Visual representation of complex ideas – Page 7

Sandy P sez

That thunderstorm went a long way…. she drove home through it coming back from Pullman.

Here is her awesome pic of wheat in Eastern Washington.

The official story vs what I saw

From my perspective, it looked a little different. It lasted three hours; at its height, lightning strikes were happening 4 – 6 times a minute; I had an unimpeded view of all the clouds across a 180 degree arc; the closest to where I was standing on Mike’s 14th floor balcony was a thousand meters, possibly less (an air strike and that was the point I squeaked the Lord’s name in vain and booked it back into the living room); Mike recorded the second hour or so before his camera battery packed it in.

I grew up in Ontario so I am pretty blasÃ© about thunderstorms. This one was completely different, spectactularly beautiful – like, MYTHIC – and very very quiet. There were only two or three loud cracks. Often times spectacular strikes, less than a couple of miles away, would be accompanied by no sound.

We saw a lightning strike hit the cement plant. There were a number of ground strikes in Surrey, and the lightning strikes over downtown were pretty much continuous around 10 pm – right when the fireworks were supposed to start.

As Mike remarked, who needs the fireworks downtown when we can drink beer on the balcony and avoid the rush? And happy birthday to you, Mike, and a spectacular start to your new year!

Anyway I’m sitting on my own back deck right now in the beautiful fresh breeze and having coffee and full fat yogurt with Tom’s delish blackberry jelly mixed in for breakfast. The cats seem to have withstood being alone for the worst of it with no probs.

video and audio

I found a tape of me and John singing, at a coffeehouse or something. Don’t know how old it is. He starts off singing Demon Java. Jeff is going to transfer it into more easy media for me.

The house is a LOT more secure (good luck trying to kick the doors in) now that the locksmith has done his thing.

I forgot to mention that one of the really amazing things about the Cavalcade of Cheese on Tuesday was the soundtrack. Patricia’s friends make AMAZING mix tapes. I’m so old I still call them mix tapes.

Butter chicken, height-of-summer salad and rice pudding with strawberries and nectarines last night. It was a darned good meal if I do say so. Height-of-summer salad is purple onion, peppers of various colours, mango, and tomato, all chopped into even(ish) pieces in a raspberry dressing. For the rice pudding, I cut up the fruit and briefly soaked it in rum, allspice and sugar, then turned it into the pudding and cooked it. Jeff om-nom-nommed like a good thing.

Jeff predicted (but I note in my blog of April 29th that I don’t mention it was his idea) that NCIS LA would come to pass, and so it has. The new series debuts 22 September.

Here’s video of the Wednesday night fireworks.

Wot, no pictures?

Robof9 learns to unicycle. Juggling and unicycling comes next.

Anybody remember the transgenic dogs from Stand On Zanzibar?

The problem with writing science fiction is that you end up writing what will happen.

Pic is of a transgenic puppy who glows in the dark.

Canucks win 3 zip over St Louis. Many horns honk.

I am quite sure all the bars in town breathed a sigh of relief.

Click here for an amazing assortment of zoo pictures from around the world.

Paul stopped by on his way back into town. His sis and bro-in-law are doing famously – she is starting to do doula work in rural Alberta, which is exciting. Lois always was one of my fave people. Their mom Phyllis is also, apparently, well, and my hat’s off to her given what a challenge it is to fly solo when you’re up in your eighties and not so mobile as you once were.

Miss Margot just gave me a demonstration of what Jeff has had to put up with these last few weeks, by climbing up my bare leg with her claws. I am so proud of myself for not screaming.

Keith is coming over today, and then later we’ll be off to Lexi, Darwin and Rob’s for dinner. Katie has been contacted and advises she is coming too.

There is a housefilk today (I got the dates wrong) AND a party at Mike’s tonight. Why does all the fun have to pile up in one day? I wish I could bilocate. Or trilocate.

CSI has either jumped the shark or is warming it up backstage. They did a Star Trek knockoff episode, although having Grace Park in the audience was a nice touch. We’ll see if they’re back on the game next week.

ScaryClown liked my word crapstack (which I introduced on this blog a mite ago) and has made it more official sounding by putting ‘metric’ in the front. Doesn’t a ‘metric crapstack of work’ sound official? I quite like it.