watching the clouds roll down watching the fog roll in

This morning began with the sound of rain on a metal roof, the usual pains that remind me I’m alive, and the reluctance to roll out of a warm bed with Gloria at my side. Nothing new, nothing unusual, nothing spectacular. Medicated, computers booted, coffee aroma filling the house, things look much like expected. At 0700 it is still far too dark to hike to the mail box for the newspaper without man-made light. A headlamp, not necessary to avoid trees and cars, but essential for avoiding evidence that the neighbor’s dogs have run loose overnight, reveals a fine mist in the 51 F air. The dog needs to be drained and emptied and I want to get back inside where the coffee promises temporary rejuvenation. The greater my desire to return to the house, the greater Loki’s desire to sniff every square meter of ground, in order to discover what the falling barometer and high humidity have released or freshened for her olfactory pleasure. We finally reach an agreement, which is that I finally refused to allow her any more time to wander. Cold, hungry, and in need of caffeination trumps a dog’s freedom to explore any morning. By now it should be apparent that I am not an animal rights advocate. I abhor the abuse of animals by humans. Chaining dogs outside alone as a status symbol is a despicable behavior and should be terminated when ever found. But to my mind, “PETA” is a misspelled small loaf of bread, best served with meat.


The Wundermap feed was squirrely this morning, no local or personal weather stations denoted, including ours. But the radar feed is still working well and a large shield of moderate rain is overhead and stretches back toward Knoxville. The day will be rainy and cloudy. From 0.04 in daily total at 0730 we now have 0.12 in total at 1330.

It’s always easy to defer exercise on rainy mornings. I have adequate wet weather gear, that’s not the problem. My major concerns are taking the dog out in rain for most of an hour there and back, and the very real danger of being hit by one of my neighbors who will be driving too fast for conditions in good weather, not to mention the real time conditions. The need for exercise and a slack rain window won out today.

The walk down valley and back up was made in mist and drizzle. Conversation was sparse.

When we reached Horse Creek Road on the way back up, the wider nature of the valley offered a stunning reward for all the aches and pains amplified by walking in this weather.

The upper valley walls were shrouded in clouds and the image changed minute by minute as clouds poured over ridges and into feeder creek canyons and gorges before rolling downhill to the point where temperature and wind defined the cloud base at about 130 feet AGL.
 

I stood by Mike’s mailbox and snapped a series of images at no particular interval for about 20 minutes. I like the upper portion of this image, the luminous quality above the distant ridges as if a lamp were burning within the cloud. I also like the backlit trees in silhouette along the middle ridge.


I’ll try something new at this point. www.flickr.com/photos/slenon/sets/72157622551444811/

The link above should take the reader to “Flickr” for the complete slide show. If the slide show doesn’t start, the set to look at is “fog on the mountain.”  Select slide show.  If any of these speak to you, feel free to use them.

I hope you enjoy this bit of my morning. This blog has caused me to change how I consider reporting things. I am not a heavy graphics user, preferring text input to visual most of the time. However the focus on Cassi Creek and its seasons cannot be separated from visual imagery if I am to do it justice. I am fully capable of appreciating visual beauty but am equally capable of forming my own visuals from someone else’s words.

In part, I think this preference for text input goes back to my early schooling. For those of you too young to recall film strips, they were a teaching device consisting of a long string of images on film which were projected upon a white screen. Invariably they had pictures followed by text. Easily absorbed, right? Apparently not. The lesson plans called for each screen full of text to be read to the class by a teacher or another student. I came to dread film strips for the interminable delay they represented. Today, film strips are antiques, replaced by overhead projections stills and an endless aggregation of power point presentations... To make things worse, the power point slides have introduced “bulleting’ – a symbol by each salient point of text as if you would not be able to recognize what the presenter chose to relate.

Give me the syllabus, the speech, the operator’s manual, instruction sheet, construction guidelines, or the book. I promise to read it. I promise to do my best to absorb and understand it. If I can’t, I’ll ask for help. But please don’t bore me with bullet points, talking points, or any of the current methods we use to disguise the fact that however important the information we are trying to convey, many of the people will not listening to us, the presenters. The intended audience will be busily multi-tasking. Or more accurately, they will be checking their e-mail, responding to e-mails, reading or sending text messages or IM’s, playing games, listening to MP3’s, checking stock quotes, sports scores, etc. In point of fact, they will be trying to do many things at once, a mental impossibility. They are lying to their selves and to us by pretending that they are “working harder, smarter, longer, more efficiently, more accurately, and more intelligently.

 Bull! Their efficiency is markedly decreased from that of a person doing only one thing. Their accuracy is decreased as well. They are working longer hours, and often harder, trying to do the job of two or more people so the company can save money. More intelligently? Not a chance. They’ve allowed someone to convince them that it is necessary to do their job and someone else’s and to work more hours for less pay, to work while on vacation, or even at funerals. Multi-tasking? They have to be spoon-fed every bit of information because they can no longer pick it out and absorb it without help; multi-tasking. They seem to be shrouded in a fog of their own making, minds clouded by inability to focus well without external guidance. Show them a filmstrip. They’re never going to read the op manual.

Yesterday, I wrote about an auto accident involving three teen-aged girls. More fog evident, the fog inherent in inter-personal communications. I heard it from Gloria. She heard it from a friend. The friend heard it from the neighbor’s child, who heard it from who knows where.

The actual event is not as deadly.

Sun Photo by Phil Gentry

Emergency personnel treat accident victims at the scene of a Monday afternoon collision of a bread truck and a sub-compact sedan near the intersection of the Erwin Highway (Tennessee Highway 107) and Chuckey Pike. The teenage driver of the heavily damaged car, shown at right, was flown to Johnson City Medical Center for treatment of serious injuries. She was listed in critical condition this morning.


Published: 10:05 AM, 10/27/2009 Last updated: 11:31 AM, 10/27/2009

The driver apparently was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from her vehicle – never a good thing. The passenger was treated and released by a local hospital.

So in no fewer than four links, most likely five or six, the story was twisted and the number involved inflated and the lethality inserted. Bear in mind that anyone ejected from a vehicle may be at grave risk of dying later if not at the scene. But as of now, all we see is a badly distorted example of human created fog concerning an all too common example of human stupidity.

Seatbelts, like vaccines, seem to really ignite the stupid in some people. Despite the reality, that seatbelts save lives every day, a percentage of the populace regard them as “government intrusion” and refuse to wear them. Such stupidity can, and does, injure or kill others when the “free citizen” loses control of his vehicle and hits someone else. Ask any accident investigator.

Just as deeply in the idiot pool are the millions of our fellow citizens who will not vaccinate their children for childhood diseases or take the H1N1 influenza vaccine for one of more of various foolish reasons. There is a belief among some Tennessee citizens that the “Obama vaccine” is part of a conspiracy to spread socialism. Don’t ask me how that is supposed to work; we’re watching the very shallow end of the gene pool. I personally hope that rumor spreads, preferably before next year. In my opinion, anyone who fails to vaccinate their children or who believes that a vaccine will cause someone to become a socialist is of no real potential anyway. We have long histories of vaccination as a preventative measure that has worked for small pox and polio. We know that vaccination does not cause autism despite the popular myth clung to by parents of autistic kids. We know that anti-viral vaccination does not affect political affiliation. If there are people that lost in a fog or their or someone else’s making, they are never going to hear the foghorn and find secure harbor. I’m willing to leave them in the fog and sail on without them.

Gloria went to Greeneville this afternoon and brought back Chinese carryout for dinner.

The rain continues to fall upon the metal roof,  we are warm and dry, the dog is happily sleeping, and inside our home, there is no fog.