Fall-like fun

After yet another few high-90s days earlier this week we’ve had two days of absolutely gorgeous weather. Hurricane Earl was rebuffed by a dry cold front that moved through. The temperature Friday was 98 degrees at one point but the relative humidity was a scandalously-low 19%! The weekend temperatures were about 8-10 degrees cooler with the same low humidity, which is a tantalizing taste of fall (though falls are cooler yet).

We spent most of Saturday just getting some yardwork done. Mowing, weeding, trimming, and leaf blowing were all carried out under sunny skies. Then there was music practice and other fun tasks until dinner. After dinner, we joined our neighbors on the driveway for beer and roasted marshmallows. One of our neighbors across the street got married yesterday and they held their reception in their backyard. We enjoyed people-watching and listening to the 80s-era wedding dance tunes.
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On the road again

Tomorrow evening I board a plane for my first business trip in over two years. It will be a week full of heavy-duty training to get me up to speed on my new employer’s product. While I’m looking forward to the training I’m also looking back to the time I’ve spent not on the road. True, it has been nice not having to travel, but I really didn’t like my job. So at least now I have a job I love, and if there’s some travel (and it’s not to Portsmouth, Virginia again) then that’s a bonus.

Earl twirls

Got a call from my aunt in Florida today, checking in on us as she had seen the news about Hurricane Earl approaching North Carolina. I should say that Earl is hitting a brick wall of high pressure as it approaches the state. The air has been hot and dry for us all week and this high pressure dome will keep us from seeing any precipitation from Earl. Raleigh is about 100 miles inland, so there’s really no threat to us this time around.

Here’s the forecast discussion from the local National Weather Service office:

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/…
— Changed Discussion —
AS OF 230 PM THURSDAY…

LITTLE CHANGE REQUIRED TO THE GRIDS/FORECAST.

HURRICANE EARL MOVING TO THE NORTH WITH LEADING EDGE OF CIRRUS ALONG THE HIGHWAY 1 CORRIDOR. THIS LEADING EDGE SHOULD DISSIPATE AS IT MOVES FARTHER WEST INTO THE MID/UPPER LEVEL RIDGE OVER THE APPALACHIANS AND ITS ASSOCIATED DRIER AIR. AS EARL PARALLEL THE COAST TONIGHT…NEAR SURFACE WINDS OVER THE REGION WILL BACK FROM A NE TO A MORE NLY DIRECTION. WHILE MOST LOCALES WILL SEE WIND SPEEDS 10 KNOTS OR LESS…AREAS EAST OF I-95 WILL LIKELY SEE SUSTAINED WINDS AROUND 15 MPH WITH FREQUENT GUSTS AROUND 25 MPH. BEST CHANCE OF RAIN WILL BE ALONG THE EASTERN FRINGE OF THE FORECAST AREA BUT ONLY A 1:5 CHANCE. MIN TEMPS VARYING FROM THE MID 60S IN THE WEST TO NEAR 70 INT HE FAR EAST WHERE WIND AND CLOUD COVERAGE WILL RESULT IN WARMER TEMPS.

September Morn

September Morn
Neil Diamond

Stay for just a while
Stay, and let me look at you
It’s been so long, I hardly knew you
Standing in the door
Stay with me a while
I only want to talk to you
We’ve traveled halfway ’round the world
To find ourselves again

September morn
We danced until the night became a brand new day
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel this way

Look at what you’ve done
Why, you’ve become a grown-up girl
I still can hear you cryin’
In the corner of your room
And look how far we’ve come
So far from where we used to be
But not so far that we’ve forgotten
How it was before

September morn
Do you remember how we danced that night away
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel this way

Ticking away

I was cleaning off the hard drive of one of my old computers here and came across some photographs from our 2007 Orcas Island vacation. It amazed me to realize that was three years ago, and that we took much smaller kids with us. Boy, the time just flies.

Routines

Like many people, I spend much of my life on autopilot. Every day is a routine; get up, walk the dog, shower, eat, head to work. At work, grab coffee, catch up on emails, get to work, eat lunch, work again, go home. Repeat every day. If anything upset that carefully-crafted apple cart it would throw my whole day off balance. I’d have to engage my thinking brain, damn it. And thinking can be hard. It’s much easier to coast through life.
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Epic bike ride

At Umstead State Park

Yesterday was my last day at my last job so, being in-between jobs and with the kids in school, I took the opportunity to spend the day bike riding with Kelly. We rode from our house through downtown Raleigh, then on the Chavis Way greenway to Chavis Park. While at Chavis we got a chance to ride the beautifully-restored carousel before heading on. The Little Rock Creek greenway brought us past the Walnut Creek Wetlands Center, at which point we headed west along the Walnut Creek Greenway.
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Burning the midnight oil at both ends

I have plenty more topics upon which I’d like to pontificate tonight but I’ve been burning the midnight oil at both ends (as my former boss and world-class metaphor-mixer Buck Bohac might say). My Skylab post kept me up later than I should’ve been up but that wasn’t the worst of it. At 4 AM our son roused us out of bed to announce that he “needed a drink of water.” Argh! Needless to say, sleep was quite fleeting after that episode.

I’m just looking forward to finishing my last day tomorrow at my current job. Then I’ve got a few days off before jumping all-out into my next gig. I’m really psyched about it but it’s been really tough splitting my attention between the two worlds. I’ll be really happy when I’m settled in with my new job.

Skylab and beyond

Skylab

The recent balloon launch and it’s subsequent pictures of near space has gotten my thoughts lifted skyward. I was pondering the 4-pound weight limit of the balloon and contrasting it to the heavy lifting that was once done in this country by rockets like the Saturn V. That led me to some online videos of Skylab.

Skylab was America’s first space station, launched in 1973 on a modified Saturn V rocket. The station itself was made from spent Saturn V rocket stages and was so roomy that it makes the current International Space Station look like a toy. Sadly, Skylab fell from orbit in July 1979.
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