Now that it's not snowing, its now warm and windy. I like the weather, its always changing. Its about the only thing that I don't mind changing, the weather and the seasons. I don't mind the changing seasons either. If only the weather and the seasons would align, then I wouldn't be so confused about them. Maybe its not really January, because our calendar needs to be adjusted with the season. Around October it is still hot. What's with that? Has our weather always been this confusing. As I get older, I can't remember what the weather and seasons were like as a child. I do remember that in the Spring, we had tornado weather. In the summer it was just hot and humid. The Fall and Winter were similar, mostly wet and cold. Now it seems, that any of these things can happen at any time of the year. I don't remember this misalignment as a child. I hope that it is temporary and that the calendar can be readjusted. Who does that anyway? Who is in charge of calendar realignment? Is there a special session of Congress that must approve of this procedure? I hope not. Ahh. now its raining. Winter rain.

I remember one time as a little guy, a dark green and brown cloud that hovered over our neighborhood to produce tornado warnings and watches. It was frightening and seemed to stay for many hours. I don't see those days much anymore. Why is that? What happened to thunderstorms? Why are they not as powerful as they used to be? Where are the thunderheads? Where have they gone? Real storms have disappeared.

What ever happened to hail? It never seems to hail anymore. Is this normal? Why does hail only happen during the summer months? When is hail really just sleet? In the winter only? Have you ever wondered why no one really cares about barometric pressure anymore? The weather channel has decreased our interest in watching climatic change. Climatic change can be very slow, but instant gratification can be found on the weather channel, or your local newspaper forecast. Satellites have actually changed the way that people interact with the weather. It is no longer a concern to just watch the barometric pressure move...now we can watch the warm & cold fronts move across our TV and computer screens. That's really not that satisfying. It only prepares me for the worst, not enjoying the climatic change that can take several hours or days. I like storms.

Sometimes I lie in my bed during a storm and count the seconds between lightning and thunder to calculate the distance and movement of the storm in my mind. Its fun to even know the direction that the sound is coming from, whether it is approaching or fading away. I've actually gotten quite good at this calculation and awareness. It's probably an inate desire to understand the weather for myself.

Lightning has always fascinated me. Ball lightning is really amazing. I've seen this only once, while camping on top of a mountain during a major thunderstorm. Ball lightning rolled across the outside of my tent during the night, and lit up the whole side of the campsite. I ran out of the tent and found the nearest shelter to spend the rest of the night. It was absolutely amazing, and I've never seen anything like it again. I've heard that it is formed by plasma from lightning, but I don't really know. All I know is that it bounces and rolls on the ground.

Whatever happened to car camping? Do people still go car camping? Probably not, because no one drives 1965 belair station wagon's anymore. Heck, there are probably many people that don't even remember sleeping in the back of a station wagon. I do. I also remember facing backwards in a station wagon (without seat belts too!) and staring at semi-truck drivers on the interstate. The fun part was pumping your arm, so that they would honk their horns. That was the first time that speed limits on interstates was over 65 miles per hour (prior to the double-nickel).

Do drivers still use radar detectors, or have they given up because of lasers?



I think our belair was green...
Mostly, my dad was an Oldsmobile man. We had every Oldsmobile made except maybe a Cutlass.

Yep, it is snowing here...and horizontally too! Several inches are accumulating and clinging to the earth, soil and vegetation. Sleet, small flakes, large snowflakes, you name it. The earth continues its global warming process, expressing Gaia's anger to us earthlings. I can feel it.

You know if climbers can breathe at 29,000 feet on Mt. Everest, can they also breathe at 35,000 feet? Where's the height limit to which a person can still maintain some oxygen content in the air that allows them to live? Just a thought.

Did you ever wonder why it snows in Hawaii? I had a friend who worked at the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea and lived in Kailua-Kona. He said the drive to work was treacherous due to the extreme change in temperature from sea level to 13,796 feet, especially when the snows would blow across the summit. He told me that some of the last few miles to the summit were some of the most steep he had ever encountered, even though the observatory is situated on a shield cone. He enjoyed working at the observatory, and really enjoyed the annual Iron-Man triathlon races on the island of Hawaii. I'm not sure why he decided to come back to the mainland after working there, but I guess he was as lonely as that barren landscape. Basalt flows, Pahoehoe, and Ah. All maintained on a cold summit amidst the stars and wind.

Did those Frenchmen (I think) ever decide to skydive from over 15 miles up? Joseph W. Kittinger Jr. in 1960 stepped out of his balloon assisted capsule at 102,800 feet and lived to be a icon of aviation history. That picture of him stepping towards a speeding ground is terrifying. Can you imagine having terminal velocities at close to the speed of sound? Some of those guys in the Air Force have blood that is completely chilled...my hats off to those guys, they are truly explorers of the distant realm. I wonder if one could increase their terminal velocity by wearing a bullet helmet? What if one could reach the sound barrier. Would the schock waves hinder your body in any way? Would the sound in your ears disappear? Would your head explode? "Hey, I hear Dave breaking the sound barrier...you know the sonic boom is deafening...sure hope he makes it." The first human missle exceeding the sound barrier.

Remember sending crickets into space with model rockets? I used frogs and cicadas. The first frog into space was January 27, 1972. The frog was 2 months old, I was 11. From launch, the frog was monitored for vital signs. Everyone was anxiously waiting for the world's first launching of an American Southeastern Chorus Frog, "Pseudacris feriarum". What a site...there were over 3 kids from my neighborhood waiting to see this exciting adventure for the United States. On countdown, the anticipation was so thick you could cut it with a knife. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ....whooooooosh! Up, and straight....no not towards the creek. He'll land in his habitat where he was found. Eeekk! The rocket landed in a tree. I guess I won't be able to retrieve the tree frog. And that was the beginning of the American Frog Space Association, primitive but effective.


Model rockets were built to be destroyed. I burned many at the launch pad....such is the demands of the budding space program. I learned much about wind shear, stability, rotation, center of gravity, thrust ratios and trees.

my tea, that is. all's I need is some bourbon & spearmint...well you get the picture. Like a website claimed, "Most likely originated in 1803, when John Davis, a traveler from Britain and a Virginia plantation tutor, defined a julep as "a dram of spiritous liquor that has mint in it, taken by Virginians of a morning". Ahhh...Mint Julep, what a southern sensation to the mouth and lips. We later added sugar and ice, but that's just not normal. I've been trying Jefferson's small oak barrel Kentucky bourbon lately and its dry, sweet, but leaves an aftertaste of slight charcoal and earth. It works well with a Punch Gran Puro Cigar, not too harsh, but earthy enough to savor the slopes of Honduras. It's a nice experience on a cool, crisp Winter night here in the Southern United States.

I've heard from a friend that certain parts of Central America are exceedingly hot all the time. Doesn't sound good, not to have some cool nights for relaxin', at least once in awhile. My friend from Columbia, whom I have not heard from in a long time, told me about Siesta or midday break. He told me that in his country, employers would allow employees breaks during the day to go home, or visit a local park, and then come back later. He was an engineer, who said that it revitalized their workforce (probably to go home and work on their moonlighting job fertilizing coca leaves or Erythroxylon). Anyway he said it was great. If only America could learn from their neighbors about collective bargaining practices. "ese petimetre de comunismo, pero usted mece de todos modos"

I was thinking about Oak Island today, you know the place in the Canadian province off the coast of Prince Edward Island where the contents of a small fortune are buried several hundred feet into the island, where no one has been able to retrieve the contents for 200 years. My friend told me today that the contents of the "money pit" contain the blood of Christ in the Grail that Joseph of Arimathea took with him after the burial of Christ. I think that the chalice was stolen by Greek pirates and then traded with the following:

Theodoric the Magnificent who traded with
Gregory of Toombs who traded with
St. Vincent of Turin who dealt a great blow to the head and left it to
Viscount the Barbarian who sold it to
Turaneous the Vicker who knew he had a good thing, but sold it to
Monsieur the Greater giving it directly to
Pope Pittious of Penult, and knowing that this was important to
Johannes Kepler traded with
Christobol Columbo who decided to detour his ship and stumble with
Brownbeard of the North Atlantic who kept the grail and secretly buried it in its present location. Of course he had lots of help from two professionally licensed civil engineers:

Mebob Givens and Horatio the Elder (whom incidently later began a sect called the Quakers)



Speaking of sects, there is always room for more. Sects split into sects leaving spaces for more sects to originate and germinate more sects. Sects subsist by this geometric progression. No...the term is a Series Expansion or the Taylor Series, no...Fourier Series. Fourier was a flake. It really takes a strange person to invent Periodic equations based on sines and cosines. I like sines more than cosines. Cosines are icky. They begin where others leave off.

Did you ever wonder why we need these mathematicians? Are they really important to human history? So they can count...big deal. I count all the time by using both my fingers and toes. It's no big deal. Sometimes I can even count nodules like my head, elbows and knees....let's see that's 25. And if you count knuckles and joints....well you might be able to count to really big numbers over 100.

Do you remember "knicky-knocky"? You know that stupid way of counting on your fingers quickly. It was real popular when I was in elementary school. Heck, I still count on my fingers today. It's fun and useful. You never forget how to count with fingers. What was with "knicky-knocky" anyway? Was that part of new math that I used to hear about when I was a kid? What is new math, as opposed to old math? When did math become new? 1950? 1960? 1970?
Why should anyone care. Cats can't count. They don't have fingers. They don't have toes.

Cats could not have invented calculus.
Cats could not have calculated precession.
Cats invented that calculus that builds up on your teeth.
Cats need to visit the local calciner.

Where is chupacabras when we need it? I'll ask my friend from Columbia if he's had one for a pet. He probably has. He's not afraid of anything, especially chupacabras. No, he is afraid of representative republics that have established meritocracy, but exude dialectical materialism. "arrepentido, el hombre, usted el hombre!"


signed, "the goober-slatch"

...just drinking southern tea, unleaded. (without cloves though)

Why do we use unleaded gasoline?
Remember the containers of lead that you could add to your tank?
Where did they go? Can you still buy them?
Isn't lead good for your engine? Doesn't it stop "pinging"? Isn't that the valves hitting the top of the header?
What happened to "gasahol". I liked that. Puttin' corn in your tank. It did Cargill proud or Dekalb...oh I don't remember, but it made one heck of a carton of popcorn.

Can you still get Jiffy Pop at the grocery store? It was fun to watch, but what a crazy concept (popcorn in tinfoil).



Lizard Man of Buncombe County (resemblence to Lizard Man of Lee County):




Chupacabras is going to get him...or maybe get some cat.

My friend was telling me today about chupacabras, a hideous beast that stalks people in central and south america. It kills animals like goats and pigs and drinks their blood. I like the term "goat sucker" instead, because it really shows the real fear that encounters that part of the world. Ooooh! Its a goat sucker, I'm terrified. It's amazing what cryptozoology has found. Like the coelacanth, the long forgotten ancestor of the grass bass and the limb bream. The scariest cryptozoological creature to have ever lived according to Wikipedia, is:

The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, or 'The Lizard Man Of Lee County', is a humanoid creature rumored to inhabit the swampy areas of Lee County, South Carolina. According to a young man said, "It was about 25 yards away and I saw red eyes glowing. I ran into the car and as I locked it, the thing grabbed the door handle. I could see him from the neck down – the three big fingers, long black nails and green rough skin. It was strong and angry. I looked in my mirror and saw a blur of green running. I could see his toes and then he jumped on the roof of my car. I thought I heard a grunt and then I could see his fingers through the front windshield, where they curled around on the roof. I sped up and swerved to shake the creature off."

Now that is really scary. Sounds like the county wino. I hope that creature doesn't leave Lee County, then they will have to rename him. That's too far away anyway...I hope.

There was a time in my childhood when I heard the lake whisperer. It called across the shores of lake that my family would visit each summer. It would call out my name over and over for hours. Sometimes I can't remember if it was real or just a dream. But it was something....calling me. Could of been chupacabras, the hideous goat sucker whisperer, or the lizard man of Lee county. Nah, that's impossible.

I wish that chupacabras would visit my backyard to eat my neighbors cats...and then move on to my front yard. Heck, the lizard man of scape ore swamp is welcome to stay in my basement as long as he keeps the toilet lid down. Maybe he'll stay and pay some rent too! Hey lizard man of Lee county, do you have an address?

My favorite cryptozoological creature is the "Mongolian Death Worm". Now I'm really terrified. Which is a snakelike creature reported to exist in the Gobi Desert. I like the sound of that, because that's a long way away. Wikipedia describes them this way:

"a fat, bright red worm, two to four feet long. The local name is allghoi (or orghoi) khorkhoi which means "blood filled intestine worm," because it is reported to look like the intestine of a cow. There are a number of extraordinary claims by Mongolian locals (such as the ability of the worm to spew forth a yellow poison that is lethal on contact, and its purported ability to kill at a distance)"

Now that's not scary, that's just gross. But the yellow poison is cool.

Did you ever wonder if these creatures were brought by the Tunguska event when Siberia was delivered a mighty wind in 1908?
That's okay...it probably only brought more space junk. Heck it probably just caused more swamp gas. :)

I caught a fish once that had algae growing out of one of its eye sockets. I think it was attacked by an underwater chupacabras. I threw it back. Tadpole jelly, now that's interesting. You know the clear goo with black dots. I remember seeing those in our small creek back home. Tadpole jelly...not much unlike muscadine jelly. My grandmother used to make that stuff, it was good. And fig preserves, they are the best.

Yeh....

What's the origin of the fig tree? Didn't Jesus like these? What was the parable of the fig tree? Didn't it wither and die?