Hello, everyone!
I finally caught up with the digests after being out of town. Lots of
interesting threads, as usual with the prompt technical responses that this
list is known for. I had about 10 digests to plow thought so I thought to
just skim them for the gems and get through them quickly. Well it turns
out that just about every post has a gem or two in them so I ended up
reading it all anyway.
I was in Puerto Rico two weeks ago. The island is basically a narrow flat
portion surrounding the mountainous inner island. The Puerto Ricans must
be very frugal people judging by all the money they have saved not making
the roads any wider than absolutely necessary to accommodate two adult
goats passing each other. Left front fender damage from "offset head on
collisions" is very much in evidence.
Once you get used to dodging oncoming cars, horses, cows, chickens, and
dogs (you don't dodge the cats ;-) the roads are quite entertaining. The
best drive that I ran into was the road into and out of the Caribbean
National Forest, a rain forest in the Northeast section of the island. A
nice leisurely drive up allows you to take in the scenery while the drive
back downhill makes even the typical gutless rental car accelerate enough
to entertain. In my opinion, hustling down an unfamiliar mountain road is
one time where understeer is your friend. Plus the roads are wider and
better maintained in the forest. The traffic is low during the weekdays so
you can be a real hero.
Another interesting sight on the trip could best be described as an "SUV
Graveyard." Next to a little waterfall were four burned out SUV's that had
been abandoned. Dead cars on the side of the road are common sights in
Puerto Rico but this was a little strange. Either this was a favorite
dumping spot for discriminating joy riders or it was the sight of a drug
deal gone bad.
As promised, I will close with the obligatory cat content. I grew up in
Northern Minnesota where there is an abundance of feral cats. One of my
youthful pursuits was coon hunting. For those less cultured than myself,
coon hunting involves chasing your dog around all night while it chases
raccoons up trees. Once a coon is treed, you shoot it and skin it, selling
the pelt which at that time was worth about $40. For a typical Fall, the
ratio was about 2 to 1 for coons treed to cats treed. Being of the
conservationist bend, we realized that the feral cats were ruining the
natural balance of the local wildlife. So it was with some remorse that we
"discharged" our duties and eliminated these extraneous links in the local
food chain. Unfortunately, the market for cat skins was much less
lucrative than for coonskins. If only Cecil's vision had come to pass ;-)
Regards,
Bill Eastman
61 MGA enjoying the wonderful Minnesota fall
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