happy b-day to me

This time, it's Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, I'm gonna see Harry Potter 4 today, Happy Birthday to me.

And to prove great minds think alike, both Mom and Irene sent me this Hallmark E-Card. Independently. Scary, huh?

And on the same lines, here's a little movie commentary for you.

yesterday's interesting weather

A tornadic thunderstorm cell moved over Decatur, Al, yesterday, catching everyone by suprise. It spun up out of the blue, and was pretty impressive.


A shot from the TV showing the storm on TV from yesterday. The hook at the end of the storm is where the rotation is located.



Dopplar radar showing the shear and speeds. Also, add 30mph for the velocity of the storm towards the radar site, for a total of 77mph of wind shear. (You ignore the negative number and just all them all together)



The clouds from that storm as it made it's way from Decatur to my house. Fortunately it had weakened, and had was no longer tornadic, but it still was ugly, or beautiful, depending on how you look at it.

Radar imagery from WHNT Channel 19, Huntsville, Alabama.

watching tv

I'm watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and characters keep commenting what "5 by 5" means, as in "Are you allright?" "5 by 5." Ok, so here my geekiness is starting to show again. It's how you reply when someone asks for a radio check. "How are you receiving?" "5 by 5", meaning receiving strong and clear. Ok, yes, I'm a HAM radio operator, tech level, no code. End geekiness.

in rememberance

To all of the men and women in our Armed Forces, past, present, and future.

Also, one day late, Happy Birthday, Grandad, and to all other Marines, past, present, and future. Semper Fi!

friday catblogging

It's getting cold around here, so what happens?



Maleficent prepares to hibernate.

aiee!

This is who I would be stuck with on Atlantis?


McKay: Shut up and think quick, if you lived on Atlantis you'd be spending your time with Dr. Rodney McKay and neither of you would have a moment to spare if you're working on some doohickey with the potential to determine life or death...

Oh, Hell, I really am a nerd! Then I took the quiz over, thinking about the questions a little more, and just changing 2 of my answers gets me this buddy:


Beckett: Hope a little bit of blood and guts doesn't bother you. If you lived on Atlantis, you'd be spending most of your time in the infirmary alongside Dr. Carson Beckett, where you'll face many weird diseases... and Rodney McKay's bad temper.

Who would be your best Stargate Atlantis buddy?
brought to you by Quizilla

Holy crap! I'm still a nerd, just a more medical one this time. Big shock from the she who is an EMT - blood and guts? Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. But I still can't escape Dr. McKay! Wait a minute, I hope "spending most of my time in the infirmary" doesn't mean as a patient, I get enough of that already. My luck I'd be the one with the weird diseases.

life mirrors art

I had no idea when I was bitching about CBSs Category 7, that later that night the deadly tornado would hit Southern Indiana. Evansville is pretty close to where I grew up, so seeing the storms on radar, before the tornado touched down, was pretty hair-raising. I heard the next morning that aside from the Evansville tornado, there were several other small tornadoes in Southern Indiana, so I was concerned about those. Finally I found out that nobody in my family was hit, no property damage.

watching tv

I'm watching Category 7: The End of the World on CBS, and well, the writers didn't get their data right. They obviously wrote the script over a year ago. This is a quote from one of the "TV Meterologists" - "I've never seen anything like this before, this must be a Category 5 hurricane. The wind gusts must be over 150 MPH. If this isn't Hell on Earth, I don't know what is".

Hmm, now, last I checked a Category 5 hurricane was 155+ sustained winds. Hell, we've seen three of those so far this year, and last I checked 2 had with 175 MPH sustained winds at some point, with gusts of 195 MPH. I think the 2005 Hurricane season gave us all a crash course in hurricanes.

I think this show really should have been called: Been There, Seen That, Have the T-Shirt. Or "My Brother-In-Law Went To Biloxi As Military Relief Effort and I Didn't Even Get a Lousy Casino Chip".

sunday catblogging

How did the cats respond to our return from our short vacation?


Maleficent: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Noah: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Mac: Are the food dishes full?


McCullough: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Eep: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Yeah, whatever, was the general consensus. As long as the food dishes were kept full, they could have given a crap.

getting back to blogging

Ok, so I needed a whole day yesterday to recover from my vacation. Back to blogging now. First, no kitty blogging, but here are some photos that are a bit different.


We were driving along Rich Mountain Road, when we saw this walking towards us on the road. Immediately we stopped, and with windows rolled down, waited to see what would happen.


The canine in question paused, then walked along the driver's side of the our car, not fearful, merely cautious.

There is some question to what exactly this animal is - a Red Wolf (Canis rufus floridanus), a Coyote (C. latrans), or a hybrid of the two, with maybe a little domestic dog (C. lupus familiarius) thrown in for a little variety. I believe this individual is a female, due to the lack of obvious external genitalia. (It had no nuts, for those of you who feel I'm getting a little too scientific here.)


She was oh, so concerned about our presence.


So concerned, in fact that it's nap time. She stretched out her front paws, and shifted her butt back and forth to get comfy.


Really, it was nappy time, and she was only 10 feet from the rear bumper of the car. She stayed there until some yahoo came tearing down the road, skidding to a stop on the gravel, jumping out of the car to get a photo or two, scaring the poor she-wolf (since coyotes are a type of wolf) off and down the valley.

normal blogging to resume friday

Right now, I'm writing this post from Pigeon Forge, TN, just outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Yay, vacation! I will take plenty of pics, have no fear, but since this motel has only dial-up, I won't be uploading many to Flickr until I get back home and have my high-speed access again.

Monday's adventure was getting out of town, and finally getting to the Mountains. My husband and I are on this little getaway, and tonight we went straight up to the top of the ridge, and stradled the Tennessee/North Carolina state line, at Newfound Gap. The stars were amazing, for the first time in many years I could look up and see the Milky Way stretching across the sky, no artifical lights (aside from the occasional car) for miles. We were cold, since the Park got about a foot of snow last week at the higher elevations, and we were up at something like 5500', over a mile up. There was still snow in the shady places, and neither of us were really prepared for the cold. Later this week, we'll dress warmer and take some shots of the night sky. In the mean time, it's a text version of the day.

Red wolves have been re-introduced to the Park after having been exinct from the area for years, to add another predator back into the mix. We reached the Park about sundown, and went up to the top of the ridge, Newfound Gap, to look at the stars, which were absolutely amazing. We saw one trotting up the road on our way up to Newfound Gap, then one at the Newfound Gap parking lot. Stay tuned to find out what other kind of animals we see...

hurricane blogging

I know there some to many of you are wondering what happened to the hurricane blogging from afar. Well, I have been keeping track, but have gotten behind in uploading the saved images to Flickr. I've been saving them to the computer, but have been kinda busy. Have no fear, I'm still watching the tropics, and looked earlier at something that looked like it has the potential to become Tropical Storm Gamma. I think at the end of this month, and therefore the end of this year's season, I'll do a nice recap of all the major storms, plus anything from the Greek alphabet, since this is the first year the National Hurricane Center has run out of names, and had to move onto Alpha, Beta, Gama, Delta, etc.

friday catblogging

AKA going on strike.



Popcorn theif. So that's where it all went. Her stray roots are showing again.


And yes, I'm going on strike. Show some appreciation for this site, and I'll post more. Oh, yeah, and family is in town, so posting will be even more limited. Be happy you got Friday Catblogging.

alrighty, then

Blogger swore it ate the 2 posts from yesterday about my shoulder, but now they've mysteriously shown up. Whatever. Lets see what else pops up.

shoulder update

First, let's see if Blogger will eat this post or not.

My shoulder isn't torn, it is simply badly sprained and strained. So, no surgery, just physical therapy and pain management. At least I know I don't break or tear, my soft tissue injures aren't that severe, they just hurt like hell. Unfortunately, a rotator cuff injury can take a very long time to heal. When Mom injured hers, it took 18 months to completely to heal her injury. Oh, joy.

shoulder update

The good news is there is no tear, just a sprain/strain of the tissues of my rotator cuff. So, it's physical therapy and pain management while my shoulder heals. Unfortunately, I heal slow, and when Mom injured her rotator cuff it took her 18 months to heal completely. Whee, just what I needed. At least I don't break and tear easily, I keep telling myself that. It still hurts like hell, though.

shoulder update

Good news, I have no tears, all the problems with my shoulder is simply a bad sprain/strain of the rotator cuff. I'll be starting physical therapy sometime in the next week for it, but unfortunately I know I'm in for a long ride in healing. I heal slow, I know this, and when Mom injured her rotator cuff she said it took 18 months for it to return to normal. Oh, joy. At least nothing is broken or torn. That's what I keep telling myself. It takes more than that to really injure me.

friday catblogging

My brother-in-law's cats, both together in one shot.





Kitty Mac Boing Boing, a.k.a. Mac and Maleficent. Mac has taken refuge from somebody, probably Noah, and well Maleficent is being a couch potato, and could give a crap about what is going on.

shoulder scan

Well, this afternoon I get a MRI of my left shoulder to find out how badly I injured it last week. Yes, I fell again, this time in the shower. I have a shower chair, and was sitting in it, when I leaned forward to adjust the water temperature when the slipped backwards and I landed in the tub on my ass. As I fell, I tried to catch myself with my left arm, grabbing the rim of the tub, and succeed only in jamming my arm up, injuring my shoulder. Friday I went to the doc, who had it x-rayed, and it didn't show any fracture, so all the damage is soft tissue. Until I know what is wrong, I'm popping my pain medication, since it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. Here to hoping it's just badly strained and sprained.

in memoriam

In Memoriam – George

As a tiny kitten you were found
Lying abandoned upon the hard ground
Your brother your only companion
Until by chance you found a champion

Saved from death by an approaching car
In my sister’s shirt, she carried you far
A caring home awaited both of you
Time passed, we watched as you grew

Though you never bore kits of your own
You were mother to any younger born
Mother and friend you were to them
Buddies until death made you lonely again

George, my beauty, who I fed with a bottle
When you followed me in a kitten toddle
An elegant lady you grew into
And stole the hearts of all who saw you

In your elder years another companion you found
Laps suitable for my lady’s naps began to abound
And though the years slowly passed by
You remained kittenish, feeling spry

On one afternoon you heard the call of Bastet
And you went outside, your fate you met
Looking into to the setting sun
The Goddess called you, you did not run

To the Summerlands you went, ushered upon the wind
Reunited with your adopted daughters and your long missed twin
All those who passed before were there waiting to greet
A reunion for you, while we miss you and weep

We miss you, knowing all will be united once more
Parting is not forever, ever since the days of yore
Meeting and passing in a cycle since time began
Sadly we part and merrily we meet again












George
July 1, 1993 - October 12, 2005