AKIQPilot

Hey, I've driven across that bridge in the center of the picture. Pretty cool town. There are some bad ass houses on Lake Charlevoix. Petoskey is also a very cool little town.

Yes for sure. There is a whole lot of New York State that is very beautiful.

I have heard the movie is really good. I would like to see it some day. Was this the first movie you directed?

Well your question about whether BP could use top hat to contain the leak and then tap into reservoir later was completely absurd. Those were two completely different things and completely unrelated. Top Hat was nothing more than a funnel shaped containment device designed to divert flow from the damaged LMRP to vessels on the surface. Whether BP would come back some day and tap into the reservoir is completely unrelated. Once the relief well intersected to Macondo wellbore they pumped kill fluids into the wellbore to kill the well. Once the Macondo well was killed they pumped the wellbore full of cement to seal it off so that it could never be used again. Keep in mind that 11 men lost their lives in this disaster. It was suspected that the LMRP and BOP were two of the key components that failed at the onset of the disaster and they would be needed as evidence in the wrongful death lawsuits against BP. Trans Ocean, Weatherford and the Federal BLM had falsified test, inspection and repair records of the BOP for the 2 months leading up to the April blowout. In late fall of 2010 BP removed the LMRP and BOP and turned them over to federal investigators to try to figure out what went wrong with them. In late September 2010 BP installed the final sub sea cap on the well permanently sealing it off forever. Investigators determined that the BOP did not actually fail to deploy. They determined that the drill pipe was violently blown up hole when the well kicked and that it kinked across the BOP stack which made the BOP inoperable and ineffective. It's really too bad that we lost that thread in the first FSCE meltdown. There was a lot of really good information in that thread. We are doing fantastic by the way. Had a fantastic trip to New England. New York State was one of the more surprising places we visited. After we talked to you we left Watkins Glen and headed toward Ithaca then hit Hwy 88 headed to Schenectady. That stretch of land across the central part of NY State was beautiful in the middle of October. Lake George and the Adirondacks were beautiful too. It was the trip of a lifetime and we will definitely do it again. Riding here has been fair. Finally got some snow here in south central so things are picking up now.

JUNE 15, 2010 BLOG THE BP OIL SPIL When BP CEO Tony Hayward admits that “this is an environmental catastrophe” and President Obama proclaims from the Oval Office “already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced,” the gravity of the crisis cannot be denied. Eleven workers killed. Fishing industries shut down. Ecosystems under siege. All the while, oil continues to gush from an undersea well at a rate of up to two and a half million gallons a day. We are saddened and overwhelmed, but we are also curious about the science behind the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. What steps led to this catastrophe? How long will it last, and where do we go from here? The Event: the explosion From February-April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a mobile offshore drilling unit, was drilling a well 5,000 feet under the surface of the sea to access oil deposits in the Macondo Prospect. The rig was about 41 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Many oil deposits also contain methane, a major component of natural gas, and this flammable gas is a concern when drilling oil wells. On April 20th, 2010, a high-pressure stream of methane shot out of the drill column, causing explosions on the drilling rig, massive fires and the eventual sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. Eleven workers were killed in the explosion, and seventeen were injured. Four days after the explosion, despite initial optimism, oil was confirmed to be leaking from the wellhead. Since then, the spill has become the largest oil spill ever to occur in US waters. So what went wrong? The oil deposit and drilling methods Perhaps the biggest challenge in staunching the flow of oil and cleaning up the spill is the depth of the well site. While most offshore oil wells are located in relatively shallow waters, the Macondo wellhead is about a mile deep. Not only is the deep ocean location difficult to access and dark due to the low light penetration, but the increased pressure at such depths physically prevents much of the equipment from functioning properly. (At that depth, the pressure is about 150 times that of equipment on land!) Therefore, many of the methods and equipment engineered to manage situations like this are not applicable in the deep ocean. To prevent explosions such as the one that occurred on the Deepwater Horizon, wellheads typically have what is called a “blowout preventer.” This device is deployed in the case of high pressure or out-of-control materials gushing from the well, and is designed to stop the flow until control can be restored. The blowout preventer failed at the Macondo well, perhaps due to a failed power supply and a damaged rubber sealing gasket. Another component of the drilling and well equipment, the riser pipe, was damaged in the explosion. This riser pipe runs from the drilling equipment at the ocean surface down to the wellhead, and serves to guide and protect the drill and accompanying drilling fluids. When the explosion occurred, the riser pipe was badly damaged, and oil began to leak from several locations. Attempts to cap the well have been thwarted by the twisted and bent pipe, and while two of the main leakage sites have been capped, more than 75% of oil from the well may still be leaking into the Gulf. Stopping the flow and clean-up methods Many methods have been employed by BP thus far to attempt to limit the impact of the oil spill. The initial attempts were the most straightforward, focusing on stopping the leak at the failed blowout preventer. Remotely operated vehicles were sent underwater to manually close the valves on the preventer, but were all unsuccessful. The next attempts focused on trying to essentially cap the damaged pipe –one such attempt was termed “top hat.” If the jagged, damaged riser pipe could be capped, the flow could be better contained and oil could be siphoned off. However, the first attempt to cap the pipe was foiled by crystals that form in the deep sea from a mixture of methane and water. These crystals caused the container to be more buoyant than was predicted and then clogged the system. While the top hat method did temporarily help to siphon the oil, it was ultimately removed in favor of attempts to stop the spill for good. For a more reliable fix, the engineers then attempted what was termed “top kill.” The idea of this method was to pump heavy fluids into the blowout preventer to counter the pressure of the leaking oil and restrict the flow. The fluids used in drilling, called “muds”, have interesting flow properties, such as being either very fluid or very gel-like, depending on their movement. If the flow of oil was restricted, the pipe could then be sealed with cement and capped. However, this attempt also failed to restrict the flow as desired. The most recent attempt, the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap Containment System, was designed to remove the damaged part of the riser pipe, thereby making the cap easier to fit and easier to siphon the oil onto a ship. A diamond-edged saw on an submersible robot was used to try to cut the pipe; however, the blade become stuck, forcing the use of a giant shears, making a jagged cut and making the capping more difficult. A second containment system is also now in place, and together with the well cap, possibly a third of the leaking oil is being captured. Looking Ahead There are a number of future options remaining. The most immediate option is to drill relief wells into the leaking well, thereby enabling the engineers to block the leaking well with drilling mud. These wells, however, will not be completed until August. Until then, a number of biological and chemical efforts are being made to reduce the environmental impact of the spill. In addition to human relief efforts, chemicals called dispersants are being used. Oil dispersants prevent clumping of oil and reduce environmental impact by acting as detergents, breaking up globs of oil into smaller pieces and allowing them to be carried by water. Another potential relief mechanism may come in the form of bioremediation – using bacteria to help “eat” the oil from the water. Some bacteria can feed off of oil, using it as a fuel source and helping to remove it from the water. So what is our future? Despite great technological advances in recent decades, this disaster has proven so difficult to fix than even our best engineers have not discovered a way to adequately control the damage. Even after the leak has been stopped, scientists and engineers will be busy for years investigating the causes of the disaster and its long-term impacts. A detailed inspection of the blowout preventer, likely after it has been brought to the surface, will reveal why all of its many safeguards failed. The impacts of oil contamination on coastal habitats have been studied, but less is known about the influence of oil on deep ocean ecology. The prolonged release of this oil and the extensive use of dispersants will have effects on the ecosystem that we currently do not understand. The findings of both safety investigations and ecological studies may lead to new regulation of offshore drilling to prevent and contain future disasters. http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2010/issue71/

Are you serious? You think you won that argument. The containment cap called "Top Hat" did not cap the well and put a stop to the oil flowing out of the reservoir. It only slowed the oil flowing into the ocean and diverted some oil to the surface where it was processed and sent to shore. The Macondo reservoir had in excess of 15,000 psi of pressure. The engineers knew the cap was not capable of withstanding those kinds of pressures and was only there to divert the flow to surface. It was a big upside down funnel pressed down on top of the lower marine riser package and then connected by an upper riser to a processing vessel on the surface. On many occasions when the surface vessel had trouble processing the fluid coming up the riser they had to stop flow into the vessel and divert the flow back into the ocean. You were wrong then and you're still wrong now. Q&A: How BP capped the Deepwater Horizon oil well BP has succeeded in attaching a cap to the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico but concedes that the Top Hat will only be a partial success at best A video shows BP's underwater robots shearing off a gushing oil pipe deep under the Gulf of Mexico, and lowering a cap as oil gushes out from the sides. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Graeme Wearden Friday 4 June 2010 07.48 EDTFirst published on Friday 4 June 2010 07.48 EDT View more sharing options Shares 0 What has BP managed to do? After four days' work under the sea, robot submarines managed to cut through the pipe that rises out of the well on the sea bed, and from which most of the oil was gushing. A containment cap was then lowered on to the freshly cut end of the pipe, and BP now hopes to syphon oil up to the surface. This is called the lower marine riser package (LMRP) option. How much oil might it catch? That's the key question. Before the operation started BP had conceded that the cap (dubbed "Top Hat") would only be a partial success. Unfortunately the procedure to cut the pipe hit problems – the robot submarines had to use shears to complete the job after a diamond-tipped saw got jammed. That means the join between the cap and the pipe is rougher than hoped, which probably means more oil will escape into the water. Another issue is that the flow (estimated at up to 19,000 barrels a day) may have increased now the pipe has been removed. It was kinked, which experts believe helped to reduce the amount of oil that could escape. However, BP was making positive noises today. Chief operating officer Doug Suttles told US TV networks that he would like to see BP catch "90%-plus" of the leak. Why try something that has no chance of working permanently? Because all its previous efforts have failed. The clean-up operation suffered a heavy blow last weekend with the failure of the "Top Kill" procedure (in which mud was pumped down the well to try to stop the leak long enough for BP to fill the shaft with concrete). An earlier, larger, container was lowered last month but it became filled with ice crystals, and a syphon inserted into the pipe did not manage to collect much oil. When will we learn how successful LMRP has been? Further details are expected later today. BP must be desperate to announce some good news as Barack Obama is visiting the site again. The US president is becoming increasingly blunt in his criticism of BP, saying last night: "I am furious at this entire situation because this is an example where somebody didn't think through the consequences of their actions." So if LMRP won't work, what will? The only permanent solution to this crisis remains the two relief wells which are being dug to intercept the original shaft. BP hopes they will be dug by the start of August, allowing concrete to be injected into the shaft. But we are now into the hurricane season, which means there is a risk of a big storm forcing this drilling to be paused. If that happens, some analysts believe BP might have to start selling assets off to fund the cost of the crisis. Hurricanes could also disrupt efforts to collect the oil and keep it from washing ashore, although there are also hopes that it could help to break up the slick. What is the situation on the ground now? Latest reports show that the oil slick is very close to the beaches of Florida. In Louisiana, electrical storms have disrupted the clean-up operation. Lawyers are also getting busy, with lawsuits being filed against BP in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. What's the City's view? BP's shares continued to recover today, up 4% this morning at 450p. Investors believe BP will still pay a dividend this year, despite opposition from US politicians. Two ratings agencies downgraded BP yesterday, though, warning that the cost of the catastrophe will hurt the company for a long time. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jun/04/bp-capped-deepwater-horizon-oil-well

You accused him of being less than honest. That's about 80% of the issue here. The other 20% is that you don't have a lot of experience with these sorts of things yet you think you're an expert.

You must be pretty serious about this diet thingy.

So long that your knuckles are always bloody?

Can you define deplorables for us.

As long as you weren't tied up all day moving a coffee table or something.........

Nice list.

No one asked but since you're offering it up go ahead.

Both Ben and I sell way more stuff on line and on CL that you will ever dream of.

He doesn't even have to return the sled to get a refund.

You forgot to add: that he can rally for over a month, beat the complete shit out of, leave in the ditch blown up and file a PP dispute and get a full refund. As soon as you show up to the buyers house to "settle the issue" you are trespassing, he calls the cops and will likely be facing legal issues. You have no idea how these things work. Knowing where the guy lives means absolutely nothing.

No one with half a brain would have completed that transaction once the buyer demanded to pay with paypal. It's been explained to you a dozen times and you still don't get it. Ben was and is 100% correct.

Your Fall was unforgettable for sure. Even with the dry summer and fall the colors were still great. We spent 5 weeks in the area and never got tired of it.

We just yesterday booked a Grand European Vacation for the month of Oct 2017. I told my wife we need to get over there again before the muslims complete screw it up. We will be back for sure though. This fall was an incredible experience. I can't wait to go back. I've been having chowdah withdrawals for the last month.

Are there any bands from the current century playing in your area.........

Alaska for me if a few of you didn't already know.