Posts Tagged ‘weather’

The Endurance


04 Mar

The incredible story of the Endurance trapped in an Antartic ice pack in 1915.

As if the ship and its crew had not been plagued by enough of it already, heavy pack ice was again sighted, and hours later a blowing gale reared its ugly head. For two days, the Endurance took shelter under an unlikely aegis – dodging to and fro under the lee of a stranded iceberg. As the gale eased, the ship made crawling headway towards her Antarctic destination, now just one day’s sail distant. On encountering the ice pack once more, Shackleton opted to work through it, but with temperatures plummeting, there would be no escape from its icy squeeze.

Photos are by one of the crewmen, Frank Hurley.

First Rain of Autumn


14 Oct

Claudius - no red-eyeIt’s raining today. Although it’s been feeling like we completely missed Fall and dropped right into Winter, this rain is an autumn rain. It’s chilly outside, but the house is nice and warm. As soon as I left my bed, Claudius shot like a dart to the warm spot and snuggled himself down for the day. Unless something interesting happens in the kitchen.

Panda and Marcus have just finished their breakfast and both are fast asleep; one of the dog bed, one on the couch.

MarcusMarcus, our eldest dog, is really showing his age these last few months. It’s mostly his back legs. They get stiff and it’s harder for him to get up as smoothly as he used to. He’s more wary about the steps in the house, and the staircase down to the backyard. Of course, if there are evil birds invading our yard, all bets are off and he’s screaming down those stairs like a youngster.

One of Marcus’ favorite spots to sleep is our leather couch. He does pretty well in the morning in getting himself up there, but in the evening he can only get his front end up. If no one sees him, he squeak/whistles (an ear piercing, very soft sound) until either Richard or I gather up the back end (of course, the heaviest part!) and lift him. He’s thankful, though, and always licks the hand, or the face if its too close!

On another topic, I am beginning to awaken from my summer hibernation. No matter that the cold weather is coming early, mentally I’m stretching and cannot wait until the first snow comes down.

What I do find interesting is that all this socialising I’ve been doing (Facebook, Twitter, now LiveJournal) was begun several weeks ago. It just means my meds are doing the job. Without meds, I wouldn’t have my first bout of cold induced euphoria until the temperature really dropped.

Tis good, and so far today I actually feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Themes! Themes! Themes!


25 Aug

Say that rapidly a few times and it sounds like you have a demented lithp (lisp).

Yes, I’ve been goofing off with new WordPress Themes, lately. I’ve found some really lovely ones that I’m tweaking here and there. I did find many more than I kept, though. It’s unfortunate that there were so many wonderful theme designs, but the creator of the theme wasn’t as thorough as they should have been. I even found one theme that was all tables and HTML!!

So last couple of years, man.

Other than that, the weather has been decent. Once it dipped below the 90s, it was somewhat tolerable to me. The nights are still rather cool… drifting around the 50s and 60s. It’s quite nice in the evening.

My ER adventures are now culminating in statements, reports, and bills. My first visit to the ER included two MRIs. $3,500 for one, and $1,900 for the other. If I had absolutely NO insurance, that would have put a very serious dent in our savings. It’s frightening. We have no debt. We own our house (no mortgage). We have great credit. We have a bank account that makes us feel, not rich, but comfortably well off. When you see that a bill like the MRIs can so easily threaten what you’ve spent years building up… freakin’ scary.

That scare has had the unfortunate effect of making me think twice about going to the ER again. Not smart, I know, but that’s just the way it is.

Here’s a belated ‘hats off’ to the 40th Anniversary of the NASA moon landing. I thank my dad for always making sure we were aware of the history in the making going on around us. I was just a toddler back when the astronauts were jumping about in the low gravity of the moon. I still remember when I saw Armstrong touch the surface of the moon that it was a full moon night that evening. I went out with mom and dad to look at the moon above us and I felt infinitely closer to the grey rock.

I Have Been Here Before

I am seeking a question.