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Froggy Bottom Cafe
Coffee & Tea under the window, platters of treats on every table
Come on in!
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May the 4’s be with you
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Froggy Bottom Cafe
Coffee & Tea under the window, platters of treats on every table
Come on in!
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My brain is fully occupied by a large project. I keep forgetting trivial tasks. It’s always the same – I have to absorb all the facts and then they swirl around until I find the red thread (to translate a Finnish phrase). During this period nothing else gets done.
Last night was a party for 1 year old son of my close friends, and tonight a dinner out at a Jazz club for the birthday of my gypsy gangster friend.
And tomorrow the patio should be cleared up and the lawn mowed. I think I’ll plead projectitis…
“find the red thread.” I like that.
“projectitis,” lol. You know there’s an alternate meaning for that, don’t you? “Projectitis: an ailment peculiar to members of the religious right who project their own worst fears about themselves onto other people.” WE, of course, would never do that. 🙂
in Finnish is ‘punainen lanka’. Also the name of a folk group here in the Seventies – derived from their politics ;-). There was a lot of agitprop music around then.
Hunter S, preferred projectilitis. He gave new meaning to ‘going out with a bang’
Help yourselves . . .
Oooo, that’s so pretty, can I live there?
I just finished my own big project on Monday and since then I’ve been in a cleaning and furniture moving orgy. I love getting everything sparkling and fresh. . .so I can start on the next big project and let it all go to hell again.
But I’ve been walking like a crazy person for a month now and my only chance to do it today is right now. Once the sun heats things up around here, I just can’t make myself do it. During the week, I walk in a giant empty room at work. I get there early and do 15 minutes. 15 minutes at break. Then 1/2 hour at lunch. Then 15 minutes at break. Then stay 15 minutes. So I can do 6 miles in air conditioning and hardly notice it (I walk a constant 4 miles/hour).
But, weekends it takes more thought. Today, I’m going to the track at the high school (I’ve never done it — but it’s just a couple of blocks away). If I leave now, I can walk 8 miles today!
Then, when I get back, you can find me here:
Admiration: Wow! What strength of character you show in being able to make yourself exercise in a big empty room or a circular track.
Showing off: I walk every morning before work but since I telecommute and live in the midst of hundreds of acres of woods, I have a wonderful enticement (and insistent dogs) to get me out for the walk. Here’s an example of what I get to see on my walks.
Well, I’m not crazy — I’d much rather be walking where you’re walking. That looks beautiful — WoW!
However, it’s not strength of character at all. It’s just that I work at this downtown library and I can either walk around a city block in sweltering heat or in this giant air-conditioned (although a little musty) room. And when I walk around the block (1 circle = 3/4 of a mile) I lose 5 minutes or so of walking time just getting in and out of the building. Meanwhile the giant room is 10 steps from my cubicle. Or I could not walk at all — which at this stage of my life isn’t an option.
I daydream the same daydreams either way. And one of my daydreams is that in 2 1/2 years, when I can take an early retirement, I’ll move to San Francisco where walking is fun and challenging.
enough credit. Making yourself exercise when there aren’t lovely distractions takes real effort and willpower. So take a virtual pack on the back from me (as someone who quickly found out how easy it was to go “riding my bike on a stationary trainer sucks and I’m not gonna”).
8 miles??!!!
I have to go lie down.
I didn’t actually make it 8 miles. The track team was working out on the track (how dare they?) and I was forced to walk my neighborhood walk.
I tried to stretch it out — but the pedometer says 5 miles. I’m not sure I believe it. I think that maybe when I go out later that I’ll drive the loop and see what the car says.
Not that 5 miles is bad, but I think it was a little more.
Howdy everyone, it’s a great morning down here in Mississippi, but it’s gonna heat up later, fer sure.
Right now I’m freakin out at the prospect of Hurricane Katrina making it up to my doorstep as a Category 1 hurricane, with 75 mph winds and lots of rain. I’m 150 miles inland, in Jackson, MS, and even the Category 5 Hurricane Camille in ’69 didn’t hit Jackson that hard. Over the past 24 hours, the major forecasting models have converged to show Katrina hitting around New Orleans as a Category 4 and making a fast bee-line north towards Jackson. It’s kinda scary for me, but if I lived anywhere from Lake Charles, La. to Pensacola on the coast, I’d really be worried.
So, after I have a cup of coffee or two, I’ll be up on the roof repairing a small leak. I fear that if I don’t, that little annoying drip, drip, drip I noticed during the last thunderstorm will become a huge puddle on my floor by Tuesday night!
blueneck! Hang in there!
I still have fuzzsy head this morning — which is the most dangerous, 1 or 5?
The last I heard of katrina, she was still a tropical storm — did she pick up huge amounts of power in the last 24 hours?
Stay safe and dry and keep us updated as to your status! Can youbelieve we are already in the Ks for named storms and it isn’t even the end of August?! I wonder if we will get through the whole alphabet this year….
Global Warming, anyone? We’ll definitely make it farther down the alphabet than ever before I’ll bet.
Katrina is already a Category 3 Hurricane! And all conditions favorable to continue to intensify!
I’ll certainly keep you updated. I’m something of a “weather hound” and I might put up a diary later today with all my hurricane info links. There are a lot of really cool web-sites available if you’re a meteorology geek. d:)
I know we have a few BooTribbers down on the Mississippi coast and in Alabama, too, but they may already be too busy boarding up windows and filling up the gas tanks in their autos to check in. The whole coast is getting into “VERY SCARED” mode as we speak.
As a small-boat sailor on the Great Lakes, I’ve had the chance to weather hurricane force winds in open waters, sometimes out of sight of land (well, of course you’re always out of sight of land once the spray starts flying). The bad news about midwest storms is the lightning. The good news is that the peak winds only last 10-15 minutes.
As a teen I took a crew of 2 other kids in an open boat through an 80 knot [clocked by a nearby commerical freighter] large midwest thunderstorm during a midweek race night with hundreds of other boats involved. In the peak gusts all 3 of us were on the rail leaning all the way out trying to keep the boat upright with no sail hoisted, just the bare mast sticking up, because I was a few seconds late turning the boat downwind to where there’d be no tipping force.
It blew around 50 or so for another 10-15 minutes, during which time the boat surfed like a powerboat heading towards the rocks a mile ahead, and when we threw out the anchor it also surfed along behind us. 3 teenage kids–the other two were girls–and fyi girls don’t scream and freak out in crisis like they do in the movies. But you all knew that. They reeled in the anchor and threw it ahead to give it time to sink so we could finally stop.
Most people don’t grasp that the force of the wind goes up with the square of velocity, so a 50 mph wind is four times as strong as 25. The wind force doubles from 50 to 70, the threshhold of category one, and quadruples by 100 which is middling category 2.
Way back at a calm 50 mph, which you can experience by sticking your hand out the car window or riding in the back of an open truck, solid spray is blown off the surface of water about like thunderstorm rain, so you can’t really look against the wind if you’re down at water level or if you’re on flooded ground. You can’t walk easily at 50 mph without handholds either at sea or on land. When you see wintertime scenes of people being blown off their feet around building corners and doors, those winds are typically not much over 30. An unexpected gust even that low can tip you off balance.
The weakest hurricane is going to last many times longer than a midwest thunderstorm, and it’ll be strong enough to turn ground debris into dangerous shrapnel and knock over recreational vehicles and toss boats around like toys unless they’re very well secured.
I see from the TV footage lots of great deals in used boats will be on the market this fall, especially for anyone with some rigging and fiberglass know-how. There are still some on the online traders from last season.
I have always loved the Beaufort Scale of wind velocity. It reads like poetry. Many people can’t envision what a 35 mph wind feels like, but when it says “Whole trees in motion; inconvenience felt when walking against the wind” it’s so much more easier to imagine.
BEAUFORT SCALE: Specifications and equivalent speeds for use on land
FORCE EQUIVALENT SPEED DESCRIPTION SPECIFICATIONS FOR USE ON LAND
10 m above ground
miles/hour knots
0 0-1 0-1 Calm Calm; smoke rises verticall.
1 1-3 1-3 Light air Direction of wind shown by
smoke drift, but not by wind
vanes.
2 4-7 4-6 Light Breeze Wind felt on face; leaves
rustle; ordinary vanes moved
by wind.
3 8-12 7-10 Gentle Breeze Leaves and small twigs in
constant motion; wind extends
light flag.
4 13-18 11-16 Moderate Breeze Raises dust and loose paper;
small branches are moved.
5 19-24 17-21 Fresh Breeze Small trees in leaf begin to
sway; crested wavelets form on
inland waters.
6 25-31 22-27 Strong Breeze Large branches in motion;
whistling heard in telegraph
wires; umbrellas used with
difficulty.
7 32-38 28-33 Near Gale Whole trees in motion;
inconvenience felt when walking
against the wind.
8 39-46 34-40 Gale Breaks twigs off trees;
generally impedes progress.
9 47-54 41-47 Severe Gale Slight structural damage occurs
(chimney-pots and slates removed).
10 55-63 48-55 Storm Seldom experienced inland; trees
uprooted; considerable structural
damage occurs.
11 64-72 56-63 Violent Storm Very rarely experienced;
accompanied by wide-spread damage.
12 73-83 64-71 Hurricane —
That’s beautiful! How funny. Weather haiku. Or maybe that’s redundant?
Yes, I agree, it reads much nicer than Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale I referenced above. And, quite frankly, I hope I can use the Beaufort Scale to describe what happens when Katrina heads my way, not the Saffir-Simpson Scale! I hope I won’t see more than a severe gale. I wouldn’t mind losing a few “chimney-pots”, but “trees uprooted” I can do without!
I have never in my life said “much more easier”…please let me plead typo on that one!
Here’s a great NOAA page on the Beaufort Scale, scroll down to the bottom and there are descriptive photos of ea. cat. taken at sea.
We get what are called “Chinook” winds here in the foothills, esp in the winter mos of J F & M…sustained winds up to 70mph +- and gusts well over 100…very unpleasant and generally last days at a time.
Also, anyone heard from the iPig? I think he’s down in that area.
Later
Looks like I got in a hurry and busted the link. Try this
Beaufort
Peace
Hey Gooserock! I have a similar sailing story… In my high school years I had a good friend with a 27 ft boat that we sailed on the large man-made recreational/drinking water supply lake just north of Jackson. We were in a race, and a violent squall line popped up and we foolishly waited too long to take down the mainsail.
By the time we realized this wasn’t your average Mississippi squall line, the halyard was too taught to pop out of the cleat. In a 40-50 mph wind, gusting higher, I had one hand on the mast, the loose end of the halyard in the other, and I was stomping down on the halyard to try and pop it out of the cleat, but the force from the sail was too great. I scrambled around in the cabin a while looking for something to cut the halyard with, but we had nothing!
Fortunately I was with two experienced sailors who kept their heads about them. We ran with it, because we sure as hell weren’t gonna try to tack into it. We almost got to the end of the lake before it was over, but we stopped short of having to decide whether to keel the boat over on purpose or run it aground. It still ranks up there as one my most memorable adrenaline rushes ever. Definitely not as bad a storm as yours, and on a much smaller lake, but with our foolishness thrown in it made for a real ordeal. 🙂
Blueneck, we rode out a Category 2 (Alex) on Ocracoke Island in NC last summer in a house right on the Pamlico sound. Gusts were measured at 120 mph.
It was scary, with 4 or 5 feet of water rushing under the house, and the wind gusts shaking the whole structure. The whole island was flooded with a few feet of water. Luckily, no one was hurt, but, oh the mess to clean up afterwards!
We’ll be thinking of you and I hope Katrina falls apart more quickly than they’ve predicted.
Wow! I do love a good storm, and I am a tornado survivor. But I’ve never been close to a serious hurricane. It’s actually kind of funny that I’ve lived here in Jackson all my life except for college years in the Boston area and the worst hurricane I’ve actually been in “the middle of” was Hurricane Gloria (1986, I think)when it went all the way up the East Coast and hit NY city and Boston! But by the time it got that far north it was just a strong Tropical Storm, with winds about 60 mph and a few gusts to 70mph or so.
I’m glad you survived Alex last year! and on an island, too! You’re either brave or crazy! 🙂
We get awesome thunderstorms here in Mississippi, but this hurricane thing is entirely different…
Actually, neither…it was a tropical storm until about an hour before it hit the island, and because the island is a 40-minute ferry ride from even Hatteras Island, evacuation wasn’t even a consideration.
So, now I have the bragging rights…and pictures of my kids paddling kayaks up the road on Ocracoke after the storm!
It must have been awesome, that’s all I can say. I really do wish it was me! I have a secret other life in which I run around chasing tornadoes and hurricanes and hailstorms and blizzards. What you did would rank right up there with the most ?exciting? thing I could imagine.
However, not on top of my very own house, please!
Hang in there, Blueneck. With tornados, we only have to be scared for a little while. You guys have to live with the fear for so much longer.
Hey kansas! Ya’ll get the kind of tornadoes that you can see coming across the plains at you, we get the kind the kind that you can’t see coming!
It’s a little known fact that Mississippi is a very active tornado state. In fact, there have been a few years out of the past thirty or so where we had more tornadoes per square mile of area than any other state.
When I was five years old, members of my family and I spent an hour under a hefty mahogany table in the middle of my grandparents house, during which two different tornadoes popped out all the windows, shook the house vigorously, removed all the shingles from the roof, and knocked a huge tree into the back part of the house – and started my fascination with storms of all types that lasts to this very day.
Hit by TWO tornadoes in the same day?! I hope you kept that mahogany table!
Alas, that large dinner table ended up with my grandfather’s second wife’s sister’s grandchildren (got that?), not with me. But it served us well that day. I felt pretty safe underneath it actually. I think if the roof had fallen in on top of us, those huge table legs and that triple thick table top would have saved us all.
Wow, that sounds scarier than the hurricane!
I have to admit, the hurrican thing was amazing just in terms of the massive interaction between the water and the wind. When I saw the tsunami pictures last December, it made it easier for me to imagine how things must have been for the poor people who were vacationing there then. The power of large amounts of water is awesome.
Well, the Fedex man came this morning with my next set of work projects…they’re all on premature ejaculation (PE for short)! I’m trying to read about intra-vaginal ejaculatry latency time without giggling at the thought of someone with a stopwatch timing it (and yes, that’s how they do the studies!).
It’s going to be a long work week or two, I fear.
Long for you, perhaps, but quite amusing for us!
Maybe we can all snicker at the range of normal IELT later? 🙂
We liberals have the advantage of having evolved for billions of years. We know we’re animals, we know how we got here, big deal. Now let’s figure out how this stuff all works!
We have to humor our newcomer conservative neighbors who only arrived 6,000 years ago.
I wouldn’t have worked so diligently to get out of taking PE in high school had I known what it was really about. It sounds like fun….or a little like marriage after awhile.
Shucks, every time I get myself almost talked into thinking marriage might not be so bad, someone comes along and reminds me of the reality of it! 🙂
Are you still thinking about DC? It sounds like we’re going to have a pretty good-sized BT crew there.
Guess what I did? I broke my freaking ankle yesterday! I was flying out the door to take my son somewhere and completely missed the step, landing sideways on my ankle and then onto the concrete…I have a bruised face, a bruised and swollen hand/wrist, and a big scrape on my shoulder, and a whiplash type injury to my neck from my head bouncing off of the ground. How can I hurt in so many places from falling 8 inches?!
I wish like hell I could go to DC but, alas, it will only be in spirit.
Please do send lots of pictures.
PS…what the heck do you do for a living?
I expected something fun — this is horrible! How did you get to the hospital? Is someone taking care of you? What do they do for a broken ankle? It sounds very bad. What can they do for the whiplash?
I am so sorry.
He he….hospital? Moi? I didn’t think it was broken so I drove my son to work and came home and iced it…then got up to go to the bathroom and almost passed out from the pain. My husband was in an airplane somewhere, heading home so the first thing when he came home after a week long business trip I’m like ‘um…feel like sitting in a dirty ER for the next 8 hours?’
letting your kids wait on you hand and foot. Lie down and elevate that leg!
I broke my leg right above the ankle (spiral fracture of the tibia, hairline in the fibula) a few years back and my ankle kept swelling up for months (it still does sometimes). The good news (as far as I’m concerned) is that I can no longer wear heels because of the discomfort they cause.
On the way home from the hospital I was in quite a bit of pain and my husband said “let’s get you home and get that leg above your head”…..I just cracked up laughing in that crazed way you do when you’re hurting…like half laughing and then turning into crying and then back into laughing.
I asked him if that line worked with his other girlfriends. I mean, it’s not very subtle!
Oh, that is horrible! One of my friends fell off a single step and broke her ankle so severely that she need surgery twice to fix it! And she sprained her wrist at the same time.
I hope you’re okay. We’ll miss you in DC, but I think we’ll have lots of pictures, and maybe you can help us with the remote-blogging if you like?
Make them wait on you! No doing for yourself, you hear?
Oh, and I’m a medical writer…
Mornin’ folks.
ImageShack seems to be offline this morning, but since the Puget Sound weather is unidimensional at the moment I can portray it accurately below:
We’re going to spend a little quality family time today making the nest more comfortable for our beardless family member (that would be someone other than the two totos and myself).
Uh-oh–I see the air is clearing at ground level so I’d better keep the camera ready. There’s going to be some magical lighting hereabouts in the next hour or two.
It was great seeing the Crawford photos in the Alohaleezy thread. I loved this morning’s CNN report that Camp Casey has invited the antiCaseys over for private talks, including providing shuttle service between camps.
With nothing stop all this radical calmism?
How incredibly cool about the CNN report! “radical calmism”–lol! What WILL those extremists do next?
I know this is a stupid question, but how does one go from being a trusted BooTrib user to being …. suspicious, untrusted, an outsider? Did I do something wrong?
When I last checked in (July), I was a TU. Now, after being sucked in by the Tour de France and layoffs/general evil at work, I come back to find I’m no longer trusted.
Not that this really matters in the big scheme of things, but I feel like such a failure!
TU status “decays” if you haven’t been on for a while. There’s nothing nefarious at work. Have a 4 to get you back on track — you’ve come to the right place for those!
Hi mlr701 – I think it has to do with the rating and frequency of comments, so if you haven’t been here for a while and haven’t commented you might lose TU status. The software calculates the average … darn, BooMan just explained the other day and I forget what it was. You just need to get back in commenting again. You’ll get it back in no time if you spend any time in the Cafe, or heck any of the other threads. BTers are cool that way :o).
I think it is a cumulative and time related thing, how’s that for an explanation.
In no time at all you should be a tu again, but what dif. does that make really unless you plan on giving 0’s. lol
Anyway I shall give you some 4’s when I see your name and others will sure give you 4’s here on this ‘always the great mojo threads.’
If that doesn’t make sense, it’s cause I just awoke.
Mornin everyone, how are you all today..
you have to have at least 10 comments rated in the last two months. Hang out in the cafe and you’ll have it back in no time.
What they said. Number of posts/ frequency of posts/ratings of posts. As I understand it, 30 4’s for one post won’t make a diff, but one 4 for 30 posts over a relatively short period of time does. (I pulled those numbers out of my hat, so don’t take them literally!)
Ah, thank you everyone. Now I understand, and that’s always the first step.
I’m glad to be back. I’ve missed it here!
to know that Susan went to the emergency room last night with chest pains. They ran some tests and she seems to be fine, no heart problems. But they kept her overnight for observation, and I am still waiting to hear news. Darcy, her daughter, sent me an email last night telling me this. So, I’m a little worried, but am glad to know the tests came out okay.
Boo… Let her know we’re sending good thoughts/ wishes/ vibes her way.
I could and I will as soon as I can. I’m trying to find Darcy’s phone number, but I have dozens of emails with her name in them and only one has her phone number. It’s a little frustrating.
Tell Susan, I worry about her. I will be looking forward to a report on her health condition SOON!!! Thanks for keeping us up-dated on this.
I left a post for Darcy to contact you over at the LC2 yahoogroup.
I know she works for Tom Bihn, but I don’t have her personal phone number.
Mike
Yikes, no kidding! Best healing wishes to her!
Holy shit — thanks for letting us know, Boo. is there anything that Darcy needs? I’m glad the tests went well, but still worrisome. Please let us know what the overnight observation “observes” and let Darcy and Susan know that we are all here for them should they need us!
Oh, my, goo thoughts for them both.
they took her seriously and did the tests. So often when a woman complains of chest pains they chalk it up to stress and tell her to go home and take a bubble bath and not to worry her pretty little head so much.
Heart disease is the leading killer of women, and still many doctors and ER personnel don’t take it as seriously as when a man comes in with chest pain.
Booman, Have you heard back from Susan or her daughter yet? How is she feeling? I hope she’s back home??
just popp’n by to say HI, and a quick good-bye for now…will be back later on…
HOOOOOOOOOOOO LAAAAAAAAAAAAWD
Hooooooo Laaaawd my ass! It’s worse than that isn’t it? When I’m looking at the pretty doppler images, I’m looking at you, right? Anything to the east of New Orleans means you get wet – or am I exaggerating? Forgive my silliness if I’m way off base – but hell, I haven’t experienced a powerful natural event since 10 seconds of moderate shaking about 4 years ago…. inexperienced wimp here…
LOL…that’s the problem, you need way more than 10 seconds of natural shaking ; )
I need two aspirin and a large Coca-Cola with ice. The metal mosh pit last night was off-the-hook. 😉
It was a pretty rockin’ cafe last night … e did a great job. Looking forward to what you have in store for us with the Mystery guest next week.
and to think – I wandered off somewhere and missed it…damn my pathetic roving attention span. Sorry I missed you last night ManEegee – I might have been subconsciously dodging those ‘dating the guy who jammed in the basement’ memories… <shudder>