Friday, June 19, 2009

I was thinking . . .

Just about the time that I realized that maybe my father was right I had my daughter Sarah who thought that I was wrong. I think she realized that I might be right about at least a few things somewhere around the time that she had her son Bradley, who undoubtably thinks that she is wrong. Now Bradley is 16, has a girlfriend and it occurs to me that sometime in the next 5 or 10 years he will have a son/daughter who will think that he is wrong - right about the time that he realizes that his mother was right after all. Twenty years after that . . . . .

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Water, water everywhere.

While our friends in San Antonio, Texas are suffering from the heat and a drought, we in Central Maryland are under a flood warning. Our esteemed weather forecasters called for a 1/4 inch of rain today. However, I have been up since 5.00 am watching The Lake level rise and can assure them that they are wrong, wrong, wrong, as of now we have had almost 2 inches of rain this morning and it is still raining like crazy. The weather channel is frantically issuing flood warnings for our area every five minutes and The Lake level is about a foot higher than it was when I got up this morning. (The water level in The Lake is of course not just dependant on the rainfall, the runoff accounts for more of a rise than just the 2 inches of rain on it's own.) I just called one of my neighbors to warn him that the boat and chairs on his pier are about to become floating boats and chairs. I watched from the comfort of my easy chair as he came out with his umbrella to rescue his nice white Adirondack chairs. So far he has left the boat. Maybe it is tied to the pier or maybe the lightening is too scary for him! I don't blame him. Our "boat" - an 8 foot long aluminum jonboat is safely on land. Unfortunately I did not turn it over, so it is probably half full of water. I use the term 'land' loosely as it is getting harder to separate our lawn from the water of The Lake, they look just about equally wet.
I'm sure that our friends Tom & Martha in Texas would be happy to observe what I am looking at now! But it is not to be Tom, sorry, you are going to have to put up with 100 degrees plus temperatures and a dry as dust lawn. In this modern day and age I think we should be able to do some swapping between States - rainfall for sunshine etc. But as wonderful as our technology is in some areas, Wii, cell phones that blow up your tires, barbecue your hamburgers, cut your hair and mow your lawn, not to forget Sexting and even making phone calls, we still can't do a simple thing like moving rain and heat around. Lets get on that as soon as we fix the economy, health care, put a solar car in every garage, and a robot in every home.
Back to the present, it is still raining. Gotta go and get more coffee.
David.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Being wrong, and right.

I f you don't say anything and don't do anything you can never be wrong and you can never look stupid. But on the other hand you can never be right either!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Bang, bang, bang

We went to bed quite early last night, at about 10.30, as I have a busy day today. At about 10.45 we heard some strange sounds like loud pops and bangs. Gunshots? Fireworks? At 1/4 to 11.00? A few minutes later it happened again, minutes later, again. I got up and went outside, nothing, came back inside and it happened again. I went out and waited, after five minutes there was still nothing, but as soon as I came back in it happened again, I went out again and this time waited 10 minutes. Again nothing, until just after I came back in. I never did see any fireworks and never determined what it all was. Back to bed and sleep.
At a quarter to 12.00 I was a woken by an awful, loud wailing sound. Our smoke detectors, we have 5 of them in the house, were all going off together and the sound was deafening. I got up again and toured the house, no sign of any fire or smoke but the detectors continued to wail. I waved a tray under them all, no good, they continued. I had no idea what to do, I was reluctant to take the batteries out of 5 smoke detectors, especially as there could be a fire somewhere and in any case I think that they are on the regular electric too. I had no idea how to turn them off. After about 20 minutes they stopped, although one or two went off on their own for a few seconds. Then they all stopped. Again no idea what set them off. Back to bed and sleep.
At 2.30 we were woken by a tremendous flash of light and an almost simultaneous explosion. Thunder and lightening. The storm continued unabated for . . . about 5 minutes! That was it, about a half dozen flashes and bangs and it was over. Back to sleep.
Now it is time to get up and go to work.