How can it be?

I went away to Santa Clarabelle for a day, and it decided to snow in Fort TomCollins. I missed it! It was all melted when I got back.

Stupid Rain

I took my truck to the car wash on Sunday.

Monday it rained.

Isn't that, like, always the case?

Boob Clouds

HannahC and I were walking out of her dance class today when I looked up at the clouds and said, "It's going to rain."

HannahC said, "Are the clouds shaped like boobs? Cuz if they are it means it's going to thunderstorm. If they're like a whole bunch of boobs, it means a tornado."

It's interesting that wikipedia specifically says that the idea that boob clouds are an indicator of potential tornadoes is a "common misconception", though they might be a byproduct of tornadoes. Heavens. Wikipedia and HannahC's science book are in direct contradiction.

Awww Hail

There's something liberating about having a terrible blog that no one reads. In a way, I feel closer to CJ and JohnnyB.

Today, I got back from my trip to Massachusetts, and about two hours later, it began to lightning. I had just picked up all the toys outside. Then, the thunder arrived. Then hail. Not big, nasty, roof- and car-destroying hail. Just 1/2"-1" hail that makes a lot of noise on the windows.

I love thunder and lighting. 11 years in the San Schmose area deprived me of the big electrical storms. They are so exciting!

In the middle of the storm, The Mrs. sent me into the garage to throw a bunch of garbage in the big garbage can. I noticed that the floor was beginning to flood under one of the doors. I opened the door, and I noted that the gutter was overflowing like crazy right there, dumping a massive waterfall down, and it was coming in under the door.

I checked the downspout that was a mere six feet away. Almost nothing coming out. Uh oh. Something is plugged up.

I go inside to get a raincoat and to announce to the fambly that I am about to go outside and climb up a ladder in an electrical storm. But don't worry, I'll use the fiberglass framed ladder rather than the aluminum ones. I should note that this gutter runs across the front of the garage on the eve just above the doors. It's the lowest gutter on the house. It's not like I'm getting up on the second story or anything.

I go back and start to remove the fiberglass extension ladder from the hooks on the wall. It is tough going, as they're not actually ladder hooks on which is hanging, and thus the opening between the top of the hook and the wall is slightly less wide than the ladder rail. During this time, The Mrs. and HannahC have processed my information and have decided they are opposed to the plan. The both come into the garage barking orders about how I'm not allowed to climb the extension ladder during an electrical storm.

Especially not right now when the delay between the lightning and the thunder is effectively zero, meaning the storm is directly overhead. What a couple of wusses. But I have to listen or risk chastisement for the rest of my life and then some.

So I put the ladder back on the hooks. I instead get out a footstool that is actually the bottom half of a chair that the back broke off. Standing on that, I can reach into the gutter. I reach up right at the top of the downspout, and I find a ball lodged there. A smallish, green rubber ball reminiscent of a raquet ball, but slightly smaller. A hand ball?

I pull out the ball with an air of triumph, show it to the ladies, and say, "There. All fixed." A massive amount of water is now flowing out the downspout, and the waterfall over the edge of the gutter has stopped. I put the stool back.

Then I notice that the waterfall has started up again. I check the downspout, and it is down to a trickle again. Hmmm.

This time, it was a tennis ball.

I waited a while to assure no more balls were going to show up. Balls usually come in pairs, I guess.

I think I now know why there was such an ice damn in the very spot of the waterfall during the winter.

Ahhh...weather. I LOVE IT!

Wow wow

We had really nice weather today. It was 79 degrees. I spent a lot of the day outside draining two ponds and putting fertilizer with crabgrass preventer down.

I'm glad I don't live in awful Massachusetts like the other half of my project at The Company, where the weather is New England wintery. And where you need a class B firearms license to own a BB gun.

Weather, The Graduate Stylee

Continuing on with my weather historical, after graduating from UB with a degree in electrical and computer engineering, I decided to go on to graduate school. In fact, I decided I wanted a PhD. However, I couldn't really be moved to collect all the information necessary to apply to graduate schools, since I didn't actually want a PhD for any reason other than that my oldest brother had one, and my older brother was in a PhD program at the time, and thus I figured it was a sign of mental weakness not to also get one.

I had always suspected that I was the dumb one. I'm still pretty sure that I am, but I've managed to do alright for myself nonetheless. Not as well as The Mrs. has, but I can't really complain. Plus, I make up for any perceived deficiencies by being a card-carrying member of the NRA.

Anyways, I was pretty much on autopilot for the first 38 or so years of my life.

Luckily, my loving girlfriend at the time (aka The Mrs.) saw that my lack of motivation to collect applications to graduate schools was a threat to her longtime financial well-being, so despite her being in Sillydelphia and me being in Barfalo, she managed to collect all the material for me and help me write my stupid-ass essays about why I would be an ass-et to the PhD program at this school or that. Thanks to her great help, I got rejected from nearly every decent school I applied to. MIT rejected me within 10 days of me mailing the application. UI Urbana rejected me twice, though I applied only once. However, the wonderful University of Rochester not only accepted me, but they gave me a fancy fellowship. Graduate school would be free at last. Free at last.

Cha-ching.

So I packed up all my worldly possessions and headed east. A whole 73 miles. I figured, hey, how different could the weather be in Rottenchester compared to Barfalo?

Well, it was a lot different. It had all the horrible cloudiness and wind and the unpredictable rains, only it was colder in the winter but didn't snow very much. The summers were about the same - chaotic and humid. Actually, I guess you could say it wasn't all that different - it had all the aspects of Barfalo weather, except with everything remotely enjoyable removed. It was the most miserable, dreary, godawful weather I had ever experienced. It still may be, though the weather in Connecticut has been impressively awful whenever we've visited The Mrs.'s The Brother.

Besides the unbearable terribility, I remember three weather experiences most vividly. The first was The Great Ice Storm.

Ice storms really suck. If you're living in the middle of the old part of a city that has nothing but above-ground electric wires with 80-year-old trees surrounding them, ice storms really, really suck.

We were living on a little street called Hobart St. that was in a slum. It's all a poor graduate student could afford on his $1200/mo fellowship. We were in an apartment that had been fashioned out of the second floor and attic of a house build around 1912. Back in 1912, they didn't put insulation in walls. Landlords in slums generally do not retrofit insulation into the walls, either.

Then the ice storm hit. It took down the electric for most of the city and surrounding suburbs. We lost power. I remember quite distinctly explaining to the lady that lived in the first floor apartment how, even though we had gas heat, the furnace wouldn't run without electricity. She was surprised by that.

12 days we went without electricity or heat in the dead of winter. Twelve very long days. No hotel rooms could be had for 50 miles, and we couldn't have afforded one anyways. We tried hanging out there the first few nights, but it just ended up too cold. So we commuted to my parents' house in Barfalo a few nights, but it was too much of a pain. So, we got our tent and sleeping bags and camped out in the center of my lab at the university. Nobody cared. It was warm.

Ice storms really, really suck. Unless you're just watching them happen to someone else on TV. Then, they are cool as hell. The resulting coating of ice on everything is remarkably beautiful and makes for great photographs.

So I guess I really love ice storms.

I dunno.

A Strange Change

Two days ago, it was 70 degrees. Today, it is 45. What's up with that?

Duh, or No Duh?

After the little incident I talked about here, this little conversation occurred:

GreggyM: "Why did you do that?"

CherkyB: "You told me to punch it."

GreggyM: "I'm drunk. You're not supposed to listen to me!"

Duh.

Slippin'n'Slidin' Weather

Back in college, I used to go bowling a lot. I know, I know. This is something that probably surprises the hell out of you. How could it be that such a wonderful, intelligent, and remarkably good-looking CherkyB would spend his time at a bowling alley? Mostly because I was dating a nice lady who you may now today know as The Mrs., but she was going to school in Sillydelphia. That left me with a lot of free time on my hands, being as the classes weren't all that hard at UB and I was, even back then, a sooper-genius, and if you can't chase after college coeds, the only two other things there were to do in Barfalo were drink and bowl.

Or both.

There was a great old bowling alley not too far from campus that gave student discounts after midnight. $0.90/game. Imagine. And you got to bowl on their old real-wood lanes, as they saved the fancy new laminate lanes for the paying customers. Modern bowlers are too foofy to bowl on real wood lanes. They need the boringly smooth and predictable laminate that has a photograph of real wood glued to it and then 50 coats of urethane over the top of that.

Pussies.

We became purists for real wood lanes.

Another thing they had was a "college league" that was non-sanctioned (since college students couldn't afford the annual ABC (now called the USBC) membership fee of about $45 required to bowl in sanctioned leagues). I and a bunch of the doods from my dorm got a team together and joined the league. It was a great excuse to have to go "practice" all the time. It's also when I learned all about the "lubrication" requirements a man has in order to bowl properly. But I was yet to turn 21, so GreggyM had to buy all the beer (and for that service, he rewarded us by drinking most of it, too). He was our captain, and also our big beer-bellied dood that every successful bowling team in Barfalo requires.

So anyways, one night GreggyM had had about two pitchers of Bud during the course of the match, and he was feeling a bit too lit up to drive back. He had driven two of us there, though (we lived next door to one another in the dorms). So he tossed me the keys and said, "CherkyB, congratulations. You drank the least of us, so you get to drive the IROC back."

I know, you're shocked. If you're one of my parents, you're shocked because I said a bit back that I wasn't 21, and here GreggyM is saying I "drank the least of us." If you're anyone else, you're shocked because you can't imagine anyone ever saying such a thing to the old CherkyB.

It was, however, true. I was actually trying to concentrate on my game that evening, so I'd had maybe a total of 16oz of beer throughout the whole three games.

So we hopped in the IROC-Z and headed back to campus. It was raining. A fairly light, though steady drizzle. Standard Autumn weather in Barfalo. Now, I had never before driven a big-engined rear-wheel-drive muscle car with Goodyear Z-speed-rated Gatorbacks before. I had ridden in this particular one at 132mph once, but never driven it. My family owned nothing but front-wheel drive family sedans.

We got to a little intersection on campus where I had to turn left. I had been trying to drive carefully, given the rain and all. GreggyM is sitting next to me, all drunk and happy, and he says, "Why are you babying it? Punch it and see how she corners!"

OK.

Weeee!!!! We're spinning! I ended up doing only a 270, and happily got it stopped about three inches from the big, cut-stone curbs that graced the campus roadways because of some payola deal between the stonecutters union and the state (SUNY campuses were not allowed to have concrete curbs back then, believe it or not).

Sometimes, the weather provides unexpected fun.

And terror.

Weather, the College Years

Ahhhh, college. I grew up in Barfalo, NY, which was a great place to grow up if you liked weather. We had all kinds of weather. We had clouds, rain, wind, heat, cold, humidity, sleet, and of course snow. Lots of snow.

We didn't have this thing called "sunny and warm." No, it wasn't until much later that I discovered the joy of "sunny and warm". But that's for a different story.

I decided to go to the local state university, UB, mainly because it was cheap, and I had no real desire to go out and explore the world for exotic colleges in faraway lands with their funny, native names like Ithaca or Syracuse or Binghamton. Gosh. Every time I say "Binghamton" I think of dental work. Do you, too? "Oh, there's some troubling Binghamton in the upper left quadrant. We're going to need to keep an eye on that."

And it's not just because I went to the dentist this morning.

Syracuse, on the other hand, makes me think of steaks. There used to be a "Syracuse Restaurant" in Barfalo that my parents used to go to whenever they got a babysitter. I got to go there once or twice, but I think I had the chicken.

What do you think of when you hear "Syracuse"?

I spent four wonderful years at UB. The first three, I lived on campus in the dorms, and the fourth off-campus at an apartment not too far away. Most of my excellent weather experiences occurred during the times I lived in the dorms, as I was under 21 at the time, and thus drinking had not yet replaced my love for the weather.

Both make unpredictable mistresses, I might add.

The UB campus at which most classes were held was a big, sprawling mess of a place that was apparently designed by hiring a different architect for every single building, and then laying all the building out in a big, long row that was called "The Spine." This was in great contrast to all your older, more famous universities that are laid out as a rectangle with the space in the middle usually being referred to as "the quad". UB's campus was designed around the time all those wacky leftist hippies were always having riots at universities because they somehow though that (a) professors had some kind of great political power and (b) people other than those affiliated with the school gave any kind of a rat's ass about what hippie college students thought. So, the campus was specifically designed not to have any place that could naturally serve as a congregating point.

All that is well and good. Until the winter. Then you realize that the spine is a mile long and in the middle of a wind swept tundra with nothing but acres and acres of parked cars to block the weather as students attempt to get back and forth from one building to the other for classes. Even for someone who liked the weather, like me, walking back and forth for a total of like 5 miles every day right in the middle of it in the dead of winter wasn't as fun as it might sound.

So the brilliant architects decided to connect all the second floors of the buildings together with "tunnels" that were actually glass-enclosed bridges, which, though designed with heaters, were never heated because it was a state school, and Mario Cuomo was always too busy handing out welfare checks to crack addicts in Brooklyn to think about spending money on heat.

A second floor, unheated glass tunnel turns out to not be a bad place to observe the weather from. So, after my first couple treks across campus to experience the weather each day, I resorted to the tunnel system for the rest of the day. I could keep an eye on the weather from there without my tongue freezing to the roof of my mouth.

My First Weather Experience

I think it all goes back to when I was a small child, when I was a little older than one and had learned to walk. I went to the side door, pointed, and grunted at my mother. She looked at me and said, "You want to go out to play?"

"Ungh!" I replied, as I didn't know how to talk yet.

"Well, I'm sorry honey, but you can't. It's raining."

WTF?

Then, my mother opened the door and showed me. It was my first realization that there was more to weather than watching it be forecast on TV at precisely 6:18pm every night on the local news. The weather could actually affect me, affect my happiness, prevent me from doing whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it.

This was too much for me. I sat down in the corner behind the big yellow chair and thought. I thought big thoughts. Hot thoughts. Stinking thoughts. When I was done thinking, I emerged from the sanctuary behind the big yellow chair, feeling that exciting, tingling sensation of elation that follows a big load of thought.

My mother saw me, wrinkled her nose, scooped me up, and said, "We better change that before it dries."

Ever since then, I have had an interest in the weather. I've followed it closely at times, less closely at others. I have traveled about seeking different varieties of weather. Even now, as an adult who works in what my loving daughter calls "a box" that is a long way from the windows, I use the internet to follow the weather. I even keep a weather map and current conditions link on my blog.

Over at my other blog, I mostly post updates about the family and life with a keen eye on the humor value of ordinary events. This blog I am using to talk about my ongoing love affair with weather.