The Brookhart Blog

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Tales Of Red-Drift Algae and Snow

I found this, under "Drafts" on the "blog", but I don't really know why I didn't post it. Must have been a mistake on my part. As Roscoe would say ... it's probably due to the influence of the mullahs.

We've been back for almost a full week now from Fort Myers Beach, where our visit coincided with a nice bloom of "red drift algae". Interesting stuff, albeit a fair bit stinky. Thankfully, we weren't there in June or July or August, when I imagine if this occured, it would be down-right god-awful, "smell-wise". According to one of the area papers, "Like all other algaes, red-drift algae thrives on nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, which are found in stormwater runoff from urban and agricultural areas. Last year, the Gulf received a massive nutrient load from hurricane runoff and from the 696 billion gallons of water the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River."Anyway, the "natives" are restless down there and are trying to get the town management to free up over $350,000 for clean-up efforts, citing vacation cancellations, early check-outs, and the invasion of Japanese reporters covering the introduction of Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka to the Boston Red Sox training camp.
Apparently "Dice-K" (as he is nicknamed) can throw a pitch called a "Gyro-ball", which supposedly completely confounds opposing batters by looking like a popular Greek sandwich of lamb, lettuce, and a light cucumber dressing wrapped in a pita bread as it approaches the plate. Rumors have it, South Korea is training a pitcher to throw a pitch called a "Souvlaki-ball", and that China (not to be outdone) is bringing up a pitcher who purportedly throws a pitch called simply "Kalamaki". Why the Asian pitchers have such an obsession with naming their pitches after Greek foods is really beyond me.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home