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Wood and coal fire steam engine boilers if banked right is as good as diesel..should we put them back in use?

Jun 08, 2008 by jamesfentress44 | Posted in Maintenance & Repairs

With today's technology, the engines could be more productive
in horsepower and the stacks filtered to environmental standards. Commodities can be moved coast to coast and
not one drop of imported oil need be used. Parts lubrication

Yes we should. Thanks for a good question.

Eureka Steam Fire Engine

Eureka's Old Town Steamer No. 2 Pumps at Eureka Fire Department's prevention week open house.

On Mononymous and Natural Life Forms

I just learned this word.  Mononymous.  It means you go by one name instead of two or three.  Like Colette, or Voltaire, or Nemo.  Of course, all the old heroes were pretty much mononymous.  Odysseus, Hector, Rama, Galahad, Gandalf, Gumby.  But it doesn’t really count if its just your given name.  True mononymity has to be with a nom de plume, and alias.  Not, it should be noted, an alter ego.  It isn’t a name you are hiding behind.  It’s a name that you have taken upon yourself.  You have been re-named.  Often female authors used to do this because they didn’t want anyone to know they were female novelists.  Shocking!

It struck me that the taking of a druid name is similar, though for many those names are compound, not just one word. And one word is essential.  Now, granted, Colette took a name that was a first name.  It just wasn’t the one she was given by her parents.  At almost half a century old (that’s a the twentieth part of a millennium), I’ve grown accustomed to my name.  It almost makes the day begin.  (My day usually does start with lying in bed saying “Who am I again?” because just moments before I was somebody else.)

But, of course, what I realized when I learned the word was that I am mononymous.  I go by Alferian when I’m not going by Owl.  (Gemini’s can be excused for being bi-mononymous).  Granted, I also go by my three druid names together — Alferian Gwydion MacLir.  But that’s too long to say or write, really.  It’s a mouthful.  I hadn’t thought of publishing under a mononym, but now I am.  Much easier to find in the Alphabet.  “Owl” is, I fear, too common to work as a nom de plume, except here.  One in nine pagans are named Something Owl.  But Alferian is distinctive.  I’ve ever only stumbled upon one other Alferian.  Of course, there is the spell-checker problem.  Your typical spell-checker application wants it to be “Algerian.”  (If I moved to Algiers, I could be Alferian the Algerian.)

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