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« September 2006 |
Main
| November 2006 »
My CN (Chief Nemesis) recorded his severe weather video today, and was all spooky-like and donned a mask just for the occasion. So Steve and I (Steve ate the bad donuts, you'll remember) decided to pull a Halloween-like prank and altered his video. You can take a look and listen here, but you'll need flash and your audio turned up.
 Third Day was awesome. The groups that played before Third Day were great as well - Hyperstatic Union and The David Crowder Band. I'm not sure I understand the "warm up" band thing. Personally, I had to ration out my exuberance because I wasn't sure I was going to be able to yell and scream like an idiot for three straight hours. So it was, scream a little - take a break. Scream a little more, take a break. Time to stand! Okay, let's sit down now. I'm not as young as I use to be.
This was my first real concert. The closest I've come in the past was probably Lord of the Dance, which was awesome too although in a slightly different way. You didn't have to stand and scream as much, which was good, but there was probably more extended applause situations there than at Sunday's concert.
I realize now that people who try to buy tickets for the front row are screened. Did you know this? You have to be good at standing, holding your hands in the air and swaying back and forth. The front row did a great job. They also spelled out something about it being Mike's 40th birthday and caught the attention of the lead singer of Third Day, who led the audience in "Happy Birthday to You." This was extremely cool - I mean, how many fans get a Happy Birthday song from their favorite band? - but I was wondering what affect this would have on Connor. Because just before the concert, at dinner, we had a discussion of why restaurants don't seem to sing "Happy Birthday to You" anymore but sing their own special birthday song. I posited that it was because "Happy Birthday to You" was copyright protected and it would technically be illegal unless you paid the copyright holders. I think this blew his mind, because the inevitable conclusion is that everyone singing that song is technically breaking the law. And of course, right after that conversation we all did just that.
(Here's a link to Wikipedia's "Happy Birthday to You" discussion. The actual copyright issue is over playing the song for profit, so we're actually in the clear.)
Another highlight of the evening was Third Day's support of World Vision. They had booths to sign up to support World Vision, and showed a film of their work in Africa during the intermission. Alert Reader Tammy and I support a child through World Vision and have for many years. It's been fascinating getting letters from her and seeing her development over the years. I know that we sometimes spend money on things are are essentially meaningless (he says, on Halloween) but money spent helping a vulnerable child is a total blessing.
As I said earlier, I hadn't been to a concert before but we all know what happens at the end of a concert, right? I'll give you a few seconds to think about that. The band stops, says good night and... that's right. People clap and cheer and scream and the band comes back out for an... "encore." (Merriam-Webster calls an encore: a reappearance or additional performance demanded by an audience.) However, at the end of the show I was looking around, and then I turned back to where my family was and they were gone. GONE. POOF. They, like Elvis, had left the building. And I don't mean left as in it's-time-to-go left, I mean left as in FLED. Later, when I caught up with my family, I asked why were leaving. Alert Concert Goer Tammy explained that the concert was over and we could go now and get out of the tangle of cars that would soon ensue in the parking lot. Just about then we heard the band take the stage again and ask if they could sing some more songs. I tried to explain what the "encore" was and how it worked, but we were committed. Fortunately, I only missed two songs and neither was a huge favorite.
AND, we avoided the tangle of cars that soon ensued in the parking lot.
Overall a great night. The kids were very pumped as well, although they thought Dad's music was too loud. Kids these days.
Third Day maintains a blog and here's a post they wrote about the Sunday Concert in State College (Penn State)
Some miscellaneous whining this morning - I have an RSS reader set up with a search for "LEGOs" on EVERY SINGLE Craigslist website. Craigslist is sort of an on-line classifieds system that is city-based, so there's a site for New York, Atlanta, etc. There IS a site for State College but I think four people go to it.
After months of checking this enormous RSS feed I still haven't found any LEGOs worth purchasing. The posts seem to fall into three categories:
1. LEGO collection! Moving, must sell. 405 pounds, won't ship - $5000 firm.
2. XBOX Mod! Includes LEGO Star Wars.
3. Wanted: I'll purchase your LEGOs for $1.
This isn't much to work with. My army-building has stopped cold. If anyone sees any LEGO people roaming the streets, looking lost and hungry, and shippable and purchase-able for less than $5000 let me know.
My nemesis calls me out by name on his blog today. Something about cows, which I might be able to explain but would be too painful. Drop him a note for any clarifications.
Last night we attended a Third Day concert. It was actually my idea, so I won't complain about how loud it was or having to excuse myself to go to the bathroom to treat my bleeding ears. (Actually it was awesome but someone else in my group who may or may not be an Alert Spouse wasn't quite as thrilled.) I'll try to have the big post-concert wrap-up tonight.
I spent much of last week working on another AccuWeather blog. This is ironic in some way that I haven't completely figured out yet. I won't be authoring this blog but you'll definitely want to check it out when we launch. Stay tuned...
Colorado got hit by a good bit of snow today. Here's the latest from AccuWeather, and an AP article. A Google search turned up a great cam page for Colorado here - here's a current shot (as of this posting) of Cripple Creek:
I saw two headlines on the ol' RSS reader today that I completely misunderstood when I read them the first time:
Black bear hunt ends with 41 killed in two days
This sounded like people were hunting a rogue black bear that had killed 41 people before they finally found it and stopped it. But, I guess people hunted and killed 41 black bears. I find the former interpretation more interesting; can you imagine some ninja bear sneaking from home to home eating people? And hunters unable to find it before it got 41 people? Me too.
Britney names second child -- officially
At first I thought - what kind of a name is Officially? But you know these Hollywood types, always naming their kids something weird. Officially Federline . It has an interesting ring to it, and would probably also suffice for a new line of torn t-shirts. But, what they actually meant was that she had officially named her baby - as in authoritative or authorized. The name chosen? "Jayden James Federline."
Have you ever done something you didn't want to do, only to learn that you didn't have to do it after all, while you didn't do something you wanted to, just to learn that you should have?
Me neither but man, that would be ironic.
World Exclusive - Must Credit Blog Hero!
The following photo was recently snapped somewhere which may or may not be within the hallowed halls of the World's Largest Private Forecasting Company™. It appears to show...well, here:
I think the photo speaks for itself, but for those of you struggling here's a hint. It's either:
A. a rare cartoon sketch of "Nerdy Smurf,"
B. the latest member of the Hall of Justice, "Blue Foam Rubber Man,"
C. meteorologist Henry Margusity dressed as a giant rain drop.
If uncertain leave a guess in the comments.
"The father of a young football player pulled a gun on his son's coach because he didn't think the boy was getting enough playing time, Philadelphia police said on Monday."
It seems like we've lost the ability to let kids play games. Link here. I mean, this was 6- and 7-year-olds. The kids, not the parents.
I was wondering if anybody else does this: If I go to the car wash, and pay to use the Vacuum Thingy, and I finish cleaning my car and have extra time I will look around and if it's all clear I'll start vacuuming outside the car. You know, little rocks, cigarette butts, paper, small bugs - whatever is handy. I mean, they don't say you can't do that and I paid for the time and all. It seems like a waste to just hang the hose back up there while it's still running.
Everyone does this, right?
Sorry about the slow posting, and approving comments. I've been getting hammered (wait for me to finish) by comment spam and am trying to not delete anything important. So if you read often and your comment about phetermine or bras was legit well, sorry.
Speaking of phetermine and bras, Henry was kind enough to mention me in his blog. I'm trying to build his traffic to astronomical heights, so please stop by. You can even leave him a message in his little madness message box. Send him some cow-related puns; he udderly loves that.
Coming later: Henry dressed up as a giant raindrop. Not to be missed.
There's an interesting article making the rounds about the hole in the ozone layer. For the uninitiated, the atmosphere is made up of layers - the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, caramelosphere, nougatosphere and creamy milk chocolatosphere. Somewhere between the caramel and nougat is the ozone layer, a special layer of the atmosphere that contains ozone particles designed to keep the caramel from inappropriately mixing with the nougat. Ozone is actually a nerdish version of oxygen. Most oxygen runs around in pairs, but ozone is a sort of geeky-clique of three maladjusted oxygen atoms. I know all of this science stuff because my son is learning about Chemistry in home schooling this year so I read ahead in case he has any questions.
The ozone layer has been under attack by refrigerators since the 70s, when most humans adopted food-saving technology in order to keep their baloney good for more than three hours. Refrigerators release something called CFCs, which stand for "Ozone Destroying Particles." Since most refrigerators come from a giant manufacturing plant located in Antarctica, the largest hole has formed above that continent. Destruction of the ozone layer would be catastrophic, because the nougat would run into the caramel and turn into a sticky mess that would raise everyone's blood sugar and cause unprecedented obesity.
Five billion articles (give or take) appear via Google News for "ozone hole" tonight. An Official Story from the NASA site can be found here. The article itself is not dated, but if you refer to this page you can see that it's from October 20, or today. It talks about the record-breaking ozone hole.
Curiously, though, scientists are saying there is no reason for panic. For example, if you read this article from the Australian you'll see:
While the size of the hole is alarming, it does not mean that increased amounts of ozone-depleting chemicals are reaching the atmosphere, said Paul Lehmann with the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre in Melbourne. "There is mounting evidence that the ozone is slowly recovering," he said.
So basically you had to get your panic out of the way back in the 70s, when the hole was tiny. Now that it's bigger than North America and we've gotten rid of all of our refrigerators there's no cause for panic.
I'm not sure what's going on, but I blame the Baloney Lobby.
Complicated diagram of the Ozone Situation. Source: NASA
Two work updates:
1. Alert Developer Steve had the worst donuts he's ever eaten. He got them out of the vending machine. It was a package of 6 Hostess chocolate frosted mini-donettes. I'm just passing that along.
2. Henry has been found. He had wandered into a broom closet and people had mistaken his cries of "save me" for a television set. At least, that's what everyone is saying this morning. You can find his blog back on AccuWeather.com, safe and sound.
 Well no sooner had I put a plug in here for Henry's New Blog, "Henry's Meteorological Madness," than it has completely disappeared. Disappeared as in gone - POOF! - vanished. Even my Secret Link™ doesn't work anymore. Thousands of you have written to ask what happened. Okay, would you believe dozens? How about an angry boy scout with a pen knife?
And to that angry boy scout I say, "Put down that pen knife son! It's not worth it!"
In any event, I want everyone to know that as of 4 p.m. today Henry was safe and sound and still nemesesing me. Nemesiing me. Nememing me. Well, he was safe and sound and still being my nemesis. Nemesi. You know what I mean. I'll ask around at work tomorrow and see what happened, and will report here if it that information isn't classified and/or I haven't been silenced. Of course, I want you to know that if I don't report here it doesn't necessarily mean that the information is classified and/or that I have been silenced.
Note: No offense was intended with this post towards the manufacturers of milk, a delicious, nutritious beverage that comes from cows and was originally designed for baby cows, Henry, people who are infected with meteorological madness, web developers, the holder's of classified information or the Japanese Mafia. Thank you.
The new Bravia ad is out here. I had discussed this in a previous post, and it was certainly worth the wait.
From the site comes this bit"
"The cleaning took 5 days and 60 people. Thankfully, the use of a special water-based paint made it easy to scrape-up once the water had evaporated."
My question is - why clean it up? It looked pretty cool. Maybe it was some sort of environmental thing. Or, if you allow one person (or company) to paint outdoors pretty soon everyone will be doing that and the world would become brightly colored, and you wouldn't want that.
Henry Margusity, AccuWeather.com's Severe Weather Expert and my Chief Nemesis, now has a blog on AccuWeather.com that is totally and completely free although you can send me a small stipend if you so desire. It's called "Henry's Meteorological Madness" primarily because "Margusity's Meteorological Madness" was too long. There's a picture of a cow on there because Henry made me put a picture of a cow on there. If you want to know why there's a cow use the form on the blog page to ask Henry. Ooo, ask him about the snowblower too! He would love that.
His new blog is here: Henry's (Margusity's) Meteorological Madness Blog
Picture at right copyright AccuWeather, Inc. Any likeness to any person, real or imaginary or Margusity, is unintentional and strictly in the mind of the reader. Please do not feed Henry.
I thinking about this the other day. I was stopped at a traffic light and after about twenty seconds I was extremely bored and "thought up" something to think about. And I "thought up" that I'm often doing things now that I wasn't allowed to do as a kid, mostly because now I'm "mature" and allowed to do those things because I set the rules for me with the exception of those times that Alert Reader Tammy makes me do something.
For example, I often open the refrigerator door and just...stare. I mean, I don't even know why I'm in there. But it's sort of hypnotic, looking into that bright light while the Miracle Whip stares back. Meanwhile all of my food is dethawing and the temperature in the kitchen has dropped fifteen degrees and there I am with the door still open, just starting. Eventually I break free of the hypnotic refrigerator light and decide there's nothing in there worth my attention and I shut the door.
But if I my kids do that it would be more like "Are you crazy the food in there is spoiling and our electricity bill just shot up another forty dollars shut that door quick!"
Another example is eating ice cream for breakfast. I actually don't do this too often, since even as an adult I'm not suppose to (pauses to thank inferior genes, continues.) As a kid not only weren't you allowed to have ice cream for breakfast, or any other cookie, candy or treat, but you always had to eat your meal before you got something really good.
Sometimes I stay up until 2 am playing video games. I did that as a kid, though, even if I wasn't suppose to. (Thank you, Commodore 64 in my bedroom.) Sometimes I run with scissors. I'll put quarters into those cheap, plastic toys dispensers you see at the grocery store just to see what kind of junk I'll get, like a bouncy ball, spider ring or (if I'm really lucky) something that looks like a plastic globe full of snot.
And any time I make brownies, I do a really poor job of scraping the batter into the pan so that there's that much more left to sit down with a spoon and eat. Yup. Raw eggs, salmonella and all.
By now the light had changed two or three times, and people were passing me and beeping their horns and making the rudest gestures. Sometimes people are hard to figure out.
Anyway, I was curious - not that you're grown up and mature (I know, I'm assuming here) do you relive your childhood in any obvious, therapy required ways? That you can discuss? Leave a comment!
Nothing's* more disappointing than getting an email notifying you of a new comment to a particular blog post only to click on the email and then discover that the comment is "Viagara" or some other spam. And it's always spelled incorrectly just to defeat the automatic spam detection software some people have (not me, apparently) because, you know, that software can screen out "Viagra" but just goes completely bonkers when it sees "Viagara."
*Okay I made that up there are plenty of things more disappointing than this, like this coming season's snowfall total for State College, but I'm exaggerating for effect.
I want to apologize for the gratuitous use of the word "doody" in the previous post. I know I could have use "doo-doo" or "poopy" or some other slightly more innocuous word, or I could have spelled "doody" like this: d##dy. I'm really not sure what came over me. However, I've returned to my (alleged) senses and wanted to let you know that no offense was intended to any dog owners, dog walkers, dog d##y scoopers, dogs, or anyone with delicate sensibilities. Thank you.
Alert Reader Tammy reports that she and the kids saw the most remarkable thing the other day. I don't know if this is a common sort of thing; I've never heard of it and it seems on the face of things that it would be, well, criminally insane. But let me try to explain.
Connor happened to be looking out of the window and got quite excited and called everyone over. There, driving down the street at an extremely low rate of speed was a woman walking her dog. What I mean was, she was in the car, driving, and had the driver's window rolled down, and out the window was her dog leash and there, walking in the middle of the road, was her dog. The dog was moving at a pretty good clip to keep up.
The family went from window to window as they watched her drive down one road, stop and then turn left (the dog apparently was able to figure this out) and then drive down another street and out of sight.
Now as you desperately search the deep, dark recesses of your brain for an explanation - any explanation - as to why anyone would risk harm to their pet or a traffic accident I should inform you that it was not raining, snowing, sleeting, overly hot, overly cold, precipitating frogs, locusts or flaming meteorites. There was no report of the dog stopping to "doody" if you will, although I would have loved to have heard how THAT would have worked.
Is this common where you live? Do YOU do this? If so you can leave a comment (anonymous, of course) and let me know what this is all about.
Well it depends partially on who you believe, and partially on the interpretation of "Replay Hazy Try Again."
The National Weather Service is suggesting an above-average winter: "The result, forecasters said, should be a winter marked by above-normal temperatures, though perhaps not as mild as last year’s very warm winter." (Here's a link to NOAA's winter forecast.)
AccuWeather.com's Joe Bastardi is saying a warm start but a cold January and February: "The winter in the Northeast and Midwest is expected to begin mild before turning significantly colder in January and February as cold air pours down from Canada."
Of course all of this really hinges on Henry's snowblower. Right now he hasn't gotten his fuel line fixed, so it's possible we could see a few early snowfalls. Unless he went out and fixed it on the sly... hmmm.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have proposed an interesting correlation between the amount of African dust swirling in the Atlantic Ocean and the development of hurricanes. Article here. I won't try to go into all of the details here because it's Very Technical, but suffice it to say that when there is a lot of dust blowing around hurricanes seem less likely to form. When there is less or no dust, hurricanes are more likely to form. This is, very obviously, linked to Global Warming. As the earth continues to warm from greenhouse gases, sand in Africa gets much heavier because it is absorbing extra heat. Then, when the wind comes along and tries to pick up the sand it can't because it's too fat. This allows more hurricanes to form.
I know some of this Global Warming stuff is complicated but that's what I'm here for. I'll now take questions.
 Amazing Sea Monster Photo ©Tor Sponga, courtesy Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway Today the following title appeared in my RSS reader, courtesy National Geographic:
Photo Gallery: "Sea Monster" Graveyard Found in the Arctic
And when I clicked through I saw the Amazing Sea Monster Photo that I have displayed at right. I was blown away. I mean, these National Geographic photographers capture some unbelievable things on film, but a Giant Sea Monster eating another Giant Sea Monster? What are the odds?
Then I read this bit under the photo:
A 33-foot-long (10-meter-long) marine reptile dubbed "the Monster" leaps from the water to snare a smaller reptile known as a plesiosaur in this artist's interpretation.
Oh. Artist's interpretation. Really, if they're going to put drawings in there they shouldn't call it a photo gallery. That will just lead to misunderstandings and disappointment.
Sigh.
I wasn't sure how to do this; I didn't want a ginormous spoiler right here at the top of the page for people who haven't read all of the letters. But I think I figured out a solution.
When Alert Reader Tammy and I decided to do a little research into the background of the letters we had very little hope of discovering anything meaningful. The estate auction where the lap desk had been sold occurred years ago, and it was safe to assume that the owner of the desk had been Margaret and that it was her estate that was liquidated. That suggested that finding other family members would be difficult. But we decided to drive up to Williamsburg and check the local library.
We were surprised to find some genealogical information. In particular, we found text from a Bible owned by Charles Edward Corson. It listed the following births:
Charles Edward Corson, Jr. - May 28, 1923 (22)
Elizabeth Ann Corson - Aug. 20, 1925 (19)
Mary Louise Corson - Oct. 6, 1927 (17)
Margaret Eleanor Corson - Feb. 19, 1931 (14)
George Frederick Corson - July 3, 1937 (7-8)
I put their age at the time of the letters in parentheses next to their birth dates. The Bible also listed the following death:
Charles Edward Corson, Jr. - June 22, 1945
This was disappointing; although it seemed unlikely that Charles had survived the war and that the telegram announcing his death had been incorrect it was a possibility. Until we saw it in print that he really had died.
You may have noticed the name Margaret above. Ah ha! A sister. Of course that doesn't work, because Margaret would have been 14 at the time of the letters, and numerous clues suggest that she was older. The biggest clue was found in letter 29, where she states:
I belonged to the class of thirteen at Bloomsburg and we always considered thirteen to be our lucky number.
Taken literally, this probably refers to her high school graduation. If she graduated at age 19 in 1913, she would have been 51 years old when the letters were written. That certainly puts Margaret Corson out of the running. And in any event, the envelopes were from a "Margaret Horn."
So who was Margaret Horn? We eventually came across the name Horn... (Spoilers ahead!)
A brief clue that you should have had before but I was being all devious. The envelopes were addressed to "Charles E. Corson, Jr." and were from "Margaret Horn."
More later. Unless I run out of time tonight because I'm busy boiling water, carrying it upstairs, dumping it in the bath and repeating until the tub is full.
Still no hot water. The hot water heater died on Friday at 5:01 p.m. I managed to get "Sam" the Repair Person to come out on Saturday to take a look at it. He used various tools and said "Hmmm" in a thoughtful, but apocalyptic, manner. He then proceeded to apologize and explain that I needed a new valve. However, we have a special kind of hot water heater that is made from one solid piece of titanium which is only found in the fjords of Norway. Sam said that he would call Monday morning, first thing, and order one so it should be here by June.
The letters are finished up. Now the challenge for you, the alert reader, is to determine what the relationship was between Margaret - the letter's author - and Charles. Alert Reader Tammy, who may or may not be my assistant researcher, and I actually went to Williamsport and tried to find information on the family. We did fairly well, and I'll publish what we found tomorrow. Or Tuesday maybe. Or sometime this week. In the meantime, feel free to leave a comment with your deductions.
This will be a little confusing if you haven't read this intro here.
I wrote to the chaplain of the Hdq. Co., 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine just now. This suspense is terrible. It will take a week at least for him to get my letter, another week before his answer can reach us. Allowing for a few extra days it will be at least August first before we will know. Oh Charles if you could just walk in as you used to do. If the telegram was true there is nothing but mere existence left for me. Mrs. Snyder sent the dearest vase of flowers to-day, small pink rose buds, with blue delphinium and baby's breath, all small dainty flowers. Mrs. Manson sent a vase of planted ivy yesterday. People are very kind but I want to crawl off by myself.
God please grant the telegram was a mistake and that you are in a hospital but will come home to us. For four terrible years this fear has been hanging over us but I hoped to pray it away. I will go out to Grandma's and Liz will take over my church prayers for three days until I come home. I know God hears prayers out at Grandma's as well as at Trinity. If only he will say "Yes" to mine.
We are all sitting around home to-night, Saturday night. Of course Aunt Florence and Connie are here.
Sweetheart I love you so.
The Letter Follow-up begins here.
This will be a little confusing if you haven't read this intro here.
Still no news from the Pacific. Oh, Sweetheart I can't give up. God grant we will get good news soon. It's past two o'clock, I'm just home from Sylvania. How I wish the front door would open and you would walk in. Why must we have war? To-night's Sun had an article of how some Japs on an island just off Okinawa had refused to surrender but were neutralized and had knelt in prayer with some Marines sent to negotiate with them. Oh God please let us have good news. I don't know what else to write. I took Gran and Aunt Florence to Linden after lunch to see Eva about Aunt Maude's furniture. George and Carol went along and we stopped at Ruth's to see the new baby. I'll go out to Grandma's with Aunt Florence as my duty, only on condition that Liz takes over my job of going to church each day to pray for your safety. I pray almost all the time anyway, wherever I happen to be. Please God say "yes" to my prayers. With all my love,
Hot Water is one of those things that you take completely for granted until it's gone, and then you get really cranky and irritable and all you can do is think about washing the dishes or doing the laundry or taking a bath. I really wanted to soak my polar-bear-ravaged-foot tonight too. Notice that I have no hot water and it's a Friday Night. These things always happen on Friday after 5 p.m. Still, I will break down and call someone tomorrow - a Knowledgeable Service Person - and ask them to come over and fix the water heater. They will pause, and look at their calendar, and then laugh a deep, hollow, evil laugh, and wait until they visit me to tell me that the Visiting Charge is $295 and the Working Charge is $79.95 an hour with a minimum of eight hours. But, I have dirty dishes so my fate is sealed.
There are only two more letters left. This is great news because I'm feeling this post-every-evening-burden quite acutely. It will be nice to wrap up the story, and then reveal the little plot twist I've discovered, which will have you all crying "Foul!" and insisting that I made up the whole thing. No, not the part about Aquaman. I plan to post Saturday and Sunday, and then have a little epilogue on Sunday night, let all of you digest that, and then wrap it up Monday. Then I will dance a jig.
(I'm assuming here that everyone can digest an epilogue - I know certain conditions may require some over-the-counter medication for that.)
This will be a little confusing if you haven't read this intro here.
I haven't given up yet. I just got home and someone had placed an article by Eddie Rickenbacker on the table here. It's entitled, " When a Man Faces Death." He didn't give up. I shall not either. I belonged to the class of thirteen at Bloomsburg and we always considered thirteen to be our lucky number. We will see what to-morrow brings us - Good news I hope. They told me to-night that I wouldn't work next week. I volunteered you know, but so many of the day shift are working that they will need only a few of the night shift.
Mrs. Davis was here this evening, Gran just told me. She was awake when I came in. Mrs. D. doesn't want to go out to Grandma's with Aunt Florence for a while yet - she wants to visit at home first. This is the first she has been up from Florida for several years.
Charles I don't want to moan to you too much. It isn't fair, but I feel fairly sick when I think of all you have been through and we so powerless to ease your burden. There is no use in asking why because we don't know the answer, but please, please, God will hear my prayers and say "yes" to them and bring you home to us. We love you so very much.
With all my love,
This will be a little confusing if you haven't read this intro here.
Past two o'clock and home from Sylvania. Next week was to have been vacation but they asked us to work. I said I would only I would like Monday off to take Elizabeth to Bucknell to find out what's what about her entering for the fall semester.
Aunt Florence and Connie came to-day. Connie is a big girl. Aunt Florence hopes that Mrs. Davis will go out to Grandmas with her. I won't go until I hear from you. I want to be here when the mail comes - that's why I said I would work.
The roses last night were from Jean Guibord, pink rose buds - very pretty.
Ida McClarin and Mrs. Teubroeck and Helen, from Newberry were here when I left for work. Jane Ranch was here for a bit also. Ed and Eleanor spent a lot of time again to-day reading your letters.
How we wish we could have spared you this. To-morrow morning we got to church for special Thursday morning communion and prayers for our boys.
"Faith as big as a grain of mustard seed will move mountains." Mustard seed is little. I hope my faith is bigger than that.
Good night sweetheart and happy dreams.
This will be a little confusing if you haven't read this intro here.
Still no good news, but still I can hope. Sometimes my faith is very strong, sometimes it wavers. I don't know what is right. "Ask and ye shall receive," and I have asked and asked. I shall keep on asking. There is another lovely bouquet here to-night. I wonder who sent it. I'll have to wait until morning to find out. That is a short wait, some have been so long. God grant it won't be long until you come home. You have learned to wait too haven't you - much more so than the folks back home. This was a cool night to work and I didn't mind it. Work is a blessing. I can pray as I work, the work is so automatic. Ed and Eleanor were reading all of your letters to-day. I didn't. I'm not strong enough yet to do that. I go over to church to cry a bit and pray. I don't want to cry around here. This suspense is hard enough on your folks without me making it harder.
Charles, I love you so much. Please God to send you safely home.
Your Dad cut the grass to-day. I hope Mr. Guibord came in this evening with the offer of a job at the motors. He expected to.
Good night sweetheart and happy dreams.
 I found this via Digg today - a giant tropical track map showing all of the storms that formed worldwide over twenty years from 1985 to 2005. They're color-coded according to strength, so you can get a good sense of where storms form - and where the powerful ones form - just at a glance. It's an amazing map though, make sure to click through to see the full-sized version. As long as you're not on dial-up, or you may self-immolate. (Or at least your modem might.)
Link to Wikimedia Article on Global tropical cyclone tracks
Direct link to High-Res graphic file (About 6 megs)
Alert Reader Charles dropped me a note and mentioned that he was headed to the National Storytelling Fesitval in Jonesborough, TN. This year marks the 34th event, and it's being held October 6-8. If you're interested in the details visit the International Story Telling Center website.
This sounds like a total blast. I fancy myself a teller of stories, although as the resident introvert I generally tell them to one person at a time. Trying to tell a story on a stage at a National Storytelling Festival would likely cause my self-immolation powers to trigger. Hopefully. But what makes this event really special is that it's sponsored by Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Good stories and warm, sticky, glaced doughnuts! Have a great time Charles!
As we wrap up the letter series I'd like to thank everyone who made this possible. I'd like to thank the academy, who said as a child that I was the only one who took the career assessment test and scored "mammal." None of this could have been possible without their support and encouragement. I'd also like to thank Mr. Roget - I use his thesaurus all of the time and find it useful productive. And of course I must thank you, the Alert Reader, for sitting through an exceptionally long story serial.
In the coming days, feel free to leave your comments about the last few letters. Some of theme are quite dramatic, such as the one I posted last night. I had largely forgotten about that one (and I'm not reading ahead.) There has been some speculation as to the relationship between the author Margaret and the soldier Charles. Feel free to weigh in on that as well.
This will be a little confusing if you haven't read this intro here.
I have just come home from Sylvania, it's after two, but I don't want to go to bed without writing. I still won't accept Vandergift's telegram without more confirmation. Oh Charles I said I would never let you go alone - that I would join you. I know I am a coward. If God would take me I would go gladly but I know I won't take my own life - not now at least. God forgive me but I don't want to take "No" as an answer to my prayers. I hope we are notified of a mistake and that you will read this in some hospital - or a nice nurse will read it to you, and you can smile and know how happy we will be united some day. We don't care how many pieces you are in. Doctors are wonderful to-day but your spirit is more wonderful. We will be thankful to get a jigsaw puzzle if only you are there. We are so proud of you, so humble before you. We think of all the misery you have gone through and I marvel at how you could do it. I love you so very much, forever and ever. I want you so. I shall keep going to church and praying for your safe return home. Please God will say "Yes" this time. People are very kind. There must have been company here after I went to work. There are fresh flowers and a cake in the kitchen and lots of cards. I heard to-night of a veteran of the other war who has his death certificate - and remember what Mark Twain said "The report of his death was very much exaggerated." Please God it's so this time. Good night sweetheart.
This will be a little confusing if you haven't read this intro here.
I didn't write last night. We were too crushed. We had a telegram from Vandergrift saying you were killed June 22. But to-night I am writing. Until God tells me instead of Vandergrift I shall not give up. Someday we will take this over to-gether. So many friends have been in, so many flowers. Beautiful flowers from church, from Levinsons, from Ernestine, from the Austin crowd, even from a family on south side by the name of Simpson who had a boy killed in an accident aboard ship. So many people have been kind, so many have called. Eleanor and the girls and I went to early church. Mr. Davis asked a simple but beautiful prayer for you. Sweetheart it may be true. When we were listening to the eleven o'clock broadcast rom Trinity you came through the hall and grinned at me and came back in the living room - cheerful, happy but sympathetic too - as tho' you said "Don't feel so bad". It gave me peace for a while. But to-night my spirit had rallied. Jacob wrestled with God - Darius daughter was raised from the dead - Lazarus - Government agencies have made mistakes. You may be terribly wounded and will come home to us. Just to touch you would be heaven. If you were well we would have had a letter I know. So until God stops me I shall have faith that you will come home to us. You can imagine what this means to Ed and Eleanor. To Gran and the girls. We love you very much.
Apparently my casual remark about the polar bear attack has taken some of you off guard. I guess I didn't go into details and only mentioned I wasn't "feeling well."
The attack occurred last week. I was at the grocery store in the ten item or less aisle when this polar bear cut in front of me. Not only that, but he had two Pepsis, a cantaloupe and eleven herrings. So I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hey Buddy! This is the ten items or less aisle!" That's when he turned around and I saw that he was a Wikipedia Polar Bear:
A Wikipedia Polar Bear: The most viscous vicious kind.
Well, of course it didn't go well. I held my own, but Wikipedia Polar Bears can bench-press 30,000 pounds. I take a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that although he put me in a body cast, I did manage to swipe two of his herrings.
I'll be posting another letter later tonight. I'm still in a lot of pain from the polar bear attack, but I'm going to get my prescription refilled shortly. More soon...
"In a western Kentucky town that lies near the New Madrid fault line, experts are drilling the deepest seismic observatory east of the Rocky Mountains."
Why, when I read things like this, am I immediately reminded of Thundarr the Barbarian and "a runaway planet hurtles between the earth and the moon, unleashing cosmic destruction"?
Not many people in the east know a lot about the New Madrid fault or its history of 7.0+ magnitude quakes. In 1811-1812 quakes along the fault are credited with causing permanent changes in the Mississippi (which flowed backwards for a time) and ringing church bells in Boston.
Article on the Thundarr-like drilling
No not that kind of frost - Robert Frost, the American poet. He's always been one of my favorite poets, and I can still recite "Fire and Ice" from memory - having had to memorize it in sixth grade. I hated that class: every Monday we would get a poem to memorize and every Friday we would have to recite it in front of the class. I was certain each week that by Friday all of the stress and adreneline of being in front of all of those kids would trigger my super powers and I would self-immolate. Sadly, that never happened.
Robert Frost is in the news because a poem of his, previously unknown for 88 years, has surfaced in the cover of a friend's book. The poem is called "War Thoughts at Home." Sadly, the Robert Frost estate won't be making this poem available to the public. A note from the Virginia Quarterly Review website says the following:
Please note that VQR is honoring the request of Robert Frost's estate by not making newly-discovered poem "War Thoughts at Home" available to the general public. It is available only to VQR subscribers. Subscribe now for instant access to this and the past 31 years of VQR's archives.
Now I'm certainly not one to pry into other people's business models, but I'd really like to read the whole thing. The first two stanzas have been printed for public consumption, and are typical of Frost's ability to set mood:
On the backside of the house
Where it wears no paint to the weather
And so shows most its age,
Suddenly blue jays rage
And flash in blue feather.
It is late in an afternoon
More grey with snow to fall
Than white with fallen snow
When it is blue jay and crow
Or no bird at all.
If there are any VQR subscribers out there, let me know what you think of the whole poem. I'm optimistic that it will find it's way into a Frost collection some time.
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