And so this week drags on. Hard to believe it isn’t Friday yet. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, from what I saw. After a very cold, below zero start, it was sunny, not windy, and darn near 30°. If you live where it’s warm all the time you won’t understand, but it was a day to lift your spirits and make you feel as if life was actually worth living. And it felt warm enough to put on a pair of shorts. Today is supposed to be warm(ish) too, but not exactly sunny (in fact, it’s supposed to cloud up and precipitate a little bit on us). And then there’s a “winter storm watch” for tomorrow. Depending on which way things go, we’ll either get 10″ of wet, heavy snow, rain, or (my personal favorite) a mix of sleet, freezing rain, rain, and snow. That’s on top of whatever we do or don’t get today.

Hooray for Hydrofracking, as a Marcellus Shale drilling site in PA blew the frack up last night.

Three workers were burned in what neighbors described as an explosion and fire last night at a Marcellus shale drilling site in Washington County.

The blast occurred at the Chesapeake Energy site off Meadowcroft Road and First Street in Avella, a community in Independence Township near the West Virginia border, state Department of Environmental Protection and county 911 officials said.

Five “frac tanks” — mobile steel storage tanks used to hold liquids — burned until 9:30 p.m., DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh said. She said the three gas wells were not affected by the flames.

“At approximately 6:15 p.m. a flash fire occurred, igniting natural gas liquids storage tanks on the Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, Powers well site in Avella….”
[…]
“I was eating dinner when all of a sudden there was an explosion,” said Katie Leeper, whose home is on a hill across the valley from the well. “I didn’t know it was an explosion at first, but the whole house shook and the windows rattled.

“I looked outside, saw all the neighbors, looked over the hill and saw the big fire.”

Another neighbor, Robert Dalesio, who said his house is 650 yards from the well, thought a plane had crashed.

“I first thought a C-130 (military transport aircraft) went down because they fly over here all the time,” he said. “There was a pretty good concussion. I looked over and saw the whole hillside on fire.”

I guess, in the interest of full disclosure, I ought to mention that the Marcellus Shale formation (which runs south from Central New York down into northern and western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, through western Maryland, most of West Virginia and into western Virginia and even into western New Jersey, parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, and underneath Lake Erie into Canada) is named for the place where I live now (which, in turn, is named for the Roman General Marcus Claudius Marcellus, famous for the capture of Syracuse after a two-year siege in 212 BC – Syracuse having been defended by all sorts of contraptions invented by Archimedes – possibly including a highly polished mirror used as a laser to set the Roman ships on fire – who was killed when Syracuse fell, against the orders of Marcellus because Archimedes told the Roman soldier who barged into his place to go away because he was busy, and the soldier – having no idea who he was – killed Archimedes on the spot. Oops).

I’m not sure if Syracuse (the one in NY, not the ancient city, which was actually considered a kingdom back in Archimedes’ time) was here first, and they thought naming this place Marcellus was funny or not (though it would be an awful coincidence otherwise).

The origins of the town (in terms of white folks) go back to 1794 or so, when, to pay off soldiers who fought in the revolutionary War, the fledgling US Government gave soldiers 600 acres each (assigned by lottery). Pretty good deal, no? Paying people with land that doesn’t actually belong to you. But who cares about the people who were already here? Anyhow, there was never any Native settlement in this specific area – it was all used as hunting and fishing ground – so at least I don’t live atop an ancient Indian burial ground. I hope. :paranoid:

None of the former soldiers actually settled here, having decided the land was worthless – heavily forested, and probably too difficult to farm – and they all sold their land off). Where I live was once part of Military Lot 14, originally deeded to John Dubois, who may or may not have eventually become the the Roman Catholic Bishop of NYC – haven’t found that out yet.

But I digress…

Anyhow, the shale formation that has oil companies and certain greedy land owners salivating is named for an outcropping here in my little town. You can look it up on Wikipedia and even see a picture (though, I warn you, it’s a picture of rocks, which isn’t necessarily all that interesting).

So, anyhow, I have pretty selfish reasons for not wanting this shit to blow the f*ck up and/or having the ground water contaminated, seeing as it happens to be directly below where I’m sitting at the moment. In point of fact, there’s actually an existing oil and gas lease on my property. It’s never been exercised (if that’s the right word for it), it expires in May, and they can kiss my ass if they think they’re getting anywhere near my land or my pet deer (our herd is up to 13; I managed to count them when I came home the other night), or my hawks, owls, foxes, coyotes, and whatever else is out there that I don’t know about (yet).

I’m sure the teabaggers despise me for that, as I would gladly chain myself to a tree in order to stand in the way of this “amazing opportunity.” To the teabaggers, I can only quote Neil Young: “doesn’t mean that much to me, to mean that much to you.”

It’s Abe “I’m not dead yet” Vigoda’s birthday today. He’s 90 years young, and looks a helluva lot better than another of today’s birthday boys, Steve “hand” Jobs, who is actually only six years older than I am (I can’t write the exact age, because Apple has claimed copyright for that number, plus I’m writing this on a Mac, and it would violate the EULA to disclose it. Not that Steve and Apple are vindictive or anything, but I’m pretty sure they would sue me into bankruptcy, which wouldn’t take a whole lot at this point). And if you see Dominic “Uncle Junior” Chianese (who, now that I think of it, is also in the running for the “who does mini-Gaddafi al Duck look like” contest) today, wish him a happy 80th birthday.

Well, time to hit up some Oil of Oregano to see if I can chase this headache and sore throat away. I need to start wearing ear muffs in the house, I think.