A Simple Solution Evades BP

I think the good people at BP are overthinking this whole blown-well thing in the gulf. They're trying all these high-tech solutions to capture the oil, with expensive equipment and untried machinery. What they really need is a very, very large sturdy plastic sheet, with weights around the edges, and a tube coming up from the middle, oh, a few yards across. All they have to do is spread the sheet out and let it sink into place over the blown well. The pressure of water on the inside will be the same as the pressure on the outside, so it shouldn't be too tough to get it positioned over the well. The weights will suffice to hold it in place. Then the pressure inside will increase as the oil spews into the space under the sheet; this will raise the sheet up some and keep it off of the damaged well, while the oil, which is lighter than the surrounding water, will make its way up the tube to the surface, where it can be collected by ships already in place.

It'd probably be cheaper than all these failed machines, too.

County count progress

Since several people have asked me: this last trip to Cincinnati and DC got me to 119 new counties. I've now been to almost exactly 2/3 of all the counties in the country -- the easy ones, you might say. I've been to 2,065 of the 3,097 U.S. counties -- 66.7% and change.  There are still four states I haven't been in at all: Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and Oregon. I'll be going to Washington & Oregon later this year.

I've been to all the counties in 9 states now: Maryland was finished up on this trip with a drive down the Eastern Shore (plus a side-trip the day before to Kent county, just so I could take advantage of a nice day and not have to make a detour the next day), and it joins Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and Nevada in the "been there, done that" column.

Ain't that exciting.

Later this summer I'll get some more of those borin' ol' counties in the Great Plains and then the Upper Midwest, when I deliver a stained-glass tryptich to Wisconsin; and then this year's last Big Trip, to Washington State, will get me to two new states and who knows how many new counties. Looking forward to that. Sort of.