User talk:David E. Volk

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Hurricane is coming!

Wish us well in sleepy Galveston, Tx. It looks like Tropical Storm (or Hurricane) Edouard is set for a direct hit on Galveston tomorrow morning about 8 am or so. David E. Volk 10:57, 4 August 2008 (CDT)

I keep my fingers crossed--Paul Wormer 11:12, 4 August 2008 (CDT)

Now Hurricane Ike is coming

Being about 11 miles east of Galveston, TX, in Jamaica Beach, it looks like what Eduardo left behind Ike is about to fully destroy. News reports have the current storm surge at 8 ft, and the hurricane hasn't even hit the Galveston area yet. This one looks to be a truely devastating storm for the Galveston-Houston area. For those of you watching the news, Jamaica Beach is about 11 miles west of 61st in Galveston, which they keep showing on the news. Wish us well and I hope to be back to working on CZ soon. David E. Volk 13:47, 12 September 2008 (CDT)

I wish you all the best...I hope you are prepared, and "godspeed" to your return! --Larry Sanger 13:55, 12 September 2008 (CDT)

Thanks Larry. We are holed up and safe in SW Houston area to avoid the storm surge. Unfortunately, my house, my mother-in-law's house, and those of many friends are in great peril on the west end of Galveston Island where there is no Seawall. Family, friends and pets will all be saved, and that is the important part. David E. Volk 14:50, 12 September 2008 (CDT)

I'm very glad everyone is safe, at least. --Larry Sanger 15:09, 12 September 2008 (CDT)

Well, David--it's passed now, I see. I hope you, your family, and your property are all right... --Larry Sanger 18:42, 13 September 2008 (CDT)

Tornado rips roof off of my hotel

Well, we had to be saved by the Jersey Village Fire Department after the hotel that I evacuated to had its roof ripped off during the huricane. It was the second (top) floor that I was in. About 3 am, firemen pounded on our hotel door, Motel 6 in Jersey Village, demanding evacuation. About 100 ft. of our hotel roof was ripped off by a tornado as the hurricane passed by. We leashed the dogs and rushed into the 80 mph winds and huddled in the office until the 80 or so of us were bussed to the Jersey Village Baptist Church a few blocks away. We were evacuated from our evacuation!! Pictures of the hotel have been playing all over Texas, so you might have seen it nationally as well.

On a brighter note, I saw my house in a new satelite image and the living quarters are still standing. The bottom storage area has been ripped away. My mother-in-law's house suffered similar damage. Everyone is very curious as to why the government refused fly-overs above Jamaica Beach and surrounding areas for so long. David E. Volk 02:00, 17 September 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for the update, David--amazing. I'm very glad things weren't worse than they could have been. --Larry Sanger 22:23, 19 September 2008 (CDT)

Rental house - water up to top of front door

I was able to inspect our rental house, and the water line was exactly up to the top of the front door. What an unholy smell inside! Our poor renter, a medical student, has lost everything. Yesterday, six scientists, including me, ripped out 5000 sq. ft. of muddy filthy carpet from our NMR spectroscopy center so we could save millions worth of electronics from getting ruined. Previously we determined that all four electomagnetics were still doing running, not a single quench. The university emergency power saved our pumped magnet. I still haven't been able to get to my residence yet. David E. Volk 08:03, 20 September 2008 (CDT)

How's it going? Having a break from the hard work of cleaning up? Sounds like misery. Chris Day 08:25, 24 September 2008 (CDT)

They are letting the masses back into Galveston today, so we are taking the day off to avoid many hours of traffic delays. I got to our house in Jamaica Beach, and the living quarters, being about 14 feet high, are fine, only flooding underneath in the storage area, which received about 4.5 feet of water. David E. Volk 08:41, 24 September 2008 (CDT)

If you ask me, these people (click on Street View) are very, um...brave. --Larry Sanger 08:54, 24 September 2008 (CDT)

Please join us for Biology Week!

Hello David, Yeah, with you digging out of mud, I'm sure this is going to happen, but I thought I'd just give you this anyway. I am giving you this personal invitation to join us this week for Biology Week! Please join us on the wiki and add or edit biology articles. Also, please let your friends and colleagues who are biologists, biology students, or naturalists, know about Biology Week and ask them to join us, too. Any way you can help make it an event would be most welcome. Think of it as a Biology Workgroup open house. Let's see if we can kick up activity a notch! Thanks in advance! --Larry Sanger 12:36, 22 September 2008 (CDT)

The first Biology Week took place here from Sep 22-28, 2008.

broke my right hand

I will be inactive due to breaking my hand and hurricane recovery. i hope to be back and active by mid november.David E. Volk 06:11, 30 September 2008 (CDT)

Good luck with both! Daniel Mietchen 06:14, 30 September 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for nominating Henry's Law

David, thanks a bunch. How is your hand now? Has it recovered fully? Milton Beychok 20:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Not a bit I think. The alignment seems too poor. Might need to find a better quack. David E. Volk 20:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

David, I had a hip replacement last December and I've spent the next 10 months trying to find someone or something that will relieve the pain I am still having. I'm sure that's no consolation to you, but I thought it might be of interest. Milton Beychok

Piquet

Your change was not done consistently. Peter Jackson 08:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the lack of clarity in the explanation of point. That's exactly the sort of feedback I need. I think, subject to decisions by the games workgroup, that the reader should be assumed to know almost nothing about playing cards & their terminology, though it would be rather impractical to explain some very basic terms like shuffle & cut. Anyway, see what you think of my revised wording. Peter Jackson 08:18, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Circularity

Thanks for looking at Incentre: I have made some comments at Talk:Incentre and Talk:Incentre/Related Articles explaining why I arranged things the way I did. Richard Pinch 07:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Definitions

I see you are a man on a mission, your last four hours work is very impressive. By the way, how is your hand doing? Chris Day 22:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

David, is that you or your definition writing machine! Nice going. We definitely need a definition write-a-thon. Any way, your efforts are not going unnoticed. :) Chris Day 17:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Not a problem on nominations for article/draft

I have no difficulty with your suggestion. Frankly, I'm much more concerned with trying to find other editors for Approval; the "of the week" isn't that big a thing other than that I thought it was a way to draw that attention.

Several other articles are in the close-to-approval stage, but there just don't seem to be active Computers, History or Military editors. Even lower-case e-diting is nice but not happening. When I'm not actively writing, my efforts seem to be in dealing with either trying to guide either non-neutral or orphaned articles, or to try to get new contributors to focus on an article itself rather than metadiscussions about CZ policy and practice.

I suppose I'm not sure what energy does get generated by "of the week"; I had been hesitant about adding anything else. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks and why?

Hi, David:

Thanks for nominating Bar (unit) and Partial pressure for approval.

I don't understand why you nominated Henry's Law for re-approval. It was already approved. Would you please explain why you felt it needed re-approval ... not that I really mind what you did, I just want to understand why.

Thanks, Milton Beychok 15:55, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

(With tongue in buccal cavity) While I recognize this term is disambiguated, I find myself, at least until more coffee is ingested, unable to get the "Davy Crockett" song out of my head, with the verse "killed him a b'ar when he was only three" being especially persistent. Should this persist, I may need to visit a bar (place of serving of flavored ethanol).Howard C. Berkowitz 16:34, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Weren't piano bars particularly in vogue in the 1980s? Aleta Curry 04:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Asian names, especially Vietnamese

I have not tried to follow that sorting convention in the Vietnam metadata, although I'd be perfectly open to having it in redirects. I recommend extensive use of redirects, but use of the form in which the name is most commonly written.

While I can't speak specifically to the origin of Bao Dai, that's a specifically royal name. When he abdicated, he was known as Vinh Thuy for a time, and I don't know which, if either, was the family name.

There are many names de guerre. I forget the exact translation of Ho Chi Minh, but it wasn't his birth name, Nguyen Tat Thanh‎. For many years, he was known as Nguyen Ai Quoc, or Nguyen the Patriot.

One of the leading Communist theoreticians was called Truong Chinh, which is sometimes written Chinh, Truong. He was born Dang Xuan Khu. "Truong Chinh" is the Vietnamese for "Long March"; he was a Maoist. Should he be indexed under "March, Long"? The two-word names often are not family name-two word personal name. For that matter, I created a redirect Chinh, Truong. Should there be a redirect Chinh Truong as well, neither, or both?

We have no simple answer, but I don't think assuming that Bao or Dai is the family name. While I'd have to verify it, I believe he was of the Nguyen dynasty. Should we be indexing Elizabeth Windsor; Windsor, Elizabeth; or Saxe-Coburn-Battenberg, Elizabeth? Howard C. Berkowitz 18:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm delighted that someone is looking at the Vietnam articles at all. As you may have realized, I've been trying to deal with that whole area of articles, perhaps to make it a case study of how to deal with a complex subject such as a major war. WWII would, however, be a lot tougher if everyone seemed to be named Nguyen. Unfortunately, I don't read Vietnamese, so I get stuck on how to deal with things like the Annamite House of Nguyen and Bao Dai. There are lots of Asian nuances, such as "Hirohito" properly being called "Emperor Showa" after his death. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Approvals!

Hi David, I was able to perform the mechanics of approval on Bar (unit), but since you wrote most of the other article Ketoconazole, I have to wait till you get two more editors on board. Congrats on the other one! D. Matt Innis 20:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Dien Bien Phu

A pleasant surprise! Do the French still lose in this production?

Seriously, there's been some very substantial of what has been Vietnam War, and there's talk page discussion of retitling. I've put a placeholder at Wars of Vietnam, 1858-1987; more eyes on the existing main article and subarticles are welcome. It would nice if we had someone with expertise on the post-1975 wars, but we don't even have an article on Cambodia.

Howard C. Berkowitz 23:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)