Tag Archives: weather

Aug 03

To infinity … and beyond!

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When I Facebooked that I was getting ready to watch “Toy Story 3” at our church’s family movie night (held each Wednesday in August), my sister-in-law in North Carolina responded that I should have a hankie handy. Well, I had a bandana, but I’d worn it as a sweatband on the walk from my apartment to church (more about that in a second) and it was so wet I had to rinse it out and it was draped over a chair on the opposite side of the fellowship hall when I needed it.

And, yes, I needed it. Call me an over-emotional sap, impugn my manhood if you like, but I needed it. The Pixar people have a grasp of storytelling that is almost unique in Hollywood. They know what a story is supposed to do, they care about their characters, and they write and rewrite until they get it right. I’ve heard that you have to have a thick skin to work there; it’s not mean-spirited, but their work process is brutally honest, and if your idea isn’t good enough it will be shot down.

Our annual “Movie and a Meal” event is fun, and it’s allowed me to see a lot of great family films that I didn’t see in the theater. I will, however, probably skip “It Takes Two” next week – I saw enough of Mary-Kate and Ashley back when one of my nieces was going through a Mary-Kate and Ashley phase.

The August 24 movie intrigues me – I’d never heard of it until this week. It’s a 1993 movie entitled “Rigoletto,” described on its Wikipedia page as having thematic elements similar to “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Man Without A Face,” and “Phantom of the Opera.” It’s not directly related to the Verdi opera by the same name (which would be a strange choice for family movie night).

Anyway, back to my walk. The first half of last week, I was recovering from a cold. The second half of last week, my brother and sister-in-law were in town, and between the two of those I didn’t make it to the rec center at all last week. I resolved to do better this week. I made it to the rec center on Monday, and today I thought it would be good exercise to walk to church for the movie – a good 25-30 minute walk each way. I left about 4:40.

It was good exercise, but man, was it hot. I and my bandana were sopping wet by the time I got to church. The walk back was still kind of warm, but not quite as miserable.

Feb 09

Snowfall

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About 5:10, when I left for church, it was not snowing.  By the time I got back out of my car, no more than five minutes later, it had just started. An hour later, when I emerged from church, it was coming down pretty well – which I tried to document, steadying my camera against a lamppost. But you can’t really see the snow falling.

From Drop Box

It’s now 6:40, and the snow seems to have either slowed down or stopped, at least for the moment. The Middle Tennessee radar makes it seem like this particular wave is on the way out; I don’t know if there’s more in the pipeline or not. If this is it, then we’ve dodged the bullet, with only a light dusting.

May 04

Come high water

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Each fall, our church has a “Galilean Service” at the Barton Springs picnic area at Normady Lake. The highlight of the festivities is a worship service ending with one of the youth, dressed as Jesus, coming ashore on a boat. But the past two years, the lake level has been so low — and thus the shoreline so far away from the picnic shelter — that they’ve had to rework the skit slightly.

Well, here is a photo of the Barton Springs picnic area uploaded to the T-G web site today by reader Lynn Roebuck:


Barton Springs May 2nd 2009

No telling what the water level will be like by fall.

Apr 25

The calves of spring

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Writer and “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” panelist Tom Bodett had this to say today at his Twitter account:

80+ degrees today. Wearing shorts for first time this year. Stay clear. I can hardly stand to look at these legs myself.

I am, it goes without saying, quite a bit farther south than Mr. Bodett in Vermont, but this was also the first day I’ve been out and about in shorts. I walked to work and back today — something I often do on Saturdays — and, since the newspaper offices aren’t open to the public that day, we’re not subject to the normal dress code. It’s a gloriously warm day (85 — as warm as the tropical climate of Vermont) but also quite breezy. It’s a 20-25 minute walk each way from here to the newspaper, and quite a nice day for it.

No one, apparently, was close enough to be traumatized by the sight of my winter legs.

Oct 17

Dream job

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When I was in Costa Rica this past summer, I had access to cable TV for pretty much the whole trip — it was almost surreal to be watching Letterman during a mission trip.

The CBS feed that is on the cable systems in Costa Rica is sort of strange, however. It’s a CBS affiliate in Pennsylvania, except that part of the local newscasts have been replaced with a Caribbean weathercast. The weatherman is named Joey Stevens. He gives the weather for a dizzying number of different Caribbean islands, some of which I’d never even heard of. He was sort of silly in that expected weatherman way — I believe he had a rubber parrot on his shoulder most of the time. But he seemed to have friends on many of the islands, and would give shout-outs to various bars, restaurants or friends on many of them during the course of his weathercast.

I don’t know what made me think of him tonight, but I’ve decided that Official Weatherman of the Caribbean is my new dream job.

May 26

Precipitation

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Now that my work schedule is returning to sort-of normal, I want to get back into the exercise routine that I have all-but abandoned the past couple of months. I decided to go for a walk this afternoon. Normally, I might have waited until later in the afternoon — it was sunny and hot when I left the apartment — but the weather showed some nasty storms headed this way, and since I didn’t know how long the rain would last I wanted to beat it.

My walking route takes me right past the American Legion. There’s a decommissioned piece of artillery out front, and I had taken my camera with me, thinking that I might get a picture of the cannon with the flag flying behind it and post it here as a Memorial Day tribute. But the flag at the American Legion had come unattached at the bottom corner and was flopping unattractively by its top corner only. Not much of a photo there.

At about 2/3 of the way through the walk, which lasted no more than a half hour, the clouds started to roll in and I heard thunder. But I made it home just in time — I felt the first drop of rain on my face right as I stepped up onto the porch in front of my apartment. A minute after I had come inside, it was pouring.

Mar 18

A harbinger

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Here in Tennessee, there are some nice days even in the dead of winter.

Days.

For me, the sign that spring is here is when it starts being pleasant and comfortable even after the sun goes down. I had to go back and forth to the laundry room tonight, and it was just beautiful outside, even in the dark.