The "water-wise" Since You Asked article in the Jan. 20 issue of the Tribune was too short, and long overdue. I'm sure there are lots of folks who understand water conservation, and more importantly, practice it.

But for years, I've seen people washing their cars with the hose lying in the driveway, running full-tilt, while others water down driveways, when pushing a broom would do the same job, and offer some physical exercise to boot.

Gas station attendants washing down 100,000 square feet of asphalt with a garden hose! They don't seem to care or understand that: (1) they are paying for the water running down the gutter; (2) water is something that we could run short of this summer (no matter how much money you have); and (3) there are other ways to accomplish the same thing.

When some people hear that "we're 5 inches above normal for the water year," or "we're ahead for the water year," they think that there is extra water to use. What people don't understand is that our communities have the ability to store a finite amount of water, not infinite. For instance, if we have the ability to store 300,000 acre-feet of water in a reservoir. If we get the equivalent of 1 million acre feet of rain tomorrow, we will still only have 300,000 acre feet of water available to us in a week, or two weeks!

Timing of rainfall events is just as important, if not more, than the amount of rainfall received, and knowledge is only useful if it's put to use. Please conserve!

-- Bob Budesa, Jacksonville

Hope's help

The following people and businesses helped make this year's Hope Equestrian Center's Christmas party a great success.

Board member Shannon Bodie and her husband Bob supplied the Christmas tree and decorations and spent hours decorating Pioneer Hall. John and Gwen Johnson financed the catering. The yummy food was provided by Deli Down. Dwight Harsh played a very jolly Santa and Alicia Bonnet played an inspiring Mrs. Santa.

Stuffed animals were donated by 12-year-old Rachel Eichler, who gave the most animals and from her own collection; Michael O'Brien; Cathy Seidel of Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Services; Mary Dutton; Jack Sabin of Ashland Drug; Jacqueline Agee of the Daily Tidings; Karen Chapman of Bloomsbury Books, Pam Hammond of Paddington Station; Swede Hastings of Swede and Sons Military Surplus; and Peggy Rubin.

It is gratifying to see how much love and appreciation is exchanged, and see so many lives enriched.

-- Ariella St. Clair, Board member, HOPE Equestrian Center

Numbers, numbers

This letter is in response to the letter, "Numerical numbskulls" in the Jan. 21 edition of the Mail Tribune. The writer's assertion is that people wanting to celebrate the turn of the new millennium must do so on Jan. 1, 2001, instead of 2000 in order for it to be correct.

His reasoning is as such: "... a couple of simple illustrations will demonstrate that on Jan. 1, 2000, the New Millennium welcomers will be one year early. First, you are 1 year old after one year. You will have lived one century after 100 years, not 99. You will begin your second century of life on the first day of your 101st year, and so on."

The method of proof is flawed. The error is in the scaling. He assumes that time progresses forward only in units of one year, in which case he would be correct. Time is not constrained to this unit value, however, so he is incorrect. Let me illustrate.

If a person were born at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1900, they would be 1 year old at the same time on Jan. 1, 1901 and 99 years old on Jan. 1, 1999 at the corresponding time. They would be a century old at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2000. Even a picosecond after that time the person would be embarking on their second century of life. The same technique holds for the millennium calculation.