Lament: Kicked out for drugs

I am a 32-year-old male and I was born in Albany. I am homeless and I think the city doesn’t care for the homeless.

Reason one is there are two shelters here; yes, great one of them charges $5 to stay per night and the other one is called Helping Hands, and trust me when I say this they do not care about you.

Helping Hands’ website says we are here to help the homeless.

I stayed there one time and I told them I am seven days clean from drugs. They said OK. Well, seven days after I was there they UA’d me and I did pot before. Everyone knows that pot stays in your system for 30 days. So they kicked me out for 30 days and I was doing good before that, working, trying to build my life.

Where do you go when they kick you out on the streets? So I relapsed and lost work. With nowhere to stay I had to camp. Now a year later, I am eight days clean and still nowhere to live — sleeping in the woods of Albany. And that is not right. Shelters are supposed to help the homeless, not kick them when they’re down.

God would accept anyone if they asked for forgiveness, correct? Well, where’s the help in Helping Hands?

Yes, I did drugs, shame on me, but I should not have to sleep on the streets because of that. And now I have to worry about cops arresting me for sleeping outside, so its really an endless process that never will get fixed unless a higher power steps in and educates the shelters of Albany.

Thank you for your time, and if there is anything you can do to help people like me, or the homeless on the streets are just going to grow, and we are going to be a little LA, and that’s sad.

I love this town, but the city council needs to jump on Helping Hands and change things and at least make it where they UA you after 30 days. Then if you are dirty, they should help not kick you out in the cold.

Jacob Bowlin, Albany

Nitrogen inflation: No need

Back a lot of years ago tires and tubes were made out of natural rubber. It worked out pretty well, but it did have some drawbacks; the worst being oxidation. It was elastic and could hold air pressure and thus cushion the vehicle from the road. It would make the car ride softer; easier on both the vehicle and its contents.

Eventually, however, tubes would fail, usually in the form of a blowout.,

The external wall of the tubes was protected by the inner wall of the tire, but the inside of the tube was subjected to pressurized oxygen and tube failure was inevitable. During World War II to battle this, tires were filled with nitrogen when the gas was available.

The development of butyl pretty well eliminated the oxidation problem.

Oxygen molecules are slightly smaller then nitrogen molecules and would present a higher leakage rates; but in today’s tires that isn’t a problem. At highway speeds, the expansion is small and nitrogen alone has no value over the 78 percent mixture in air.

M. Paul Lindsey, Lebanon