OT: Here's to a man who needs a wheelbarrow to cart his balls around.

[Robatoy]

The first guy to go DOWN to assist in loading the trapped miners. He is a hero in my eyes. Balls of steel, yessir.

[CW]

That was my thought when they first said that they were sending someone down.

[willshak]

Robatoy wrote the following:

As of this time (EDT) the 23rd miner is out. 10 to go.

[Steve B]

I wonder two things:

One, is there any dependable place to donate to these miners where the money would go to them? I was reading about squabbles breaking out as to who was a "relative" when the subject of lawsuits came up and who might be entitled to some compensation. Plain ugly was what it was.

Second, will any of these men ever go down into a mine again?

Steve

Heart surgery pending? Read up and prepare. Learn how to care for a friend.

[Robatoy]

That would depend on the lawyer/agent they hire.

[Lee Michaels]

They already hired one before they even came out of the ground.

Any money that comes in will be split evenly among all 33 miners.

[Steve B]

Except for the vig the lawyer gets, that sounds like a fair arrangement.

Now, to another aspect. Damn, they looked good for guys who had been down there for a long time. They must have been sending them down shavers, clean clothes, and hair clippers, because when they hit the surface they looked nothing like I thought they would after sleeping on the dirt for that long, and no BR facilities. They looked like they were SHOWING up for work. The ones I saw were very composed, considering their ordeal. I must give it to the press for being more reserved than normal, although in those small countries they don't put up with the crap we do here. Some of the men had some absolutely HOTTIE women waiting for them. There's going to be some partying tonight!

What a miracle. There must be a lot of joy there right now. I'm happy for them.

Steve

Heart surgery pending? Read up and prepare. Learn how to care for a friend.

[Lobby Dosser]

Yowza!

I'm not too keen on heights or small enclosed spaces. They'd have to strap me in for a ride down a 2,000 foot Tube!

[RicodJour]

enews:4cb6711a$0$15430$c3e8da3$ [e-mail]...

The miners were saying that they'd been working out every day while trapped, and they were in better shape physically then when it collapsed.

Small point of order - any time you mention hot women on a newsgroup, you're supposed to post a link to some pictures. Other than that, good post! ;)

R

[Robatoy]

They'd have to sedate me somehow, but then again, I wouldn't have been down there in the first place. Submarines, mines and army tanks are not my idea of normal places to be. I have visited a salt mine and I can 'do' it, but I don't 'like' it...not even a little bit. There's just something about air and sky that I like better.

[HeyBub]

What kind of salt mine? Bedded salt is usually mined differently than that found in salt domes.

Salt domes usually use the room-and-pillar technique and contain immense open spaces - rooms typically 60x60x50 ft. A typical Gulf Coast salt dome contains six cubic miles of salt and there are over 2000 known salt domes in the area.

If you want to have some fun, check out the Lake Peigneur... er,... mishap in Louisiana. Short version:

• Lake Peigneur was a shallow, 1,100 acre, fresh water lake.

• In 1980, Texaco began drilling for oil from a drilling barge in the center of the lake.

• A couple of days after drilling began, miners in the salt mine directly below the drilling barge looked up to see a 36" drilling bit pierce the ceiling of their mine.

• After a WTF moment, the 55 miners decided it was break time and left.

• Meanwhile, the resulting whirlpool sucked eleven barges, the drilling platform, many trees, counteless fish plus probably a few alligators, and 65 acres of the surrounding countryside down the hole.

• A canal that normally handled the flow from the lake to a nearby river began moving backward, creating the largest waterfall, ever, in Louisiana of

164 feet.

[Robatoy]

Really interesting. If that were to happen here, there might be a bit bigger problem as we're talking about Lake Huron draining into the largest salt mine in the world.:

Canada, Inc operates a salt mine underneath Goderich's harbour. [7] The mine extends 5 kilometers under Lake Huron and is the largest salt mine in the world.

Fun thought as there's a 4000 meg nuke just up the coast a way which could temporarily run out of cooling water...

[Robatoy]

Not to be too nitpicky, but that was a 36 cm (14") bit

[J. Clarke]

Geez, hasn't Texaco heard of "call before you dig"?

[Neil Brooks]

If you ask my wife ... the word heard all through the house, in MY voice was ....

"Down ???"

Amen.

Large, and .... most likely brass.

[Swingman]

My dad did his Master's thesis based on gravity meter surveys of the Hockley Salt Dome in Texas. Guess who got to ride the bucket down with the instruments at the age of ten years ...

If you ever want to see a geographic representation of salt domes in this part of the world, take a look at any Gulf Coast area Tobin map.

Since many of these salt domes acted as hydrocarbon traps, the oil wells drilled to exploit these traps down through years, and their cumulative locations displayed on the map, neatly delineate the outline of each salt dome.

Every Tobin of the area shows these circular rings of well locations ... and you're right, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of them that fall in this category.

[Swingman]

In addition, Hats off to the drillers, and the expertise shown by their company, who accomplished an astounding engineering feat in order to make the rescue possible.

[Lee Michaels]

I don't think that we need to worry about that. The capsule was only 21" in diameter! Most of us are too "hefty" to fit into that tiny enclosed space.

Isn't that a relief?

[Lee Michaels]

"Steve B" wrote

Apparently Chilean miners are real studs. Or maybe just well paid. Since many of them had mistresses. Some of them had multiple mistresses\girlfriends, etc. This is in addition to the wife too!

Turns out to be a problem for the government. The mistresses are applying for benefits along with the wife. No wonder those folks like soap operas!

[Robatoy]

66" waist? Wowsa.