Hi We have friends in the mid west (Mason City). They also seem to cover vast distances to get anywhere at all. From their description of the weather, the favored modes of transport are stagecoach in the summer and dog team in the winter. Railroads are apparently ok so long as there are no Indian raids! (sorry about that!). I think the lake ports shut in winter. My rule of thumb used to be if I can't lift it its not airfreight! Its not like the old days at DEC. If you wanted to send something (anything) to DEC Maynard say. You put it in the car took it down to the DEC shipping section at London Heathrow. They would find a box, pack it, label it up and that would be that until next morning when they would ring you to say your package had arrived at Logan and would be by the addresses desk when he got into work. (Around midday UK time). The same thing worked in reverse. One day I asked the shipping manager how things did not get held up in customs. He said "Digital is the largest employer in Massachusetts and a major contributor to the state economy" That reminds me of another story. One day they ran out of parking space at the Mill. So they decided to fill in part of the mill pond to make more space. The Maynard town council said "Heritage site no you can't" Ken Olsen said "don't worry guys I'll call the Mayor". The Mayor said "Heritage site no you can't" Ken said "ok Mr Mayor if you look out of your window in about two hours you will see the first of the moving trucks relocating every DEC site in the town elsewhere. The Mayor said "OK if you look out of your window in one hours time you will see a fleet of council trucks loaded with dirt coming to fill the pond in for you!" -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 12 June 2007 13:33 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: My sale or swap list (Update) On 6/12/07, Rod Smallwood <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> wrote: Last time I checked, water was 1000 kilos per cubic meter, so the base charge seems to be centered around the density of water. Indeed. Being in the mid-west, we don't think about ports much. I can drive to NYC in under 14 hours. Boston is farther. I think the closest Atlantic port, drive time, would be Baltimore at around, IIRC, 9 hours. Lake Erie ports are close (2ish hours), but would almost certainly require a shifting of the load to another vessel at an Atlantic port somewhere. -ethan