This is how we do it in Oregon LOL

onacruse

Well, I just saw on the news tonight that a long-time news reporter is retiring.

His most famous coverage was (and I hope one of my fellow Oregonians can find this story and provide the link):

About 25 years ago, a whale died and washed up on the beach. This fellow was huge! Something like 20 tons.

After a few days, well, it got to stinking pretty bad LOL. And so Oregon officials were in a quandry about what to do: they couldn't move it with a bulldozer (even a D9), and it was way too big to bury...

so, in their great wisdom, they decided to blow the carcass up, with a few cases of dymanite.

Now, I'm not the smartest of fellows, but even to me the thought would occur "OK, then, but where are all the 'fragments' gonna go?????"

There was a parking lot many hundreds of yards distant from the "site," and (as I recall) there was at least one car that was smashed to blithers by a huge chunk of flying blubber.

Can you imagine having to file a claim with your insurance company, with the "describe the cause of accident" by saying "My car was smashed by flying whale blubber." roflmao

And thus Paul Linnman passes into reporter history, and chronicles a classic example of "how we do things here in Oregon."

Farkel

onacruse,

: After a few days, well, it got to stinking pretty bad LOL.

You've just been fingered by the "grammar cop."

You should have said "well, it got to stinking pretty REALLY bad, or like, whatever. Nevermind."

I don't let these kind of mistakes slip past my ever fertile mind, onacruse.

Farkel, of the Grammar Cop CLASS(tm)

jgnat

Oregonians hold no candle to Albertans for weirdness.

http://www.discoverthepeacecountry.com/htmlpages/grovedale.html

GROVEDALE

Located 21 km south of Grande Prairie, Alberta, on Highway 40 and Highway 666 is the Hamlet of Grovedale.

Grovedale is not just a hamlet but a community that includes the immediate surrounding area. (population of approximately 500). Located in the Municipal District of Greenview includes the Towns of Fox Creek, Grand Cache, Valleyview and the Hamlets of Debolt, Little Smoky, Ridgevalley, Landry Heights and Grovedale.

The first settlers came to the area in 1928. William and Mary Gabler are known as the first official residents of Grovedale. (Jayelle's convenient store is now located near the original Gabler settlement just north of Grovedale)

For the settlers of Grovedale in the 1920's, it was a challenge to cross the Wapiti River to get to Grande Prairie. The best place to cross was at Plum's Crossing, as it was the shallowest point. It was named after a cattle rancher who cleared the trail to the river. (5 km east of the present day bridge at O'Brien Park)

In 1934 a ferry crossing was built (where the current Bridge now stands at O'Brien Park) T.E. Cooke owned a sawmill at this location and with the help of the settlers in the area, built a ferry and a house for the ferryman. In those days the ferryman survived only by donations of food made by those who used the ferry.

In 1939 the first Post Office and store opened and it was also that year when area farmers started to grow alfalfa as other grains did not grow that well. The first school was opened in 1945 to teach about 14 children. Electricity finally came to the area in 1958. 1963 another school was moved to Grovedale from Bridge Creek, a community 9 km south. This school eventually was renovated in 1967 and renamed Penson Elementary School. Named after long time pioneer and school board secretary-treasurer, Jack Penson.

It wasn't until the mid 1970's that Natural Gas service came to the area.

jgnat

Are accidents the devil's work on Highway 666?

By AJAY BHARDWAJ-- Edmonton Sun Highway to hell, or just an old country road?

Two people have been killed in the past three weeks on Highway 666, a two-lane stretch of provincial pavement in northwestern Alberta.

"It's not that bad," said Coun. Wayne Drysdale of the Municipal District of Greenview, which encompasses the road. "I don't know if it's bad luck or the number, just because there have been so many accidents."

Ah yes, the number.

"It's just like some buildings have a 13th floor and some buildings don't," said Drysdale. "To me, it doesn't matter but probably to some people they might think that way.

"I'm not superstitious ... It's a number, that's all it is. The number on the road isn't causing the accidents, I don't think."

Barbara Gillis, 34, died May 20 when her Mercury Marquis rolled on 666. Bruce Wayne Savard died on his way home from work in Grande Prairie on May 3 when his car rolled into the ditch. Savard wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown from his car. Both accidents are under investigation.

Grande Prairie RCMP Const. Pat Beauchamp attributed the accidents to a "bad streak" of luck - and not to supernatural factors.

Since January 2001 there have been two fatal accidents, one motor vehicle accident that led to an injury and four fender-benders on 666, said Beauchamp.

He said that when he first arrived in Grande Prairie five years ago, he was struck by the logic of giving a highway such a sinister number.

Alberta Transportation is responsible for numbering provincial highways. Starting at the Montana border and heading north, east-west roads are numbered 500 and 600, said department spokesman Trent Bancarz.

"Pure happenstance," he said, asked to explain the numbering of Highway 666. "That's just where it fell in the system."

No one has ever asked the department to re-number the road, he said.

Drysdale, who drives the road every day, said he was contacted by a resident a few years ago who asked for a name change, because of its association with the devil. Drysdale said he raised it at council "and everybody laughed."

Savard's buddy, John Bradley, said he figures it's a good road which needs speed limit reductions for tough corners.

But he added the allusion to the Beast doesn't bother him.

"I try not to think about that stuff," said Bradley, 24. "It's odd. It doesn't really bother me. There's got to be a 665 and a 667 and I guess there had to be something in-between."

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSWeirdNews0205/26_highway-sun.html

onacruse

Farkel, if you wanna pick on my grammar, then please pick on legitimate things...like my using the word "blither"; a UK term that should never again be uttered on the face of planet Earth.

jgnat, my question to you is: How many things have your local constabularies blown up in the last 20 years? Even the RCMP probably wouldn't know one end of a dynamite stick from the other...after all, they mostly just ride around on horses and say "Hey, you! You drive like a Merck...now quit that!"

jgnat

Actually, our RCMP were caught trying to blow up a natural gas well in a foiled attempt to frame a cult weirdo. Near highway 666.

CANADIAN POLICE FRAME SOUR GAS PROTESTORS

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Alberta Energy company set off a covert explosion at a gas drilling site in northwestern Alberta in order to trap a Christian preacher who was protesting against environmental destruction, government authorities have admitted.

Sour gas (hydrogen sulphide) was discovered near the Peace river in Alberta in the 1980s leading to a drilling boom. Today the region is a major contributor to the booming US$2.5 billion dollar Alberta fossil fuel industry.

But the environmental impact of the drilling has angered many local residents like Wiebo Ludwig, patriarch of a Christian commune on Trickle Creek farm in the town of Hythe and Richard Boonstra, a commune member.

Ludwig initially appealed to stop the drilling but lost. Between 1990 and 1997 the number of oil and gas wells drilled around the Hythe community increased from 1,200 to 2,400. ...

http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/drillbits/990207/99020701.html

http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/ludwig/

onacruse

jgnat, now there ya go!

Blow things up, yes, that's the way to deal with things that bother us. LOL

I've blown up a few things in my life...I was a raging pyromaniac in my teenage years, and even once manufactured nitroglycerin (from source chemicals), only to realize that my less-than-admirable high-school laboratory technique had presented me with a highly unstable form of nitro that was very likely to blow out half the lab; I was lucky enough to wash it down the sink before the reaction was complete.

I also burned off my brother's eyebrows with a flash powder I'd made...Mom and Dad were not very happy with me.

paterfamilias

"For the blast blasted blubber
beyond all
believable bounds."
Paul Linnman, TV reporter
November 12, 1970

What do you get when you cross a 45-foot, 8-ton whale carcass, a half-ton of dynamite, and the Oregon Highway Division?

click here to find out:
http://www.hackstadt.com/features/whale/

Don't miss the full video clip!

bikerchic

Cool! Thanks for the link Patter!

Craig and I got a real good laugh over this story tonight, try explaining flying blubber to anyone who wasn't around back then and it's just strange.

Kate

Farkel

idiot,

: if you wanna pick on my grammar, then please pick on legitimate things...like my using the word "blither"; a UK term that should never again be uttered on the face of planet Earth.

"wanna" is not a word, you moron. The correct usage is "wanta." Geeeesh.

With regards to the word "blither", I use a form of it frequently. I add "ing idiot" on the end when I use it.

I TOLD you to get an edumacation, you fool!

Farkel

This is how we do it in Oregon LOL

GROVEDALE

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