Sometimes I have these really inexplicably weird dreams that wake me up and leave me wondering “What the heck was that?”
It started off with me wandering around the townhouse complex where I grew up. There was this funny looking chihuahua following me around for some reason. Then this funny looking dog thing appeared. It looked a lot like Speak, the South American rodent thing that the Tick adopted as a dog. Suddenly, the chihuahua gave a yelp, jumped up and landed on the back of the Speak-resembling-thing and started humping it.
A woman standing next to me asks “Is that dog humping the other one?”
After looking a little bit, I replied “No…I think he’s trying to ride it…like a horse”
Eventually the Speak-resembling-thing took off with the chihuahua riding on it’s back. There’s this guy filming the chihuahua jumping onto the Speak-resembling-thing’s back to send to America’s Funniest Animals. He’s recording it on a strange format film, so when it’s played back it looks and sounds like slow motion.
Suddenly, Speak-resembling-thing is being operated on. Midline incision is made, and strange looking guts are revealed. And then I woke up.
Remind me not to read my wife’s anatomy textbooks before going to bed…
Opposites really do attract
My wife and I are completely and totally the opposite of each other. It’s a wonder that we get along as well as we do.
- My wife is a social butterfly and people person. I am not.
- She likes going out clubbing and dancing. I hate clubs, and have no rhythm at all.
- She likes eating out at fancy restaurants. I just want to go to the burger place down the road.
- Physics turns me on. It turns her off.
- I like playing outdoors and doing outdoorsy things. She can’t stand being anywhere bugs might land on her.
- She likes to plan and schedule everything. I have a hard time planning what I’m going to be doing in 10 minutes.
- I cook experimentally and throw together whatever happens to be on hand. She wants to stick with the recipe.
- She waffles. When I make a decision, I’m committed unless there’s a good reason to make me change my mind.
- I’m a pack rat. She’s forever looking to throw away my stuff.
Despite all that, we still manage to get along amazingly well and have been for the past 11 years. Rather than thinking of us as being total opposites, I prefer to think of us as being very complementary.
Back to work
Back from my trip to Orlando. Much fun was had, much baking in the sun was done. I’ll put some pictures up in my gallery shortly, once I’ve gone through and organized them a bit.
No, not another leash!
Lately my wife has been trying to convince me to get a cell phone. She knows I don’t want one, but she keeps insisting I need one. I keep insisting that I don’t need one. Heck, I don’t even like carrying a pager.
Now she’s telling me to pick out a cell phone that I’d want, or she’ll pick one out for me. Considering my pickiness for technology, it’ll probably be one that I’ll end up hating (if I can hate cell phones much more).
Hurricane Season 2004
We’re into the last half of May now, and that means Hurrican Season is coming soon and the National Hurricane Center’s hurricane predictions are in.
This year’s storm names:
Alex, Bonnie Charley, Danielle, Earl, Frances, Gaston, Hermine, Ivan, Jeanne, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tomas, Virginie, Walter.
Some highlights from the NHC’s predictions:
The outlook calls for 12-15 tropical storms, with 6-8 becoming hurricanes, and 2-4 of these becoming major hurricanes. These numbers reflect a predicted ACE index in the range of 100%-160% of the median, and indicate a likely continuation of above-normal activity that began in 1995.
Many of the tropical storms and hurricanes in 2004 are likely to form during August-October over the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea between 9°N-21.5°N (green box). These systems generally track westward toward the United States and Caribbean Sea as they strengthen.
Another factor known to significantly impact seasonal Atlantic hurricane activity is ENSO (Gray 1984, Monthly Weather Review), with El Niño favoring reduced activity and La Niña favoring increased activity. Based on the most recent ENSO outlook issued by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue in the tropical Pacific through July, and most likely through August-October as well. However, there is considerable uncertainty in the statistical and coupled model ENSO forecasts after July, and the comparatively wide range in the predicted ACE values reflects this uncertainty.
There are two competing uncertainties in this outlook. The first is the possibility of an extremely active season similar to 2003, which resulted partly from near-record warmth across the deep tropical Atlantic, and partly from an amplified upper-level ridge across the western subtropical Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico in association with a persistent East Atlantic teleconnection pattern (Bell et al. 2004, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., In press). In the event that the warmer tropical Atlantic SSTs and the subtropical ridge over the western Atlantic again become significantly enhanced, the ACE values could be at or even above the high end of the predicted range.
The second uncertainty involves the ENSO forecasts, which have exhibited low skill historically when issued at this time of the year and represent an ongoing source of uncertainty in the pre-season hurricane outlooks. There is currently considerably diversity in the statistical and coupled model forecasts of ENSO after July, which leads to a wider predicted ACE range in this outlook.