Snowstorm Nika

I'm still not sure how I feel about naming winter storms.  It irritates the piss out the NWS, which is amusing, but some of these names are just goofy.  But, it was entertaining to watch The Weather Channel people all say the name differently, you woulda thought that they might have had a pre-game meeting on that, hmmmm?

I think we brought this on ourselves.  Because I distinctly remember having the conversation with different people...didn't it seemed like it snowed more when we were kids?

(Then I thought, wait, when I was a kid I lived in places like Hawaii/Seattle/Okinawa.  We were stationed at Great Lakes, but you EXPECT snow up there. )

I digress...the conversations were made.  And I think Mother Nature overheard.

And she said: Oh really?  Well, let's bring it the f*** on!

So, while I watched Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel merrily hanging out at the KC Country Club Plaza saying how this area NEVER gets this much snow...

We did.  To be followed by temperatures in the single to minus digits.

That would be a little over 12 inches, thank you very much.
Not including the 1/2 inch of ice underneath.

But, since we are a bit smarter than those folks down in Atlanta, Northeast Kansas/KC Metro area pretty much shut down for two days.  Smart move, roads got cleared a lot faster, less people to rescue.

The spouse treated the folks that showed up at work well for those two days.  He's a good boss that way.

I got to work on cleaning our Matterhorn of a driveway.  But, first, I needed to gear up.  That consisted of Tim's old ski pants, my waterproof hiking boots, scarf up to my eyeballs, hat, and my big ass parka which later I decided looked like what Broadway Joe Namath wore for the coin toss at the Super Bowl.  But it's warm.  Finally, I put on Tim's NASA grade ski gloves and I was ready.  If I could figure out how to move with all of this on.

This is NOT my style.  I'm more of a shorts and swimsuit gal.

However, there was at least one carbon-based member of our household that was overjoyed with all of this nonsense.  And it's hard not to smile when you see a malamute in action in her element.

I love when my humans hide my toys in the snow for me to dig up.

Stop whining, it's great out!

Normally, there's a pool around here somewheres. 
Those are our lounge chairs.

This last bit is just for humor.  As I was TRYING to get a picture of both dogs romping in the snow, the crazy black dog decides to maul me.  Phone goes flying, I had to call it from the house phone to find it.  Found it, it works, but it wasn't until later I realized it took a picture while is was in midair.
Okay, I have cabin fever, it was funny to me.

 

One week until we fly to Miami and then down to the Keys.  Not that I'm counting.....

Sorry, folks, park's closed!

We were in Annapolis this past weekend.  Busy weekend for us since we were doing lots of research and had friends from KC to hang out with.

S/V Veranda did a good job of summing up the weekend. Rain, rain, and more rain and an interesting high high tide which made for some good puddle jumping since it was coming up through some of the drains.

From what I could see, I would invest in Helly Hansen stock.

Umbrellas are now added to the list I started awhile back here.  What most pissed me off about that was the people using umbrellas were also in FULL foulie gear including the pants and boots. WTF?  At that point people, an umbrella is like wearing a belt with suspenders, just a tad bit overkill.

Oh wait, you didn't want to mess up your hairdo. Okay, I get it.  No, not really.  So says the chick who looked like a drowned collie in foul weather gear.

I amused myself to say, hey, I need to find my husband, he's wearing grey foulie jacket with a bright yellow hood.  Any of those around here? (Except his said America's Cup, boo-ya!)

Our last day, we decided to go over to USNA to walk about.  We saw people there, so we knew we could get in the front door so to speak.  They were advertising an exhibit about the 1812 War.  Tim was stoked. He's a bit of a Naval Military History fanatic.

I warned him.  I really, really did.

We saw this:

Which almost resulted in this:

The first Vacation movie. My hubby's all time favorite.

We were able to find the one hall that had part of the exhibit and was still open.  However, walking into Mahan Hall's GIANT doors when the place was practically deserted...

CREEEEEAAAAAAK! (echo echo echo echo)

My spouse:  Well, that wasn't creepy at all, was it?

No, I didn't take pictures.  Should have.

We did meet a family from Germany that I felt really sorry for. Vacation specifically to see boat show and Washington DC.  Whoops!

As she said--we got to take pictures of the monuments from really far away.  And they laughed.  And they were COOL.

I think they should get a refund.....

And this weather phenomenon is called.....

......bullshit.

It's hard to tell, but it's raining and snowing and ice pellets all together.  Today is April 23.

I'm done with, oh, but we need the moisture.  To hell with that....

Sn-rain?  Rai-now? I say it's crap.

 

Lift--Sailboats have it, power boats really shouldn't

People might not be happy with this post.  But two people lost their lives and I need to address something.

First, thanks to my aeronautical engineer friends/clients I give you this graphic:

For sailboaters, we learn the basic concepts of this pretty quickly, after all, a plane wing is nothing but a sail set horizontally.  One of my instructors has told me that's why airplanes have the same navigational light configuration as a boat, but I haven't got that confirmed.

So, here's some basics from the above equation.  Density. Velocity (squared!!) Area.

Okay, why am I on this tangent and what does it have to with power boaters? This week is the Key West Powerboat  Races two guys from Missouri died. Normally, down there,  winds would have more of an easterly prevalence to them.  If (sailors) are lucky some southerly to that.  It's been like that for a couple weeks now and couple weeks ago, the 'natives' kept saying it was cold because of the north winds.

The course for the powerboat race is in the harbor right in front of Mallory Square and the cruise ship dock.  Thus, power boats speeding along and extremely high rates of speed will have their noses directly into the wind.


Here's your homework assignment: Next time you are on a plane, see which way they point the plane.
Answer: Into the wind.

Why?  It helps with rotation to get lift and become .... AIRBORNE.

So, I am not a powerboat racer, not really interested in going high speeds over water and getting the crap knocked outta me.  However, I do appreciate those who are into the sport.  And I also, I am not the organizer, but here's my bitch:  Why have the races in these conditions?

You have a boat that can got the speeds of a 737 at take off and nose into the wind at plane (rotation for you aerospace folks).  Yes, the boat is going to launch. In which gravity is going to have its say.

So two people died this week, and there was another crash today.

So I ask you folks that organize this race:  Are you being responsible?  I say no.

The footage for the crash is on YouTube, and it's shot from Mallory Square.  There are children and onlookers about, what if the boat crashed on them?  Huh?  There is also a mooring field (I don't think the course went close enough to it) but what if they landing on some cruisers?

And if you want a lesson in lift vs. gravity, it's very educational.

So, I put forth my OpEd to say, I am very disappointed that it hasn't been suspended. I'm sure this has been done in these conditions before, but I say it's totally irresponsible.

Comments are welcome.  However, respect the deceased, I do not what to have them disgraced.

My name is Kim, and I'm a Mac

Okay, I was a PC for a long time. After all, them freaking Macs are expensive.

However, after I got continually pissed off by Uncle Bill and Company for the millionth time, I bit the bullet and bought a Mac.

And the angels starting singing.

Now, this is not a promotion for a Mac, just my personal experience.

I won't go into the entire, now I have a Mac I can get my iPod and iPhone synced to the mothership in no time flat while my PC husband is ready to shoot out the lights.

I won't go into that.

I won't go into how my printer never worked well, until I got a Mac. And now the new(er) printer not only works wonderfully, I can print from my iPhone to it. Oh. Hell. Yes.

I won't go into that.

Here's the true selling point for Mac.  The more inebriated you get, the easier shit seems to work for you, I swear it's idiot/drunk proof.  Honestly. I have music playing form every computer in the house through our stereo using Airport Express and I didn't drop an F bomb once.

And I can upload pics and crap to this blog. How cool is that?

I would credit this to the proper person, but I don't know who did it.

..and a message for airport TSA

Ummmmm, what are you thinking deciding to do a random explosives test on people's hands......

......THE DAY AFTER JULY 4th.

WTFWTFWTF?

Hello!  4th of July, when we 'Mericans celebrate our independence by eating too much, drinking too much and blowing the stuffing out of everything.

At least 60% of the population (100% age 20 or younger) will be having some sort of explosive residue on them!

BTW--do not question the lovely TSA agents about explosives, or mention that it's post firecracker holiday or ask how can they tell the difference between regular old Black Cat residue versus underwear bomber grade residue.

I wasn't trying to start any shit with the TSA boy, I was genuinely curious.

They don't like inquisitiveness in the traveller.  Just get yer hands swabbed, grab your crap and go.

Cloudless Day

And I'm not talking about the weather.

Last day and I planned to upload the pictures I took so that I could put together a gallery.  Evidently...not so much.

So the beloved cloud that I always use to get pictures uploaded decided that it wasn't going to play nice because goshdarnit, Sprint 3G was just not fast enough for it.

So 5 am in the morning, I'm desperately trying to upload pictures one at a time.

Finally gave up.

Lesson to self--always have the thumb drive with you.  The computer and the old camera stay on the boat so I wasn't going to lug them back and forth.

Oh well, picture gallery will be forthcoming around December 25th.  I was able to get a few uploaded.

Very few.