Tag Temperature

Life in the Dark Ages

Michael 12 Comments

Except that my watch keeps track of the days, I’ve have been off by a few months recently. I’ve entered my dark period. No that’s not some reference to a Japanese magazine serial turned TV show turned movie, nor a description of my recent paintings, although they so seem to have a lot of black and gray in them.

My dark period is when I live with the blinds pulls and the curtains drawn, venturing into the daylight only for mail and the occasional provisions run to the local mega mart. Usually this is during the deep freeze the time keepers call February. It’s my desperate attempt at keeping as many layers of insulation between me and the elements when walking within five feet of any window may result in frostbite.

The current dark period began 7 days ago, when the temperatures never quite made it out of the 90s (F) — either high or low.  We’ve been on a sort of constant simmer. The windows coverings that keep the cold out in the winter months are this week doing an admirable job keeping the cool in.

I know, some of you would consider it a cooling off if your temperatures just stayed in the two-digit range. And when I was a younger version of me, I would be too. I remember those hot and humid August days when temperatures and “feel likes” cracked the century mark and thought nothing of spending the day in the blazing sun, often in a boat on water reflecting light and heat so we were basically sitting in nature’s version of a convection oven (or it’s countertop cousin, the air fryer).

The older version of me doesn’t do well with heat. Nor with cold for that matter. Sometimes even with the in between.  According to the National Weather Service, my little piece of the world typically sees average high temperatures in the 70s and lows in the 60s in June. According to me, I would typically like see those average temperatures any time now. But in stead I guess that means not seeing the world outside but through small openings in the window dressings is the price I pay. Well, that that the price of electricity. (Darn air conditioning.)

You don’t need to go to the moon to see different points of view. We talk about how our perspective changes how we see things in the latest Uplift.

Blog Art 2-2

Things I was thinking about when I was thinking about the things I think, I think

Michael Leave a comment

It’s that time again when I have to get some things off my mind or I’ll go out of my mind, and that’s the first one. Going out of one’s mind (which admittedly falls trippingly off the tongue) is taken to mean losing it, going nuts, flipping your lip, and a half-bazillion other ways to say gone bonkers. “Don’t pay attention to him, he’s out of his mind.” “I need a day off or I’m going to go out of my mind.” But it’s actually possible to just go half out of one’s mind, “I was half out of my mind with worry” which usually conveys just a temporary inability to deal with a specific occurrence. That’s not to be confused with “having half a mind” which no less an authority than Merriam-Webster defines as “the feeling especially when angry and annoyed that one would like to do something while at the same time not really planning to do it.” It’s just all much too mindless for me.

This one gets a little politically incorrect (and if you ask me, all of politics is a little incorrect lately). Recently, I had the opportunity to read a magazine article that addressed a dispute between a person who wished to be addressed by the pronoun “they” and another person who was addressed as “she.” The columnist, clearly being a woke (and presumably politically correct) person that he/she/it is, honored the request. It was by far the most difficult piece of reporting I have ever read and I used to read military efficiency reports. I could never tell if the author was talking about one or both of the individuals at any given time. In one sentence the word “they” referred to both the individual and both individuals. Please can we stop with using “they” as a singular pronoun. As noted last week, the English language has over 600,000 words. If you don’t like the one people have been using, at least pick one of the more obscure ones. Or make up a new one. Clearly with over 600,000 words, English language users are not shy about doing that!

I don’t know if this is universal among anti-virus programs so maybe you can clear things up for me if you know. I run Norton-360 antivirus program and I swear, sometimes I wish I’d have opted for the virus. I can’t turn on any of my computers without having it pop up and remind me of some extra cost option I haven’t purchased, or pop up usually while I’m in the middle of entering a nice long string of something (data, words, pictures) to let me know it recently did its thing, all is well, and do I know there are extra cost options I haven’t purchased, or pop up while downloading a file, program, video, whatever and assure me that suchandsuch.somethingorother is safe and by the way, do I know there are still some extra cost options I haven’t yet purchased. If one of those options was a pop-up free version I’d write out the check today!

Another thing I don’t know if it is universal is that since I’ve had COVID, I cannot get warm. I can have the furnace on 68, 72, or 76 and I still want a hoodie (or two) on over my sweatshirt (or two). Oddly, or oddlier, it’s only my upper body. Throw an extra blanket on the bed and my legs get hot. I have got to get this in check before next winter because I refuse to be one of those over-testosteroned Neanderthals that walk around in blizzards with their flannel shirts, camo hats, Carhart jackets, and shorts! And I don’t even want a pick-up truck.

I seldom go on Facebook anymore and maybe this is why. On a recent rare excursion to the Land of Odds (odd balls!) I found a post that had great intentions, but, well, really now. You likely saw it or one of its cousins if you still visit there. It was titled(?) “Why Ukraine matters” and then went on for 1,000 words or so listing all of Ukraine’s attributes. How about. “Ukraine matters because Ukrainians live there. Ukrainians matter because they are people.”

Thank you for sticking around to the end. I know it’s a messy process when things just fall out of my head. I should be good for another couple months now.

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Not for Nothing

Michael 2 Comments

This morning at 7:57 Eastern Standard Time, the temperature here recorded 0°. Again for the international, hopelessly metric-centric, or way too scientific reader, that’s Fahrenheit degrees. Celsius or Kelvin users feel free to calculate out your equivalents but believe me when I say it’s not going to add to your reading pleasure. (Does anybody actually use Kelvin?) Anyway, it got to zero degrees for the first time this year and it made me wonder, what does that mean?

I mean I know what it means but what does it mean? I’m a scientist and I don’t understand what happens when there are no degrees. (I don’t understand how radio works either so maybe I’m being too generous calling myself that regardless of what some university declared on a piece of paper way back then. That was a long time ago anyway.) So, anyway, again, what does 0° mean? Zero grams (hooray for metric!) means there is no mass. Zero lumens equals no light.  So does zero degrees mean there is no temperature? If there isn’t, how do we get negative degrees. Do we owe the air some temperature back? It may seem so but usually a heavy coat, warm gloves and a good hat keep our own degrees right where they belong.

thermzeroI really think somebody needs to get on this problem of where did all the degrees go and did they take the temperature with them. The next thing you know, the laws of physics are going to be broken left and right. Imagine if surface tension decided it wasn’t going to hold fluid in place any more. Your eyeballs would slide right out of your head. I’m sorry if that doesn’t paint a very pretty picture but you won’t be able be able to see it anyway. What if objects just stopped have equal and opposite reactions? The entire fireworks industry would come to a screeching halt. Actually it would just come to a halt. The screeching wouldn’t happen because things in motion like the fireworks industry wouldn’t experience momentum nor stay in motion so nothing would resist its stopping, thus no screech. (Ha! See, I can still science!)

No, this zero degree thing has to be nipped in bud and now before it happens again. We can’t have people walking around in a temperatureless environment. Although… You need heat to make calories. If no degrees means no temperature and no temperature means no heat then no degrees equals no calories. By George, I’ve just found the perfect diet. Eat anything you want but only in zero degree weather.

Now would you look at that. Every cloud really does have a silver lining. Even those clouds in a cold, cold, zero degree (F) morning sky.

Five Minutes Wait

Michael Leave a comment

If you don’t like the weather just wait five minutes. It’ll change. How many times have you heard that, said that, or wished that? Unless you maybe live on St. Lucia not during hurricane season. Around here those five minute changes are actually getting fairly commonplace. It’s sort of scary sometimes. Let me take you through 48 hours of last weekend.

Friday morning followed a couple warmish days for February north of the 40th parallel. With temperatures expected to be around 40 degrees at midday we had just completed a week of daytime highs in the 50s and 60s. At wakeup time it was about 54 degrees. We should have expected it to be closer to 24 degrees but a warm week happens just as often as the cold week.

It shouldn’t have been unexpected. The forecasters actually predicted warmer weather. Even though over half of the month to date had been at or below average for February, the half that was higher was high enough to predict that this month would be the warmest February on record. Days and weeks and months of weather being any but what’s expected are expected around here. A warmest February on record didn’t get the global warming proponents any more excited than the coldest February on record in 2015 got the global warming opponents excited. We’ve come to learn to expect the unexpected. (Trite, but descriptive.)

Anyway, Friday I woke up to 54 degree weather and a morning forecast of it getting warmer. Indeed, by 1:00 it had breezed past (with calm winds) the previous date record of 70 degrees on its way to a high a few hours later of 76 degrees under clear, sunny skies. I got to see none of this being locked away against my will at the dialysis clinic. When I emerged from their binds a bit after 4:00 in the afternoon my car thermometer confirmed I was living in a parallel city that should have been occupying the Southern Hemisphere. As pleasant as it was I could honestly say I didn’t like it and wished it would change.

You see, I wanted it to change because it is still winter. As much as I have been less tolerant of colder days as I have entered my older days I still want seasons. If I didn’t enjoy a few weeks every year of rain and new growth flowers in the spring and falling leaves and brisk mornings in the fall and even cold and snow in the winter, I’d move to St. Lucia. I also wanted it to change because there a hockey game was scheduled to be played outside Saturday evening. Who wants to see outdoor hockey in mid70 degree weather. I don’t even like to go to baseball games when it’s that hot. Not to worry. God is a hockey fan and He’ll take care of it I told myself. It took a few more than five minutes.

Saturday at wake up it was the same 54 degrees that greeted me Friday morning and at 1:00 in the afternoon the weather service was still recording temperatures in the 50s. But then (probably because I was outside rather than chained to a medieval medical machine yet dressed like I was outside the day before) the temperature took a dramatic plunge. An hour later it was ten degrees colder, another hour another ten degrees and by 4:00 as I was finally home and changed into more appropriate clothing for February weather, February weather returned with a gusto (and with wind gusts approaching 40mph).

At 6:00 when the gates opened for the game the temperature had dropped to 36 degrees and snow flurries were flitting in the glow of the high intensity lighting. At face-off the recorded temp was exactly 32 degrees. And all was right with the world.

Sunday morning I woke up to the temperature at 26 degrees, a drop of 50 degrees in 40 hours. Maybe a little chilly for some but according to the weather people exactly average for the date.

Exactly average. How unimpressive is that? But it’s ok. If you don’t like it, just wait five minutes.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?