Sewer Poster

For those of you readers who are part of sewer inspection crews and wishing to inform/decorate your workplace with a sewer safety poster (not that we would have this problem with our tiny sewer pipes, but then I have not seen a wet well/pump station, so maybe we do need this poster), go to this link:
http://inbound.envirosight.com/confined-space-safety-poster

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, 50 workers average per year die in confined spaces. That is pretty creepy and we sure do NOT want that happening here!

Tribune's Dr. Alexander Obituary

Today's Tribune had an obituary for Dr. John Alexander, which much improved on the teeny death notice in the paper on March 7 that announced his death on March 2, 2017. I wrote about his passing here:
http://losewersaga.blogspot.com/2017/03/dr-john-alexander-alexander-dies.html

Check out the much amplified version of his life with his many accomplishments. Los Osos was not mentioned. I suspect his involvement with our sewage woes was but a small blip in his long life:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sanluisobispo/obituary.aspx?n=john-alexander-alexander&pid=185180539

These death notices do not last long online, so best to check this out in the next couple of weeks.

Celebrate Easter With Homemade Poop Peeps!

....Or not. Especially if you do not celebrate Easter.

Here take a look, you could really use these things year-round, say to gift a neighbor who has made you crazy with noisy parties and the like! These are so darn cute - see the photos on the link below!

💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 

http://nomageddon.com/poop-peeps/

Humanure Handbook

💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩

For your reading pleasure, I have found this gem of a webpage, complete with music ("My Dad's Dunny Doesn't Flush") and a how-to book which you can purchase to learn how to "recycle" certain of your bodily products. There are even videos to tell you how to do it! 

This is not about a composting toilet - but a "collection device" as the composting is done elsewhere.......... There is a bounty of information here, and you could spend days picking through all of these piles of knowledge.

All of this would be illegal in Los Osos, but it is fun to fantasize, as long as fantasy aromas do not spoil your "brown study."

http://humanurehandbook.com

Watch where you step.

Town's Sewage Plant Hosts Giant Viruses!

Sewage from the Austrian town Klosterneuburg, where Franz Kafka died, is fueling a scientific controversy. I'm not sure how excited to get over the giant viruses found there and Franz Kafka is probably not a topic for a sewer blog. But with our sewer plant running smoothly, and still no sign of hooking my house up which will yield a bounty of photos and descriptions, I had to go somewhere. 

Kafka did have tuberculosis and who knows, if the sewer in that town was operational then (1924), what could have happened in the mixing of multi-viral and bacterial components is unknowable. It is an interesting thought anyway, if one doesn't linger on it beyond three seconds.

All of the excitement is about a genome that looks like it could have descended from some cell-like virus - some in-between state between cells and viruses, which is a big deal in the scientific world. Now, as all of you might recall, viruses have few genes, some with as little as two. E-coli, a single-cell bacteria found at sewage plants, can have 4,400 genes and comes in many types, some, when internalized, can lead to death (Kafka died of starvation however). These giant viruses can hold more than 2,500 genes!

If you want to read about this, you can go to this link here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/giant-viruses-found-austrian-sewage-fuel-debate-over-potential-fourth-domain-life
There are some lovely virus renderings on this page to illustrate scale.

I did go to the Kafka bookstore while in Prague a couple of years back, the city where Kafka was born, the bookstore being very near to his birthplace (sign translation - Kafka Bookstore).

And while I did not get the chance to visit the Prague sewer system, it is quite old and you can read about it here:

http://www.pvs.cz/en/history/history-of-the-sewer-systems/

You can see inside here:

prague sewers

Come to think about it now, this odd nexus of Kafka and giant sewer viruses (I'll have to relate what was said about viruses and our sewer some years back to complete this picture I guess), if there was ever an author living or dead that could have summarized the hideous Los Osos sewer war in a deep and meaningful way, Franz Kafka would be my pick. Please read The Metamorphosis and The Castle. Or if you prefer, a Cliff's Notes assessment,

"No matter how hard Kafka's heroes strive to come to terms with the universe, they are hopelessly caught, not only in a mechanism of their own contriving, but also in a network of accidents and incidents, the least of which may lead to the gravest consequences."

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/the-trial/critical-essays/kafka-and-existentialism 

Sweater Poop (Sad Story, So Don't Read If Depressed)

This is a sad posting. Coyote scat is usually not so colorful. If you click on the image to see the larger size, you will see the bright yarn, probably from a little sweater, probably covering a little body, most likely that of a little dog, or possible a cat (but not likely) embedded in the scat. Coyotes do not eat sweaters without something inside of them.

I wavered on posting this. I don't know how many readers there are here, so don't know if this will go anywhere. But when a couple of my cats vanished years ago when I first moved here, having no clue on the coyote population, I would have wanted to know what happened to them.

This was found on State Park land, off the end of Santa Ysabel, on the path that heads to the eucalyptus trees, Saturday, April 1. It had been there for some time.