John Spilker: Stop the Presses

Canadian Ski News Service – Whistler, B.C.: Extreme skier Brenda Spilker of Bellevue, Wash. says she is “extremely lucky to be alive” following a 50-second “head over heals” tumble down the Harmony Ridge glacier of Whistler Mountain. Spilker claims she was skiing in excess of 120 kilometers an hour at the time of the crash.

She says she was practicing for an appearance in the upcoming Warren Miller ski video – Over the Hill and Beyond.

“It was a beautiful run,” Spilker claims. “All of a sudden, I saw out of the corner of my eye what I’m sure was an orange whistler marmot. He was paralyzed with fear. All he could do was whistle at me. I swerved fast and went over a 50-foot cliff. If I had run over the little guy, he’d just be nothing more than a puddle of Hamburger Helper. I don’t remember what happened next.”

Dr. I.M Doughter of the Whistler Regional Hospital, who treated Spilker, says he’s never heard of anyone surviving an accident on that section of the ridge at those speeds. “Makes you wonder what really happened,” he says. “A most incredible story. What’s an orange whistler marmot? And what’s he doing out in the middle of winter—practicing for the bobsled team?”

Another skier challenged Spilker’s sketchy recollection of the accident. “I saw her go down one of the beginner runs,” says Bob Spencer of Calgary. “She collided with a six year old. Both were oblivious to the world. I mean they were both checked out. I didn’t know you could get hurt going so slow.”

Link to Technology Review: A Portable Refinery Powered by Garbage

Here's something for the backyard...a machine that turns waste into electricity.

Researchers have built and tested for the military a portable machine that efficiently turns waste into electricity.

An energy-from-waste project led by researchers at Purdue University is giving new meaning to the term "military power." Scientists from the university's department of agricultural and biological engineering have developed a portable machine that turns a variety of food waste and inorganic trash into electricity, reducing the amount of diesel fuel and garbage that soldiers in the field must carry with them. [More]

Some great photos of the Quebec City Carnival on Guy Kawaski's blog. It's something that we'd like to attend in the not-so-distant future. Always great to see the pictures of Guy Lafleur and Patrick Roy, two of the greatest hockey players to play in Quebec City.

My Trip to Quebec

Continuing on from Minnesota, I went to Québec for the Garage Canada conference. The Winter Carnival was also going on at the same time. I thought Minnesota was cold, but it was downright balmy compared to Québec. Despite the -40 degree weather, I found many parallels between Québec and my native states of Hawaii and California.

T his really blows my mind. According to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory we have all the tools we need to solve the energy crises right at our hands. All we have to do is switch over to the plug-in hybrid vehicles. The power grid is robust enough to handle the load.  Wished we could get our Camry hybrid converted to a plug-in tomorrow.  Here's what Mark Anderson writes about the issue:

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, managed since its inception as part of the Department of Energy by private contractor Battelle, released a report a week or two ago, which is so simple in its conclusions, and so amazing in its repercussions, that everyone interested in energy should be talking about it.

The report, in summary, says this:

There are about 220MM vehicles in service in the US today. IF all of those were converted to Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles (a technology already available), the existing US electrical grid system has enough unused off-hours generating capacity to power 84% of US transport of cars and light trucks.

Today.

 

Link to Strategic News Service Blog » Blog Archives » Solving the Energy Crisis, with No Energy Investment

I just posted some pictures that I took Friday of the aftermath of the wind storm. It's so amazing that more people weren't hurt.

Link to December wind storm pictures