I was just advised of the most awesome base jumping/wingsuit video I've ever had the gut wrenching pleasure of watching. Thanks, good buddy JB in Roseburg!
Important note: always wear the proper PPE for all your outdoor activities.
Click here for a bigger screen version. Do it.
wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.
Not a whole lot happening on the HR weather scene lately. High pressure has been diverting storms north and south for the most part, and that will continue for the next week.
We did receive a little more rain (0.18") than expected from today's weak front. Another shot of precipitation might roll in on Thanksgiving, but after that... dry...
I've lived in Hood River 32 years now. For the earlier part of that time, it seemed like it would very often snow here on Thanksgiving. Not so much anymore. But I'm hoping that my saying this will shift the odds towards snow.
And from the "wow, I sure wish I'd seen that" category: Five days ago over Alberta, Canada, a desk-sized meteor plunged into Earth's atmosphere, captured on a police car dash cam:
Maybe this, or something similar, has happened to you. You check your email. There's a link in one that looks interesting, so you click it.
Hours later, you find yourself at a web site far far away from where you started.
So yesterday, I glanced at the email that I get monthly from Atom.com: "New Featured Videos". Here's one: "Impersonator does George Bush Exit Interviews". What the heck. It might be funny. I need a laugh, and lame duck presidents are cool, in their own way. Click.
It's an entertaining impersonation of President Bush. But what really caught my eye (and ears) was the short Yahoo ad that proceeded the videos. People in an elevator. One starts singing a very catchy tune. Others join in, fun is had by all, and the commercial ends.
It was a very catchy tune. So I did a Google search on the song, which was "Start Wearing Purple". Click.
Hours later, after much web research and much clicking, I now know more about the Eastern European/New York musical genre called gypsy punk than I ever imagined possible. That certainly wasn't in my plans for the evening, but that's the thing about plans.
The purple part of the song title is up for grabs: is it the color favored by gypsies? Royalty? Gays? Conservatives? Liberals? It's a mystery, along with why Yahoo chose the tune for an ad (except that it's so darn catchy).
I've embedded the video of the song below. It's by the performance group Gogol Bordello. The catchy tune part starts at 30 seconds or so. Please note that there is actually very little wearing of purple. Or anything else, for that matter. Apparently, gypsies have a lot of fun.
And, accordions are involved.
November 1, and the rains have returned. October started off wet, but ended up drier than average. Can't complain, cause we've had some great Fall colors, warm sunny days, and some really cool pastel sunrises.
Bring on the rain. We need it. The next 4 months are critical for returning moisture to the soil and adequate snowpack to the mountains.
Every now and again, when it's gray, rainy, and a tad bit melancholy out, I get the song "Rhythm of the Rain" stuck in my head. It's usually the version by the late great Dan Fogelberg, which I can't embed due to copyright, but here's the link.
Looking around YouTube for the video, I was reminded that the song was originally written and performed by the 60's pop group "The Cascades", who are still kicking around in concert and sounding better than ever:
Why they have aged so much while I remain practically untouched by the passing of time is a mystery.
P.S. Good luck getting the song out of your head...
Ahh, Autumn. The autumnal equinox, equal days and nights. The start of Fall here, the start of Spring down under. The sun moves directly over the equator at noon today on its annual path through the seasons from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere.
Of course, it's not the sun doing the actual moving through the seasons; it's Earth sailing smoothly along its elliptical orbit around the sun, tilted just enough to present different hemispheres to the sun at different times of the year.
Speaking of things that are not sailing smoothly along, I am so relieved that the federal government has stepped in to save the faltering world economy with untold trillions of dollars that we don't really have and never will. I was very concerned that Wall Street brokerages, SEC regulators, banks, mortgage companies, and mortgage holders might actually be held responsible for mistakes made. Whew. That was close. Saved by the printing press.
For now. In the long run (maybe not so long of a run), by bankrupting our country, we can kiss our currency goodbye. Thought you had enough money set aside for a secure retirement? Think again. And, if you can, keep working.
Now that I've set a dismal tone for the beginning of Fall, here's an old Edgar Winter song that, although beautifully written and sung, never fails to put me in a vaguely depressed and melancholy state of mind:
Actually, I do love the autumn months. It's a visually stunning time of the year, and the weather is varied and interesting.
And I'm not really depressed. I'm just a little pissed off at the amount of irresponsibility and incompetence that has created this financial mess. And the laissez-faire "everything goes if it benefits businesses" approach of the government didn't help things.
I'll get over it. This too shall pass...
I've held off on posting about how great the weather is lately, since more often than not, whenever I mention how great the weather is lately, it takes a sudden turn for the worse. It's a knack of mine.
But I can't stand it anymore. The weather the past 2 weeks has been absolutely incredibly great. There, I've said it. Let the weather chips fall where they will.
September has always been my favorite weather month in Hood River (closely followed by the other 11 months). Typically warm days, cool nights, and the wind tends to die down in the transition from summer to fall.
Tomorrow marks the full Harvest Moon. Get out there and harvest, or at least celebrate the bounty from those that do plant and harvest. One excellent way to do that is to support locally grown food.
At the request of numerous Columbia River water sports folks and the Columbia Riverkeeper group, the EPA is currently studying the mysterious (and rather freakishly named) set of ailments called "river nose". Some of the symptoms reported over the years include runny nose, sore throats, diarrhea, and cuts/scrapes that take longer than normal to heal.
So, for this week's Hood River Weather site poll, I'm asking what you think might be the primary cause. I'm thinking that it's probably multiple causes, but since my polling software doesn't allow multiple choices yet, just pick the cause you think is primary.
I am assuming that no other windsurfing area of the world reports these particular sets of symptoms, so I have left out my somewhat cynical theory of "just being out in the extreme wind and cold water and being smashed against waves and equipment and having water pushed forcibly into facial orifices and open cuts and scrapes". So my second theory is "pollen or algae", and I am leaning towards the algae.
We can only hope that the EPA studies help resolve the cause and can come up with a less visually disturbing name than "river nose".
Check out the full moon rising the next couple of evenings at sunset (around 9 pm). Due to seasonal alignments, the "solstice moon" is one of the more spectacular moonrises of the year. Local forecasts are for clear skies around sunset, so we might luck out on this one...
Wednesday evening, we Earthlings will have a ringside seat to a total lunar eclipse. This will be the 3rd lunar eclipse within a year, but will be much easier to stay up for, as it starts here locally at moonrise (around 6 pm) and ends 3 hours later. The maximum redness of the Earth's shadow on the moon will be between 7 and 8 pm Pacific time. Check it out. Lunar eclipses are one of those "perspective-altering" events that can give us a glimpse of the Much Bigger Picture of which we're all a tiny little part. This is the last lunar eclipse for almost 3 years.
Hopefully the sky will be clear. If not, here's a 1 minute time lapse video of the Aug 2007 lunar eclipse. Note: lunar eclipses are usually not accompanied by such stirring music, unless you provide your own:
Tuesday marks the first day of the New Year in the Gregorian calendar system, established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It defined the yearly orbit of the Earth around the Sun as 365 days (366 days every 4th year, more or less), divided between 12 months. And it keeps consistent calendar time pretty darn well, with an occasional few seconds added or subtracted here and there to keep pace with the reality of changing orbital mechanics.
But it's not the only "New Years Day"'; there are a couple of dozen other days scattered around the year on which other cultures and calendars mark the start of yet another cycle of our planet around our star.
Regardless of how we humans mark the passage of time, the Earth quietly continues its majestic elliptical orbit around the Sun's mass, following the curve of gravity's warping of the fabric of space itself.
And to top it all off, we have the incredibly awesome privilege of being conscious beings, able to gaze out into this universe, and celebrate the wonder of it all.
Have a wonder-full New Year!
P.S. The following video is a time lapse movie of Earth from NASA's Messenger spacecraft (launched Aug 2004). The stunning hi-res video was recorded in Aug 2005, a year later, as the spacecraft swung by Earth again for a gravity assist slingshot towards Venus. Its ultimate goal is to achieve orbit around Mercury (the innermost planet to the sun) in 2009 - 2011.
As usual, this week's Hood River Weather poll (on taxes) has absolutely nothing to do with the weather in Hood River. Unless you count weather in with death and taxes as things that are certain to occur in life. Benjamin Franklin probably meant to include "weather" in his quote, but just didn't have the room.
Typical spring weather continues in Hood River, with some sunny days, some rainy days, and most everything in between. We still haven't had a warm spell into the upper 70's or 80's, but those won't be too far off.
I've received several emails regarding Apple computers vs Windows based computers (see previous blog). Apple clearly has led the way for years with their innovative graphical interface, ease of use, and being less prone to malware and computer glitches. Since they have almost totally controlled what hardware and software runs on the OS, there are far fewer system conflicts. Windows machines, on the other hand, are less expensive, available in far more configurations, and have been opened up to many thousands of hardware and software developers. Which, of course, makes them potentially more unstable.
Anyway, here's a cute Mac vs PC ad that is making the rounds:
