Monthly Archives: April 2017
“Mr. Dahl, do you have a moment?” Matt, a young engineer, stood outside my office door. “Sure, what do you have?” I asked, waving him in. “Some questions on the model,” he replied, clearing his voice. Although Matt was just two years out of school, young and inexperienced, we had him working on a study of a rural water system – learning on the job is the best way. I knew the system he was studying like the back of…..
“Five forty! Five forty-one!” The young man yelled as we approached the first mile marker. Staring at his stopwatch, he paid no attention to the runners. “Five forty-two! Five forty-three!” “That can’t be right,” I thought. “I haven’t run that fast since high school.” My friend Chris was running next to me. Our eyes locked and he shook his head, arms raised in disbelief. “Maybe the first mile’s short,” he gasped. “Must be short,” I agreed, breathing hard. Oh boy,…..
Eons before man strode the earth, global climate change irreversibly altered the topography of North America; leaving a legacy that affects life in Indiana, yet today. To understand the full measure of these global changes, we must travel back to the Pleistocene, commonly called the Ice Age. Geologist estimate that this period started 2 million years ago and ended 10,000 years ago. Variations in the earth’s orbit and axial tilt, its wobble, brought about dramatic global cooling. As the earth…..
I reached another milestone. It seems that happens more and more, now that I’m retired. Last week my Administrative Assistant retired. Okay, for those of you in my generation, she was my Secretary, my Girl Friday. That may be sexist to say today, but there it is. I know it is hard to imagine a world without computers, but once there was such a world. Phones were attached to the wall with a wire. Travel calls required a payphone. Preparation…..