Hi Cathryn, and thanks for cooling my jets. This curmudgeon was feeling particularly testy. On account of having just returned from a long beach vacation down Mexico way. Way down - near Manzanillo. Normally that would be a good thing, and it was while we were down there. Beautiful, in fact. But travel these days is increasingly exasperating, and is not helped by traveling on Mexican airlines during what is probably the peak travel season for all of Mexico (Christmas/New Year's).

After 16 hours in transit, nursing a gnarly head cold which came on just a day or so before we left, we got home to find our dog missing. Turns out he had only been gone for a few hours before we arrived home, and was found within 24 hours (late yesterday), but in the meantime Carolyn was inconsolable, and even I was a little discomfited. And had to pay out a $250 reward.

Anyhow, I want to be among the last to wish you a Happy Birthday! And to express my gratitude for your hanging around this nuthouse for as long as you have. I'll try to ease up, especially with newcomers. I noticed a strong similarity between Timothy's writing style and that of a former poster here who had an annoying tendency to make statements couched as fact when they were quite conjectural, and to be a bit preachy . . .

When Timothy makes statements such as "when you pump cool water back into
the same area trying to extract more heat the magma becomes cold,
turns to schist, is under great stress and "breaks" releasing energy," he demonstrates a lack of knowledge which, itself, is completely forgivable. But note that there is no uncertainty or allowance for possible error in his phraseology in this statement nor anywhere else in his post. With, now, a little formal education on the subject, I'm fairly sure that schist is a metamorphic rock, whereas cooled magma/lava is clearly igneous. He surely isn't suggesting that metamorphism took place in the time since the power plants were built, is he?

Thanks again, Cathryn.

Mike Williams
Arroyo Grande, CA USA