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Category: Not Funny

  • what everybody needs – anger management

    what everybody needs – anger management

    A world gone mad – why?  Because there are a high number of angry people in the world who for one reason or the other have forgotten (if they ever knew) how to behave and how to control their anger.  I understand anger.  It isn’t as if I am saying “don’t be angry”.  It really is about getting the anger under control before it spills out and hurts people.  It is about taking personal responsibility for your shit, and not acting out at people just because you don’t like something.  You should have learned this as a child, but you didn’t or else you forgot.

    looming clouds
    looming clouds

    The headlines – mass shootings – domestic violence – Donald Trump’s popularity – all of these support the notion that anger management is needed.  Perhaps a spray in the air?  “Anger-Begone”.  Perhaps you have to attend anger management class before you get your drivers’ license or your next renewal – your passport – your insurance might require it – I mean, how many ways could we make certain that people have skills to control their anger?  There are lots of ways.  Classes in school – elementary through graduation – classes in college – why not?  Nothing else is working.  It shouldn’t interfere with everyone’s rights or freedom.  Who could argue that this would be at least something towards a solution for “the world gone mad” problem that we seem to have.

    If most people knew how to control their anger, and appropriately deal with it vs. shooting people or blowing stuff up, then it could solve a lot of problems in the world and the money being spent on that stuff could be used for something else.  Imagine.

    But this idea might get push-back from someone like Trump, whose whole platform is built around “anger” and using extreme solutions to solve anything or everything that sound like a six year old playing with blocks or locking the door of his room.  All those “angry people” are going to elect him to be King (uh, I mean POTUS, not KING) – King would be like Elvis, and he is not really here anymore, except the look-alike Elvis impersonators in Vegas… which is about the level of “universe” that planet Donald resides within.

    It’s pretty crazy around here – it’s a mad mad mad world….

  • it’s happening again. groundhog day. we can’t really do much about it. stupid weather.

    it’s happening again. groundhog day. we can’t really do much about it. stupid weather.

    Look at this weather forecast:

    IMG_7892Not pretty.  Again?  Really?

    The mosquitoes are going to eat us alive.  We are going to have a big wet mess again if this really happens.  Here lately, it seems that we’ve ended up in an endless do-loop cycle of “unprecedented” weather events.

    Not happy about this.  I was going to get to see my grand-baby this weekend, but now the likelihood of the roads being “underwater” between here and there is growing in a predictable way – but you know, they will never say positively one way or the other – they will interpret the data and make their predictions.

    But just look at the facts, yourself.  Presently, the Brazos River continues to rise, as it still has not reached flood stage.  Evacuations are ongoing.  Today.  We are waiting on another report but in the meantime, the map here on the USGS WaterWatch (#WaterWatch) site has the latest info for you to visualize the WHERE of all of this wacked-out weather.

    Here is what the forecasters from our NWS are saying as of the latest forecast before this writing:

    Area forecast discussion
    National Weather Service Houston/Galveston Texas
    1042 am CDT Wednesday Jun 1 2016

    Update…
    atmosphere is very moist with precipitable water of 1.7 to 1.8″
    this morning but this will be increasing throughout the afternoon
    and Thursday. Troughing along the coast to just off of crp will
    slowly lift north and help with storm development. Today expecting
    scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms and have raised
    probability of precipitation accordingly mainly over the central and eastern areas.
    Rainfall rates of 2″ per hour already going over Polk/Trinity
    counties this morning. Will raise a Flash Flood Watch across the
    area through Friday afternoon but may need extending.

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    &&

    Previous discussion… /issued /

    Discussion…
    southeastern Texas is readying itself for another few days of
    precipitation brought on by periods of locally moderate to heavy
    rainfall that will likely induce or aggravate regional flash and
    river flooding. All of the synoptic ingredients are in place, from
    the gradual spreading of the upper levels as jet level winds become
    more diffulent just ahead of the southwestern-settling mid to upper
    low to the Stout lower to mid level southeasterly 20-35 knot inflow
    feeding inland convection with near 2 inch precipitable waters.
    The devil is in the details as they say and this couldn’t be more
    true of a idiom than for US over the next several days. Yes,
    confidence is mounting that many across the region will experience
    a round or three of impressive rainfall (rates) that will again
    produce flooding and quite possibly various communities will be
    dealing with wind damage from either localized wet downbursts or
    weak tornadoes from passing strong thunderstorm clusters. As is
    the case with all of these anticipated potential severe weather
    events…the question of the exact timing and location of the most
    intense weather will go unanswered until either right before its
    passage or during the heat of battle itself. Although the vicinity
    (unfortunately southwestern-positioned) upper low and subsequent
    shortwave disturbances rotating around this main feature will
    ultimately be the impetus to inclement weather, it will be the
    mesoscale that determines the when and the where of the most
    severe rainfall and wind. Or, in other words, it will be that
    prior convection that drives future convective behavior and, if we
    can better pinpoint this on a 6 hour time line, then we may be
    able to more accurately convey a relatively higher confidence with
    a 12,or even 24, hour forecast.

    The target days for the highest rainfall will be from as early as
    today through as late as Saturday afternoon. This is the period in
    which the upper low currently digging down over the lower U.S.
    Southwest and the northern Mexico providences of Sonora and
    Chihuahua will nestle itself over Texas, particularly over eastern
    or south central state. With the highly moist ‘condition’ally
    unstable air mass already in place over the region, this scenario
    is the worse possible for US as it places eastern Texas under the
    best upper exhaust pattern for series of disturbances (the ‘conditional’)
    to generate lift and maintain an environment conducive to the
    formation of continual clusters of thunderstorms to slowly travel
    (train) over the area. Not expecting overall storm motion to be
    all that fast within a forecast weakly steered lower layer. As of
    now, the forecast calls for likely rain/storm chances commencing
    today and persisting through the weekend. There will be periods of
    either very light or no precipitation, especially if an mesoscale convective system travels
    across the County Warning Area and creates subsidence in its wake. A model and
    National center blend equates to an areawide 5 day quantitative precipitation forecast of between
    4 to 5 inches, locally higher with amounts of greater than 10
    inches certainly not out of the question. Of course, it will be
    those 1 inch amounts over 15 minutes across more urbanized landscapes
    that will be of the highest threat versus double digit rainfall
    over a span of several days.

    On a major side note…the city (iah) has not yet recorded a 90f
    degree day this year. If this forecast pans out and overcast with
    rainfall plagues the region through the weekend, then the city
    would likely not meet 90f for the remainder of the week. This
    would place 2016 in the top 5 if 90f was not met by Sunday (the
    latest day was on June 15th, 1897). 31