Or perhaps the Goat Locker. Or, at least, somewhere in the forward compartment of the USS Miami (SSN 755) - which, fortunately, was (and is) undergoing an overhaul at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. From an official statement released by RADM Rick Breckenridge, Commander Submarine Group TWO:

Late yesterday afternoon, USS MIAMI experienced a fire in the submarine's forward compartment.

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Fire Department and Ship's force, along with mutual assistance from several other area fire departments, immediately responded and successfully extinguished the fire on USS MIAMI. I repeat, the fire is out.

The fire and subsequent damage was limited to the forward compartment spaces only which includes crew living and command and control spaces. The nuclear propulsion spaces were physically isolated from the Forward Compartment early during initial response.

The Portland Press-Herald reported further comments from RADM Breckenridge:

He said it was premature to say whether the Miami, which cost $900 million, was salvageable or is too badly damaged to be repaired and put back in use. The Miami is in the third month of a planned 20-month overhaul.

Seven firefighters received minor injuries while fighting the fire.

Breckenridge praised the repsonse of firefighters from communities in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts that responded to the blaze.

"As I stand before you today, there are a lot of heroes who worked together to save the ship," Breckenridge said. He said local firefighters worked inside the submarine in conditions of high heat, smoke and cramped quarters.

[ ... ]

Breckenridge said the high heat and difficulty extinguishing the fire, was largely because the fire spread to insulation. The fire also was fueled by cabinets and lockers in the living quarters and command area.

Nobody was killed - that, to me, is the most important point. And, as RADM Breckenridge points out, there's no nuclear risk involved.

It's way too early to speculate on what exactly went wrong, although my immediate assumption is that somebody screwed up badly while grinding or welding. Any sort of "hot work" is supposed to include preplanning, covering all exposed and potentially flammable areas, and dedicated fire watches with full charged extinguishers to stop any sparks that do escape from doing any damage. Back on the old Ustafish, during our time at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, one of the shipyard grinders managed to ignite some oily rags that had fallen into the bilge - the fire watch had that out in about ten seconds. (Just how the oily rags got into the bilge in the first place ended up being the focus of the ensuing investigation, IIRC.) I'd strongly bet that a whole lot of safety precautions were blown off or went awry leading up to this mess.

Of course, if you're going to have a fire in a submarine at all, doing so at the beginning of an overhaul is probably the "best" time.

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/148551.html - comment wherever you please.

Ferry Beach, specifically. My church held a retreat there this weekend. The weather this year was distinctly not-summery - sunny but chilly and windy. Not too bad during the day if you were both (a) in the sunshine and (b) out of the wind; much less pleasant otherwise. Alas, I missed the Friday part and the early part of Saturday due to generally having felt unwell most of the week. On the other hand, as I was walking back to my car at the Maine Turnpike service area, I happened to turn to my side and found another FPC member on her way up to the retreat as well! For all the vastness of the Universe, sometimes it's a really small world...

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/148464.html - comment wherever you please.

I have made it my custom to post some small bit of commentary every 19th of April, marking the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. I've told the story of the "Concord Fight" several times now, occasionally quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous "Concord Hymn":

BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Today, on this two hundred thirty-seventh anniversary of the "shot heard 'round the world", the latest incarnation of the Old North Bridge still spans the Concord River - but there's not much in the way of flood for it to arch. We had abnormally low snowfall last winter and have had an exceptionally warm and dry spring. This keeps the rivers in their banks, but has made for a lot more brush fires than usual.

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/148187.html - comment wherever you please.

An Arizona businessman thinks that Arizona citizens should be able to decide in a referendum which Federal laws, regulations, etc. apply to them, according to the East Valley Tribune (among many):

A Phoenix business owner launched an initiative drive Monday designed to let Arizona voters override federal laws.

And John Biltis said he’s prepared to spend millions of dollars of his own money to put the issue on the November ballot and convince Arizonans to approve it.

The initiative would leave in place a provision in Arizona’s own constitution which says the federal Constitution "is the supreme law of the land." But it proposes to add language saying the federal document may not be violated by any government — including the federal government.

More to the point, it would allow Arizonans "to reject any federal action that they determine violates the United States Constitution." And they would be able to do this either through a vote of the state House and Senate with consent of the governor, or through a popular vote on a ballot measure.

Biltis, the sole owner of TAG Employer Services, said he takes literally the federal constitutional provisions which spell out that Congress has only the power specifically enumerated.

Funny, I had thought the Civil War had settled the whole "states can ignore stuff out of Washington they don't like" bit. Silly me.

(I thought of using my WTF icon, but the meth-lab-of-democracy one is more appropriate, given the location.)

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/147923.html - comment wherever you please.

This is still the month of March, right?

And I'm still in New England, right?

But the 10 PM reading at Hanscom Field was SIXTY-EIGHT degrees Fahrenheit?

Boy, this weather makes no sense at all. Even by New England's infamous "wait-a-minute" standards.
Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/147312.html - comment wherever you please.

... has been mostly ridiculous. It's still two days before the vernal equinox, which means it is still theoretically winter, and average high temperatures are around 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

Today's high temperature? Seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit at Hanscom Field in Bedford (the closest official weather station).

Good thing I don't invest in local ski resorts, I guess.

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/147064.html - comment wherever you please.

Massachusetts is one of the states holding Presidential primary elections today. I didn't get to the polls until about half an hour before closing, and my ballot was number 306. Given that the precinct has around 2500 registered voters, that's pretty piss-poor turnout.

On the other hand, Obama was the only name on the Democratic ballot, Romney was fully expected to win the Republican nod (his legal residence is still in Massachusetts) and who the heck cares about the three-way bunfight for the Green-Rainbow Party nomination? Besides the three candidates, and possibly their mothers, that is.

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/146926.html - comment wherever you please.

Or, at least, new computer. Specifically, the 15-inch screen MacBook Pro. Very shiny, and it'll let me play around with writing iOS apps, which I've wanted to do for quite a while now.

Of course, now I need to learn all the Mac keyboard shortcuts...

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/146328.html - comment wherever you please.

Plenty of cold today. No snow, mind; apart from a few remnant plow-berms, the only snow to be seen is the artificial stuff at Nashoba Valley. Ground this bare in February just ain't right.

I drove up to Portsmouth (NH) this afternoon to see the partially-dismantled Memorial Bridge, which I'm used to seeing from below as the boats head out to Star Island. The bridge hadn't been given anywhere near enough maintenance - the amount of rust on that thing was frightening - and the states of New Hampshire and Maine have finally given up and agreed to replace it. Last week, the lift span was cut away and placed on a barge, which is currently tied up at Prescott Park:
( pic behind the cut )
In related news, the Star Island "blue book" (conference catalog) arrived the other day, so it's time to sign up for this year.

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/145889.html - comment wherever you please.

Seriously cold out there - nine degrees Fahrenheit at Hanscom Field in Bedford. Add in clear skies and a subzero dewpoint, and tomorrow morning is going to be bitter.

This would be great for preserving our snowpack, if we had any. On the other hand, the town isn't issuing dire warnings about blowing through their plowing budget.

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/145473.html - comment wherever you please.

http://news.livejournal.com/140969.html?thread=98978985#t98978985

(The short version: there may have been good intentions, but LiveJournal release 88 should be rolled back.)

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/1424.html - comment wherever you please.

I'll be singing as part of the 9:00 PM service at the First Parish Church of Stow and Acton, in the center of Stow, Massachusetts. We're doing several particularly cool pieces, including Distler's "Lo How a Rose" and an arrangement of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" in which the bass and tenor sections get almost all the melody. (If you're not a chorister, you may not realize how rare that is. Or how much a baritone like myself appreciates it!)

The music actually starts at 8:45, and all are welcome to attend
.

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/1176.html - comment wherever you please.

Let us see how well I've configured this Dreamwidth crossposty thing.

Or if it's configured at all.

(Edit: what happens when I edit?)

(Edited to see if I fixed the DW crosspost comment - apparently I did!)

Originally posted at http://edschweppe.dreamwidth.org/715.html - comment wherever you please.

I've added my voice to the chorus of diapproval over the "new" and "improved" comment pages. I'm especially torqued about the loss of the comment titles, and the loss of the preview functionality.

Supposedly those changes don't affect the style I'm using here. We shall see.

The BBC reports that a group at Princeton University has a working prototype ... of a flying carpet:

The 10cm (4in) sheet of smart transparency is driven by "ripple power"; waves of electrical current driving thin pockets of air from front to rear underneath.

The prototype, described in Applied Physics Letters, moves at speeds of about a centimetre per second.

Improvements to the design could raise that to as much as a metre per second.

[ ...]

The advantage of this kind of propulsion, he argues, is that unlike jets, propellers and hovercraft, there are no moving components like cogs and gears that rub against each other.

"The ideal use would be some kind of dusty, grimy environment where moving parts would get gummed up and stop," he explained.

That said, he laughingly admits that with the existing materials, a flying carpet powerful enough to carry a person would need a wingspan of 50 metres - not the best vehicle to take on the streets just yet.

On the other hand, preliminary calculations suggest that there is enough atmosphere on the planet Mars to send floating rovers scudding over its dusty surface.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15106231
Martian magic carpet rovers. Now that's a cool concept.

Well, Hurricane Irene has come and mostly gone from my neck of the woods. Net impact to me personally: a couple of power hiccups and a car covered in pine needles. Just the way I like my natural disasters: anticlimactic.

I hope the rest of the folks reading this are doing well.

Irene is arriving. Gusty winds? Check. Humid? Check. Bursts of rain? Check. (8AM conditions at Hanscom Field in Bedford: temperature 72F, dewpoint 71F, winds 28MPH gusting to 38.) Teevee reporters standing out in the middle of all that crap? Check.

I've still got power, though. So I'll sit back and enjoy the show for now. Stay safe and dry, folks!

Not today, at least. The center of Hurricane Irene is currently about three hundred miles away from New York City, which is a good five hundred plus miles away from me. However, Irene is a big storm, and we've been getting off-and-on showers all day.

The current forecast track takes Irene well to my west, which means my neck of the woods is "only" expected to get six or more inches of rain tonight and tomorrow, along with winds of 45-55 MPH (with higher gusts). I suspect I may lose power for a little while if trees take down the major lines in town; the lines in this subdivision are all below-ground, so there's no risk there.

All in all, tomorrow looks to be a good day to stay in and stay safe. Which is my plan.

I'm seeing news reports of a magnitude 5.9 earthquake hitting the Eastern Seaboard:

An earthquake centered in Virginia shook the Eastern Seaboard just before 2 p.m., and was felt as a rumble lasting several seconds in the Boston area. Some buildings in Boston were evacuated, while officials checked for damage, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake measured 5.9 on the Richter scale and was centered 83 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.

[ ... ]

David Procopio, spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police, said the tremor was felt at the agency headquarters in Framingham. He also said more than 40 phone calls were received by dispatchers shortly after the tremor.

“No one was reporting any significant damage,’’ Procopio said. “They were just asking what’s going on and if there is there is anything they should do.’’

“We have nothing happening unusual yet,’’ said Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald, who also said dispatchers felt the temblor.

http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/08/earthquake-shakes-boston/RZHvF2otUThzuvOfM3DrKO/index.html

I didn't notice anything, and have seen no local damage.

For those who might be interested, here are a few pictures that I took last week at Star Island:
( we cut because we care )
They were taken with my Adorable Overhyped MP3 Player (also known as an iPod Touch), but came out okay nonetheless.

(The "full" photostream is here on Flickr; more Star photos are available here.)