jay2

My bird loves a good cucumber, one that has a really goopy center. The problem I'm having is the store bought cucumbers in my area are pathetic even when they are in season. They consist of mostly the white firm flesh with very little goop or seed in the center. Additionally, at 22yo, My friend is running out of summers and I always promised him we would try to grow a good cucumber one day.

I'm not exactly a gardener but this seems easy enough. My grandfather gardened and I remember him going out of his way to get certain breeds of seeds to get the precise genes he wanted. I'm trying to do that with cucumbers, and I'm looking for that goop.

Any cucumber enthusiasts able to recommend a brand? Planting and growing tips are welcome as well, but I'm not trying to turn this into a large project either.

I'm in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I have several areas to plant for adjusting sunlight duration. Soil is poor and a bit swampy. I could probably use a container. Unsure what's best yet.

That may not have been the flu that you caught back in late December. FGF Foods decided to go all 'Boars Head' for the holidays is all.

Major food recall last month effects 2,017,614 cases of product due to possible contamination with Listeria Monocytogenes.

[Mlive copy n paste]

The Food and Drug Administration quietly announced a recall last month involving more than two million cases of doughnuts and other baked goods sold under various brand names, including Dunkin. Data from the FDA says 2,017,614 cases of products are part of the recall and involve doughnuts, fritters, and cake rings.

The products were distributed and sold nationwide. While the recall was issued on Jan. 7, the FDA never made a public announcement regarding it.

The recall involves any of the items listed “within expiration produced 12/13/2024 and prior” according to the FDA. Sixty different items are involved in the recall.

The recalled goods were produced by Indiana-based FGF, LLC and are being recalled over possible contamination involving listeria monocytogenes.

The FDA gave the recall a class II designation which according to the agency’s website means the recall is “a situation in which use of or exposure to a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”

Listeria monocytogenes can cause “serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems,” according to the FDA. Symptoms include: high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

The lava is flowing again after a third volcanic eruption. The placement appears to be a good ways to the north of Grindavik as of yet. Multicam view.

Iceland erupted again this morning at 7:57am Grindavik Time. The eruption was captured in real time. It again is a northwest linear fissure and is located west of Hagafell and a bit south of the prior eruption site in December.

While the locals had built a huge rock berm to protect some of it's infrastructure, the fissure formed and spread underneath the berm, circumventing its protection. Everyone has been evacuated, though there are reports that despite being told not to bring any previously evacuated animals back to town, some may not have obeyed and now the animals may be locked up and in harms way.

Additionally, a second fissure opened on the north edge of town. You can see this in real time on Professor Shawn Willsey's live update from early this morning. This southern fissure is much smaller but is much closer to town. It has spewed forth enough lava that it has now contacted and destroyed (2) houses along the towns northern edge. It was one of the worst scenarios that could happen. This is likely just the beginning, and could signal the end of Grindavik as it now exists.

The northern fissure has ejected a huge amount of lava but most was deflected and contained by the berm. It has now breached the berm at the highway, which they plugged as best they could early this morning. All things considered, it was quite wise of them to do this. The greenhouse would likely have been destroyed already, and much more lava would now be heading towards Grindavik, which is downhill from both eruption sites.

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A closeup of the initial damage from the new active lava flow

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Earthquake map as of this morning. The quakes give you an idea of how big the magma chamber under the town is.

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GPS Elevational Data over the campaign of this eruption

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This is a very serious and dire situation. Whatever god you acknowledge, pray for the town of Grindavik to be spared. My heart goes out to the brave people of Grindavik.

The magma chamber threatening the grindavik area has erupted again just before 8:00am.

Live Webcam

Savatage - Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12-24 [ American Heavy Metal ] [ Christmas Metal ]

From the album 'Dead Winter Dead'.

They say music tames the savage beast. This is one of those few songs that stops my world dead in it's tracks whenever it comes on. All I can ever do is remain still and silent as I soak it in.

Gary Hoey - 'Twas The Night Before Christmas [ American Guitar Virtuoso ] [ Christmas Metal ]

From the album 'Ho! Ho! Hoey'.

Merry Christmas Beehaw Music. Start adding genre tags please.

Lords Of Acid - Pussy [ Belgian/American Electronic Dance Music ]

From the album 'Our Little Secret'.

I'm a big metalhead and EDM isn't really my thing ever, but an ex girlfriend turned me onto this nearly 30 years ago. It still makes me laugh whenever it comes on. Who would have thought a silly song about her playful kitty cat would be so timeless and enduring.

Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant Massacree [ American Comedy / Folk / Storytelling ]

From the album 'Alice's Restaurant Massacree'.

Have a happy and wonderful holiday that can't be beat.

For a week now, the town of Grindavik [Google Earth] in Iceland has been ravaged by underground volcanic activity. It's a fishing town situated southwest iceland along the coast. It's on the Reykjanes peninsula which is the youngest area of Iceland formed 2000-3000 years ago from volcanic activity.

In early November, uplifting occurred to the northwest of Grindavik. On Thursday November 9th, larger quakes were recorded to the northeast of Grindavik. These earthquakes spread to the southwest through the town and out into the ocean. At the same time, a noticible depression was now present.

Scientists concluded that a new magma chamber had formed. It was 9.5 miles long at ~1/2 mile below the surface [15 kilometers at 800 meters]. A large portion of it was centered directly underneath Grindavik's western edge, its residential district.

A state of emergency was declared and the entire town (excepting emergency workers) was evacuated. This displaced approximately 1% of their entire population. There was a brief window where some people got back in to gather some personal effects\pets\etc., and only to the eastern part of town, but conditions have worsened and there is no access.

Presumably, the initial flow caused the landmass the town sits on to raise up. The magma then retreated (maybe back northeast) leaving a void and causing subsidence. This shifting (and the subsequent hundreds of earthquakes a day) have practically sealed the towns fate already. Cracks have become fissures and houses are skewing. Their infrastructure and their very ground is taking serious damage. It is a disaster of epic proportion.

Sadly, the worst may be yet to arrive. Everyone is still very unsure about specifics regarding magma turning into lava, but the general scientific concensus is that an eruption is both likely and imminent. When's and where's are largely unknown, though it if breaches under the ocean, things get even more complicated. A seafloor breach would create a more unpredictable and explosive scenario. The model I saw gave high probability to a series of vents northeast of Grindavik (the Hagafell region?) as the most likely, but the local folks seem to think that Grindavik itself is the most likely place for an eruption. Others say that it will sink into the sea.

There are live broadcasts of the area that feature multiple camera angles and live earthquake mapping. A more detailed scientific explanation from geology professor Shawn Willsey.

A barrage of hundreds of earthquakes, including two exceeding a magnitude of 5.0 and at least seven topping 4.5, rattled Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula on Friday. The seismic swarm suggests the eruption of an area volcano in the hours or day ahead and has prompted the Icelandic Meteorological Office to declare a Civil Protection Emergency Level.

The Fagradalsfjall volcano is in Iceland’s southern peninsula region, about 25 miles southwest of Reykjavik, the country’s capital. A number of tremors have shaken the city, and the famed Blue Lagoon geothermal spa in Grindavik has been closed. It was initially unclear whether Fagradalsfjall was responsible for the increased seismic activity or whether an eruption was brewing elsewhere within the Reykjanes volcanic system.

Shortly before midnight local time, all of Grindavik was asked to evacuate. At 11:30 p.m. local time, the Meteorological Office warned that volcanic fissures could open near or within the town.

“Based on how the seismic activity has evolved since 6 PM today, along with results from GPS measurements, there is a likelihood that a magma intrusion has extended beneath Grindavík,” the office wrote.

Experts believe that a magmatic dike may have formed directly below the town. Dikes are sheets of magma that flow through existing fractures in rock or generate a new crack. The largest volcanoes may contain hundreds of dikes.

A Code Orange — or a Level 3 out of 4 on the universal ground-based volcano alerting scale — has been declared, raising concerns at Keflavik International Airport, which sits just northwest of the seismically active region.

The region has experienced intermittent eruptions since 2021, yet the incipient eruption will probably be markedly more intense.

“The amount of magma involved is significantly more than what was observed in the largest magma intrusions associated with the eruptions at Fagradalsfjall,” the Meteorological Office said.

The office had warned Friday afternoon that earthquakes were located about two miles northeast of Grindavik, with the fault slips occurring about two to three miles below the ground. Earthquakes crept toward the community of 3,300 around sunset.

“The seismic activity has moved south towards Grindavík,” the Meteorological Office said.

“The signs that can be seen now … are similar to those seen on the eve of the first eruption at Fagradalsfjall in 2021, and are very similar to the seismic activity that was measured about a month before that eruption,” the office had cautioned in an earlier update. It had previously estimated that it would take several days for magma to reach the surface and the imminent eruption to begin.

What are supervolcanoes and should we really be worried about them?

Already, the quaking has ruptured roadways. It appears that up to three inches of uplift, or vertical movement of the ground, has occurred near the volcano.

A total of 295 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater had been detected in the previous 72 hours, with upward of 90 percent of those occurring in the past day.

While Iceland is tectonically and volcanically active, the region around the Fagradalsfjall volcano had lain dormant for over 6,300 years until December 2019. That’s when a flurry of earthquakes, including two that reached magnitude 5.6, rattled the peninsula. Then on Feb. 4, 2021, a magnitude-5.7 earthquake caused minor damage to homes. Six weeks later, on March 19, the volcano erupted, with a roughly 2,000-foot-long fissure started spewing lava.

The fissure was later named Geldingadalsgos, representing a possible new shield volcano — a broad volcano with gently sloping sides — and it attracted widespread tourism. Several other fissures opened in April, but only one remained active in May 2021. Another eruption from a separate fissure of Fagradalsfjall took place on Aug. 3, 2022.

Then this past summer, in early July, a new eruption began near Litli-Hrutur, also part of the Fagradalsfjall volcano. It was about 10 times as big as the first two eruptions. It diminished by Aug. 5.

Live triple cam feed here.

Wojciech Kilar - Bram Stokers Dracula (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [ Classical / Instrumental ]

From the album 'Bram Stokers Dracula (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)'

The crunching of leaves and shortening light cycles are making me pull this CD from it's slumber today. Superb Halloween music and makes for great Tabletop RPG gaming music as well.

This work is exquisitely dark and dreadfully brooding. The last song ('Love Song For A Vampire' featuring vocals from Annie Lennox) is quite pretty as well.

Link goes to full playlist.