Power Sources Considered.

The Carthage Water and Electric Plant Board heard a report from their Long Range Planning Committee at the regular Board meeting last week.

They informed the Board that they had reviewed the recent Power Supply Study and are considering the continuing need to secure sources of power.

City Attorney David Mouton has been reviewing a 24 month contract with Sikeston of 4 Megawatts capacity for October through May and 6 Megawatts capacity from June through September. Also being considered is a summer purchase with Empire.

Committee member Bob Anderson noted that because of various transmission issues, additional generation by the Carthage Electric Plant is being seriously considered.

The Board also heard a report from General Manager Bob Williams concerning the possibility of CW&EP acquiring its own health insurance. The current arrangement is in conjunction with the City health plan. Quotes will continue to be gathered for consideration in time for the renewal date of April 1, 2003.

NASCAR to the Max

During the last race of the season, the series’ point’s standings took a serious shuffling. Going into the race, Tony Stewart and Mark Martin would be battling for first and second with the spread from Martin in second to third place Kurt Busch being an insurmountable difference. Third through seventh however were up for grabs among five drivers.

When the dust had settled on Sunday, only 67 points separated the five positions with Busch maintaining third followed by Jeff Gordon 34 points in arrears.

Seven points behind Gordon was Jimmie Johnson who led Ryan Newman by the same margin. The driver that took the most severe hit was Rusty Wallace who entered the day in fifth place but a poor showing relegated him to seventh when the final tally was totaled. Wallace trailed sixth place by only 19 points. Rounding out the top ten were Matt Kenseth, Dale Jarrett and Ricky Rudd.

All of the drivers in the top 10 of the point’s standings are part of a multi-car operation. All but Tony Stewart had a teammate finish in the top 10 as well with Roush Racing teammates Martin, Busch and Kenseth claiming three of the spots.

Several streaks will have to be restarted at the beginning of next year. Rusty Wallace had claimed a victory in each of the past sixteen years tying him with Ricky Rudd for second on the all time consecutive victories list. Wallace came close several times this season by carding four second place finishes. Wallace is laying his sights on the season opening Daytona 500.

Jeff Gordon will be looking to start a new streak as well. For the first time in his career, 320 starts, Gordon was forced to take a provisional starting position for the season finale.

The top 36 positions are based on qualifying time; the provisional positions 37 through 43 are awarded to drivers based on their position in the driver’s point’s standings with certain limitations and criteria. Very few drivers make it a season without using a provisional let alone ten years as Gordon did.

The cool weather last weekend was just right to put an edge on my exercise of seein’ how close I could come to a nail without doin’ enough damage to my fingers so I would be forced to lay down the hammer.

Workin’ from a ladder, I was placed in the position where I could strike justice with both my right and left hand, thus givin’ equal time for both sides of the story.

Bein’ prone to favor my right hand for hammer swingin’, I was more accurate, usually, but also did more damage when I miscalculated. When swingin’ with the left hand, I only was able to inflict a little sting, but that one good shot with my stronger right handed swing resulted in a swell blood blister. It’s amazin’ how well the voice travels through the neighborhood on a quiet, cool afternoon, from the top of a twenty foot ladder. Even the squirrels scattered.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

by

Metcalf Auto Supply

Click & Clack
TALK CARS

By Tom & Ray Magliozzi

Dear Tom & Ray:

My wife just bought a brand-new Subaru Forester. She loves the car and the new-car smell.

But recently, something happened that changed the smell greatly for the worse. While driving down the highway, a large plastic garbage bag blew under the car and did not come out. It stuck to the bottom of the exhaust system and melted onto it. The smell is awful! Is there anything we can do to get this stuff off? Scraping does not seem to work. — Harry

RAY: Gee, Harry. Something recently happened to change MY car’s smell for the worse, too. My brother got in.

TOM: This is a common scourge, Harry. We see it mostly with plastic supermarket bags. They get under cars and instantly melt all over the red-hot catalytic converter.

RAY: It won’t do any real harm to the car, and eventually, it’ll burn off altogether. But it’ll take weeks. So if you want to accelerate the process, you can get one of those scrapers that uses razor blades and have a go at it. We also find that a wire brush helps. Make sure you do it when the exhaust system is cool, so you don’t burn yourself. But with those two tools, you should be able to get 95 percent of it off, and the rest will burn off by itself.

TOM: And who knows, you might actually get to like the smell! Whenever I get in his car, my brother now looks for plastic bags to run over.