A Wetter Wind

Sunday, August 25th, 2019 09:24 pm
flwyd: (playa surface)
Thousands of folks are in line at the Burning Man gate today. Instead, we arrived in Reykjavik this morning. Iceland decided to welcome us Burners with a day of intense wind but bearing rain instead of dust.

It was drizzly and gusty in the morning and early afternoon while we navigated our way to picking up a car, then lunch (OMG airplane recovery), then the supermarket. We even caught a glimpse of sky as we headed east towards Selfoss. We unloaded our bags at the rental cabin during a patch of dryness. Sorry thereafter the intense rain picked up with 35+ MPH winds that haven't really let up in five hours. So much for a walk along the lake shore to decompress from the travel.

The rain makes a lovely sounds on the roof, though, and we're all warm and dry. Hopefully the wind dies down tomorrow so we aren't literally blown away at the site of the Althing.
flwyd: (pentacle disc)
March through June in Colorado have been a lot wetter than the norm over the last three decades. The last time I remember this much rain (excluding the 2013 freak flooding event) was 1990, which I remember as the year of rained out Little League games.

July seems to have dried out a bit, but it's still been an unusually water-themed month for me.

On July 4th we watched the Boulder fireworks show… and an impressive night-time thunderstorm to the south from the 4th-story café balcony at my office.

On July 5th I was at home getting ready to gather letters to Congress before the Dead and Company show. With about 30 minutes of prep left to do I noticed there was a funny sound coming from our utility closet. Upon investigation I discovered that the hot water heater had sprung a leak about a foot from the top and was spraying water on the wall behind it. I turned off the inflow to the tank and called around to find a plumber who could show up on the Friday of a 4-day weekend. When we bought the house we knew the tank was old enough to need replacing, but we hadn't gotten around to it because we wanted to investigate tankless water heater options. I learned from the plumbing and heating guy that a tankless system would require boosting the gas capacity in the pipes that go all the way across the house, plus new venting.
This resulted in around a $8,000 estimate for a tankless heater compared to $2,000 for a tank heater. Doing some gas expenditure estimates, it didn't seem likely that $8k over 20 years would come out ahead of $2k every 10 years. This is a bummer, since water heater tanks are a pretty inefficient use of greenhouse gas-producing fuel. Fortunately it was pretty clear that the leak hadn't been going on for too long, so we actually managed to dodge a big mess of having 40 gallons of water bust through a rusted bottom.

With the water heater problem staunched for the moment, I headed to the Dead show about an hour before showtime; leaving the letter collecting for the next day. It had been a super-hot day and the sky seemed pretty clear, so I opted to leave my light jacket in my bike bags. Since I got to Folsom Field close to show time I decided not to jockey for a front-row seat and instead figured I'd have plenty of room to dance if I picked a seat in the second level, facing the still-hot sun. Some clouds moved in and there was some foreboding clouds to the west, but it looked to me like they were going to head north of the stadium. A light rain started a minute or two before the band took the stage and opened with "Not Fade Away." The rain picked up a little bit and I was still feeling warm and dry, though started to question my "don't bring the jacket" decision. The band played "Cold Rain and Snow" and the rain picked up a bit, but the now-rapid cloud motion still looked like it might miss us. Wishful thinking.

As "Cold Wind and Snow" ended, Bob Weir announced "We've got a little weather situation, so we're gonna take five." The PA system announced that everyone should head to one of the designated shelter areas… and the sky opened up with big rain drops, turning to hail. I was stuck in a crowd of people trying to stream through one of the tunnel "gates" from the seating area to the outside of the stadium, but the people in the front of this liquid tube of humanity decided to stop once they got inside the tunnel. Getting out of this crowd wasn't feasible, it was probably 10 people thick in an 8-person aisle width, so the wave slowly pushed from the back and we inched forward while getting pelted with pea-sized hail. Eventually the message reached the folks inside the short tunnel that they were blocking egress and the middle cleared out enough that the crowd pushing from behind could slip out. My felt Uncle Sam hat had somehow kept my head fairly dry, and I was still warm, so I calmly walked across streaming puddles to the Balch Fieldhouse, which was now a hot and humid huddle of Deadheads. Everyone was pretty chill, though, and folks made orderly use of the bathrooms and bought pricey food from vendor stalls.

After more than an hour we were back outside and the band took the stage again. They picked up in the middle of "Cold Rain and Snow" which I thought was a brilliant touch. After a few songs, Bobby announced that due to the rain delay they weren't going to take a traditional intermission. Since the early-to-mid '70s, Grateful Dead shows have had a loose first-set/second-set formula. The first set typically has shorter, lyrical songs while the second set typically features a couple long jams, plus the drums and space interlude. Without an intermission (or with a 2-song first set, if you'd like), there wasn't a clear boundary and "first set" songs started sounding more like "second set" material, with three straight amazing jams from "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo," "Cassidy," and "Deal" which I don't usually think of jam songs, and they flowed beautifully into "Box of Rain" (always a big crowd favorite, it got a big cheer from the damp auditorium), with a nice China-Rider, followed an epic Terrapin Station into Drums/Space into "Casey Jones" into "The Other One" into "Morning Dew." While my Dead-related concert attendance list is fairly short, I don't think I've been at a better show.

On Saturday the 6th I dragged myself slowly through the morning. I got involved in a very detail-oriented and not-at-all crucial prep task for my letters-to-congress project. By the time that was done and I'd gotten the rest of my act together it was getting close to 4pm and I was feeling low energy. But I'd been planning to do this for so long that I shouldered my backpack and headed up to campus… where I sat at a picnic table for five or ten minutes and sighed as I realized I really didn't have it in me to start meaningful conversations with strangers for two hours. So I biked back home, tossed my backpack on the couch, made a slight costume change, and headed back to The Hill for a pre-concert burrito. As I came up from the Broadway underpass I saw something ticket-shaped face down on the concrete. I figured it was someone's receipt or a ticket for the previous night's show, but upon picking it up I discovered it was a ticket to tonight's show. I looked around and didn't see anyone nearby, so it hadn't been just dropped. So cool—free show as a reward for respecting my personal energy limit. (Given the ridiculously high service charges for concerts at Folsom Field I didn't feel too bad about not paying.) Before hitting up Illegal Pete's I noticed Albums on the Hill, another old haunt, and managed to find 10 decent used CDs which apparently now just costs $35 bucks. Music prices have gone in two different directions in the last decade :-/

I brought my jacket to the Saturday show, but it was bone dry. I loved several selections, including an opening Scarlet/Fire, a couple beautiful slow and sweet songs, closing the second set with "Not Fade Away" (making it a two-day-long NFA sandwich :-) and a gorgeous "Ripple" to start the encore. It didn't quite have the same magic as the prior show, where we'd all unspeakingly bonded over the warm rain and hail. I ran into a coworker in the parking lot while I was on a tie dye hunt, though, and had a great post-show decompression.

Stay tuned for the next phase of adventures in a wet July, featuring more water heater problems, lawn problems, and a thunderous massage.

Snowshine

Friday, April 11th, 2008 05:29 pm
flwyd: (1895 Colorado map)
The sun is shining and snow is falling at the same time.

Go Colorado.
flwyd: (rose silhouette)
Yesterday's forecast was for "rain in the metro area, snow in the mountains." But in the clouds and all-day downpour it wasn't clear how disturbingly accurate that was.

This morning I began my commute by heading west from suburbia. The arched backs of the foothills were white, dotted by evergreen trees drying off from a shower. The front-most hills were merely sprinkled with powdered sugar, a green sweet loaf waiting for a hiker's dessert. The aptly named Red Rocks Amphitheater spread its auburn wavelength proudly, reminding passersby that soon the benches would replace the sky's deposit of snow with rock fans raising their arms and cries in a heavenly direction.

Heading north, I saw that Green Mountain had been rechristened White Mountain, a smooth blob of shortening atop seasonally lush green fields, the snow stopping approximately as the slope leveled. The drive up C-470 was not unlike a summer trip up Trail Ridge, but instead of passing the enchanting timber line I instead crossed an eerie snow line -- for a hundred yards the right side of the highway kissed the gossamer snow sheet.

The mountains stretched north from Golden, a white wall delineating the watered daily world from the snow-covered land of adventure. But Golden's guard to the east, South Table Mountain, sat resplendent in its green dress, not a speck of dandruff to be seen.

Some say that on Samhain the veil between the worlds is thinnest, that we may catch a glimpse to the other side. Yet this morning, early Beltane season, I have passed through the very edge of winter as I passed from one point of spring to another. Perhaps masculine and feminine are not blue and pink but white and green.
flwyd: (Trevor shadow self portrait)
Tree Blossoms at NightIn April, it may snow on Easter, but the next day the white is all gone, leaving a bed of green. The sun brings warmth, the clouds puff along. The only thing that would make it better is if I were enjoying that spring feeling while eating Illegal Pete's or Kim to Go on the Norlin Quad between two panels at the Conference on World Affairs. This featured photograph (and this icon) came out of wandering campus after the jazz concert three years ago. If you've got any free time in the vicinity of Boulder this week, stop by campus for an hour or two. You can even participate in A Moment NOT of Silence in Honor of Molly Ivins (Feel free to bring pots and pans to bang!).

I'd take the week off to play with the minds, but I'm saving that time for a week and a half visit to northern California for Zane's and Michelle's preception and ring ceremony. I need to start making firm plans for the last week of June and first couple days of July. In addition to cavorting on the shore and woods with friends old and new I hope to spend some time in the Bay Area. If I get my act together, maybe I can interview and/or meet with folks from Google or Apple and see if those would be the good places to further my professional development. I have a strong desire to work on fundamental and fascinating things with a bunch of people who are smarter than me. The fact that I've never visited San Francisco should also be rectified.

I'm also saving a week of vacation for Burning Man, but I haven't made any positive movements in that direction like buying a ticket. I totally dig this year's theme (The Green Man), but nothing has particularly grabbed me yet. Maybe I should seek out a camp to adopt me. In exchange I'll bring a lack of words.

Your assignment this week is to get outside and frolic. Then continue the habit for the next six months.

County Blanket

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 08:00 am
flwyd: (1895 Colorado map)
My morning commute reaches its apex at the offramp from C-470 to I-70. This is the last mountain slope on EB I-70 until Appalachia and there's a stretch of several miles which affords a clear view of the Denver metropolitan area. Often as I head for my office I am saddened to see the infamous Brown Cloud covering about one degree of arc along the eastern horizon and wishing I could practically take the bus and reduce that cloud.

Today, I saw no brown cloud. As usual, the Jefferson County skies were crystal clear, but the fluffy white clouds were 30 degrees below their usual position. I could see through a gray fog mingling among Denver's downtown skyscrapers. Along the Platte valley and covering Adams county sat a cotton comforter not quite as thick as a water tower. A few cumulus formations rose up, a knee pushing up the blankets as Aurora and Commerce City slept through their alarm.

Motivations

Thursday, February 8th, 2007 09:33 am
flwyd: (charbonneau ghost car)
I worked at home for the last two and a half days on the grounds that I seemed to have flu-lite (ache-free and 30% fewer calories than regular flu). I think I consumed 10 pots of tea in that time, most with lemon juice added. (Free advice: never add lemon juice to vanilla hazelnut tea.) I spent most of the time sitting at the kitchen table using my laptop; my shoulder and back aches are reinforcing my decision to stand to program at work.

My throat was still scratchy this morning, but when I looked out the window and saw thick fog as far as the eye could see, I got excited. Metro Denver only gets serious fog every few years. And after nearly two years of broken, my fog lights got fixed on Saturday. I'd be damned if I missed a chance to use them! As a bonus, the rush hour commuters who drive slowly on C-470 if there's an accident in the ditch on the other side of the road managed to handle the fog with surprising sensibility and flow.

Sno-B-Gone

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 02:36 pm
flwyd: (rose red sky blue)
5 to 50 in 24 hours. Colorado's a meteorologic sports car.

White Man's World

Thursday, December 28th, 2006 09:24 pm
flwyd: (smoochie sunset)
I've often felt like it snowed more when I was a kid than it does now. Maybe it's global warming. Maybe it's a sun spot cycle. Maybe the photos from the Blizzard of '82 that I've looked at all these years have become worth three years of non-snowy memories. Maybe I just remember going sledding better than I remember running around on dead grass.

Whatever the reason for warm winters, this is the first season that's felt like I remember the winters of the '80s. There's a blizzard right now and the last blizzard hasn't finished melting yet. That seems to be an appropriate prototype of winter weather.

Last Thursday it was too snowy to drive to work. Instead of carpe tobagum (seize the sled), I slavishly tried to get work done all day.

The next morning was Drumming Up the Sun at Red Rocks. I woke up at 5:30 and drove to Red Rocks without a problem. I then missed the way to the top parking lot and instead turned at the sign pointing to the Upper South lot, figuring that it wouldn't be a bad walk from there up to the amphitheater. Unfortunately, the snow plow had left two feet of snow along the road, so pulling into the south lot was impossible. I continued down the road, looking for a place to turn around. As I went down the hill it got windier, blowing snow into drifts across the road. I figured I'd get down to Morrison, turn around, and go back up when I encountered an abandoned car stuck in a drift. I figured this would be a good place to turn around and attempted the maneuver. Unfortunately, I'd progressed to far into snow drift land to make that an easy task. Out came the folding army spade! 15 minutes of windy shoveling and back-forth-slide action I'd turned my car 180° and could see the sky brightening. I stepped on the gas and went nowhere. I put the Subaru in first gear and gave it a touch of gas. Still nothing. Between the hill, the blown snow, and my male-pattern balding tires (just before I was going to replace them I had $2,000 of repairs under the hood), I was stuck. So I grabbed my drum bag and walked up the hill.

Wading through ankle-deep snow I climbed the ramp and stairs and made it to the top of the amphitheater just as the sun crested the eastern horizon. I caught my breath, took a few pictures, and joined my fellow drummers for a few minutes before they all concluded and headed for breakfast. I got a ride in an SUV close to my car. I was going to try to start it again, but in the intervening time a guy in a pickup had gotten stuck in front of my car. He explained that he'd tried to go around, but that hadn't worked. Reverse also didn't work. He further explained that he was wearing sandals. Who the hell wears sandals in a blizzard? I figured the sandal man would take action to get his truck out of there, so I caught a ride to work in the SUV, figuring I could come back in the afternoon and a combination of plow and sun would have made escape easy.

Sure enough, plow and sun had improved the situation, but my car was now surrounded by plow walls. Again out came the folding army spade. I dug out the front of my car, but still couldn't get going up hill. I started to dig behind my car and the plow driver gave me a proper snow shovel. With the right tool, I was out in a few minutes, driving happily back to work.

I see about a foot of snow on my porch rail right now and it's still snowing hard. If, miraculously, it looks drivable tomorrow morning, I'll head to work; the office tends to be less distracting than home, especially if there's nobody else there. If I do stay home then by gum I'm going to carpe tobagum.
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