Patrick Egan's Blog, page 20

The Big One: Part 3

I’ve been dwelling and raving about The Big One for several days now. It finally arrived. The only problem is that we only were hit with an inch and a half.

The Big One still has left my red snowblower untouched and shiny.

The Big One fell on the area of my hometown. The real ground zero seems to have been Binghamton. This city is located about five hours away from us.

This is the railing of my back deck a few minutes ago:

[Source: my photo.]

[Source: Josephchampaign]

But this is what The Big One really looks like.

The Big One: Part 2

This is a ice crystal pattern

[Source: Mine]

Somewhere, in the wild world of the Troposphere, it all begins. That’s where The Big One originates. There’s water involved, cold temperatures, wind and a waiting winter, already mostly frozen.

Everyone in the North Country is awaiting the arrival of the first significant snowfall, To us, it’s The Big One. I have my brand new red snowblower all ready to move large amounts of the white stuff.

Instead, we got slammed with a thumb-numbing cold. It was at least -6 degrees Fahrenheit when the sun came through the woods early this morning. Now, I’ve seen it much worse ( -6 F would actually seen mild).

But, it is what it is. I felt frozen as I went about my morning.

Every adult knows that no two snowflakes are the same. No wonder about that when you consider the types of snowflakes that eventually form snow.

[Source: Wikipedia.]

[Source: Mine.]

Instead of test driving my new red snowblower, I’m on my knees on the front deck with a hand lens.

Looking for signs of The Big One.

Till Their Hearts Content

My normal blogs are usually free of self pity. I don’t complain very much about my state of life. What follows is an exception.

Sometime early this afternoon, at a major New York City hospital, (when the moon is 22.8% waning crescent) I will lie face down, half naked, hands gripping the mattress by my forehead, to have two needles inserted in my lower back.

I won’t be alone. Countless others have the same condition. We endure Epidural Steroid Injections (ESI). The procedure is part of a “non-surgical management” of sciatica and lower back pain. It sounds as though it were developed in some forgotten gulag during the Stalin era. It was just his kind of thing.

My procedural relief normally lasts about four months, then it is back to New York City again. I have a great pain management doctor. But this past winter we were stuck in Portugal, then COVID, then travel restrictions. On the way home we were ahead of the virus by only a few days. As a consequence, I was months behind in my injections. My pain level rose like an escalator to Macy’s Santa Land.

So we made appointments to get THE SHOT that would make the lumbar discomfort vanish like the snows of winter. The procedure isn’t without flaws however. There is an occasional error. The MIRACLE INJECTION failed to take. Within a few weeks I was suffering as before.

Well here I am again waiting for my turn devouring the latest issue of Arthritis Today. I’m ready this time. No trembling with fear, no nervousness, no worries and no projectile vomiting. Now I’ll be able to return to my normal quality of life like tying my shoes, picking up a stray raisin or hopefully handling my brand new red snow blower that has yet to see a single flake. They can inject till their hearts content.

[Source: Google search and Dr. Richard Staehler, MD]

The Great Suet Cage Conflict of Rainbow Lake

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[Source: Johns Hopkins.edu]

After an hour of lying on my sofa I felt it was time to get up and stretch my chronically sore back. I was lost in a copy of The Principles of Leadership and Management. It was a interesting and informative book. I’ll tell you how it ends when I finish it, sometime in the next few months.

As I was deciding which shoulder needed a rubbing of CBD lotion, I glanced out of the picture window to concentrate on our green suet cage. I noticed a small white object at the bottom the feeder. There were two explanations:

Either a small bit of suet remained or it was the body of a dead albino finch. Since the ‘door’ was latched from the outside, I decided it was the remains of some suet. A locked-in albino finch presented a whole new mystery and I failed to find the energy to play Agatha Christie at the moment.

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Suet cages and I have a history. I put one up and it was gone the next day! Gone. I know that squirrels love suet, but to figure out how to open one and/or drag the entire object away made me angry. I decided to fight back.

Study the photo below:

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Do you notice the small curvy latches that are supposed to ‘lock’ the cage door? A field mouse with a case of bad arthritis could open those latches. I came to the conclusion that some other, stronger and squirrel-proof device was called for.

My wife suggested using a twist-tie. A twist-tie, I thought, could easily be chewed by a large woodpecker. No, I thought, that won’t do.

So I went to the hardware store and bought several ‘S’ hooks. Now these are harder than they look, so I tried to alter the shape with my fingers. I immediately cut a bit of my forefinger and thumb off.

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[Source: Google Search]

Mariam helped me with the Band-Aid. I needed something stronger so I used a pair of pliers (actually two). Things slipped and I cut myself again. After several attempts, I had the ‘S‘ holding the door secure.

Some lessons I learned: use a hand tool, use a twist tie if needed, keep your wife and first-aid kit nearby and never try this at home.

Now I have to change the suet again because the Downy Woodpeccker has a large appetite. He or she must have finished off the last bit of suet and let it drop through the cage holds to the pile of rotting leaves below.

But, I’ll be prepared next time.

Waiting For Some Friends

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Yes, I know. We went to Lowes in Plattsburg and purchased a fire-engine red snowblower. It has all the ‘stuff’ a person would want in one of these babies. It drives itself and controls the direction the snow is blown (away from your face for example).

We waited for the Big One. After all it was getting toward mid-November and by now we would have been slammed by at least three Arctic blasts.

Instead, we got about 4″ to 5″ inches. Hardly a Canadian blitz.

So, except for some hidden bits along the plowed road, there is small patch of snow in our yard about the size of a medium waffle that would come with eggs and coffee at Friendly’s on a day that advertised BREAKFAST SPECIAL!

Knowledge is information, they say. I needed knowledge about the expected and upcoming Big One. I bought a copy of Harris Farmer’s Almanac for 2121. I have nothing against the Old Farmer’s Almanac except I couldn’t locate one and the impulse buying rack carried only copies of rip-off headlines of British scandals and the latest break-up between the Kardashians.

I dove into Harris’ Almanac looking for the Next Big Prediction of Severe Weather. Instead I got caught up in an article about President Taft who became chief justice, Miss America turning 100, President Harding’s First Dog, Laddle Boy and a History of the first drive-in pig stand. What caught most of my interest was a piece on the vanishing song birds.

Finally I found the page about January 2121. Reading this, I now know all the moon’s phases when to plant a root crop and the major holiday’s (National Maritime Day is May 22.)

But, I failed to track down the major snow events for January. It may just as well have stated: The Big One Is Coming. Well, we all know that, (those of us who live in Zone 8), The North Country. Does our little patch of snow in our front yard know that? Can it be assured that it won’t spend the winter alone? You know that loneliness makes me sad.

I must say that I rely on forecasts as we’ve seen and patience. No matter how insignificant one thinks one is, you’re partly right. A tiny bit of snow, when The Big One comes, won’t be alone.

Sometime the wait is worth it. There will be plenty of friends.

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[Source: Both photos are mine.]

ITSY BITSY MACHINES

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The mega international company, IBM, was born in 1911. It was first called Computing-Tabulation-Record Co. Someone, most likely Thomas Watson, after some corporate maneuvers, changed the name to IBM.

My father was hired at the flagship company in Endicott, NY in 1936. He always told his sons that if he took the offer of employee stock options back in the day, our family would have been worth millions by the 1990’s.

The joke was on us.

His kids used to joke with dad.

“Where do you work, dad?” “IBM”, he’d answer.

“You mean ‘Itsy Bitsy Machines.’

Here is a very brief history of how objects that were so big got to be so small (and then big again).

The first attempt to store information was done on an ‘IBM’ card:

[image error] [SOURCE: Google Search.]

Information storage then went to the great invention, the Transistor:

[image error] [Typical Transistor. Source: Google Search]

Today, computers are now ‘Main Frame’, like a lot of little units working together.

[image error] [Typical Main Frames: Source: Google Search.]

I wouldn’t be typing on my laptop, and in 1969 we never would have landed on the moon if big, bulky electronics hadn’t gotten so small (and this is just the beginning.

Split Personalities

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[Source: Instagram Search.]

Don’t worry, this is not going to be a symposium on Multiple Personalities or a detailed peer-reviewed paper on Schizophrenia.

Maybe it will.

Many of you know that after I retired, I chose several ways to keep my sanity and be assured that boredom didn’t become an aspect of my life. I tried Literacy Volunteers and teaching the incarcerated. Both were quite satisfying but getting myself to a library or prison in the middle of a typical North Country winter was a challenge you don’t want to even contemplate.

I tried guitar lessons, watercolor, banjo and recently purchased a fine concert ukulele complete with a one-hundred song book that uses only 3 chords: C–F-and G. None of this matters, of course. I comprehend nothing at all about music. So, it’s merely a way to hang up cool looking instruments and talk about them.

My seven-year-old grandson, Elias can even play Wild Horses, in his own sweet way.

I always had a desire to write so I began by blogging. I have no theme or special topic so I write whatever interests me. The topics are serious, funny, satiric but usually profound in some small way.

I tend to be nostalgic in my choice of subjects as I grow older. So many memories to recall. Recently, I posted my five-hundredth blog. It’s hard work to keep coming up with original and thoughtful ideas.

It’s the same with writing (a large leap for a blogger.) I always felt the need to be a writer. (I ended up spending over thirty years as a science teacher.) I’m no Stephen King but I have my own style. Y/A horror and the supernatural seems to be the genre I’ve fallen into, for now.

All this sets up a serious problem. For the better part of a day, I’m a twelve-year-old boy. The rest of the time, I’m Boris Karloff.

So, who am I really? I try to amuse and I try to frighten with only a few hours to be the real me. Sometimes, the wires get switched

Being a clown at times conflicts with creating profound sadness.

I don a mask and moments later I cover my face with tragedy.

My parents would have been better off naming me JANUS.

[image error] [Source: Instagram Search]

Autumn Comes First, Right?

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I learned a valuable lesson early this morning. No more preparation. Sometimes things make no sense. It doesn’t do much good to try and snow blow a 1/2″ of drizzling rain.

The scheduled delivery from Lowe’s arrived on time. In fact it not only arrived on time, it was early. The truck was at our driveway at 7:00 am. That gave us 15 extra minutes of quality sleep time.

That Craftsman certainly went for a fair price. I expected to pay whatever an average ATV would cost, or perhaps a kit to build a ready-to fly airplane or even a small nuclear generator (small enough to fit in the workshop).

I do believe I got a great deal.

As you know, I’ve been expecting THE BIG ONE. A snow storm the size of Kansas. I’ve been burned before and I vow it won’t happen again,

This morning, I won. It failed to even leave a light coat of frost.

But, I must say, it’s a beautiful red machine. I ordered the brightest color…In case I get lost in a blizzard again. It has an electric start and is self-driving. It will look very trendy and sharp even if I never see a flake of snow again. It will make a great lawn ornament next to my orange lawnmower.

Now that my red miracle machine is safely out of the drizzle…waiting.

Bring on the winter!

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10,000 Eyes

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Most seasoned travelers to Paris would not be surprised that many of them are walking on countless remains of past Parisians. It is estimated that there are over 6,000,000 bodies, skulls mostly, that are buried in ancient rock mine shafts.

It all began with a gruesome and tragic collapse of a catacombs from the church St. Innocents. This prompted the city engineers to use the remaining mine shafts to bury the dead. Only a portion of these unfortunates are on view and open to the public. Touring the tunnels will cost 5€ and I estimated that only about 10,000 skulls and bones are on display.

Who were these people? What were their lives like? Did they often meet, fall in and out of love? Cry? Laugh? Grieve? Were they happy or were their lives spent living in squalid misery? We only have the blank eyes staring back at us to even give a hint.

But we are confident that as Parisians, they approached life with a certain savoir faire.

Think of it. The sightless eye sockets of 10,000 watch your every move. Try to steal a kiss from a sweetheart or a nip from a flask, you certainly won’t be alone.

Oddly enough, it not a dismal environment.

On the streets above, you’re mostly alone. But in the catacombs you have thousands of friends, although mute, at least they are watching you in their own way.

Late Autumn is My Least Favorite Season of the Year

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There once was a time when one could look down at my hometown of Owego. NY and see nothing but the green leaves of summer.

No more. Now you see red brick and white roofs.

It’s like a snapshot of the moment the instant the last leaves are gone but weeks remain between those last leaves and the first buds of spring. The Autumnal Equinox is a month away…not to mention the Winter Solstice.

It’s a long wait until the Begonias, and Tulips begin to appear.

Slowly falling snow, gently descending leaves and small buds waiting to yield a flower. The warmth of an august afternoon…with a kayak beneath your seat beats naked trees anytime.