h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's all - hi . How have you been?



Nyss

Hiya gorgeous - awww - I really needed that Not been too bad recently - in the long term, I'm still looking for a potential employer who can recognise my genius. I've been keeping bodily active exploring brand new cave passage with a very old mate in North Wales every Wednseday night (with the added advantage of a local pub that doesn't observe licensing laws ). We've been spending quite a while widening passage with Hilti caps, which are something like a small blank cartridge that you insert in a hole you've drilled in the rock, stick a metal rod in on top, then hit the rod with a lump hammer to set the cartridge off. If you're lucky, the rock falls apart into managable lumps. If you're smart, you make sure someone else is the one with the hammer. Hand-triggered explosives - you know they make sense. :-) Last week, 5 of us shifted about 2 tons of sand and found a whole 30ft of narrow passageway, but it's still going, and tomorrow night could be that elusive breaktrough into caverns measureless to man... Mentally, I've spent a few days writing a program to help find True Researchers see : http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F73672?thread=216750&skip=0&show=20 but beware of the s How have you been?

PS
Even your *usernumber* is interesting - it uncovered a few faults in my coding, and is still my best test number. ()

Incidentally, among a few more obscure results,
(-19)+(8+0)*8-sqrt(9) = 42
(1+9)+(8+0)+8*sqrt(9) = 42

Ooohh...you have inadvertently (?) challenged me. In replying to your reply, I must try to recall from short-term memory what the penultimate post said...

*throws arms about your neck* *abundance of es*

What an amazing person you are. *thinks fondly of playing in 'huecos' in Mexico* But yes, blowing things up is certainly an activity to make the Mrs. skittish. Don't get to close to me, or I'll insist you stop . Really though, that seems to me a most fascinating of ways to occupy your time. I think I said in some other thread longish ago how much I like earthy people. I'm slightly anxious because for some reason I didn't get outside much at all this year..I don't think I made it into the woods but once!! Ach, the soul atrophies. Someday I hope to have a house large enough to accommodate a tree for me to sit under. Then even if I'm housebound I can get a little .

And as for iness. Well, I've always had a soft-spot for bookish sorts. And a distinct bias against jocks, preps, and other 'normals'. I'm too odd and life is too short for me to not pursue my own kind..IMHO.

You are altogether too clever. I admit I didn't give it much thought, and only bothered to figure that the numbers plus 7 (the number of characters if you also count the preceding letter) = 42. Which is probably cheating, I know. I just love my number...just quirky enough to be not quite symmetrical. Somewhat like myself?

In a quiet place beneath the earth, think of me sometime.

How could I not?

*tries in vain to think of clever simile...*

Well, because I'm but one little stone in the quarry?

Oh that was just painful .

Spooky - how did you know the cave I'm digging in is in the side of an abandoned quarry?

Anyway, the cave is dark, cold, unyielding, inhuman, ancient, and difficult, reminding me of you because it's so different, but on the other hand it can also be brilliant, mysterious, beautiful, magnificent, compelling, naturally sculpted and intriguing, reminding me of you by similarity.

*is all innocence*

*a blush creeps up her cheeks, gaining such momentum that it soon ceases to be a coloration and becomes rather like a metallic taste in your mouth*

Ay, the man is a tease!

*stealth, before you have a chance to leave again*

Tease, me? I thought *that* position was already taken, so I was aiming for the role of dreamer.

Wednesday night's exploration was rather disappointing. Digging out another pile of sand gained a narrow rift passage - too narrow to permit wearing a helmet - blocked at floor level at the end by a slumped infall of rock. After a bit of awkward work with a lumphammer, I managed to verticalise myself into a reasonable space, from where I could see that there was no practical way on beyond the rockfall.

Still, there are many leads left in that particular cave, so we'll have to try something else next week, ideally ones that *don't* result in my straining my fron neck muscles (the ones that run from the top of the sternum to behind the ear.) Ouch.

Aw.. and and *massage*..

Just for clarity's sake, does an agency of some kind hire you to do this exploration/opening access, or are these stealth ventures, or...?

So potholer, m'dear, have you ever.. *ahem*.. beneath the earth? (it just sounds so lovely to me, that i'd have a hard time believing that you'd not have thought about it at least)

*sigh* I consider myself one of the dreamers...

Actually, no (to all three questions.

The exploration is all for the fun of it, and given that the quarry the cave is in the side of is now defunct, it's not a stealth activity (not any more, at least...). There are places in N. Wales that have at times been tricky to access, and some that still are.

I remember my first weekend trip there many years ago. I was rather puzzled when we drove off into a nearby town on the Saturday and spent ages messing around when I expected to be underground, or at least getting vaguely ready. When I asked why we were apparently wasting so much time, I was told "We can't go caving, it's still daylight". When we finally arrived after dark at the (different) quarry where the cave was located, I was told the three rules of access.
Don't turn your light on, don't make a noise walking over the gravel, and make sure you don't get silhouetted on the horizon.

Now, with many quarries running out of economically useful rock, at least some of the access problems have lessened, and fortunately the most important caves are now legally protected from commercial damage.

Concerning your last question, I guess I haven't really had the opportunity (person/time/location/inclination). There are a few locations I can think of that might be suitable given a bit of equipment to make things more comfortable but the subsurface temperatures here are not very great (0..8 degrees C), and the usual cave clothing rather bulky.

I have actually *slept* underground a few times, and it is really weird sleeping in absolute darkness, especially somewhere with an uneven floor and a low (and hard) roof.

Hmm..I guess I assumed that your mention of explosive usage implied some sort of official agenda, permission, etc.

Eh..that aint cold. Of course, I'm from Idaho, and it's no big thing for me to, say, escape into the woods in sub-freezing temperatures in January to find a big rock and uh..*grin* I try to remember to wear skirts on car trips. Life is too short to not capitalize on opportunity when it presents itself, wouldn't you say m'dear?

I think I could live happily as moss. *ponders* For a while anyway. Any excuse to alloy myself with a tree (I wonder if it's a linguistic coincidence that alloy and ally are so similar...)

So if you haven't done that, what *is* the most bizarre place you've done so. If you don't mind saying. I overstep politeness boundaries with frightening frequency when I'm online, it seems. In real life I'm the vision of propriety. *demure *

The rock-popping we do is only small-scale stuff, and is a bit of a grey area (in health-and-safety terms, rather than anything legally heavy).

For *real* stuff like proper high explosives in the UK, there's a quite serious process to get a licence to buy/store the stuff (whereas I understand in Texas, a driver's licence is about all you need), but the caps we use (much smaller than the average rifle cartridge) aren't dangerous enough to be heavily restricted.
In fact, in an area with loose boulders, they certainly aren't the riskiest procedure that could be undertaken. Also, compared to 'proper' explosives, they can be quicker. It's possible to get through ~20-30 in a night, shaving off tight passage walls, or popping large rocks into more managable ones, and all you get after one goes off is a smell like a small firework.

In a *serious* high-explosive/detonator/wire kind of situation, (which a couple of mates can do legally,) someone can drill a few holes, insert the stuff, retire to a safe distance and set it off, then get out of the cave and wait for a day (or more) fro the nasty fumes to dissipate. For some things, like turning multiple large unstable boulders into gravel (or even dust) from a safe distance, that can be a good move, but for the smaller jobs, the little cartridges are definitely preferable.
There isn't really any high-level permission beyond local landowners, and in the case of some work, 'dont ask, don't tell' makes people less nervous about things like liability, which seems to be a growing issue in certain areas.

Bearing in mind it's a semi-public forum here, I'll hide behind a gentlemanly demeanour, and stay silent on the last question(s).

Ach, I do fear me I've offended the man.

I'm not offended - there are just some things I'm shy of talking about at a distance, especially in public.

Ah..well, we'll keep it polite then *worms her way under your arm*

Are you online *now*?

Yes, but probably not for more than the next 30 mins.

And wouldn't you know it, I have to run an errand. I'm sure *sometime* in the near-future we'll be able to share a virtual