Dear Anonymous

HI! I'm so glad you posted! First of all, thanks for coming by and for commenting. I know not everyone reads the comments, so I hope you don't mind that I'm bringing it to the main page, but I think you made my point very, very well and since I'm hanging out my geocentric laundry, I figured I might as well put this out, too.

Anyhow, here's the comment (I'll put the comment in italics and my replies in blue- anyone please let me know if that just doesn't help on your browser, ok?)

You wrote:
"Ponderosa Pines grow only above 5000 ft. elevation...."

Really?

No! No, not really. They really don't. That's my point. I was born and raised in Prescott, Arizona (which is around 5300' elevation). There are beautiful Ponderosas all over the Yavapai National Forest, and they are all over Flagstaff, Arizona, too (even higher up the mountain!) Yet if you drive 7 miles outside Prescott, in any direction except toward Groom Creek, you'll drop just a few hairs in elevation and- *blam* - all ya get is scrub oak, junipers and cactus. So, as if to highlight my ignorance even further- there ya have it, geocentricity at its all-time worst! I just grew up knowing that if you got under appx. 5000' ft., you were in the "high deserts". Let me tell you, the terrain in Minnesota just blew my little mind!

I'm not forester, nor am I sure that's how you spell it, but we've got what the conservation folks call Ponderosa Pine (and what I learned were Ponderosa Pine in jr. high) on our land. Our land is considerably below 5000 ft., in the mid-3000s.

Exactly my point. It's downright embarrassing. Even back east here, where I've seen "high elevation" properties listed with a whopping 1800' elevation, I do believe there may be Ponderosas. At any rate, I know there are pines and there are some big 'uns, too.

Granted the Cartwrights' ranch, the Ponderosa, there near Lake Tahoe, is named after the most lovely tree called the Ponderosa Pines that live on it. And Lake Tahoe is around 6000 ft.

*wistful sigh* Tahoe...

So. I'm wondering what the 5000 rule you quoted is all about.

Not really a rule, just a rule-of-thumb that I'd unconsciously grown up with. Geocentricity is not really about what you know, it's about what you "think" you know.

I'm a 1 on your ignorance scale. I know probably know less than 0.00000001% of all the world's collective knowledge. If someone gave me that much of a candy bar, I'd think they were giving me nothing.

Oh, Anon, perish the thought!! Candy bars for all! (And more knowledge, too!) And coffee- can you imagine 0.00000001% of a pot, or *cringe* a CUP of coffee? No, that's not a good percentage at all.

Statistically 0.00000001% *is* nothing. I'm just lucky that most of the rest of the world is also as ignorant so that I end up looking about average. LOL!

LOL- I love your perspective, Anon, and hope you will stick around and introduce yourself and hopefully stay for coffee more often.

Alrighty, time to get the baby down and finish the day's chores. I'll be back for a longer blog in a bit.

~Dy