MV Aurora (1977)

MV Aurora (1977) The M/V Aurora is a feeder vessel for the Alaska Marine Highway System. The M/V Aurora was built in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin in 1977 by Peterson Shipbuilders and commissioned by the Alaska Marine Highway System the same year. The Aurora is the younger sister ship to the M/V LeConte and both serve or have served as feeder vessels that pick up passengers in small communities such as Pelican and Hoonah and take them to larger regional communities (this process is colloquially known as the "milk run"). However, unlike the LeConte, the Aurora was moved out of Southeast Alaska into Prince William Sound area in 2005 to take the place of the retired M/V Bartlett. This move, however, was highly controversial as the M/V Chenega, a fast ferry, was supposed to take this role and been promised for years in advance to the Prince William Sound area and specifically to be homeported in the city of Cordova. Instead, the ferry system reneged on this promise and moved the Chenega to a Ketchikan-Wrangell route. Currently, the Aurora is being hubbed out of Cordova (although, unlike the fast ferry, the Aurora operates 24-hours a day so it doesn't have a crew that lives in its homeport thus denying that city the economic stimulus of additional residents/jobs. This is the primary motive for the especially rancorous uproar from Cordova regarding the Chenega's route placement) and operating principally between Cordova, Whittier, and Valdez with whistle stops (the ferry only stops if there are prior reservations) in Tatitlek and Chenega Bay.

Read More » December 20th, 2008 / 5314 Comments / Tags: Daily Bore, Navy, Maritime, Wikipedia

Back to sleep

We were offline for a while. Now we're back, have fun perusing the posts. Actually don't have fun, become incredibly bored perusing the posts. December 20th, 2008 / 2740 Comments / Tags: news, updates, official

Economic Graphs

A selection of boring economic grpahs that are rather hard to understand. To see more visit the site they are from: Teach me Finance.com


Read More » January 13th, 2008 / 238751 Comments / Tags: Finance, Graphs, Images

Syndesmology, Gray's Anatomy

The following is a selection of text about cartilage from Gray's Anatomy 1918. Hopefully you won't find this terribly interesting and it will put you to sleep quickly.

THE BONES of the skeleton are joined to one another at different parts of their surfaces, and such connections are termed Joints or Articulations. Where the joints are immovable, as in the articulations between practically all the bones of the skull, the adjacent margins of the bones are almost in contact, being separated merely by a thin layer of fibrous membrane, named the sutural ligament. In certain regions at the base of the skull this fibrous membrane is replaced by a layer of cartilage. Where slight movement combined with great strength is required, the osseous surfaces are united by tough and elastic fibrocartilages, as in the joints between the vertebral bodies, and in the interpubic articulation. In the freely movable joints the surfaces are completely separated; the bones forming the articulation are expanded for greater convenience of mutual connection, covered by cartilage and enveloped by capsules of fibrous tissue. The cells lining the interior of the fibrous capsule form an imperfect membrane—the synovial membrane—which secretes a lubricating fluid. The joints are strengthened by strong fibrous bands called ligaments, which extend between the bones forming the joint. Read More » January 13th, 2008 / 2055 Comments / Tags: science, words, medical