One of the many reasons why apples were such a popular fruit in previous centuries is the fact that they[...]
Both Midland High cross country teams finished second at the final Saginaw Valley League Jamboree at Stratford Woods Park on Wednesday, with the Chemics placing three boys and two girls in the top 10 for each race.
Dow High's Stephen Walker ran a personal-best time of 15:59 to win the boys' event and Most Valuable Runner honors. The Chargers' Allison White took first place in the girls' race, winning MVR with a time of 19:46.
"Stephen ran as good as I've ever seen him," said Dow coach Jed Hopfensperger. "Allison looked good for us, too. We have a lot of kids that ran pretty good times. I was pleased overall. It was very good to see improvement."
Midland finished in second place in the boys' race with 47 points. Zach Romer finished second at 16:09, while Nathan Love was fourth (16:20) and Andrew Koehlinger seventh (16:43). Romer and Love both ran personal bests.
With that finish, the Chemics also wrapped up second place in the final SVL standings, behind Saginaw Heritage. The Hawks were first on Wednesday with 42 points.
"We have really improved over the course of the year," said Midland coach Marty Hollenbeck. "We just had a great day. Five of my top seven boys ran personal bests today."
Bay City Western's boys were third on the day with 60 points, and third in the SVL, while the Chargers were fourth with 88 points and in the overall SVL standings.
Mount Pleasant was fifth at 149 points, followed by Bay City Central at 159 and Flint Northern at 178.
Bay City Western won the girls' race with 43 points and also took home the SVL title, while the Chemics were second with 53 points and second in the league as well.
The Chemics' Megen Rapp finished fourth (20:18), while Courtney Rouse was fifth (20:21). Rapp's time was a personal record.
"The girls just ran really well. It is hard to ask anymore of the kids today," Hollenbeck said. "Megen's back in form after hurting her foot early in the year. Courtney's been solid for us all season long, just one tough kid all year for us."
Mount Pleasant was third overall (73 points) and in the Valley, followed in both standings by Saginaw Heritage (91), Dow (97), Flint Southwestern (173) and Bay City Central (208).
Behind Walker for Dow were Alex Carney in 12th place (17:07), Kevin Carney in 25th (18:02), Hunter Hill in 26th (18:10), Alex Beckwith in 27th (18:19) and Matt Nitz in 30th (18:24).
Midland's Jason Stafford was 16th (17:38), while Jamison Sheppard was 18th (17:41) and Alex Marsh 20th (17:46). Stafford's and Marsh's times were also personal bests.
For Midland, Alaina Vouaux was 12th (21:08), Kelsey Schiel 14th (21:23), Ruth Leibfritz 18th (21:37) and Katie Cope 26th (21:55). Vouaux set a personal best by a 50-second margin, and Leibfritz also set a personal best, while Cope tied her personal high.
SAGINAW - The Freeland boys' and girls' cross country teams both won the Saginaw Nouvel meet on Thursday.
President Vicente Fox marked his three years in office Wednesday, declaring that Mexico is now a better place and promising to fulfill the "mandate for change" given him by voters.
Fox, who was also celebrating his 61st birthday and the second wedding anniversary, met with senior citizens and then formally toasted his victory with supporters.
The former business executive and Mexican rancher became the first opposition candidate to unseat the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had held power for 71 consecutive years.
Fox's anniversary came four days before midterm congressional elections that could determine the success of his final three years in office. It also came with voters showing growing impatience over unfulfilled promises on everything from economic growth to a migration accord with the United States.
"In terms of the government's agenda, President Fox declares that he has achieved important progress," political analyst Sergio Sarmiento wrote in Wednesday's editions of the daily newspaper Reforma. "But this is not evident at first glance."
Although he obtained passage of a watered-down Indian rights bill, implemented an unprecedented freedom of information act and made strides against drug trafficking and corruption _ no small achievements in a country where the government once acted in secrecy and with impunity _ his major reform attempts failed, Sarmiento wrote.
"The country in which we live is a different and better one: freer, more open, more plural, more inclusive," the president told Cabinet members and journalists during an anniversary ceremony held under the theme "Building the Future."
"On this anniversary I stand by my promise to continue fulfilling the mandate for change that the citizens gave us," he said. "I have done it, and I will do it with a sense of obligation, with honesty, with passion."
No party holds a majority in Mexico's Congress, and no one expects that to change Sunday, when voters elect candidates for all 500 seats of Congress' lower house.
Many say congressional gridlock and Fox's failure to negotiate well with opposition parties in the legislature are to blame for the failure of his more ambitious goals.
SAGINAW - Michigan's Natural Resources Commission took a close look at the bag limit on antlered white-tailed deer, and found the system isn't broken.
Hunters in the Upper Peninsula had urged a reduction in the yearly limit from two bucks, one of them with at least four points on at least one side, to a single buck per year, no matter how it was bagged.
Several months ago, NRC member John Madigan of Munising brought the issue to his fellow commissioners, making the one-buck proposal. "There just weren't the votes to pass it," he said, so he amended his proposal: one buck with archery gear, one with firearm. (The four-point-one-side restriction on a second buck remained.)
And after DNR staffers said it would make little biological difference to deer, and more than a dozen hunters said it would unnecessarily reduce hunting opportunities, even Madigan found himself unwilling to make the motion.
Finally, so that the NRC was taking a stand, even if it were to retain the status quo, retiring (as soon as a replacement is named) commissioner Bob Garner of Cadillac made motions: first on the one-each-method bag limit for the Upper Peninsula only, then statewide.
DNR survey leader Brian Frawley had told the commission that 390,000 of the DNR's 750,000 individual license-buyers in 2005 were eligible to shoot two bucks. Only about 30,000 of them actually did. And one-half of those took one each, archery and gun.
That meant a harvest reduction of only about 15,000 bucks might have been realized with one-and-one rules.
But many hunters, having taken a buck, would be barred from continuing their hunt during that archery or firearm season. That would cut hunting opportunities.
Survey results did indicate that hunters facing reduced tagging options might make their decisions differently, perhaps letting a small buck pass in hopes of getting a shot at a bigger one.
"You don't get older bucks - 2 1/2 years old, 3 1/2, 4 1/2, 5 1/2, - until they get through 1 1/2 years old," Larry Holcomb, vice chair of the Michigan Chapter of the Quality Deer Management Association, told the commission. "People indicate they'll make decisions differently."
Ron Shaver of Clare County told the commission, "I am puzzled why you're even considering changing regulations (in a way) that would impact current programs." There'd be little change in the deer herd, he said, and perhaps fewer deer licenses sold.
Doug Brown of Ada said there was another drawback: Adult hunters with limits filled might not keep hunting with kids.
"If we fill tags opening morning, October 1 or November 15, who's going to do the mentoring? I think we will lose a lot more than just our own days afield," Brown said.
And so, following the no-change vote, hunters may still buy two archery licenses, two firearm licenses, or a combination license good for either pursuit. In total, they can harvest two bucks, with at least one meeting the four-point-one-side minimum.
IN OTHER MATTERS, the NRC approved a DNR request to change the boundaries of bear management units (BMUs) in the Lower Peninsula, including transfer of Midland County and all or parts of several other counties into the Gladwin and Baldwin BMUs, in which fall hunts are held, from the southern-Michigan Danville BMU, where there's no hunting.
The reason, according to DNR furbearer and bear specialist Dave Bostick, is that black bears are expanding their range to the south. Hunting, he said, will slow that spread.
Bear hunting license quotas will be set at a future NRC meeting, probably at the April meeting. Early indications point to a Gladwin BMU license increase of 50 permits, from 150 to 200.
Isolation Transformers provide ultimate safety and electrolysis protection for shorepower systems. Essential for aluminium boats and preferred for any boat.
The isolation transformer eliminates any electrical continuity between AC shore power and the boat. It is essential for safety and eliminates the need for galvanic isolators and polarity alarms.
Safety is taken for granted in case of a normal on-shore installation. A fuse will blow or a GFCI (Ground Fault Current Interrupter) will trip in case of a short circuit or current leakage to ground. Connecting the ground wire of the shore-side supply to the metal parts of the boat will result in galvanic corrosion (see below). Bringing only the live and neutral wire on board results in an unsafe situation because GFCI’s will not work nor will a fuse blow in case of a short circuit to a metal part on the boat.
Galvanic corrosion occurs when two dissimilar metals in electrical contact are simultaneously exposed to an electrically conducting fluid. Seawater and, to a lesser extent, fresh water are such fluids. In general, the more active alloy of the couple corrodes preferentially while the less active (more noble) material is cathodically protected. The rate of galvanic corrosion is a function of several variables including area ratios, conductivity of the fluid, temperature, nature of the materials, etc.
It is a misunderstanding that galvanic corrosion occurs only in metal and aluminium hulls. In fact it can occur on any boat as soon as a metallic part (the shaft and propeller) is in contact with water. Galvanic corrosion will quickly dissolve your sacrificial anodes, and attack the shaft, propeller and other metal parts in contact with water as soon as the boat is connected to the shore-side supply. It might therefore be tempting not to connect the ground conductor: this is however extremely dangerous because GFCI’s will not work nor will a fuse blow in case of a short circuit to a metal part on the boat.
The best solution to avoid galvanic corrosion and at the same time prevent any unsafe situation is to install an isolation transformer to connect to the shore-side supply.
The isolation transformer eliminates any electrical continuity between shore power and the boat. The shore power is fed to the primary side of the transformer and the ship is connected to the secondary. The isolation transformer completely isolates the boat from the shore ground. By connecting all metal parts to the neutral output on the secondary side of the transformer, a GFCI will trip or a fuse will blow in case of a short circuit.
Soft start is a standard feature of a Victron Energy isolation transformer. It will prevent the shore power fuse from blowing due to the inrush current of the transformer, which would otherwise occur.
It is also recommended, for optimal safety, to connect the secondary neutral of the transformer to ground when the boat is out of the water.
We have kayaks from Perception and Wilderness Systems on sale NOW! We are also having a clearance sale on all of our summer clothing and shoes, so now is the time to stock up on warm weather gear at a great price! Sizes and styles limited to stock on hand, so stop by soon!
Yellowstone Canyon and Yellowstone Falls are extremely popular with visitors to Yellowstone National Park. It is easy to spend a whole day visiting all the overlooks and hiking the North Rim Trail or Ribbon Lake Trail for more canyon views. Some of the overlooks involve steep descents into the canyon, and that means the inevitable trudge up several hundred steps or numerous switchbacks from spots like Uncle Tom’s and the Brink of Lower Falls Overlook. One fairly easy but breathtaking overlook is the Upper Falls Brink Overlook.
From the parking lot, it is just an eighth-mile to the top of the falls, and it is paved and accessible for most. The Upper Falls is a shorter drop than the Lower Falls (109 feet versus 308 feet), but the amount of water and the sheer power of the falls is still breathtaking on the brink of the Upper Falls. Early morning is a wonderful time to visit this area as the rising sun lights up the billowing mist that rises up out of the canyon.