Hard to imagine! - No mando content - yet!

[Ken Olmstead]

Hard to phathom that this is what is happening just 100 miles away!

[billkilpatrick]

hope you're not down wind, amigo ...

[mandopete]

Thread lock down in 3...2...1...

[Patrick Sylvest]

What a beautiful picture. It's amazing how things in nature that are so destructive up close can be so beautiful from afar.

[groveland]

Thread lock down in 3...2...1...
I think I know what you're thinking, but I think it's not what you thought...

[Ken Olmstead]

Just to be clear, it is a photo of Mt Redoubt here in Alaska. It is located 100 miles from Anchorage. Thankfully, we have avoided any of its ash fall! I wish I had photoshop, I would love to see me playing mandolin with that in the background!

I know there are board members who have had some on their doorstep!

[Philphool]

Hey, the upper layer of cloud reminds me of the shape of Hans's Eclipse scroll!
(There, did I save the thread with mando content?):))

[JEStanek]

News article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090328/ap_on_re_us/alaska_volcano_55). That ash is very abrasive adn would be very tough on a finish (cars or mandolins). Impressive and humbling images.

Jamie

[Jim]

"The day Mt Redoubt (sp?) Blew" would make a great title for a BG song. Heavy on the mandolin solo of course. Thanks ken, for the pic.

[MikeEdgerton]

I lived through the St. Helen's eruptions of the early 80's. I was just looking at small jar of ash I kept. The stuff was awful. It blanketed Portland and it looked like a dark gray blizzard. I remember standing on Burnside Street watching a bus pull up a cloud of dust all around it as it drove down the street. Everything was covered. Stay safe.

[journeybear]

Believe it or not this came up on Car Talk last week (pretty sure it was last week). A caller from Alaska was concerned about getting these fine particles of ash in his engine, that they would be small enough to get through his car's air filter. As the caller imparted bit by bit more info I knew exactly what was going on and where he was calling from, having just heard about the eruption, Tom And Ray remembered going through this before with a caller who lived near Mt. St. Helen's, and suggested stretching a piece of nylon stocking over the aperture. Try going here (http://www.cartalk.com/menus/show.html) or here (http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/WeeklyShow/online.html)and navigating to find it. But that's the gist of their suggestion.

This came up again on "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" this week. Yep, this is how I get my news. :))

That is indeed an amazing photo. Sometimes Nature is at her most beautiful when she is also at her most dangerous. Approach with caution, and if the wind shifts, duck or run!

[MikeEdgerton]

I don't think the stocking would have filtered it out.

[Santiago]

Mando content: I once had a mandolin made of ash. I bought it at Sam Ash music.

[JEStanek]

I bet a stocking wouldn't have filtered it either... plus from how I've heard the ash particles described they would have cut through those anyway even if the pore sizes weren't as large as they are in a stocking.

Earlier this week while looking at volcanic images I came across some extraordinary ones from the Chilean volcano Chaltén's eruption. The particles generated lots of static electricity. Here's a photo to inspire the song/tunewriters amongst you.
http://www.ohgizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/chilevolcano.jpg

Good article here with National Geographic (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/photogalleries/volcano-photos/index.html). The dirty thunderstorm phenomenon has also been reported above another Alaskan volcano, Augustine.

To me, this inspires Thile-esque pyrotechnic playing... Chris, if you ever read this, I hope you see the gauntlet thrown down for you. This would be an amazing picture for you to paint with a mandolin.

Jamie

[Ken Olmstead]

Jamie, that picture exemplifies the level of visual and sonic power that will come out of my new Stealth!! Pictures tomorrow, (I would post now but these companies are anxious to have theri tax returns done!:)) man I can't tell you how cool it looks!!!

It is amazing how insignificant I feel when I see what is going in nature!!

[Scott Austin]

These photos are all quite beautiful and terrifying at the same time they always remind me of how insignificant I remain.

[mandozilla]

Jamie that is what I imagine the 'Wrath of G**' looks like in my mind...looks like it could really mess you up. :disbelief: Oops, sorry if I offended anyone with the G** reference. :redface:

Volcanic eruptions and mandolin scrolls look cool. :cool: Hey, mandolin content I believe. :))

:mandosmiley:

[JEStanek]

Ken, feel free to pick up the gauntlet too. I believe you can do it. <anxiously_awaits_photos>

Jamie

[Chris Keth]

Jamie, you beat me to it. Chaiten's current eruption (yes, it's still erupting, just not explosively) is predicted to get much larger and much worse in the near future. As is, it's destroyed one town completely, ruined the water supplies of a large area of land, and displaced thousands of people.

For some pretty cool photos from up close, check out some photos I took when I climbed it in September:

Gallery 1. (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107061&id=24403399&l=dcfa16a8e5)
Gallery 2 (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107063&id=24403399&l=6dfa9ad49f)
Gallery 3 (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107068&id=24403399&l=0e189c3768)
and some cool ones taken by friends. (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107069&id=24403399&l=6667724455)

[Hans]

Reminds me of the doc "Trinity and Beyond", a horrifying look at all the A and H-bomb tests of the '50's.

[AlanN]

I spy a virzi in the first photo.

[Tim2723]

Cool pic, but what does 'phathom' mean?

[Ken Olmstead]

Actually "phathom" means nothing. However, there is another word in the english language that is interesting..."fathom." :redface:

1 : a unit of length equal to six feet (1.83 meters) used especially for measuring the depth of water —sometimes used in the singular when qualified by a number <five fathom deep>
2 : comprehension

[mandozilla]

I bet that sucker up there in Alaska is throwin' plenty of CO2 into the atmosphere!...Definately not man made! :))

OK, now for some mandolin content! :grin:

:mandosmiley:

[journeybear]

I bet a stocking wouldn't have filtered it either... plus from how I've heard the ash particles described they would have cut through those anyway even if the pore sizes weren't as large as they are in a stocking.

I's jest passin' along what I heared. Now, them Cah Tawk guys are MIT graduates so they must know something. That's why I sent along the link, so Ken could hear for himself, because my memory is ... what was I saying? :confused: Maybe they recommended doubling over the nylon? Maybe it was supposed to be stretched over the air intake so the filter would still take the brunt of the onslaught? At any rate, I'm sure they didn't recommend using fishnets! ;)

That picture of Chaltén is amazing. Mt. Redoubt looks quite tame in comparison. Imagine that as an inlay on your Brentrup ... (obligatory mando content) ... :whistling:

[MikeEdgerton]

I'm a fan of Click and Clack, they just have this wrong. This stuff is as fine if not finer than flour and it's basically like ground glass. Within days after St. Helen's second eruption (the first ash cloud went east and didn't affect Portland to the south) you couldn't buy an air filter for your car. I honestly think a sweat sock would be a better filter and that probably wouldn't do much for you. I'm sure the Car Talk guys have never experienced volcanic ash, most people haven't.

[Chris Keth]

When I was in CHile for Chaiten, a lot of people were covering the air intake of their cars with coffee filters. I don't know how well it works but they were driving.

[journeybear]

I'm a fan of Click and Clack, they just have this wrong. This stuff is as fine if not finer than flour and it's basically like ground glass. Within days after St. Helen's second eruption (the first ash cloud went east and didn't affect Portland to the south) you couldn't buy an air filter for your car. I honestly think a sweat sock would be a better filter and that probably wouldn't do much for you. I'm sure the Car Talk guys have never experienced volcanic ash, most people haven't.

They may well have, I'm just saying it came up on the show, and I think that's what they recommended. Did I mention my memory? I forget. ;) And no, they didn't suffer through an eruption, they took a call from someone who had - back then - and a different one now. I certainly wouldn't recommend driving around in that area while this is going, even though life has to go on.

I've endured several hurricanes here in Key West over the last seven years, and have mixed feelings every time, but never evacuate. Fortunately, as scary and dangerous as they are, they usually pass through in a matter of hours and life goes back to abnormal. An eruption can go on for much, much longer, during which time nearby residents have to cope with its effects while trying to maintain their lives. This problem is a bit less obvious but no less real. Tiny glass particles will scratch the heck out of your car's cylinders and do lawd knows what else kind of damage. Any precaution you can take would be advisable.

[man dough nollij]

I'm probably about thirty miles from this one (http://erebus.nmt.edu/). It erupts every day.

I lived in Anchorage when Augustine blew once (early 80s?). It looked like a cocoa factory had exploded. All the snow was a nice brown color. Every where you stepped, the bright clean snow underneath shone out. It was freaky. :disbelief:

[Bill Snyder]

[QUOTE=Ken Olmstead;647196]...I wish I had photoshop, I would love to see me playing mandolin with that in the background!
QUOTE]

It was the only photo of you I found. (I did not search very hard.)

[journeybear]

I'm probably about thirty miles from this one (http://erebus.nmt.edu/). It erupts every day.

I lived in Anchorage when Augustine blew once (early 80s?). It looked like a cocoa factory had exploded. All the snow was a nice brown color. Every where you stepped, the bright clean snow underneath shone out. It was freaky. :disbelief:

Those are some amazing pictures! I've got to get out more ... :redface:

I spent a month stranded in the middle of nowhere in Nevada once, near one of (if not the) largest magnesium mines in America. Magnesium being such a light element, its dust blew all over the area, and kept sifting to the top of the sand. Trace rainfalls and subsequent drying turned this into a crust, which over the years had grown to be 1/2" - 1" thick, and could support an adult's weight, much as melting and freezing of snow will do. Similarly, sometimes you would step on a weak spot and go through, though usually just a few inches. :disbelief: Weird.

[Ken Olmstead]

Bill, you are my hero!! You really capture the scale of the event!! :))

I spoke too soon, we are ashed! Not bad but it smells like sulfer and the snow is turning brown! YUK!

Lee - That is about where we are headed. Augustine is correct. They take turns dropping on us every now and then.

[journeybear]

I'm probably about thirty miles from this one (http://erebus.nmt.edu/). It erupts every day.

Hope you're nowhere near this: Ice shelf about to break away from Antarctic coast. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h1YwRKCHpwN65ds0uwNjB7W0JQ-QD97B7K100)

Here's (http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMWZS5DHNF_index_0.html) the view from space.

Our world is just slippin' away ...

[man dough nollij]

Nope, I'm on the other side. We did have this huge one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15), though, a few years ago.

Mando content: "Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I want to get lost in your rock and roll
And drift away..."

[Eric Hanson]

Time for even more Mandolin content. :mandosmiley:
Check out this link and then click on track number 5. It is titled "Last Days Of Pompeii".
Great tune played by a fun group out of Madison,WI. Lead player plays mandolin.
Mandolin and Volcano content joined into one. Great taste AND less filling.:))

http://cdbaby.com/cd/harmoniouswail2

[journeybear]

Mandolin and Volcano content joined into one. Great taste AND less filling.:))

Ha! Someone finally found an organic way to work MC into this thread. Good going!

Thanks for reminding me about them. They're very good, and nice folks too. I saw them at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in 1998. They drove all the way from WI to play in the New Talent Showcase (ie, for free), hung out for a little while, then turned around and drove all the way back. That is the effect of either extreme dedication or bad tour management - or both. :grin: I made some mention of this in the magazine I was writing for at the time, and if I can find that I will post it.

[journeybear]

This week's episode of Car Talk featured a Stump The Chumps segment in which we learn whether Click and Clack's advice concerning using panty hose over the air intake of a listener's car near Mt. Redoubt was helpful.

Voila! (http://www.cartalk.com/piplayer/cartalkplayer.html?play=03smil.xml)

If that doesn't work, listen to their Lousy Radio Show here. (http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/WeeklyShow/online.html) You can listen to the whole thing (always recommended) or you can skip to Segment 3.

[Jim Kirkland]

I'm probably about thirty miles from this one (http://erebus.nmt.edu/). It erupts every day.

I lived in Anchorage when Augustine blew once (early 80s?). It looked like a cocoa factory had exploded. All the snow was a nice brown color. Every where you stepped, the bright clean snow underneath shone out. It was freaky. :disbelief:

I was in Anchorage when Mt Illiama (sp) exploded, 1976, everything was as stated above. It was very hard to go outside. I remember not being able to wipe any surface without getting scratches. The ash might be very good to do a distressed look on a mando.

[Mike Bromley]

I was in Anchorage when Mt Illiama (sp) exploded, 1976, everything was as stated above. It was very hard to go outside. I remember not being able to wipe any surface without getting scratches. The ash might be very good to do a distressed look on a mando.

Volcanic 'ash' is not really ash, but instead fragments of glass. The glass is formed by the rapid cooling of gas-charged magma, which is being blown out of the volcano as a frothy mixture, a kind of 'rock foam' called pumice. The bubbles in the foam shatter, forming fragments of bubbles....made of volcanic glass...which, as you can imagine, have very hard, and very sharp, edges. Hence the abrasive nature of ash, and pumice stone, for that matter.

Ya don't want to breath this stuff for long.

[journeybear]

Hard to imagine, Ken, but Mt Redoubt came up on CarTalk (http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/WeeklyShow/online.html) - again! One of your neighbors in Homer is having trouble with her sun roof, and says some of that fine dust is to blame. Beyond the issue itself, she is quite a character. It's the sixth segment of this week's (12/19) show (http://www.cartalk.com/piplayer/cartalkplayer.html?play=showAllsmil.xml).