I'm dreaming dreams, I'm scheming schemes

[austin_dern]

I have to take the blame for being surprised at a proposal by Professor John McClatchey of Scotland's The University of the Highlands and Islands. That's less from my sense of responsibility than because I can't figure any way out of the blame. He obeyed the Flag Laws, having the proposal preceded by a man carrying a red flag and waving a lantern and followed by a man carrying a yellow flag and telling the horses to panic for other reasons.

Worse, he announced he would announce this proposal, conforming to the modern policy of never announcing anything without announcing that one announcing the thing one's announcing, so the actual announcement comes as a surprise only to people who weren't paying attention and probably live wild lives of reckless abandon, getting surprised by announcements all over the place. I bet he announced he was going to announce his proposal, because they get like that in the Highlands and/or Islands. So, I'm cornered and I accept it's my fault. Stop nagging me to admit it.

Anyway, Professor McClatchey of The University's proposal is ski resorts could preserve their snow by using bubble wrap. Here again, I'm forced at the end of many pointy sticks to my surprise. Sure you can better preserve ski slope snow using bubble wrap. They wouldn't package the slopes in bubble wrap if it didn't preserve them. Sure, in pre-plastic days they'd stuff mountain ranges in some oversized custom-fitted container. Famously, the Lewis and Clark expedition created the Rocky Mountains by following Thomas Jefferson's direction to take the packaging the Appalachians came in and dropping it ``as far west as you can possibly get'', which is why they explored Louisiana all the way to Oregon instead of stopping at the Toledo Bend Reservoir where they'd have ended if they consulted any map, except those listing only miniature golf courses of the Connecticut Riviera.

It works, too. Nearly the first thing anyone says at opening a new mountain range is how good the pristine rocks and snow and trees and all look. This is more impressive when you consider how many ranges nowadays are assembled from flat-package boxes. Here Scotland has an advantage thanks to its abundant natural surplus of Allen wrenches, found off nearly every shore owing to the legendary Saint Andrew and his casting out of the Ikeas.

Protecting your geological features, by bubble wrap or not, can be overdone. The classic example is Iowa, which in 1984 acquired a gorgeous deep-water natural harbor, but has kept it in storage, under plastic, in a self-storage unit in Denmark ``in case someone really nice comes to visit''. Finally when someone really nice did come to visit they couldn't find it, because they forgot it was the Denmark in Lee County, not the famous Denmark in Emmet County. It was embarrassing and the maharaja had to berth his heavy cruiser on the street, where it was towed after two hours for an expired meter who'd had dibs on that space. I bet by now they've lost the key for the bike lock on the locker door.

Asked about McClatchey of the The's proposal, so don't think she was eavesdropping on us, Marian Austin of the Nevis Range ski resort said sure, ski resorts would like snow preservation but worried ``the wind would move the bubble wrap around''. Good worry. A stiff breeze and the bubble wrap might skim away and preserve an unauthorized glacial moraine or roller-skating rink or Commonwealth trading partner. Weighting it down won't help, since put enough weight down and you'll pop a couple bubbles and all skiing activity will come to a bubble-popping-haze halt.

Probably the humane thing is to keep the wind in a kennel until after the extended ski season's closed. It wouldn't do to have the winds declawed, since that's cruel and any responsible aerologist will refuse to do the surgery. That was the solution taken by the Nassau Island Ski Resort, and they haven't had any trouble with the bubble wrap blowing off their snow pack, since they couldn't get the snow pack boxes open in the first place.

Trivia: At the 22 April Home Opening of the Chicago Cubs' World Series-winning 1908 season the unveiled pennant for their 1907 World Championship got stuck halfway up the flagpole. Source: Crazy '08: How A Cast Of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created The Greatest Year In Baseball History, Cait Murphy.

Currently Reading: The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science In The Twentieth Century, David Salsburg.