Oyster Spat!

No, this isn't a joke about arguing oysters, nor do oysters spit (as far as I know). Oyster spat are baby shell-less oysters that need a place to attach too in order to grow shells. You know, the two that are needed before one can be shucked to produce an oyster on the half shell. In Southeast Georgia there are a couple of collection spots (in Brunswick, Savannah, and on Jekyll Island) where oyster shells (sans oysters) are collected for reuse in building oyster shell reefs, a new habitat for among the fish and other things, oyster spat. Recycling oyster shells is a great way to have your oysters and eat them too because the shell reefs created with the recycled oyster shells provide essential habitat for, not only fish, but also shrimp, crabs, birds, and other forms of estuarine dependent wildlife. Man made assisted oyster shell reefs also serve as natural breakwaters that reduce erosion. A single oyster can filter 50 gallons of water in a day, and that for even a simple bivalve seems pretty impressive to me but their populations are on the decline. Spring is the time of year when the Marine Extension Services are most involved in the reef building projects using oyster shells they've collected form restaurants and people having oyster roasts during the past year. So consider recycling or ask if the folks at your favorite oyster bar recycle the shells for the sake of oyster spat!

Roadrunners and Petaflops

After surpassing the petaflop barrier, by processing over a quadrillion mathematical calculations per second, the plug is finally being pulled and the Roadrunner retired. Roadrunner was a super computer and is being replaced by smaller faster models that are looking to surpass the next barrier, exascale, by performing a quintillion mathematical calculations per second. I saw a photo of Roadrunner and he was huge and definitely outdated looking, at least compared to the stuff people are using today. I do realize that my grandkids aren’t using their IPhones, IPad Minis, and Kindle FireHDs for mathematical calculations but these days they sure seem to be able to do a lot with them. I really had hoped petaflop was a word related to pole vaulting or some failed project or protest by the people for ethical treatment of animals, but no such luck with those ideas. I think I will attempt to create my own meaning for petaflop by taking some grandkids and pets to the dog park (Tommy Casey Memorial Dog Park in St. Marys). The kids and pets can run the obstacle course a bazillion times while I flop on one of the nicely shaded benches to watch. Sounds like a plan to me J.

Red Paw

The brainchild of founder Jen Leary, the Red Paw is for animals in times of disaster as the Red Cross is to the humans. The agency, based in Philadelphia, is 2 years old and uses a network of volunteers, animal welfare groups, and foster homes to help animal victims, often separated from their families, when they too are caught up in disasters. They operate 24/7, 365 days per year assisting displaced animals and their people. Red Paw is the Red Cross for animals and its mission is to protect animals in times of peril. Their website at, http://www.redpawemergencyreliefteam.org/ says it all and has information on how to volunteer, donate, or adopt. A pretty noble idea, in my opinion, that gives a voice to our loved ones that are often forgotten or considered low priority when natural and man-made disasters strike, our companions, also known as pets.

Ponce De Leon

La Florida is 500 years old and is celebrating its own discovery by Juan Ponce De Leon this month. They've even unveiled a statue of Ponce De Leon in St. Augustine. Governor Scott attended much of the festivities and held a cabinet meeting in St. Augustine also as they celebrated the first siting, landing, and naming of the state in what most people consider our nation’s oldest city. An actual descendant of the famous explorer dressed the part and reenacted the discovery on the beach with a fanfare of cannon blasts. I read a biography of Juan Ponce De Leon a while back (in fourth grade) and from that I can tell you that he really got around, especially in the Caribbean. He was once the governor of Puerto Rico among other jobs exploring and enjoyed a pretty good rapport with Spanish royalty (his financial backers) back in the day, a mere 500 years ago. The biography and the celebrations did a pretty good job of glossing over the uglier side of Florida’s history that includes the enslavement and genocide of the native peoples and the introduction of non-native animals (pigs, for one) and diseases that had a drastic impact (negative) on the people and the ecosystems. Non-native animal species, like the Burmese python, that have been more recently introduced are still causing havoc in the fragile ecosystem (the Everglades) today so one could argue that some of Florida’s less than positive history is still in the making today.

On the other side of the coin, Florida, and the rest of our nation wouldn't be what it is if it weren't for the early explorers and we wouldn't be here either. I know that is a big generalization but I guess I am for a more balanced and honest (less fictional) approach to the retelling of history and I wonder if a lot history doesn't better fit the category of fiction than fact. That said, I’d like to think the focus of these celebrations could be more about the importance of sensible and responsible stewardship of the resources and beauty of the great state of Florida as time and history marches on into the future and less about soothing our collective conscience with historical fiction.

April Showers Bring…Tornadoes

Tornadoes are the number one weather related killer in Georgia and historically April is the month when they are most likely to occur. As I write this on a beautiful spring day with the sun shining in the sky and just enough of a breeze to keep the gnats away, I remember reading one woman’s recent comment about her experience with a tornado. She said she had no warning and no time to think about getting to a safe place. She literally ran for a closet in her home. Her home was in the direct path of this tornado and it was lifted from its foundation (I can’t help but picture the scene from the Wizard of Oz here) and moved some distance away. She was fortunately a survivor rather than a statistic in the fatalities column. In the past 30 years I recall 3 incidences where tornadoes have come through and touched down here in St. Marys, especially the one in 1995 when some portable classrooms at Crooked River Elementary school were heavily damaged. This one hit close to home so it definitely made an impression on me.

Until recently there hasn't been any consistent way to get warnings out about these storms unless you happened to be watching the weather channel or have a weather radio on. I remember as a child in Illinois the sound of sirens used as a warning and on Andros in the Bahamas there’s a light (on a tower) that indicates the presence of lightning with different colors representing different distances, useful for the helicopters, boaters, and other aircraft in the area. Now there are weather apps for your smartphones that can alert you to all types of weather and in Camden County (via the Sheriff’s Office) there is a program called CodeRED for the rest of us. It’s an emergency notification network that that sends either a voice message to your land line phone or a text to your cell phone about any threats from a rash of burglaries to severe weather. The key thing is that you have to register for this free service. They guarantee that your registration information will remain private and only be used to notify you in situations you sign up for.

My point here is, with all the ways to stay safe during this approaching severe weather season, what are you waiting for if you haven’t already signed up? During a tornado minutes count and none of us want to be a statistic.

Crowdsourcing and the National Suggestion Box

Crowdsourcing is the term given to the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas (hence the National Suggestion Box), or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.

The National Suggestion Box is an on line “box” created in 2009 to give government workers a place to contribute budget cutting ideas (using crowdsourcing as a strategy, I like it!). Four ideas each year are selected for implementation and awarded the SAVE Award. In all the 28 suggestions implemented so far have brought savings of 243 million dollars per year, other suggestions have been less impressive and still others have had no fiscal impact at all.

85,933 of the 86,000 ideas suggested have yet to be acted upon for a variety of reasons I am sure, including the fact that it would be more work than just allowing sequestration to rear its ugly head. It’s interesting to consider how crowdsourcing works and funny how the government works at the same time. I kind of liked the ideas about having boy scouts wash government cars for (low pay and) merit badges and saving on landscaping fees by using government goats.

Ombliferous

I love new words with multiple meanings! Ok, I’ll use ombliferous in a sentence or three so you can figure out what it means and choose which sentence it’s used in correctly.

1.           In a song lyric: That’s not ombliferous, that’s 50 dollars for a t-shirt!

2.           Diffusing a road rage situation: Who gave that ombliferous jerk a driver’s license?

3.           For a tax attorney: There is no return too ombliferous for us to prepare.

If you choose sentence number 1- you are right! And the same goes for sentences number 2 and 3. In each choice the word is used incorrectly because ombliferous is a nonsense word (one of many) coined by the English poet, author, artist, and illustrator of the 1800s, Edward Lear.

Happy April Ombliferous Fools Day! Hope it’s a slobaciously scroobious one!