob with son-in-law Doug at beach in Port Aransas this year. He was visiting his nephew-in-law Don (Ruth's nephew)
Bob continued living in Houston this year. He received another box of wine from Jef and Kathy this spring. He briefly went on the wagon as he thought the vino might be adversely affecting his BP, but continued to drink (half a glass per nite) after he found out that his BP varied without consuming any alcohol.
Bob seems to be inspired to invention. In June of this year, he mused:
Why does a falling leaf auto-rotate?
Some falling leaves do not rotate because their center-of-gravity is located below the center of air resistance and therefor fall close to the tree.. Other leaves with a CG nearer the center of air resistance are seen to automatically rotate as they fall more slowly. Aside from the effect of either insulating tree roots from winter's cold or restoring nutrients to the mother tree's root ball, slower falling farther wandering auto rotating leaves are a natural accident having no significance
except that they might provide inspiration to inventors who seek to harness the force of wind to benefit humanity.
Examples of uses of such auto rotation are 1. The bull roarer, 2. the ancient Persian windmill and 3. Juan de Cierva' Autogyro. These and the falling leaves all use the same aerodynamic principle, the Bernoulli Effect, wherein air forced around a moving surface moves faster than the surrounding air and causes unequal air pressure to be exerted on opposite sides of such surfaces and accelerates rotation of the surface's mass about the mass's center. These machines make use of wind energy to disperse leaves, to create music, to grind seeds or to provide lifting force to falling objects.
Cierva's machine uses a wing that pivots around a vertical axis, the inner part of the wing being driven by wind blowing upward through the disk formed by the wing's rotation, the outer part of the wing using that energy to provide the lifting force. The others use a wing that moves in the pattern of a rotating cylinder like the blades of a reel-type lawn mower whose blades are parallel to the central axis of rotation.
One of the things Bob wondered about a few decades ago came to his mind in the middle of this year, and he wrote on longevity:
You are born with 2 important structures in your body. First is called DNA, the other is the container for DNA. The function of DNA somewhat varies between species, but in general is understood to supervise its container to grow (As the next generation) and to survive in its hostile environment and to propagate a following generation. The DNA container has a limited time to find a place in the environment and contend with its own survival while arranging for the propagation of the following generation. Since some births are frustrated in attaining this goal, enough multiple births assure a sufficient number pf propagations of the next generation will prevent extinction of the species.
Many species are programmed in their DNA mechanism to contend precociously with their environment with little or no parental help beyond the time of birth but the human species survives only if the parent protects the vulnerable child from environmental hazards for a period of between 10 to 15 years after birth.
Considering the foregoing conditions, the human species mut rely on a duration of life of about 40 years in order to continue its future generations. When the human DNA containment structure enjoys its life the structure can persist to double that duration of enjoyment. Such persisting is limited by the fact that the DNA molecules residing in that containment structure (not the ones delivered to the next generation) are gradually destroyed by the hostile environment and as a consequence, the containment structure dies. .This slow death may be caused by extraterrestrial bombardment of the DNA's molecular structure during the longer lifetime, which time is lengthened by the habit of nightly sleep during which time the numerous DNA molecules each attempt to repair such damage. We call this process our 'biological clock'. The cognitive human might have means to tamper with his biologic clock, further extending his enjoyable lifetime.
My thought is to deceive the biologic clock, as follows: Avoid the fast lifestyle, Program your daily life by extending each 24 hour day to 48 hours. You possess only a certain number of days to live...Lengthen each day and you will add years to your life!
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Jef intercepted a comment Bob made (probably responding to someone on the net) regarding restoring sunken agricultural land with fracking:
Throw lots of money and the problem is solved. Petroleum production made out without fracking with the use of the weight of the stack of particles above the fluid-filled interstices forcing that fluid into the tube well cavities.
Most petroleum is found within fracture interstices of metamorphosed bedrock. Prior to fracking' (which has placed Texas oil production for the year 2018 ahead of the Arabian peninsula), oil production from a tube well was limited to the amount of fluid released from fissures held open by the fluid pressure.
Removal of the fluid allowed each particle on the two sides of each interstice to relieve the fluid pressure and stop the crude petrol from entering the drill-tube cavity.
Invention of the 'fracking' process allowed existing abandoned oil wells to profitably resume production.
How does fracking work? A designed fluid is forced down the well tube and out through selected tube perforations into the interstices, jacking them apart sufficiently to allow particles suspended in the designed fluid to be placed to hold the interstice stone apart, opening a channel for fluid trapped by interstice closure to again flow into the well tube cavity.
The fracking procedure is an expense that the miners of fossil irrigation and potable water cannot afford at this time.
Several weeks before Bob's 99th birthday he said in an email to Jef:
That Fibonacci bunny counter learned in the Casbah about that strange number 'zero'....Now if you use the Chinese custom about boasting about your age...Like the one who was born on Sept. 6, 1920, the pre-fibonaccis on 9/6/19 would call him a centenarian but the post-fibonaccis would make that miserably poor lost lamb wait another year to get his name listed in the quaeterly retirement associatons newsletter as one out of the 60000 members who are the 10 surviving centenaries. Baa baa baa!
In November of this year, Bob's son Jef emailed him that an unusual heavy rain was falling in the desert, to which he replied:
In the land of little rain, the intervals between disastrous floods(when boulders the size of houses become buoyand in the hi-density canyon mudflows), fortunately are long.
When Jef sent Bob a lump of coal(anthracite) as part of a Christmas present (as a joke, of course), he replied.
Thanks for the Anthracite. I thought it was Obsidian. Last years gift of the projector of red, white and green Christmas on the wall we placed out in the dark shining of our dismal forest of leafless hickory trees. This appeared as a fantastic backdrop of milions of fluorescing gems attached to the sleeping branches and twigs.
This was the last email Jef was to receive from Bob, as his eyes were failing and he stopped using a computer shortly after this. His hearing loss continued to worsen thruout the year, and it was very difficulty talking to him on the phone, so there were less and less phone conversations during the year because of this. Bob refused to get a hearing aid, and more and more depended on the voice to text feature of his phone.
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Jef had this obituary published in the May 28, 2020 issue of the Borrego Sun
About April 20 of this year, Elsa called Jef and said Bob wished to go on hospice rather than the hospital.
The next day Jef called and spoke to Bob, who believed he was dying. In the short conversation, Jef and Bob expressed their love for each other, after Bob said "Goodbye. I'm dead".
On April 23rd, less than an hour after Julie and Doug arrived in Maumelle from New Mexico and saw her comatose father for the last time, Bob stopped breathing, and as he specified no heroic efforts to revive him, he passed away.
David called Jef to inform him of this as this was happening.
On the 100th anniversary of his birth, Jef organized a brief Zoom memorial for Bob. Altho successfully completed, all did not go smoothly and no recording was made.
Zoom meeting
Jef's remarks were roughly in this link:
Jef's Zoom remarks
Jef was not adequately prepared for zoom meeting, as he had to pack for a 3 week camping trip thru covid and wildfire tainted west coast the next day in order to visit Bob's only great grandson who was born about a month before Bob passed away this year.
Bob's step-great grandson Ronan celebrating his first "half birthday", September 21, 2020
Jef drove back down Hwy 395 in areas he's never been to(in his memory), but where Bob travelled in the 'olden days'. Hwy 395 was the main road away from the coast going north/south back in the day(before the interstates). Jef pondered the scenery, noting some regions weren't that much different than when Bob travelled them 60 - 80 years ago. He & Kathy stayed in the Toiyabe Motel in Walker CA, also on the 395. In the room, the walls were covered with knotty pine. Talking to the owner about this (many of the walls on Landa St. were covered with the same knotty pine tongue-in-groove lumber), he said the motel was built in 1952, about the same time the Landa St. addition was being constructed. He said knotty pine was sold at a very, very cheap price back then, which explains why Jef had it in his bedroom, as Bob was very thrifty. The owner said the opposite is true today, as sky-high prices are a result of it now being a very desirable kind of wood.
Knotty pine walls at Toiyabe Motel in Walker CA
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