June 11, 2008
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Meteor-illogical event
It's been truly crazy weather of late. Tornados in the flatlands of middle America. Snow in the Rockies. Floods in the upper Midwest. Yesterday I jogged in the stifling heat--over 95 degrees. It's been at least 10 degrees higher than the seasonal average since Friday. But at least the heat isn't destructive, and as a SoCal boy, the heat is something I can deal with. I have learned to deal with the humidity as well, thanks to living in Japan for a number of years.
So yesterday, as I jog through a local park near our home in northern Virginia, I passed a "public house" there. No, it's not a beer joint, but a county-owned facility that residents can rent for events such as weddings. It is also the local precinct polling location. And yesterday, Virginia held its primary for congressional seats.
The seat up for grabs is Virginia's US House of Representatives, 11th District. It is the seat that Tom Davis (R) holds. Yes, the honorable Tom Davis whose office helped us with M's permanent residency. As I believe most of you know, I am no dyed-in-the-wool liberal, but I tend to lean a little left of center politically. Still, Tom Davis did me right and I would have voted for him, if he was running for re-election. But he is not.
Anyway, as I was running/walking by the public house, I noticed the sign "vote here". I had forgotten it was election day. So after I returned home, I showered, did a bit of work and then set out to vote around 6 PM. There was virtually no one there, so fulfilling my civic duty was pretty painless. I then headed for a local watering hole called Famous Dave's on Chain Bridge Road. It has pretty good ribs but that's not why I went. I needed to whet my whistle after four consecutive days of running outside at least one hour each day.
There, I saw the regulars--Matt, the bartender, Gary and his girlfriend Debbie, and a few others. After my third beer, we begin to hear thunder. Oh crap, another summer thunderstorm. These are fairly common, actually, but can scare the shit out of me. We debated about which is the scariest natural phenomenon. I insist its thunder, because even though it's random, you can't escape it if it has your name on it. The others blanch when I tell them that an earthquake is no big a deal--I've been through many, including the Sylmar quake of 1971 and the big one in San Francisco in 1989. I'd rather be in the middle of an earthqhake than be struck by lightening. Then suddenly someone said, Tornado.
"What?" we all looked out the window. "There's no tornado," we laughed. But we did see hail falling from the sky and getting larger right before our eyes.
"Doesn't it hail when a tornado appears?" someone nervously suggested.
".........."
Well, it hailed for about fifteen minutes, getting as large as small walnuts at one point. But it ultimately subsided with no sign of a tornado. Whew...
This weather is crazy. I mean, 95-plus degrees in the afternoon and hail in the early evening? How illogical is that? Is this a by product of global warming? The thought of a dented up car crossed my mind, but when I checked it out later, there didn't seem to be any damage. Fortunately, the thunderstorm was just another freaky summer storm in a summer of unfortunately freaky weather everywhere else.
Comments (8)
Butterfly effect? Chaos theory?
I loved it when they explained it on a Foxtrot comic I read: "You can wiggle your tongue and it might cause a flash flood."
I've been blessed to not have been in any natural disasters other than an earthquake that was nothing but a light tremor. California is home to seismic activity, unfortunately, so it's something I have to deal with when I head back there. Goodbye Georgia humidity and temperate climate.
Missing that Cayman sunshine.
ryc: yes, yes they are. that's why my post is like the blind leading the blind hahahah!
Thanks! (I'd leave a longer comment but I just got home from work. I'll read and comment later
)
DOC is short for Dimensions of Culture, and it's the writing program here at Thurgood Marshall College, which also happens to be a part of UCSD. Ahah, UCSD has this "mini-college" system where they have six colleges that make up "one great university". (I'm copying their motto word for word here.) Basically it's like an English class, but this particular one has a social-science zing to it. In three quarters, we've analyzed identity and it's social construct, the Supreme Court cases and how it deals with social problems in the US, and then "imagination", in which we analyze social issues through the use of literature, art, and movies.
But that's just for my particular college. You have Eleanor Roosevelt College whose writing program has more of a international/historical feel to it, and then Revelle College does something analyzing the Bible (not too sure on that), and ... I'm not too sure about the other three.
I'm just glad to be done with that final. Hand-writing everything three hours straight is not exactly my idea of fun...
What were the writing programs at UCLA like? I have a friend heading there this fall, actually...
Weird, I thought Cali was supposed to have good weather all the time. I guess one thing Japan deserves some credit for is its relatively predictable weather. You do get your fair share of "should I bring my umbrella or not?" days, but the weather generally fits the season here.
the weather is very very freaky lately- which scares me worst than any specific kind of weather.
I'm from the Midwest so I'm used to tornadoes. You should really worry when the sky turns green.
Seeing how you hail from SoCal, does the weather have a tendency to be bright and hot one day, then freezing cold the next? Or does that only happen when you live near the ocean?
What an outrageous weather pattern you have going on there! So far in San Diego, things have been pretty calm--almost predictable, actually. It's hard to imagine that in other parts of the country, the weather is going as wacky as you described.
By the way, I accidentally told a lie. : It was three essays in three hours.... ahaha, either way, I barely finished. I kept your essay tips in mind, but by the time I got to the third essay, I was so burnt out and with only 30 minutes to go, I just wrote down as much as I could without bothering to make it coherent.
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