Saturday, April 30, 2011
Happy Spring
No time to post much this morning. Just happy everything is greening up and growing out there.
So I'll just give you a quick flower, one I shot in Charlotte, Vermont two days ago.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sifting Through Tornado Photos
One of the many awful things about those extreme tornadoes in the South this week is that the storms literally scattered residents' memories to the winds.
Close to 300 people died in the storms.
Many of the survivors lost everything, including treasured family photographs. Many pieces of homes in devastated Tuscaloosa, Alabama, probably including photos and important papers, rained down from the sky as many as 60 miles away. The tornado was that powerful.
As a small way to help, and as a memorial of sorts, a Facebook page of found photographs from the tornado has appeared.
People who found the photos are scanning them and posting them on the page. Maybe some people will find the photos and claim them. It might help a little.
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| Photos found after the Tuscaloosa tornado this week |
Many of the survivors lost everything, including treasured family photographs. Many pieces of homes in devastated Tuscaloosa, Alabama, probably including photos and important papers, rained down from the sky as many as 60 miles away. The tornado was that powerful.
As a small way to help, and as a memorial of sorts, a Facebook page of found photographs from the tornado has appeared.
People who found the photos are scanning them and posting them on the page. Maybe some people will find the photos and claim them. It might help a little.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Flooding Nails Me.
My property is washing away.
Up here in St. Albans, we've had over the past couple of days the most intense spring rainstorms in memory, and there's lots of flooding going on. A flash flood came out of nowhere Tuesday night and swept across my lawns, gardens and driveway, really causing some damage.
As I write this a day and a half later, a new batch of severe storms is sweeping in, and will surely compound the problems.
I can't complain, of course. I just got a little taste of the horror and destruction from what is probably the worst April storm in the nation's history. Close to 100 people have died in 200 tornadoes and incredibly flash floods, mostly in the South and Midwest.
But of course that same vast storm struck Vermont, just not as severely, thank gawd, as elsewhere.
I got home from work Tuesday evening in a thunderstorm. The storms kept waxing and waning, but kept up continuously for hours. Sometimes we'd get a tremedous gust of wind. Sometimes a little hail, then booming thunder.
Things got out of hand around 9:30 p.m. A tremendous rush of rain hit, more intense than I've seen in a long time. Then the hail started banging down. Tons of it, mostly dime size or smaller, but some nickel sized.
Watch the video of my deck to see for yourself:
Once the hail subsided, I went outside with a head lamp because I heard the brook roaring like I'd never heard it before. I wanted to see if the culvert holding my driveway up was intact. It sort of was, but it looked threatened.
As I stood in the darkness, lightning flashing around and thunder booming across the valley, I heard the sound of rushing water and rolling rocks up the hill to my left. I turned and saw a foot high wave of water, with a tangle of branches and rocks in it, headed straight at me. I got out of the way just in time as it rushed through.
The flash flood lasted less than a half hour, but by the time it was done, the embankment near my driveway slipped down the hill, there was a major washout that almost killed one of my spruce trees and my lawn was a mess of mud, branches and rocks, some the size of bowling balls.
All things considered, this is a minor inconvenience, not a disaster. But I'm so behind on work this year that this will delay me further.
But every time I start whining like that I remember. I suffered no mega disaster like so many people across the country had this spring.
Up here in St. Albans, we've had over the past couple of days the most intense spring rainstorms in memory, and there's lots of flooding going on. A flash flood came out of nowhere Tuesday night and swept across my lawns, gardens and driveway, really causing some damage.
 |
| Flash flooding across my yard almost took out this spruce tree |
I can't complain, of course. I just got a little taste of the horror and destruction from what is probably the worst April storm in the nation's history. Close to 100 people have died in 200 tornadoes and incredibly flash floods, mostly in the South and Midwest.
But of course that same vast storm struck Vermont, just not as severely, thank gawd, as elsewhere.
I got home from work Tuesday evening in a thunderstorm. The storms kept waxing and waning, but kept up continuously for hours. Sometimes we'd get a tremedous gust of wind. Sometimes a little hail, then booming thunder.
Things got out of hand around 9:30 p.m. A tremendous rush of rain hit, more intense than I've seen in a long time. Then the hail started banging down. Tons of it, mostly dime size or smaller, but some nickel sized.
Watch the video of my deck to see for yourself:
Once the hail subsided, I went outside with a head lamp because I heard the brook roaring like I'd never heard it before. I wanted to see if the culvert holding my driveway up was intact. It sort of was, but it looked threatened.
As I stood in the darkness, lightning flashing around and thunder booming across the valley, I heard the sound of rushing water and rolling rocks up the hill to my left. I turned and saw a foot high wave of water, with a tangle of branches and rocks in it, headed straight at me. I got out of the way just in time as it rushed through.
The flash flood lasted less than a half hour, but by the time it was done, the embankment near my driveway slipped down the hill, there was a major washout that almost killed one of my spruce trees and my lawn was a mess of mud, branches and rocks, some the size of bowling balls.
All things considered, this is a minor inconvenience, not a disaster. But I'm so behind on work this year that this will delay me further.
But every time I start whining like that I remember. I suffered no mega disaster like so many people across the country had this spring.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Dogs, Babies, Bubbles, Viral
I know, I know, a lot of you have probably seen the video in this post already, but I can't help putting it up here, because it's a day brightener. You take what you can get, right?
In the video, we have a little girl, Molly, who is a bit over nine months old, and Bennie, a German Shepard/beagle mix who discovers how much fun it is to hunt bubbles. Molly thinks it's hysterical.
The video has gone totally viral, with well over a million hits and coverage on the news shows, Bennie and Molly are boffo!
Hard to say who's having the most fun in the video.
You gotta watch:
In the video, we have a little girl, Molly, who is a bit over nine months old, and Bennie, a German Shepard/beagle mix who discovers how much fun it is to hunt bubbles. Molly thinks it's hysterical.
The video has gone totally viral, with well over a million hits and coverage on the news shows, Bennie and Molly are boffo!
Hard to say who's having the most fun in the video.
You gotta watch:
Monday, April 25, 2011
The Drunk Guy and Your Car
I found an interesting video of people reacting to a very drunk valet. Watch the video to the end because you get a very effective message. They should run videos like this in the United States, too.
Watch:
Watch:
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Dramatic Lake Champlain Attacks Road
As I've written about a few times already, Lake Champlain in Vermont is a foot above flood stage.
Saturday, the wind really cranked up, gusting to around 50 mph near the lake. Of course there were huge waves as a result. The best view I found was waves crashing onto Route 2 in North Hero, in the Champlain Islands.
I took the video you see, below. Kind of looks like the coast right before a hurricane roars ashore, doesn't it?
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| Waves from flooding Lake Champlain crash onto Route 2 in North Hero, Vt. in strong winds Saturday. |
Saturday, the wind really cranked up, gusting to around 50 mph near the lake. Of course there were huge waves as a result. The best view I found was waves crashing onto Route 2 in North Hero, in the Champlain Islands.
I took the video you see, below. Kind of looks like the coast right before a hurricane roars ashore, doesn't it?
 |
| Waves driven by strong winds surge ashore along flooding Lake Chanplain in Alburg, Vt. Saturday. |
Easter Weirdness
I don't know about you, but aren't Easter traditions a bit, well, odd?
Giant rabbits hiding eggs around your property? That sounds like a bad acid trip. Is that the way we want to raise our kids?
Besides, what if the kids don't find all the eggs. Eggs get a little gross just staying there out on the lawn for days, no? Stinky, too.
Rabbits procreate like, well, rabbits, so I'd hate to have these giant rabbits get together for a little ooh la la. I don't want the world overrun by giant rabbits. It would be almost as bad as in that old money Ghostbusters, when the Stay Puft Marshmallow man threatened the world.
Can you really blame the kids in the video below, when said giant rabbit shows up outside their window? I'd think it's the end of the world. Watch for yourself:
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| As far as I'm concerned, Easter Bunnies are weird and scary |
Besides, what if the kids don't find all the eggs. Eggs get a little gross just staying there out on the lawn for days, no? Stinky, too.
Rabbits procreate like, well, rabbits, so I'd hate to have these giant rabbits get together for a little ooh la la. I don't want the world overrun by giant rabbits. It would be almost as bad as in that old money Ghostbusters, when the Stay Puft Marshmallow man threatened the world.
Can you really blame the kids in the video below, when said giant rabbit shows up outside their window? I'd think it's the end of the world. Watch for yourself:
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