Post-It, October 2008 by Craig Johnson

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One thing you get used to living in Wyoming is the wind, but some parts are windier than others.

The winter before last, in March, which borders on spring even here in the high plains, it snowed six feet and the wind snapped off five power poles between Buffalo and Ucross; however, through the valiant efforts of the Powder River Energy Corporation, the power was back on in three days. That's three days without television or email... I've been begging them ever since, but they've kept the power on.

The Department of Energy's Wind program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory published a new wind resource map for the state of Wyoming. The map shows wind speed estimates at fifty meters above the ground and identifies the areas that could be used for utility-scale wind development. As one of the best sources of renewable energy, the classifications are broken down into seven levels: class one is the lowest, class seven, the highest. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but around here we only rated a two and that makes us only marginal.

The only area that sports a seven and showed excellent to superb merit was an area in the southeastern portion of Wyoming.

You in-staters know where I'm going with this, right?

The Wyoming state legislature, or what I like to refer to as the hired help or the ledg, is the bicameral body of government that consists of sixty members in the house and thirty in the senate.

This meets in Wyoming's state capitol, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne is in the southeastern portion of the state.

I checked to see when the study had been done and discovered that it was a period between January 13^th and March 10^th, the same period, almost to the day, that the ledg was in session.

Now, I'm all for renewable resources and proud to be from a state that produces the tremendous amount of energy that we do, but I think I'm going to have to contact the Department of Energy and the NREL to let them know that their findings might be skewed. I don't think we can ask those poor old boys to stay in session year-round; I don't think that even they have the wind for that.

But, maybe I'm wrong.

All the best,

Craig

I'm going to be at Bouchercon in Baltimore on Friday, October 10^th with panels at 11:30am and 1:30pm-tidy, don't you think?

I'm at the Campbell County Library in Gillette on Sunday, October 19^th at 2:00pm and then in Wright on Monday, October 20^th at 5:00pm.

Rounding out the month I'll be at the Montana Festival of the Book in Missoula both Friday, October 24^th and Saturday, October 25^th with Neil McMahon, Tom McGuane, James Lee Burke, his daughter Alafair, Rick Bass, William Kittredge and a cast of a thousand scribblers...

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