VERY FRUSTRATING WORK WEEK: OVER

There's been a ton going on around here the last couple of weeks, and yet I do not post. Posts that I've written in my head only:

My Feet: The half-dollar-sized blisters that linger 3 weeks after the fact, but at least I can wear shoes now.

The Flood: 8 inches of rain (half our normal annual total) in 24 hours wreaks havoc on our city. As we watched the water steadily rise toward our backyard, we pondered the question, "Should we buy flood insurance?"

Free Concerts: Expect about what you paid for them.

Mystery Illness OR Why We're Currently Re-Caulking Our Shower: 4 times in 5 months Chris and I have had a fever hit us at the exact same time; chills at the same time followed by TOOOOO HOOOOOTTT at the same time. Doctor stumped. Yay for being medical mysteries.

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In other mysteries: The program I use to plot radar and lightning together onto the same grid suddenly decided the the 2008 radar data should be plotted 150 km due west of where it actually belongs. I've schmoozed some poor guy in Norman into going into work on the weekend to help me figure out what's going on. Poor guy.

On top of that ongoing mystery, my program crashed 5 times IN A ROW on me today. And I lost my favorite pen, even though I've been sitting in the same chair all day. Therefore, I am done for the week. Where's the nearest bar?

MOSAIC

Brad had his mosaic posted on his site, and I thought I would do one today because I don't feel like talking about IT.  

Photo credits:  

1. stephanie hart, 2. Sweet Corn, 3. Lutheran High North, 4. __IR_Cachoeira__, 5. ...se hace camino al andar, 6. homemade peppermint marshmallows in hot chocolate, 7. Evening in Haines, 8. Raspberry - Swirl Cheesecake, 9. Noah's Ark, 10. Watching the fireworks, 11. Montmartre, 12. Plan Your Escape

YAY, RAMBLING POST!

Here are some thoughts:

• I've discovered that Sarah Palin may be the only politician in the history of the world that shares the same views as me.  I'm not sure if I feel good or bad about this.  I tend to view all politicians as complete scumbags, but if one actually aligns this well with my political views, then I might have to reconsider that policy.  Bummer.

• The Lakeline family now has a set of drums in their basement.  This reminded me of how in grade school we had to take a test to see whether or not we should be in band.  My friend J and I both passed with flying colors and were encouraged to be in band.  Neither one of us was.  For my part, it was because the only instrument I wanted to learn was the drums, but in order to become a drummer, they first made you play the xylophone.  I did not want to play the xylophone.  The xylophone is the dorkiest instrument ever.

• Never call a girl a cow, even if you're just using the word in an expression.  Just don't do it.

• It's taken me a good month to get over being back in town after our trip.  I'm not sure that I'm completely over my funk, actually.  It's just getting a little better because we're making plans to leave town again.

• I'm too old for sleepovers.  There was one a few weekends ago, and I did not enjoy it.  In fact, I sent Chris a text message asking him to call and bail me out if I wasn't home in 2 hours.  I wasn't home in 2 hours.  Is it bad that I needed a bail out to get out of spending time with supposed friends?  It was really obvious that I had done it, so I feel a little guilty.  I just was not having fun.  It's been really hard for me to make new friends lately, and this puzzles me because it has never been so hard before.

• For the third time in the last couple of months, I could not find something I was looking for in the craft stores in town.  If I ask my mom to look in the stores around her back home, she can find what I need in an instant.  Yeah, we might have all of the same stores as everyone else in the country, but the stores are so small that they don't carry the same selection.  It's really freaking annoying.  

• Sometimes the only way I can put myself to sleep is by pretending that I live somewhere else and live a different life.  

• I'm starting a knitting/crocheting group at church.  I don't know what I'm doing.  I just want to not sit in the house every night.  Does anyone know of any good knitting/crocheting service projects?

• The hurricanes, they are insane.  Something I find interesting about hurricanes is that you never actually see a wind observation that is as strong as the wind that the National Hurricane Center (NHC) claims is the peak wind.  I don't believe that the sustained wind ever is actually that high.  I think that the extrapolation of flight-level winds to the ground is completely bogus.  I'll be interested to see what kind of data our hurricane hunting friends collected in Gustav because I do not think the winds were ever sustained over 100mph.  I know that they winds they recorded in Katrina were not as strong as the NHC claimed they were.  I'm not saying that these hurricanes aren't dangerous, I just think the wind speeds are being exaggerated.  Kind of funny to think that 100 years ago the federal government wasn't allowed to use the words "tornado" or "hurricane" in the weather forecasts because they thought it would cause too much panic, and now they have to scream and yell the words to get anyone to take any action at all.

• I have several friends that read this blog who are doing or have done hurricane research, but none of you know each other.  How can this be?