Up the Sunbeam

-- I am new to the blogosphere, both as a writer and as a reader. For the last several years I had heard about blogs, and had known of their benefits, but until recently I had not been in the habit of reading blogs. I had been encouraged by small business consultants to start a blog of my own--they said it would be good for business. Well, I wasn't about to start writing something strictly as a sales technique--that's just not how I'm wired, but I WAS intrigued with the blog as a vehicle for communication. Once I finally zeroed in on what my message was, and what I really wanted to write about, I jumped in wholeheartedly to begin writing Up the Sunbeam . Writing my own blog led me to reading other blogs, and as you probably know from the ones you follow, one blog leads to an exponentially increasing number of other blogs. They're like potato chips--you can't eat just one! I have been so blessed by so many of the blogs I've chased from one link to anoth...

-- In 1903, a group of fa rmers built an earthen dam across Roaring River at the mouth of Lawn Lake high in the mountains above the ir farms near Loveland, Colorado. The dam was approximately 35 miles away, almost 11,000 feet above se a level, and nearly 6000 feet above the valley floor. This reservoir of water enabled the m to irrigate their crops, and it enlarged and enhanced already beautiful Lawn Lake. For years the dam did its job and the farmers enjoyed the benefit of having a ready supply of water for their land. Fast-forward to the morning of July 15th, 1982. Early that bright, sunny morning, th e dam broke , sending the water behind it rushing downstream at an estima te d 18,000 cubic feet per second. Gathering trees and boulders in its crashing current, the cascade reached and overwhelmed another dam at Crystal Lake, causing it to fail too. The normal courses of Roaring River and Fall River below it were dwarfed by the new channels cut by the 25-foot high, 100-...