Word Association Game

[Aggie]

(nope, didn't know that)

Warm snow....

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

slippery runway

(not to lose the thought train )

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

falling model

(I'm surprised myself, considering the soils around Vancouver airport: the area is generally all soft, uncompacted river delta deposits.  They had to pre-load the site - i.e. cover it with several meters deep of dirt and leave it for several years - just to get a decent degree of compaction before building.  I would've figured they'd want to reduce the loads on the soil as much as they could, and a big, tall building isn't usually the best way to do that)

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

expensive hobby

(that sounds like an expensive way to build, back home buildings are said to *float* because the soil under has a high water content. It's cheaper than lots of sand resting for years)

[Aggie]

trim

(good dirt for blueberries and cranberries there, though!)

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Ribbons

(Actually, I know in around Mexico city, and possibly back home for you, anon, raft foundations are fairly common because the soils are so bad that pre-loading wouldn't work: your mound of dirt would just continually sink until you end up with a big hole in the ground.  Raft foundations can be quite expensive, and are tricky to build.

And there are raft foundations here, too, but they resist soil pressure primarily - the idea is that the weight of the building is equal to the weight of the soil you removed to build it, and since everything was at equilibrium, it stays at equilibrium.  But as you mention, groundwater does affect them... so if your water table fluctuates up and down quite a bit, your building may sink or try to push itself out of the ground depending on the water table level.

Plus, new-ish river deposits haven't yet reached equilibrium, so even a raft foundation would continue to sink if you designed your building to be the same weight as the material removed.)

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

Riviera

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Cote D'Azur

(and I apologize for the previous overdose of geotechnical engineering!)

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Monaco

(Its ok, I think this makes the thread more interesting )

[Sibling Chatty]

Princess Grace

(I read this thread for the commentary. That's part of the fun here--we can wander off on tangents and not worry about anybody freaking.)

[Sibling Qwertyuiopasd]

Princess Buttercup

*shrugs*

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

Wonderbra

[Sibling Chatty]

Wonderful World

http://www.last.fm/music/Louis+Armstrong/_/What+a+Wonderful+World

[Swatopluk]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

End of the world