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...

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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.

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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!

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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!!!

"Fried Fridays: Goin' hog wild..."

...or wild hog...

I think we can all agree and understand that the adolescent male is a querulous creature that is both predictable and never predictable (except to predict that they will be unpredictable). A certain 18-year old helped to uphold that right of Life's passage recently...

DATELINE: SCHWERIN, GERMANY

Oh, to be free from constraints and rules and regulations and proper behavior. When you're approximate to that legal fulcrum of 18, you are invincible. Like that scene from "Titanic" out on the ship's bow when with the arms spread wide and the wind whipping your flowing locks, you are the freest of birds.

It's a limited time offer, of course. See store and history books for details.

So this guy and a friend go steal a car...an Opel (I sure hope it was more than the Opel my sister had waaaaay back in the 70s). Being in a stolen vehicle and (I'm sure) the speed limit representing but a mere suggestion to the duo, they sped off to seek more troubles, worsened by the police taking up the cross-country pursuit.

It should come to no surprise that once a road-block was set-up the end was near. Thankfully, no one was killed when they collided into one of the squad cars; the police were able to nab the passenger quickly enough, but the adroit driver absconded into the nearby forest.

'Twas dark. T'were many, many trees. T'weren't any street lights to help the police see...and they soon lost track of the emboldened miscreant, regrouping to formulate additional search plans.

Initially, a 'rescue' plan was not on their top 10 list of possibilities...but with a faint "HEEEEELP! SOMEBODY HEEEEELP MEEEEEEE!!!" emanating from the foreboding nighttime woods, they soon realized they needed to add that option to the list.

Following the fearful pleas, the police soon found the lad literally shaking in his boots...as he had been confronted, cornered, and challenged by an angered wild boar protecting his herd, which the young escapee had run upon accidentally.

A word of caution: do not attend a wild boar party without an invitation.

With limited fanfare, the boars were shooed away, the runaway arrested, thus ending this rather unusual scenario.

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As you may have already gathered, my brain is always randomly firing ideas, word associations, jokes, creative solutions, whatever the flavor-of-the-moment is. And so I mused over this story and came up with a quick pun worthy of a groan:

Where in Italy do wild boar prefer to live?

Tuskany.

I guess you could stretch and say 'Boartofino' or 'Roam' (since they love to do that)...but I digress...

And now for some humor...

Much-needed humor, I might add...between the $4 gallon of gas to an economy and government with serious 'issues' to my consternating computer and related conundrums...humor just might relieve a little of the tension for us all...

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1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony was just so-so, but the reception was excellent.

2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says,
'I'll serve you, But don't start anything.'

3. Two peanuts walk into a bar…one was a salted.

4. A dyslexic man walks into a bra…

5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm, and says,
'A beer please, and one for the road.'

6. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other,
'Does this taste funny to you?'

7. 'Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.'
‘That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome.'
'Is it common?’
‘Well, it’s Not Unusual…’

8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field.
Daisy says to Dolly, 'I was artificially inseminated this morning.'
‘I don't believe you,' says Dolly.
'It's true…no bull!' exclaims Daisy.

9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at, either.

10. Deja-Moo: The feeling that you've heard that bull before.

11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn't find any.

12. I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

13. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

14. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says,'Dam!'

15. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

16. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office, And asked them to disperse.
'But why,' they asked, as they moved off.
'Because,' he said, 'I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.'

17. A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt , and is named 'Ahmal.' The other goes to a family In Spain ; they name him 'Juan.'
Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal.
Her husband responds, 'They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal.'

(take your time…this next one is a real tongue-twister…)

18. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a…
“super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis”...

19. And finally, there was the Triad morning meteorologist who blogged nineteen different puns to his friends and family, with the hope that at least ten of the puns would make them laugh.
No pun in ten did.

"Pardon my adjustments..."

Just to be upfront, my blog posts may be rather spotty for yet another day or two as I've kind of run into a pickle...and I ain't talking no baby gherkin, either...more like one of those giant ones you can buy (or used to could) singly in a bag of vinegar based juice that you can snack on for an eternity (flashback to being a kid in Columbus, GA where I'd go to the local 7-11 and get one of those pickle bags for $0.25, I think...).


My desktop computer tower is, well, now 'dead'. I had noticed a couple of months ago the CD and DVD drive bays weren't working properly, and later weren't working or even recognized on the computer utilities tree. Operated around that; but last week an older problem returned where one of the hard drives would loudly and shortly SCRAAAAATCH and freeze up solid, with a hardboot the only fix possible. It got more frequent the end of last week, and then Sunday it would do it within 5 minutes of start-up.

Turned off the power...let it sit a bit, then thought I'd try and reseat the suspected drive for good measure, and that kind of grew the big pickle real fast: the start-up screen wants boot-up device to be inserted (I had been prepared to reformat anyway as I'd backed up the bulk of my information and programs)...the kicker is, of course, the computer can't 'see' either of the drives, hence I can't even boot up from them. For now, I'm stuck dead in the water, like a masted sailing ship far out to sea, whose trade winds have moved and left me in a big, big doldrum.

So, in hours of Sunday's frustration, I've shifted duties over to my laptop, which I was not going to use as a main computer, but too bad now - I've tapped it into knightdom. I did install my audio recording program on it, Adobe Audition 1.5, and I can process music professionally as I did on my tower; however, my sound card for microphone input seems far too inadequate to record directly through the computer's mic input, forcing me to now go record into an independent device (and far superior, anyway) and simply import that file into the laptop program. That will be today's experiment. Got the goods, just got to take the time and focus to figure it all out.

I say all that as I have a stack of things I have to tend to computer-wise, especially with my flutes and sound files of them....and these delays while I shift strategies has me uncomfortably backed up. In the midst of my frustrations must be an 'answer' that will ultimately improve and streamline my recording efforts...and where I'll be thankful for the Universal 'push' to move me over to the other side of the stream.

Quiet apologies go out to any of you who may be patiently waiting on various types of info from me...I have to believe I'll make bigger strides today, now that I'm passed yesterday's 'realization' that I'm, in a word, screwed...at least for the moment. And until I can get comfortably readjusted with all these recent 'issues', this blog may be a little quirky for a few more days. (As if it weren't quirky already!)

Off to the land of forecast data for now....wheeeeeeeee!!!

"Fried Fridays: How to bare your feelings..."

Even as a male, I'll be the first to admit the average guy can be a real jerk.

It would be nice if everyone were thoughtful and respectful of anyone of another sex, race, religion, persuasion...alas, we continue to be beset with cads and disrespectful blokes who can't seem to see anything beyond their nose...and that would be pushing it...

While it may seem cliche and stereotypical, it's nonetheless a truth that at a lot of construction sites men at the very least leer at attractive women, if not outright shout things, whistle, or make cat-calls to them. At this moment the road is being ripped up in front of my subdivision and I watch the sign-holders scope out the women in obvious fashion as they drive by at 5 mph. Not all do, of course, but all too many do...

DATELINE: KERIKERI, NEW ZEALAND

Take one attractive, easy-on-the-eyes Israeli lady in New Zealand, have her walk by a road construction site as she heads toward an ATM, only to have the guys being typical schmucks and saying insulting, degrading things of a sexual nature...

That's right...turn your head the other way...pretend you don't hear a word...don't give them the satisfaction of knowing they're rattling your cage...you GO, girl!...

Go to the ATM...insert your card...start undressing and...wait a minute here!...strip to your birthday suit while you withdraw money...(no, really, I can't make this up...)...then seductively get dressed again, and be on your way... She was quoted as saying, "Bugger them, I'll show them what I've got!" Apparently she did it with aplomb.

Needless to say this was seen by more than the construction workers. The police were called, she was taken to the station, and after hearing her story and how she was so fed up with the comments that she decided to 'show her goods' and...geesh...the police politely told her that she can't do that in New Zealand.

Oh, to be a fly on that wall...

6 guys named Mo'?

(click on pics to enlarge)

Yep. Mo' Flowers. Justs cleaning up and realized I hadn't posted a few shots from earlier - and it's always nice to look at nature stuff. In a prior post I showed you pics of Erect Trillium (Trillium erectum). This one is the Large-Flowering Trillium (Trillium grandiflora), whose large white petals turn pink with age...

Compare its center with the T. erectum below, which has not only the dark purple center and different looking stamens, but a beetle, to boot...

And now to the "I have no earthly idea what it is" department...hoping you readers can tell me what the next couple of flowers are. Looks like somebody planted them (as opposed to growing wild), but I'm clueless (no comments from the peanut gallery!)...

I do think this is one cool flower, especially the purple center section...

This plant had a geranium looking leaf, but, again, I've not run across it before. The flower hangs down, hence my shooting up to see it from below...


I'm always good for an abstract shot from a post-flowering Dandelion...how many a kid (and kid at heart) has picked these and blown these highly adaptive and mobile seeds!


One more day, Saddle Pals, and it's TGIF again...with a good lookin' holiday weekend overall (except maybe early Saturday). Enjoy!