"WEATHER"

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

- Anonymous

(given to me by Bailey Baker, a 2nd grader this past year - thanks!)

Happy summer, y'all! Came in officially Friday evening, and so our first weekend of summer it was not the beach-perfect type of conditions. For such an unstable air mass as we had overhead this past weekend, it's not surprising we had a sprinkling of rather strong storms throughout the Triad, as well as North Carolina as a whole. Things should be quieting down a bit as the week goes on...

But last everning, Sunday, several strong storms passed through our area, and dropped some locally heavy, flooding rain and hail. The above radar grab from home was close to 345pm Sunday, and showing only one set of the severe thunderstorm warnings, as more followed. Below are just a few examples of the storm reports made to the National Weather Service:

0730 PM     FLASH FLOOD  GREENSBORO          36.08N 79.83W
06/22/2008               GUILFORD     NC   LAW ENFORCEMENT

NUMEROUS REPORTS OF FLOODING IN GREENSBORO. FLOODING
REPORTED AT THE I-40 AND I-85 SPLIT AS WELL AS ALONG
HIGHWAY 85...HIGHWAY 29 AT BESSEMER DR AND WENDOVER AT
CRIDLAND ROAD.

0647 PM     HAIL        1 WSW GREENSBORO   36.08N 79.84W
06/22/2008  E0.88 INCH  GUILFORD      NC   TRAINED SPOTTER

NICKEL SIZE HAIL REPORTED NEAR WEST MARKET STREET AND
WEST WENDOVER AVE.

0706 PM     HAIL        1 SE GREENSBORO    36.07N 79.82W
06/22/2008  E0.88 INCH  GUILFORD      NC   TRAINED SPOTTER

NICKEL SIZE HAIL REPORTED ON THE SOUTHEAST SIDE OF
GREENSBORO.

0344 PM     HAIL        5 ESE BURLINGTON   36.07N 79.35W
06/22/2008  E1.00 INCH  ALAMANCE      NC   PUBLIC

QUARTER SIZE HAIL REPORTED ALONG JIMMIE KERR ROAD... NEAR
I-85/I-40.

Above is a storm total map showing the area of
intense rainfall responsible for much of
the flash flooding...

...and this image will give you a headache trying to
find county boundaries and regional locations and
determine the doppler estimated rainfall in
certain places...! (remember you can click
on all pics to enlarge for easier viewing)

Yep, lots o' storm reports came in from across the
Carolinas and myriad other states. Click on the
image above and it will take you to the website
that details the reports by type and location.

Same set-up again for later today, Monday...but it
looks like all calms down storm-wise by Tuesday and
stays that way through Friday. Right on cue, storm
chances return for next weekend, at least at
this early peek.

Having very odd formatting issues with Blogger
this morning, so will quit fighting the beast and
let you get on with your day - make it a good one!

"Fried Fridays: A monument to the end..."

For the uninitiated, I created these "Fried Friday" blogs for a very good reason. For those that work a 'normal' job and hours Monday through Friday, we are all rather 'fried' when Friday rolls around. And given I work in the news industry, I see a lot of strange, funny, stupid, zany, and just plain, well, 'fried' news stories come across the desk. Hence my tribute every Friday sharing with you a story that is unique, to say the least. It goes without saying that the choices are many...

This week, I wanted to bring to light the waste of taxpayers money occurring right now on a 1/2 mile stretch of road outside of my subdivision. A major widening and straightening project is underway, and there was much hoopla and signs and phone messages from the police department alerting us to the road being closed Monday June 16 through July 17, and for everyone to pick alternate routes for getting around. Monday came, the road was open. "Tomorrow it will close" one sign holder said. Tuesday came, and 90% of the equipment disappeared.

I can't verify the information as it was passed on from the public information officer to our traffic specialist at News 14, but the short version is the contractor got fed up with NC DOT's delays upon delays and went to another project to work. They're supposed to resume after July 4th. Still waiting for the investigators to dig their teeth into that one. Until then, should we get some heavy rain, it will be a sea of mud down in the floodplain they've cut into. It's definitely 'fried'.

Ah, but this week's winner will go to a monument....a substantial bronze monument whose 3 cherubs were supposedly inspired by the 15th century Rennaissance artist Sandro Botticelli...

DATELINE: Zheleznovodsk, Russia

It's a modest spa town in southern Russia, right in the Caucasus Mountains. Don't know much about it, myself, but apparently the Mashuk Akva-Term Sanatorium is rather well known, and a favored destination for spa-goers.

And so this past Wednesday they had a festive party and press event for the unveiling of this angelic monument, with the 3 classical cherubs hoisting over their backs...

...an enema.

A giant 800-pound bronze enema syringe bulb (aka 'clyster), to be more precise.

Alexander Kharchenko, the Russian spa's director, says it's the world's first monument to enema treatment. I can believe that. He says it's the only monument like it in Russia. I can believe that. If he were to go so far as to say it's the first one like it in the world, I'd believe that, too, though such a theme might have a made a good prop in "Animal House".

Yeah, I'm sure Botticelli would be proud that his inspired angels are a part of history. Just not quite the vision of Atlas holding up the earth...

Cheers! Have a great weekend, y'all!

(Reuters/AP photos)

Couldn't resist posting this...came attached in an email yesterday. Sorry, no blog entry today - flat ran out of time. But I'll be back tomorrow with my weekly "Fried Fridays" winner for one of the more bizarre, zany news stories of the past week!

"Summertime...."

Well, not yet, though ask anybody around here and they'll tell you 'summer' has been here for a while already. Nice to have the heat break, and while not drastically cooler, it is more fresh, and the lower humidity is appreciated.

The 2008 Summer Solstice takes place this Friday at 7:29 pm (which in Universal time is 1 minute before midnight starting at the Prime Meridian). At the June solstice it's only 'summer' in the northern hemisphere, of course, as the southern pole is pointing away from the sun and they are in their 'winter' in the southern half of the earth.

The sun will never set at the north pole on that day, and the sun's rays will be directly overhead along the Tropic of Cancer at 23.5 degrees latitude north (and to further brush out the brain's cobwebs, the earth's axis has a 23.5 degree tilt).

With the our summer solstice, you might think we should have our hottest temperatures since we have the most hours of daylight and the most direct sun rays. Alas, there are myriad other factors at work to produce 'heat', not just the sun angle and duration, though that certainly factors in.

In meteorology, we use the term "Lag of the Maximum" which basically covers the delayed response to temperatures compared to the origin of stimulus. It can be as simple as a daily 'lag' or a broader scale seasonal 'lag'.

On a daily scale, solar energy comes to earth in shortwave form, get's absorbed at the surface (or reflected back in some cases), and then that energy is sent back out in longwave form. It's the longwave form that gives us heat (or not if there is much reflectivity)...the 'Greenhouse Effect', in essence...that effect goes, though, goes one step further to talk about factors that keep the longwave radiation from disappearing out into space,keeping them in our earthly 'house', warming it up, just like a good ol' greenhouse does.

On a more seasonal scale, all weather is driven by the sun, at the very base level. The varying temperatures created make for various pressure differences, which creates rising and descending air, creating major air currents which help form jet streams, which help drive storm systems and even major ocean currents, and then the whole mix of geography and land-vs-sea borders...and I'll just stop there with candy-coating of an extremely complex but fascinating interplay of major weather systems and climate regimes.

Returning to the solstice idea of longest day and most direct sun rays, on a seasonal scale it takes a good month or two for the resulting weather patterns to respond to that stimulus, hence our hottest temperatures can occur long after the June solstice. That's not to say you can't and won't have oven-like temperatures around or before the summer solstice....uh, I think what we recently experienced was a little proof in the pudding...it's just that, statistically, it's less common than heat waves later in the summer.

And so in unrelated fashion except for the title of the song, I give you two links to two superb video versions of the "Porgy and Bess" classic "Summertime". Ella is Ella, what can you say...and Fantasia's performance in her American Idol unveil was overflowing the Spirit and energy and talent all musicians dream of producing. There are many other wonderful performances - these are but two goodies. Enjoy!

ELLA FITZGERALD
Berlin 1968

FANTASIA BARRINO
American Idol

"One for the ages..."

Growing up, I was always a large kid for my age, and ended up playing a lot of sports. Never super fast or quick, I was just big, and did okay at the sports I played. As I grew older, my quirk was I liked to play some sports, but I never was a 'watcher' of sports on TV. As I tell folks now, I'm a strange male in that I love to shop and never watch sports on TV.

Generally, that cup holds water. Backing up to Monday's 'stuff', it was one of those days where everything happened at once. All would be quiet, and then the phone would ring 3 times within 2 minutes, with 3 different people needing totally different information, etc., and I would tell 2 I'll call them back ASAP while I dealt with the first, and, well, we all have days like that. When it rains it pours, what can I say.

Monday was like that for me. Whatever transpired did so simultaneously. By 3:30pm or so, the dust was settling once again, and I was glad as it was nearing my last couple of hours where I gear down for sleep.

And so I just happened to find that the U.S. Open golf tournament had not been settled Sunday...that Tiger Woods had rallied to tie Rocco Mediate for the lead, which lead to a twosome-only 18-hole playoff on Monday. And at the time I saw this, they were on the final few holes. Neck and neck. Tit for tat. All the way through the 18th hole as each sank critical putts to send them into a sudden death playoff. I believe I heard the announcer say this is only the third one he had seen since the rule was put in place back in the '50s. 91 holes of regulation play to determine a winner.

Mediate, left, and Woods, right
(AP photo/Chris Carlson)

May I remind you I'm not a sports watcher...but this one was for the record books, all the way around the board. I was fascinated, I'll admit...to watch the underdog extraordinaire, Mediate, try to bring down the Goliath Woods as they went back to the course again for their sudden death face-off.

Rocco had a bad tee-off into a trap, then had to drop a ball on the subsequent shot, only to run too far past the hole to insure a score-tying putt to Tiger's well-placed shots. Game over, Tiger won, Mediate played honorably.

In short, just an odd thing that for all the myriad things I needed to take care of and do, here was this rather rare instance of a golfing duel going far above and beyond the norm to decide the winner. Kind of nice to just sit and watch and take it all in. Mercy enjoyed her constant petting, too (it was in the low 90s outside, so she preferred the A/C to the heat!).

Sometimes it's good to just pull the plug and go with the flow, to quit trying to force actions that aren't happening naturally. That's what I decided to do. What I didn't get to yesterday will be there today, no doubt, and I'll decide then what to do. So much of our daily stress in lives comes from fighting the 'current' of Life's flow and trying to force our will and desire upon the Universal time-line...it never works well and not worth the wasted effort when all is said and done. Not that I always choose to remember that, but it's always 'there' as a silent, deep, river.

Can't pass up the opportunity to pass along a little humor, since that is my default in life. Golf humor, to be more appropriate. Even if you've heard this one before, smile and laugh even if but for a second...

----------------------------

A Hole In One

As a young man, Norton was an exceptional golfer. At the age of 26, however, he decided to become a priest, and joined a rather peculiar order. He took the usual vows of poverty,chastity, but his order also required that he quit golf and never play again. This was particularly difficult for Norton, but he agreed and was finally ordained a priest.

One Sunday morning, the Reverend Father Norton woke up and realizing it was an exceptionally beautiful and sunny early spring day, decided he just had to play golf.
So... he told the Associate Pastor that he was feeling sick and convinced him to say Mass for him that day.

As soon as the Associate Pastor left the room, Father Norton headed out of town to a golf course about forty miles away. This way he knew he wouldn't accidentally meet anyone he knew from his parish.

Setting up on the first tee, he was alone. After all, it was Sunday morning and everyone else was in church!

At about this time, Saint Peter leaned over to the Lord while looking down from the heavens and exclaimed, "You're not going to let him get away with this, are you?"

The Lord sighed, and said, "No, I guess not.

"Just then Father Norton hit the ball and it shot straight towards the pin, dropping just short of it, rolled up and fell into the hole. It was a 420 yard hole in one!

St. Peter was astonished. He looked at the Lord and asked, "Why did you let him do that?"

The Lord smiled and replied,"Who is he going to tell?"

FORE!!!!!

A cute story...

Of my many ideas I'd like to follow through on sometime is writing a book or two...and one would be a collecting of short stories and musings, based on real-life situations I've run across...situations that are humorous or striking in some sense, even if in a simplistic way, that speak to the human spirit, sense of community, etc.

I dug this one out of the files, a story I'd recollected in preparing it for an audition. Thought you might get a chuckle out of it too...

------------------------------

For this morning’s FINAL THOUGHT, I mused back on a conversation I overheard while traveling through South Carolina’s Low Country, over 20 years ago.

Don’t recall the sleepy little town on a back highway, only that it was big enough to have fast-food restaurant…but just one. It was a weekday morning around 9:30am when I decided to go inside, get a biscuit and some coffee, and grab the morning paper just to take a breather. I love to travel that way, taking the road less traveled and at an unfrenetic pace.

And so I commanded a table by a window with only 2 other people in my dining area that looked they had been sitting there for quite some time. I suppose their morning rush of die-hard patrons had already come and gone…all 12 of ‘em by the looks of things.

The elderly gentleman closest to me a couple of tables away would alternate between slowly stirring his coffee and then looking through the large windows at some distance...and I’m not sure if he was actually looking at anything or just reflecting inside his head.

His elderly ‘friend’ was about 4 tables away had his back to the windows and was turned at a slight angle…and so was the setting for these two acquaintances as they eventually exchanged a very slow and drawn out, pause-filled conversation that I've heard many a time in the sleepy South...in a hurry to go absolutely nowhere.

(after some time of silence)

"How’s Mary doin’…she out of the hospital yet?"

(pause)

"Yep, last I heard she was doin’ better. Thought I’d go by later today and take her a pie or somethin’…"

(pause)

"Went to that new Food Lion they put in south of town…pretty nice…."

(pause)

"Ain’t been yet, but I aim to…"

(bigger pause, and more coffee stirring…)

"Did you figure out why your transmission was slippin'?"

(pause)

"Don't really know...Burtons flushed it out and it seems to be workin' okay now..."

(...and then came the clincher for me…)

"You gone and voted this mornin’?"

(pause)

"Nope, ain’t had no time to yet."

I thought I was going to snort the coffee out of my nose.

May all your priorities today be so carefully chosen today!

"Fried Fridays: The ups and downs of jury duty"

G'day, mates! Here's a Fried Friday that's fair dinkum, it is.

There's a lot of things to waste money on, and lots of things that waste money. This one is rather puzzling...

DATELINE: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

2 Aussie men were in court charged with various drugs and conspiracy counts related to a large amphetamine operation, and a rather significant, tricky case, this one. Stands to reason it was a jury trial, and it was not going to be an open and shut case. It quickly 'drug' on.

After 3 months of what seemed like endless testimony from 103 witnesses, cross-questioning, motion filings, sidebars, and evidence exhibits out the wazoo, a great deal of time, energy, and money had been invested by many involved in the case, including the jurors.

The taxpayers' bill at that point was up to $947,000, just shy of a million dollars.

One day, one of the defendents told the judge he observed something unusual in some of the jurors. As they lifted their eyes and listened, they would bend their head back down and write lots of notes. Seems a normal thing to do. But not to write vertically...

Yep, the judge agreed and thought it odd that some 'notes' were being jotted up and down, not left to write, and upon inquiring the foreman about this odd action, she revealed the truth:

She and 4 other jurors regularly filled out Sudoku puzzles when they got bored. One juror was quoted as saying they helped him focus his attention on the trial by keeping his mind busy.

Uh...okay.

Bottom line, after the 3 months and a million bucks, a the case was suspended and will begin anew as soon as they can seat a new jury.

Hopefully they'll pick ones without puzzled expressions.

"Thems that got got lots..."

(click radar images to enlarge)

Starting yesterday afternoon around the Pee Dee River basin, thunderstorms began to quickly build. And as quickly as they built, they combined into a rather linear feature, indicative of the trough overhead. Montgomery County got in on the action early, as the storm later back-built to the south and southwest into a monster of two storm centers in Union, Anson, and Richmond Counties.

Including the Triad storms later, the slow-moving nature of the storms created flash-flood conditions from the inches of rain that fell in a relatively limited time space. Strong gusty winds added to the storm's fury that was in its own right beautiful to behold.

During one of the storms I chose to disconnect my computer, so I don't have actual radar grabs to show you...but I did have access early this morning to a graphic that depicts doppler-estimated rainfall, which you can key the color to the amount on the left-hand side. Town names are hard to see unless you enlarge the picture.

Above is the storm total image taken at 1:45am from the Raleigh radar site, which has Montgomery County covered. Note the 'core' purples where 'fury' rained to the south...

This is the storm total graphic for the Forsyth/Stokes/Rockingham Counties storms late last night, again from the Raleigh NWS radar site...these areas had flash flood warnings posted until the wee hours of the morning.

Luckily it has finally died down, with the last thunderstorm in Caswell County moving NW and petering out just before sunrise. We'll have a chance to do it all again today...same set-up, too, where the actual rain chances aren't impressive, but what storms build will be. Best chances overall will be closer to the I-77 corridor.

We have another interesting player in the weather, as well...a honker of a wildfire in eastern NC near Albemarle Sound. Winds out of the east today will transport the smoke plume straight towards the Triangle and the Triad, helping create Code Orange conditions later today for unhealthy air quality.

A forecast link for the smoke plume, which I posted earlier, is not publicly accessible, so it seems. If I can find an alternate link, I'll post it again.

Not a pretty day in the nation's midsection...flooding rains continue to be a very serious issue, with a solid explosion of tornadoes yesterday. By clicking on the report image below, it will take you to that web page and you can look up individual reports by type and location.

Something to ponder...

Observations.

A skill that is well worth honing, easy and free to accomplish, yet few are those that undertake it well.

Please note, 'observation' has nothing to do with 'judgment'...just because you 'see' something doesn't mean you have the right or responsibility to judge and interpret that observation. It's not the scientific way...

And so I take pretty much the same road home each day...and although my time can vary by more than an hour, often do I see a care-giver out walking. She is dressed in hospital type wardrobe, and there is a nursing care facility along my route near her pedestrian paths...she wears a back brace, or at least a black brace used for lifting at stores...or patients, possibly.

She is not overweight, and she is walking a respectable distance as I see her on various roads close to the facility, at various times. The walking seems to matter to her a great deal, given her regularity, even in the heat. And I think to myself, 'Good for her!' She's out and about, regardless of the weather.

Always in her nursing garb. Always with the black brace on. Always walking some sidewalk as if on a mission. I applaud her. If only I were to stick to a workout schedule like that, daily...alas, I find it hard these days to do that, but I can only come up with excuses.

However, there is one nagging observation that perplexes me. She is always smoking a cigarette.

Always.

She's walking, and I assume to better her health in some way...and regardless of when and where I see her, she has a lit cigarette in her hand. It is an odd, incongruous association, nonetheless. Which makes me ponder all the more. What does she want to accomplish from her walks? The cigarette part is a real disconnect for my brain.

Not unprecedented, such observations I've made in the past...I've seen a group of road cyclists working hard, only to stop on a grassy area and one of them immediately light up. I've seen back-to-nature types hiking in wilderness areas, only to see them later on a break and somebody puffing on a coffin nail (oops, there goes a judgment!). Just doesn't add up justifiably in my brain, and I wonder what goes through their mind as they do it.

I'm not a smoker and never have been, so I can't speak to the whys and addictive factors that figure into decisions to smoke. But it makes sense that if you want to do something healthy for your body, smoking is counter-productive.

I mean, if you want to lose weight, you don't go eat a box of twinkies...oops, another story for another day, that one!

Your friend: Heat

Yeah, maybe in the winter when you're cold, but heat like this is no friend of mine. Looks like this is the last day of this particular run of heat...and though highs will still be above the average of 83, 88 still beats numbers like these from Monday:

Raleigh - 100R
Charlotte - 99R
Wilmington - 99R
Greer (GSP) - 99R
Danville - 98R
Greensboro - 98
Asheville - 93R

And once again some feisty thunderstorms fired up in the mountains and came out into the Foothills late in the day, with a big handful of hail reports and some wind damage.

The chart below is interesting to pore over...seeing the relative 'deadliest' types of weather-related events. And now you know why we harp on heat as much as we do:

(click any graphic to enlarge)


At the very least heat makes some of us grouchy and irritable (like me!), and it further zaps me of what energy I have after I get off from work. Combine that with degrading air quality late in the afternoon, and you have lots of good reasons to just plop inside and veg out (like me!). Not about to put on a respirator and ear protectors and go outside to run power tools.

At the heat of the day, the humidities have not been all that bad...we can and will see much more humidity levels later this summer. Yesterday's relative humidity during the peak heat at PTI airport was in the 35-40% range...enough to make that 98 feel over 100 degrees.


And so we hunker down for the last day of this for now, with more PM clouds and isolated showers and storms forming in advance of a cold front that will bring us some relief....and dare I say somewhat better rain chances in the days ahead, too.

Be like Joe. Be Cool. Peace out, y'all....

Beating the heat...???

I think it's fair to say it's been hot here in the Carolinas the past few days. Blisteringly hot, if I might say so myself. And I had to make some multi-hour interstate trips to boot this past weekend, in my well-traveled 256K mile buggy with no 'working' A/C. Since cursing the heat and the $4 per gallon gas prices accomplished NOTHING, I had to quickly switch to 'survival' mode...


First, Murphy's Law Corollary #649 states that:

"When trying to avoid the sun while traveling, you will ALWAYS be traveling at the direction that maximizes the undesirable affect of direct sunlight on your body."

Ah, proven true time and again this weekend. Wherever I was driving, whenever I was driving, the sun was beating down on my left arm and leg for most of the time...and so I was fortunate to have a white towel stashed behind the seat which I used to cover said arm and leg. It worked.

It also helped to have a large water container from which I would dribble liberally over my head and down the back of my neck, which would evaporate and cool me for a little while as I drove. If you didn't know already, and you want a big 50-cent word to throw around at the water cooler, evaporation is an "endergonic" reaction, chemically...in simpler terms, to convert water (liquid) to water (vapor), energy is used or consumed ('taken away') in the process...which is why even in the summer you feel cool stepping out of a shower...'evaporative cooling' is a critical process, not only in human comfort but in weather processes, as well.

Doesn't change the fact that it's hotter than a fritter, of course.

Alas, there are only a limited number of pictures one can take of one's self while driving...I could handle the towel issue, but the water-over-the-head was a little much...I trust you will understand!!!

Below are the Friday through Sunday highs for several Carolina cities...the only breaks came from some mountain thunderstorms which late Saturday oozed out into the northern Foothillls:

Greensboro 96 97 97
Raleigh 99 100 101
Charlotte 96 97 99
GVL-Spartanburg 96 99 100
Asheville 90 92 93
Wilmington 95 98 99
(indicates record highs)

Oh yeah, lest I forget: summer doesn't officially start for 11 more days (June 20th 7:59pm EDT). Gadzooks, Batman!

"Fried Fridays: A dead giveaway..."

Minor league baseball games can be a really fun, family time. Greensboro has the Grasshoppers, Winston Salem has the Warthogs, Charlotte has the Knights, Durham has the Bulls, and many more.

Many times there are theme nights, baseball and bat giveaways, seat cushion night, you name it. It's just good local entertainment that helps us if but for a moment forget about the woes of the world and economic spirals...

DATELINE: GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS

The Grand Prarie AirHogs is one such venue in the Lone Star state's Dallas suburbs, where they're big on everything. Especially one very special promotion, where the team partnered with Grove Memorial Gardens and Irving's Chapel of Roses Funeral Home.

"CONGRATULATIONS! YOU JUST WON A $10,000 FUNERAL!!!"

I wonder if the immediate response was dead silence...

To the contrary, this was a well-hyped contest that had finalists coming to the game dressed in black, like pallbearers and corpses, but it was more than just appearances they were keeping up. They had some 'stiff' competition to take care of as they participated in a pallbearer's race, a mummy wrap and a eulogy delivery.

The winner, 60 year-old Elaine Fulps, was chosen at random as the lucky winner, although she is not anxious to cash in the offer anytime soon. Mind you, this poor woman was in a neck brace at the time, the latest step in a 20-surgery past to correct some (ok, many) medical issues.

"I almost croaked many times. God still has me around for a reason. To win a funeral," said Fulps. She went on to say that after she recovers she'll go look over the caskets and plots and choose one of each.

"I'm going to pick a spot under a tree out of the Texas heat; and let's hope it's a pet-free cemetery. I don't want to get watered on." (Dallas Morning News)

And what's one the best parts about this deal?

The only expiration date for this fantastic lay-away plan is hers.

---------------------

Careful out there in the heat, y'all, and have a great weekend!

Is it just me....

I can't be the only one who has witnessed the following time and time again:

1. Price for crude oil goes up.

2. Price at pump goes up within 1-2 days.

3. Price of crude goes down.

4. Price at pump holds steady (if not rises), then slowly comes down 4-5 days later.

5 (corollary). Regardless of crude oil prices, price at pump goes up quickly at holidays and then takes (again) days to come back down after the holiday.

Sorry, it operates far beyond the realm of supply and demand, a veritable go-to cop-out in the world of worthy explanations. It's greed and profiteering at it's worst...and easiest.

Giving up $$$ and profits is not something anyone or any organization does easily...I just hope that as time ticks by more and more individuals as well as organizations realize we have to start analyzing economic issues far beyond the bottom-line dollar...we HAVE to figure in social 'good' and social 'responsibility', the latter a term about which many seem absolutely clueless. This I was already going to write...and then I received this email today that I'm sure some of you may have already seen or received....worthy of posting, nonetheless...that is, if you want to laugh at editorial cartoons related to the price of gas these days...!

Click on cartoons to enlarge (fyi, some won't)...and enjoy!

------------------------------

Duck, duck, duck....GOOSE!

Rather interesting to watch the radar yesterday afternoon...what were little blips quickly blossomed into pretty feisty storms...the 'grab' below was taken around 4pm, showing 2 of the larger cells (click to enlarge):


The cell at the bottom soon got even nastier...the green triangles are interactive on a 'live' screen and when you mouse over it gives you a good bit of technical information, at least as determined by the radar algorithms. At one point, that storm had a marker for 3.25" hail, at least aloft...solid sign of one nasty hombre of a storm. The largest hail reported at the surface was 1.75", with several reports of wind damage.

Our Wednesday storms were but a small drop in the bucket of severe weather across the US...click on the graphic below to go to the website page detailing yesterday's storm reports:


We could see isolated storms in today's heat, as well, and while few in number they can potentially reach severe status. Highs will rocket to and stay in the mid 90s for the next several days, potentially setting the kind of records you don't want to be setting, certainly not this early in the 'summer' which isn't officially here yet. Ugh. Make that a double Ugh. Considering the cost of energy, make that a quadruple Ugh.

Stay cool, keep your cool, and chill out as best you can!

Bullies...

Miriam-Webster's defines a "bully" as

"one habitually cruel to others who are weaker"

I suppose I would take issue with that, only because the offendee is not always 'weaker'...just more quiet, maybe, and more aware of the real issues at hand, namely an offensive dolt who has little respect for themselves outside of an inflated ego.

And so today's post that calls to light the bullies of the world. Not just the school-yard versions that are now even bullying classmates on-line with insipid vitriol...but anyone who is out and about in 'life' thinking they can do whatever they want to whomever they want whenever they want.

On-line, there are the blogger bullies, like the ones that recently shamed Dunkin' Donuts into pulling Rachael Ray's ad from air all because she wore a scarf some dweeb said looked just like a mid-East terrorist's scarf...and shame upon the thousands that acted like blind lemmings, lighting their torches in support of this absolutely mean-spirited bullying, satisfying somebody's ego to sensationalize the issue. Each of us has the responsibility to think for ourselves, not letting someone else define who we are. 'Nuff said.

This past weekend I was at a wedding...and at the reception was this attractive young person that continually broke into the food and drink line offering such lines as 'oops! I broke in line!'. It all happened just behind, and a good bit ahead of me...on four occasions I was aware of, no less. No one chose to speak up...to some degree I agree with the idea that we must wisely pick and choose our battles....know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em...and yet, colorless, sexless, and ageless people bully their way through life...and I often find myself at the edge of speaking up, and sometimes do.

However, confronting a bully can be quite problematic. Conversely, not confronting a bully allows them to be further emboldened, potentially becoming even more of a walking butt-head, and even harder to deal with later. And just where can you find some of the worst of the worst? Look no farther than the area highways and interstates.

Speeders. Tail-gaiters. Light-flashers. Jerks from every age, social, and race classification, creating wreck-laden situations as if they're blind to anyone else on the roads. I bet there are some offenders that think they are quite nice, considerate people in life, that somehow believe behind the wheel of a car they can behave differently...and do.

Confronting such mental midgets while on the road can be the kiss of death, as countless road rage examples have proven. Standing up to someone in person is one thing. Standing up to them behind the wheel of a rolling hunk of metal is quite another, and one not suggested.

So how do they 'come to terms' with their actions? Do we wait for a policeman to stop 'em? Do we wait for their mama or daddy to say something? Do we wait for them to have a serious wreck that hopefully involves only them? I wish I had the answers, but I don't. Drive very defensively and don't engage the idiots, for starters. I just hope each of us has it within us, given the appropriate time and circumstances, to take a stand and say, "ENOUGH!" to the selfish people of this world, but doing so from a place of love and compassion, not hatred.

"Goin' to the chapel, and we're...."

"...gonna see a good friend marry,
Goin' to the chapel and we're
gonna dodge a hail storm baby..."


For a year and a half I worked closely with the early AM producer at News 14, John Kunza. Fellow Tarheel and Morehead graduates, we hit it off well from the start, especially given our warped senses of humor. John is now working the international desk for a major broadcast network based in Charlotte, and many a national news broadcast story brandishes his typed words.

Well, the boy got hitched to his now lovely bride Emma this past weekend in Greensboro, and I was honored to be a part of their special day. But it was made even more special when those powerful thunderstorms rolled in during the late afternoon hours, once all were at the O'Henry Hotel for the reception.

Scads of viewers emails came in to the News 14 weather department about those Triad storms, with myriad pictures of hail and downed vegetation, etc. Standing in the lobby of the O'Henry, I was in awe of the strong whipping wind as it spun the large revolving door with ease, all by itself. The squall line was a serious one, and just from my first-hand observations I was amazed there had been no report of a tornado close by. It was quite the maelstrom.

I've seen a lot of storms first hand, and that one ranked near the top of anything I've run across in the past couple of decades...torrential sheets of heavy rain blew in horizontally through the front breezeway with sheets of hail bouncing in like the vintage ping-pong ball drops on the Captain Kangaroo show (sorry if you younger ones are clueless about that last reference!).

As the old question goes, "How bad was it?" It was so bad John and I had to go act like fools in it, getting soaking wet, picking up hail for cheesy photo ops...and I tried to do my best Mike Seidel impersonation from his Weather Channel hurricane interviews, leaning in to the winds reporting 'live'. It was too much fun, being so spontaneous and care-free...and with hotel towels we slowly dried out our 100% soaked suits soon enough (yay for worsted wool!).

I don't have any pictures from that to post, but I do have the link to the photographer's website wherein they posted some proofs from that scene and more of the wedding in a Flash player format. I trust the links will get you there:

First, you can try the following link, and click on the picture of John and I holding hail stones in our hands...it takes you to the flash page, and when you click on the small shots they'll enlarge some for you to look at. NOTE: from the multi picture page, you can hit the 'refresh' key some and see a few more pictures get mixed in each refresh: BertVanderveen.com

If you have trouble getting there, you can try the Flash page directly: prelim proofs

And now we have the official start of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, already with 'Arthur'. Arthur started in the eastern Pacific off the Central American coast as 'Alma', which reached tropical storm status and then dissipated back to a depression...but by then it had crossed into the Atlantic jurisdiction, hence the first name of the year 'Arthur'.

As of 10p Sunday night, the depression was weakening and will no longer be monitored by the National Hurricane Center as the low slowly moves northewest as a soaker of a system.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!