Life on an oil rig. - By Emily Yoffe - Slate Magazine

Ron says, This story comes close to my last 15 years before retirement. The writer gives a good outsiders view of a floating rig. Hope you enjoy it.

Life on an oil rig. - By Emily Yoffe - Slate Magazine: "Eleven workers are still missing after an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night. In 2007, Emily Yoffe experienced a day in the life of the roustabouts and roughnecks who live and work on an oil rig. The original article is reprinted below."

Predicting the next Northwest mega-quake still a struggle for geologists | OregonLive.com: "On a January night in 1700, one of the largest earthquakes in history ruptured the seafloor off Oregon and Washington.

Within minutes of the magnitude-9 earthquake, a 30-foot wall of water drove over low-lying coastal areas. The tsunami crossed the Pacific within 12 hours and flattened houses along Japan's east coast."

Baby Whale on Oregon Coast Died of Rope Entanglement

Baby Whale on Oregon Coast Died of Rope Entanglement: "(Seaside, Oregon) – A dead baby Gray whale washed up onto a north Oregon coast beach Friday, surprising visitors and leading northwest media to immediately speculate it had something to do with the spate of dead Grays on the Washington coast.

Instead, a necropsy has since proven what experts initially could tell by sight: it had been caught in rope from crab pots and drowned."

Woman, airport security tussle over elderly woman's applesauce | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

Woman, airport security tussle over elderly woman's applesauce | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times: "Prosecutors charged Nadine Kay Hays, 58, who was traveling to Nashville, Tenn., with her mother, with misdemeanor battery after the reported fight with the Transportation Security Administration agent last April.
Hays denied striking the agent, arguing that she merely brought down her hand to keep agents from taking away her mother’s applesauce, cheese and milk.

“I am not going to plead guilty to something I didn’t do. I’m a person of character,”� Hays, whose mother died last month, told the Glendale News Press. “I end up reliving this disaster every spare moment of my life. You just flash back and you see these scenes over and over.”

The case has been ridiculed by talk-radio hosts, who railed against the agents involved and challenged how confiscating a disabled woman’s applesauce would improve national security."