Tag Weather

Waiting for Summer

Michael 10 Comments

I can really not wait for summer. I had to run out yesterday. Afternoon. The warmest part of the day it was snowing!  I want a day at 72° sunny warmth. It’s not that I don’t appreciate Spring and the necessary rains that lead to burgeoning blossoms, or the cool nights and warm days that get the maple sap flowing that eventually finds its way atop my breakfast pancakes.

We are clearly in the early throes of global destruction. Before you know it, we’ll all be standing around in prehistoric looking rock lined canyons while pelting rain, roaring thunder, and brilliant flashes of lightning become the new white noise that is, or will be, the backdrop to our soon to be extinguished existence(s).

As an aside (you who watch science fiction will understand this), have you ever noticed how when our future space explorers land on a far out there planet, with more intelligent life than we have here, the planets all look like unused sets from Jurassic Park and the intelligent life has tails. But I digress…

How much longer will we have to wait for real warm weather? Up here. Not down along the Gulf of Mexico. Oddly enough, for as ancient as I am, and as many trips as I’ve made south of the Mason Dixon Line, there are only 3 cities in the Gulf I’ve been too, Houston, New Orleans, and Clearwater.  Clearwater was my favorite. Maybe again someday. Now, where was I? Oh right…

When will we get back to reasonable weather? I suppose I should be grateful I’m alive still to see any weather. It sort of reminds me of how always looking to the future we lose our appreciation for the present. And that reminds me of this week’s Uplift post Coming Attractions. Take a look.

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It’s That Time Again

Michael 15 Comments

Yep, it’s time again to clear some of the cobwebs and other unwanted things and thoughts rattling around in my brain.

I’m happy to report to you this week that Jingle, aka the yointer, had his surgery last week and is recovering nicely. You will recall due to an osteosarcoma he had his left, front leg and shoulder amputated. The surgery was last Tuesday and by Sunday he is bounding up and down stairs (against his vet’s wishes for a quiet, and not overly exerted rehab. Try telling “don’t do that” to a dog.)

In other news, I hope everyone who has has hurricanes and tornadoes pass through their yards over the last couple weeks is well, not injured, and can take a few deep breaths while working on restoring life to normal.

The weather along the east coast reminded me of a favorite gripe of mine. Why are airlines so freaking stupid. There were flights from Nashville to Dallas delayed because Tampa was closed. What genius decided “we’re going route all our flights through and park all our planes at airports all along the coast so that at the first hint of weather, whether hurricanes in the south or ice storms in the north, we can cripple the entire country’s air traffic. [evil laugh].” There are perfectly good airports at Pittsburgh Cleveland, Cincinnati, Nashville and other inland cities that are relatively weather safe and could serve as eastern hubs, but no, they have to pick an airport within sight of the ocean. Delta made a little more sense sticking with Atlanta. If only they weren’t Delta they might actually be able to keep an on-time schedule going.

Speaking of airlines, has anybody seen jeenie.weenie on either Instagram or YouTube? She’s probably on other sites too but those are the two I know for sure. (Hey, I don’t make up these peoples’ handles, I just write what I see). Jeenie is a current or former flight attendant and has some of the most “scratch your head and say dayam, if they ain’t right” posts about stuff, mostly air travel, but other things too. It really makes you think about how we really do that crap. Here’s a link to a random YouTube video.

That’s all I have for this week. It’s been a a little crazy but slowly getting back to normal. What would really help is if all the particularly stupid people running for office would stop sending me text messages about how dangerous, extreme, and radical their opponent is, I’d have lots more time to get things back to normal.

Oh, that reminds me…I put this little news nugget out there every couple of years and nobody believes me, but this year I have proof. Do you know political ads do not have to stick to the truth? Yes, not only can politicians lie, they are allowed to lie. Below is a little snippet from the paper (a real news newspaper) to a television columnist’s weekly Q&A column. Yes, politicians can lie, and stations must run it, if the ad is from the politician’s campaign. Third party ads can’t lie. Politicians themselves can. How can you tell the difference? If the ad includes the words “I’m [an old guy with a bad fake tan] and I approve this message” or something like that, it is a politician’s own political ad and it is also a good chance that it is a lie.

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See you next week, same approximate time, same equivalent channel.

Here we are again at the place where used to seeing a blurb here about the latest Uplift blog post. That post is about how you can Make Me Happy, and it might surprise you how.

But before you go look, have you yet thought about joining the ROAMcare community and have the weekly Uplift blog delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly a Monday Moment of Motivation, and our email exclusive Blast from the Past repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at  ROAMcare.org.

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.

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Springing up all over

Michael 6 Comments

This is it, today is the day, the day we’ve all been waiting … okay I’m not going to do that again. I have no idea what you’re waiting for but indeed, today is the day I have been waiting for, for today, at 5:24 this afternoon (per the Old Farmer’s Almanac), winter turns to spring!

As far as winters go, this has been the mildest winter I can recall, and I recall a lot of winters.  But it started output terribly cold, super cold, super terribly cold even, and I never got over the coldness of those first few days of Winter 2022-2023 even when some of the days in February approached and in at least one case exceeded 70°F. I think it might be because in between those 70° days there was always a 30° day. Do you know what that’s like? Well if you lived within 10 or 12 miles of me you do. Anything outside that radius and you were having you own weird winter weather that may or may not have had daily 40° temperature swings.

Of course that was only in February. In March, it has been just plain cold. It snowed the past two days. It snowed 4 days out of the past 7. The temperature hasn’t been above freezing since Friday afternoon. I’m done with this. Today I fully expect at 5:24 this afternoon to hear birds singing, see flowers blooming, and watch trees leaf out before my very eyes. If that doesn’t happen, I want to know right now, who to go to for a refund. The old Old Farmer’s Almanac never let me done before. I expect it to not let me down now.

I do hope I haven’t led you to believe that I’m being unreasonable about this. I think as I get older, and Heaven knows, I’ve gotten older(!), I’ve grown less tolerant of cold, but more less tolerant of these crazy temperature swings. I’m sure I would have been not as disconcerted with this winter if it had just stayed being winter for it’s duration, or maybe a gradual and slight warming as we approached this year’s vernal equinox. (Good word, no?) Rumor has it, La Niña, the lesser famous but more troublesome Pacific wind current, is, after three years, winding down. Those who know say this has been a major contributor to the weird weather patterns we’ve been experiencing. (Please note, I said weird weather patterns, not concerning climate conditions – there is a difference.) If we get a year of neutral weather influences we might see seasons that actual look like Currier and Ives envisioned and that would be okey dokey with me. But for now, I’ll settle for birds singing, flowers blooming, and leaves once again covering those bare branches, sometime later today.

So then, what is the day we’ve all been waiting for. Altogether now – TODAY! Thank you very much. I knew I could count on you.

Anything worth having takes effort. With trust in the process what is worth having can be yours. In the latest Uplift!we explore why making a good life is like making good pizza!

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Beyond a shadow of a doubt

Michael 8 Comments

He’s on his way. Just four more days until Groundhog Day 2023! This entire blog could be dedicated to Groundhog Day and the other 51 weeks be just filler material. Actually, it could be dedicated to the Groundhog, Phil, the one, the only, Punxsutawney Phil.

Not a year has gone by that I hadn’t written something of Phil and/or his exploits. At least I don’t think so. You can search “Groundhog Day” if you’re really that interested.  And if you haven’t read the 10 or 12 posts that will pop up there, you should. There’s a wealth of information there. Why, two years ago I even wrote a Groundhog Day carol.

Groundhog Day lovers aren’t known for assiduously adhering to the facts when it comes to our favorite rodent. We are known for our unwavering support for the little furry guy. Phil gets all kinds of non-respect. Meteorologists (the science guys and the TV people) don’t like him (just because he’s more accurate than the science guys and more popular than the TV people). People who don’t like winter (because he predicts a longer winter way more often than an early spring (137-20)), don’t like him. People who want an early spring don’t like him (see previous sentence). Southerners don’t like him (apparently some Georgian poser by the unlikely name of Beauregard gets the confederate vote). But that’s okay because the 42 quadrillion of us who do like him love him, and we love him a lot. How could anyone not love Punxsutawney Phil?  A furry woodland creature not known for building dams, outsmarting waskly hunters, or becoming Daniel Boone’s hat, gets more than his 15 minutes of anthropomorphic fame each February 2 with the power to captivate us mere mortals more than any other animal alive.

So what will this year bring? I’ve said it before, I’m not the prodigious prognosticator that Phil is, but … Considering our hollow trees are a mere 90 miles apart, we are working with the same weather, and this year’s weather in Western Pennsylvania has been anything but predictable. The average temperature has been higher than normal and the average precipitation has been lower. But on the day when it’s been cold, it’s been COLD and on the days it’s been wet and snowy, it’s been WE – well, you get the idea. I say we throw all that together with the fact the Lunar New Year heralding the start of the Spring Festival was so early this year, and Phil can look around all he wants, but he won’t see his shadow and we will thus have an early spring. Yay! Or not.

Is the best way to help, support, and encourage yourself to help, support, and encourage others? We answered that question last week on Uplift! on ROAMcare.org. Read all we had to say.

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Weather Fools Day

Michael 2 Comments

April Fools and all that. Yeah yeah yeah. I understand it is still early spring, I know I live in a “temperate” zone, I get that average temperatures, especially nighttime temperatures are still “cool” — but it’s snowing! And not that little fluffy pretend snow. This is sticking snow! According to the weather nerds we could be looking for at least an inch accumulation and there could be 4 inches in the mountains. Now I’ll admit, that’s not a whole lot, but hello! It’s April! Now watch, this will be the only time the weather people get it right.

I don’t usually care much about weather, but this year it’s getting old. And it’s only April!!! If somebody offered me a grass shack on a tropical island where I would never see freezing precipitation again, I’d take it. I’d rather take my chances with hurricanes, sun stroke, and shark attacks than go through one more inch of snow fall this year.

On the bright side, we only average 140 days of any precipitation all year and we’ve already had 60 days of the stuff so in another couple months I should be able to take the convertible out of the garage.

Sheesh, a convertible – here. That’s about as much use as a pair of galoshes on that tropical island. Hmmm. Let me get those galoshes out instead.

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Groundhog Day Eve Eve Eve… and it better not be the last one!

Michael 2 Comments
I love Groundhog Day. There. I said it. Again. And will again. And again. It’s a love that never abates. How could anyone not live Groundhog Day?  A furry woodland creature not known for building dams, outsmarting waskly hunters, or becoming Daniel Boone’s hat, gets more than his 15 minutes of anthropomorphic fame each February 2 and the ensuing six weeks.
 
The great and wonderful groundhog with special and semi-secret skills has the power to capture man’s interest and captivate the entire human race or at least those in the know like no other furry friend since the mink in the 1950s. Without the groundhog we would never know if we should pack away our parkas or beef up our boggins. Yes, our resident rodent is truly righteous.
 
But now the prognosticator of prognosticators, the seer of seers, the meteorological marmot is under attack, personal attack, attack by name, as in we want you Punxsutawney Phil, to be no more, to cease and desist the sharing that special knowledge of seasonal weather patterns with the ever waiting world, and retire to a life of obscurity and be replaced by a (my hands are shaking as I type this), by a (deep breath here), by a, a, a robot. A robot! Hmmph!
 
That animal support group that assumes only its ways are the ethical ways to treat animals yet cannot count even one single groundhog, nor any other animal for that matter among their leadership, claim to know what is best for that most famous furball and insist it is “long overdue for Phil to be retired.” Notice “to be retired” not even just ‘retire’ like it would be his choice, but “to be retired,” like some old horse put out to pasture. All true Phil fanatics know this is no ordinary groundhog living his peaceful and quite cushy existence at Gobblers Knob. He has been forecasting for 134 years. That one single, extraordinary example of Marmota monax has been the center of the winter weather world for 134 years. That’s one hundred, thirty seven years! To suggest he is “to be retired” is to encourage and support age discrimination, hardly an ethical stance for any mammal.
 
And what would those manic meddlers suggest we do every Second of February for our prophetic forecast fix? Artificial Intelligence.  Hmmph – again! As stated by a representative of that nebby group, an AI module attach to an animatronic groundhog could “actually predict the weather.” I can see it now, the president of the Inner Circle knocks on former Phil’s front door and says, “Alexa, tell me the weather for the next 6 weeks.” Double Hmmph!!!
 
I say no! This is not the time for Punxsutawney Phil to be retired. Not this year, not any year. We’ve seen what so-called progress does. Bulging landfills, holes in the ozone, pet rocks! When will our march to oblivion stop? Now I say, now! This is the time to embrace Phil (not too tight – he is 134 years old after all) and demand he never retire and will always guide us to our destinies. Or at least to the next six week. 
 

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The robots are not coming! Long live Phil!

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Groundhog Day. Again.

Michael 2 Comments

With Groundhog Day approaching I was certain I could count on welcoming an early spring. Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the master prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil, is just a hair over 90 miles from my front door so the weather isn’t much different. I don’t have Phil’s innate forecasting power but I could do a reasonable imitation of him by crawling out of my home and looking for a shadow and we would be working under the same sun. Well, naturally it would be the same sun but you know what I mean.

Anyway … I was certain I could count on Phil not casting a shadow because I am certain he is smart enough to stay inside in weather like this. For the past two days I woke up to -5° temperatures. Not fit weather for man (that would be me) or beast (Phil, of course). Then this morning I heard on the morning weather guess (they like to call it a “forecast” but we know better) this Saturday we will be waking to temperatures in the 30s. That’s above freezing! In fact, if you are to believe the amateur prognosticators, Sunday temperatures might be in the 50s, Monday close to 60, then the back the teens and 20s by Tuesday. This is a week after days that never got out of single digits followed by a couple 60° afternoons then this latest foray into sub-zero land.

freezerI think everybody in the world (except San Diego) can honestly say “if you don’t like the weather just wait a day, it will change!” but this is ridiculous. It’s also not uncommon. Without trying to annoy the climate change crowd or those who feel climate change is a socialist plot, the world is not made for stable weather patterns. It’s a not quite spherical orb spinning at a not quite constant speed on a tilted axis while revolving around a not consistent heat source on a not quite regular ovoid orbit. If you don’t believe me I give you from prehistory the Sahara Forest, from modem tourism the Great Lakes, and from calendar makers’ nightmares throughout time leap year.

But forget the long range consequences of our planet hurtling through space with the surefootedness of a vertiginous ballroom dancer. We feel earth’s uncertainty every day. Every single day sunrise and sunset happen at a different time. And not even consistently. Every. Single. Day. Seasons “officially” change on a different day every year. We can’t even figure out how to divide a year into even proportions. We say there are 12 months in a year but they are of three different lengths. We say there are 52 weeks in a year but then ever year starts on a different day of the week. We say there are 365 days in a year yet there’s that leap year thing going on.

So in the midst of all this terrestrial and celestial turmoil we put our trust in a furry woodland creature to tell us if we should plant the corn early this year. Eh, he has a better track record than the guys getting paid to do it so why not?  But if those hotshot weather forecasters are wrong about Saturday morning and we wake up to -5° again and Phil wants to stay in, let him take the day off. Spring will get here even without him. Eventually. We’ll just not be sure exactly when but then why should this year be any different? It’s already different enough anyway.

 

 

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.

Hats Off to You!

Michael 2 Comments

Earlier today I was driving to a morning appointment, stopped at a traffic light, looked over to the car next to me, and noticed the driver was wearing a hat. That was not unusual. It was early, the sun was not yet up, and the temperature was well below freezing. Very well below freezing. A hat was a good idea. I had a hat on. Everybody was who was anybody had a hat and was wearing it. Then for some odd reason I flashed back to a time 19 years ago when I was driving my boss to the train station, we were stopped at a traffic light, she looked over to the car next to us, notice the drive was wearing a hat, and commented “I can’t trust someone who wears a hat while driving.” I didn’t understand it but I also didn’t ask for an explanation. I considered it a positive that the station was just a block away and any inquiry might have been misinterpreted as a request for conversation thus delaying the drop off. Not to mention my solitude.

If anything, I think trust should be withheld from someone who doesn’t know enough to keep his or her head covered in 20° weather. That’s in F degrees. In C degrees that would be, umm, let’s see (20-32)*5/9 = -6.6666666666666, that would be like really cold. Why wouldn’t you wear a hat? Generally in those circumstances most of the rest of your body is covered. Shoes, sock, pants, shirt, sweater, jacket, muffler, gloves, ear muffs. Yep. It’s all covered. If you’re still cold you probably aren’t wearing a hat. Put a hat on! They are also practical in cold, wet, windy, hot, sunny, or arid weather (and there aren’t many other weathers).

Hats are also very accurate predictors of intelligence. Take the average no neck who wears his baseball cap backwards in blazing sun while simultaneously frantically shielding his eyes from the sun’s blaze. Not the type you want you want procreating. Baseball hats, like all other articles of clothing known to man, woman, or undecided are intended to be worn “not backwards.” Except for baseball catchers and then only during the defensive half innings of a game.

casablancaI think hats are fine. Yes it could be construed as shallow and unduly concentrating on appearances, but in my opinion there aren’t many people whose looks couldn’t be improved by covering parts of their heads.

There just aren’t many situations when a hat could not be stylish, practical, and appropriate. That’s provided you are outside of course. Hats really don’t belong on heads inside buildings except at hockey games where one always needs a hat at hand in the event of a hat trick and where better to keep a hat on hand than on one’s head. But that’s a special exception. Otherwise, and I’m talking to you men and others identifying as men, please identify with common courtesy and undoff those chapeaux à l’intérieur.

If you are wearing a hat, and you’re not indoors unless it’s a hockey game, you have my vote of confidence and trust. (But I might have to question why you’re reading this post at a hockey game). In a word, hats are cool. So be cool. And stay warm.