“Then we go straight into ultra humid, supremely hot summer.”
And that’s when I’m loving life.
Here in Central VA it has been alternating between warm and sunny and cool and rainy. A typical spring. Forsythia is blooming, as are bradford pears, and shadblow. Daffodils have been out for about two weeks, and all my daylillies have broken through and are stretching. Lilliac buds are swelling.
I saw a flock of 32 turkey yesterday in the pasture across the road.
I’m getting may annual case of the Spring Horniness That Will Not Abate.
I hate this time of year. It’s lovely one day, and you think “This is it! Winter’s over!” And then this happens, and you have to dig out your scarf and you regret having taken the plastic off your windows two weeks ago when it was ten degrees …
This time of year it doesn’t get warmer, per say - all you get is more warm days and fewer cold days (but you still get the cold days).
Although I think I saw a cardinal yesterday, and I’m quite certain I smelled a skunk. Everybody is slightly more attractive but I’m not yet fully horny.
It’s not really spring here until the hockey playoffs start. The First Beer of Summer day (necessarily unpredictable and always impromptu) is the marker for me and it hasn’t come yet. A few years ago it came as early as March but now I’m thinking mid-late April.
In May there’s a long weekend (technically in honour of Queen Victoria, but since it’s on/near the 24th of May we call it the two-four, in honor of what we call a case of beer) that’s considered the beginning of summer, when you can open your cottage and plant your garden and so on.
That’s soooo far away … but when it comes it will be gorgeous - that is, until the smog settles in.
I live in Sacramento and weather has been pretty great. I was at a bar last night and we were outside until about midnight. It wasn’t even a little cold out.
Spring? It came to visit to visit in Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago, but the rodent in Punxsutawney told it to go away for a few more weeks. :mad:
It’s going down to 27 tonight, and it’s going to snow a couple of inches.
I am so sick of winter…
Northern Alabama here, and I must say that it’s been pretty glorious this past week. 60’s and 70’s and very, very clear. I was wading through a clear little spring run in hip waders the other day, and there were all these supremely fragrant little mint plants sticking up out of the run, releasing this wonderful lemony spearmint aroma into the air whenever I brushed against them. The trees are all in full bud, and the daffodils are glorious. I’ve already seen whole forest clearings full of trilliums right on the ragged edge of full bloom.
This winter was particularly difficult for me. Lots of grey, bleak depression, little energy or will to exercise. I gained 20 pounds this winter. Now I can feel life trickling back into my body, and the urge to go running is getting very strong.
It is now officially spring in Florida. The road construction barriers have been moved from the left lanes to the right lanes.
I’m not making this up, you know.
(For those interested in Farenheit (sp) numbers, we have been in the upper-seventies/lower eighties and sunny, although Tuesday, we had ankle-deep rainstorms. I have already used up one can of spray deodorant while working at the theme park, the average wait in line for the rides is about 87 minutes and we haven’t even hit the official spring break point (personally, I thank all you Texans and Tontonians who have visted Orlando this week - thank you for keeping me in a job with good health insurance) and I am sweating like a stuck pig while standing out in the sun getting a farmer’s tan and a burnt nose (SPF 45 my big ol’ butt: a layer of concrete wouldn’t protect this Rudolphian visage - you try to match Revlon “Creamy Beige” neck and Max Factor "Oh My GAWD This Woman Is On Ferschlugginah FIRE!!! decolletage concealer).
Other than that, the mockingbirds are singing happily outside my bedroom window**, we finally got the condo association to powerwash the mold off the buildings, and the children are doing refrigerator-quality artwork in chalk on the sidewalks leading to one of my two personal parking spaces - it feels weird, hop-scotching stick-figure scribbles, althoug I consider this my 5 minute aerobic workout for the day.
** at one in the A. of the friggin’ M., thank you very much, as much as I love birds, especially those looking for a mate, I reeaallllly need to get my beauty sleep!)
And this should actually read “Texans and Torontonians”. I am studying for my “English As An Optional Language” test this week, so spelling is completely out the window right now.
And could someone explain to me the “I (heart) T.O.” shirts I’ve been seeing at the parks this week? I understand the “I (heart) N.Y.” shirts, but where is “T.O”? Is this a corruption/parody of “N.Y.” that I am just not getting? Did I miss a closed-captioned episode of “Air Farce”? Everyone is in a such a hurry to get to all the rides that I cannot stop anyone long enough to get a straight answer to my question.
[QUOTE=askeptic]
Spiders? You aint seen nothing. We have these spiders called Daddy Long Legs and man are they viscious. (don’t know if you have them Down Under, so I’ll tell you I am just kidding they are harmless)(Should I have said Up Over?)
Our nasty spider is the funnel web. They’re quite common here in Sydney. If you get bitten by one of them and don’t get to a hospital pretty quickly, then you won’t last very long.
Can you help resolve an argument? Some folks around this side of the world are wondering if water drains in a different direction down there (do to the corioles effect)
In my experience, water can drain either way in both the southern and northern hemispheres. The Coriolis effect seems to pale into insignificance when compared with the shape of the sink, the flow of the water from the tap (faucet) and the movement involved in pulling out the plug.
Ditto what Cunctator said. Cecil has written a column on the topic.
I’m on the western side of Australia. It’s officially autumn here, but it still feel like summer. Today it was 35C degrees (95F) and dry. I’m going to the beach on the way home from work for a swim as the sun goes down.
I hope you are happy. My wife just yelled at me for filling all the sinks and bath tubs in the middle of the night. End result, 4 sinks, 2 bath tubs, 1 Shower, all of different sizes and shapes, all formed a clockwise rotation. That is the small whirl pool created moved from left to right as they drained.
Considering it is day time in your part of the world, therefor you are not at risk of being yelled at by your significant other, would you consider conducting a similar expirement and telling me the result?
Funnell Web Spiders, Yikes…I saw them on Steve Irwins show. Is he as goofy (but neat) as he seems? Not that I think that just because you are Australian you must know him personally, I just wonder how you Ausies think of him, if you think of him at all.
[QUOTE=Jervoise]
Ditto what Cunctator said. Cecil has written a column on the topic.
The great cecil did write a column about this topic, but it seems to contradict what I observed. I described my very non scientific expirement. What I observed was exactly the opposite of what the great one described. The water seemed to rotate in a clockwise direction, even though I am in the Northern Hemisphere.
Without knowing all the details of your experiment, I’d suggest there are biases inherent in the shape of your bathtubs and basins (and the position of their plugs), and bias stemming from the residual swirling of the water after you filled each container.
Steve Irwin’s fame in Australia stems chiefly from his fame overseas. He seems like a great guy and apparently his “act” is quite genuine, but to most of us he’s a bizarre caricature–a perfect fantasy of what many Americans believe to be a “typical” Australian. The boring truth is that he appears almost as peculiar in our eyes us as he is to foreigners.
Come on, I said all of the sinks , tubs, and showers were different. I allowed the water to come to a stand still before I pulled the plug. Of five seperate basins none is remotely similar in shape or size or placement of drain. Is it coincedence that in each case the water spiraled clockwise?
(PS I do not know the answer, for all I know it is coincedence)
As to Steve Irwin, he seems to be a nut, but he is a cool nut. If all Ausies were like him I would wish I was an Ausie. (Ausie is not derogatory, is it?) His wife is not as cool, being a yank and all. But his dog is awsome.
Except his act as a herpetologist, which is at least partially bullshit. Well, maybe not “bullshit,” per se, but he has a strong streak of Barnum-style showmanship in him. The “chance encounters” you often see him run up on in the show are quite often staged, and the snakes often have their mouths sewn shut (don’t worry, it’s reversible.) This is especially true if he’s working in North America. He wants to be able to run up on the snakes and grab them by the tail like he does in Australia. Trouble is, viperid snakes like most rattlers have much stronger backs than elapids like you find Down Under. If you pick up most rattlers or viperids like that, all they’ll do is curl back on themselves and sink fangs into your arm…thus the extra safety feature.
Full disclosure: the above was told to me by a pair of working herpetologists who have worked with Irwin while he was filming in North America.
Not sure what this has to do with Spring, but then to be fair I did broaden the scope of my OP by talking about Irwin.
I gotta call bull shit, well maybe just calf dung.
Well sure, he is on TV, I thought Shomanship or entertainment was the idea.
So you are saying that when they open their mouths and strike at him it is all special effects (could be, I have no idea, all I know is whenever he is on tv my wife makes me watch him.) (His so called movie was extremely stupid, but she made me watch it, until I mentioned the grass needed to be cut)
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
Back to the OP: Its another beautiful day here in N. California. Not at all hot or smogy here in the foothills, unlike you poor flatlanders down in Sacto. Got a front yard full of Irises and a back yard (meadow) full of Dafodills. The sun is shining the sky is blue and all is right with the world. (At least untill my wife finds out how much time I waste on the internet. In my defense I do have a wireless network and a long extension cord and am typing this while sitting in my hamock down in the meadow. ) Damn I wish it was noon already so I could open a cold one…
There was no judgement necessarily implied one way or another…or at least not after the first sentence or so. He provides interesting information in a dynamic manner. I respect that. And he knows what he’s talking about. But let’s just say all his “dynamics” are not as authentic as they appear on the show.
Not special effects, but careful film editing.
Sounds like somebody with no idea what they’re talking about to me. The fact is that the sewn-mouth technique is very common. Also, why would these people yell “sour grapes?” They’re doing what they love…unless you think they’re secretly jealous blah blah blah of a guy who is essentially nothing more than an actor. Hell, the herper I talked to told me he was hired when the show was in the Desert Southwest to keep rattlers in a bucket, and when Irwin yelled in “surprise,” “Look at that beauty!,” he’d dump the rattler on the road out of sight of the camera.
Fun, yes. Authentic, Noooooononononononono.
77 and sunny here in North Alabama. My cat keeps bonking into the glass back door, trying to get a skink sunning itself on the porch.
Are you sure you’re not an Auburn fan? Roll Tide!
Ofcourse I am not sure what I am talking about, if I was sure I would not waste time talking , er typing about it.
Are you really sure you are not an Auburn fan? This next quote suggests you may very well be.
Do yall say “dynamics” when you mean “theatrics”? Please tell me what an authentic dynamic is.
You must be inland; we’re having hardly any warm days near the beach–that’s the one thing I don’t like about living and working near Santa Monica and El Segundo. El Segundo is especially cool; they call it “mild” but for me it means I’m not comfortable in short sleeves, preferably with a sweater. I’ll be surprised if the temperature in El Segundo exceeds 62F before July.
