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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

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6 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I'm putting this here because I got it off of weather.com.  It is a Californa fire as it happens, but what makes it epic is the way the firefighter is standing.  That's pretty much "Oh, yeah, no big thing, just a wall of fire 20 feet tall.  Must be Tuesday."

Firefighters are bad ass. They are the closest thing to real life superheroes I know about. I simply cannot sufficiently express the admiration I feel for people with that amount of commitment and raw courage.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

I'm putting this here because I got it off of weather.com.  It is a Californa fire as it happens, but what makes it epic is the way the firefighter is standing.  That's pretty much "Oh, yeah, no big thing, just a wall of fire 20 feet tall.  Must be Tuesday."

justinsullivan3.jpg

Nah, firewalls usually go up on Mondays in Silicon Valley . . .

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Mixed clouds and sun with scattered thunderstorms. High 79F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

Chance of thunderstorm is 80% tonight.  Current temperature is 79.

Tree pollen is still high, except for tomorrow when it drops to medium, I suspect because of the rain today and tonight.

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4 hours ago, mlooney said:

Mixed clouds and sun with scattered thunderstorms. High 79F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

Chance of thunderstorm is 80% tonight.  Current temperature is 79.

Tree pollen is still high, except for tomorrow when it drops to medium, I suspect because of the rain today and tonight.

Yeah, we've got a chance of getting some of the precipitation you might be getting, but I can never guess the direction it's going to come from (aside from "above") at this time of year.

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16 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Yeah, we've got a chance of getting some of the precipitation you might be getting, but I can never guess the direction it's going to come from (aside from "above") at this time of year.

If it's windy enough, "sideways" can be on the list too, but that's usually not for very long.....

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2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

If it's windy enough, "sideways" can be on the list too, but that's usually not for very long.....

Going in a circle is also a option.  Of course that tends to be a bit messy and sends you to Oz sometimes.

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After another nice weekend with temps in the high teens-low 20's (celcius) were back into single digits for at least a week. Someone please let me off this roller coaster, preferably when it's on the upswing again.

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6 hours ago, mlooney said:

Going in a circle is also a option.  Of course that tends to be a bit messy and sends you to Oz sometimes.

Yeah, and the landings can be murder. Not to mention that the trip home can get really involved and full of monkey business.

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21 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Much rain in the D/FW area today. Local flash flooding. Someone posted a Facebook video of a floating traffic cone that was moving faster than traffic was.

Well that's not good, but on the bright side,that should cut down on the tree pollen, so there's that.

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40 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

It's knocking it down a bit. Pollen.com's website shows a slight downturn from the 11.4 ratings (out of 12) that it was listing last week.

Weather.com says that it is going to drop to low on Friday.  At least here. And then it goes back to high.  Bleh

 

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9 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Weather.com says that it is going to drop to low on Friday.  At least here. And then it goes back to high.  Bleh

 

I see why.  Thunderstorms Thursday and Friday.

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On 4/17/2017 at 5:20 PM, Scotty said:

After another nice weekend with temps in the high teens-low 20's (celcius) were back into single digits for at least a week. Someone please let me off this roller coaster, preferably when it's on the upswing again.

Trebuchet ready and waiting!

 

I have jury duty tomorrow, way the heck downtown where the measly little stipend they give for the entire day wouldn't cover half the cost of parking.  Therefore, I am venturing to take the Metra train, which involves a several block walk at either end.  The past few days have been gorgeous weather, perfect for walking.  Tomorrow, naturally, looks like rain.  Hopefully a fairly low chance in the morning; if I'm very lucky it will blow over and I'll be able to make it back home relatively dry.

If it is really bad when I get up, I think I'll drive to the Metra station, or perhaps to one that has a later return option than the one within walking distance.  Then I'd have the option, if it clears up, of staying downtown long enough to visit Lincoln Park Zoo or Navy Pier, although staying later plus train trip might not get me home until later than is good for me....especially considering how early I have to get up.....hmm......

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13 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Therefore, I am venturing to take the Metra train ...

Ah! Something we have in common (I think)! Want a little story?

This tale takes place during Mrs. Prof's traveling days with the IRS (she negotiates multi-million-dollar logistics contracts and has nothing to do with taxes, in case you're getting ready to throw stones). We decided to do something fun in conjunction with one of her trips to Chicago—I would fly up there to meet her, we'd spend the night, and then we'd take a sleeper cabin on Amtrak's Texas Eagle back home. (She met me at the airport with a fantastically delicious Giordano's pizza waiting for me in the trunk of her car).

After staying overnight, we returned her car to O'Hare and walked straight to the train station beneath the airport. Now, whether or not this was a Metra station, I can't say, but we rode the train all the way downtown to the stop closest to Union Station. From there, we walked a couple of blocks, stopping for her to take the obligatory photo of Willis Tower while I watched the luggage, until we reached Union Station and checked in at the Amtrak station.

Turns out a sleeper cabin means you're traveling first class on Amtrak. We had great service, free meals in the Diner car, and just an overall wonderful trip back to Dallas.

Once we arrived at Dallas's Union Station, we took DART's rail to the Garland station, then rode a bus to the stop at the entrance to our subdivision, two blocks from our house. We were pretty stoked about that—a trip from Chicago O'Hare to our house, using public transportation the whole way. That's going to be a fond memory that we'll pass down to any grandchildren we may have.

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Currently 79F.

Partly cloudy this evening. Scattered thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low near 65F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40%.  Chance of rain jumps to 60% Tuesday, 90% Tuesday night and 100% Friday.  

I expect body aches (almost for sure) and a good chance at a migraine (one in three, based on history). 

My cup of joy overflows.

[edit]

We also have a flood watch.  I live about 150 meters from the Arkansas River.  It hasn't flooded this far in about 30 years, but it could.  Not worried, after the floods of the 80's Tulsa spent a ton of cash to do flood reduction projects.  It seems to have worked.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

We also have a flood watch.  I live about 150 meters from the Arkansas River.  It hasn't flooded this far in about 30 years, but it could.  Not worried, after the floods of the 80's Tulsa spent a ton of cash to do flood reduction projects.  It seems to have worked.

Wait, politicians actually thinking forward and spending money towards preventing future repetitions of a potentially recurring problem? Is that legal? o.o

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12 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Wait, politicians actually thinking forward and spending money towards preventing future repetitions of a potentially recurring problem? Is that legal? o.o

The last big flooding before they spent the money flooded the parking garages for most of downtown, to include the one for City Hall. I suspect that had something to do with it.  

When Tulsa was warned that the Corp of Engineers was going to open the floor gates on all the lakes upstream, to prevent them from being overtopped and possibly broken, all the radio stations in town held "Rocking the River" sandbagging events, with live music, DJs and food and drinks. They were credited with preventing major flooding for a good part of the city.

Unfortunately that really was the last time we had that much turn out for an civic project.  Of course we really haven't need one either.

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3 hours ago, mlooney said:

When Tulsa was warned that the Corp of Engineers was going to open the floor gates on all the lakes upstream, to prevent them from being overtopped and possibly broken, all the radio stations in town held "Rocking the River" sandbagging events, with live music, DJs and food and drinks. They were credited with preventing major flooding for a good part of the city.

Unfortunately that really was the last time we had that much turn out for an civic project.  Of course we really haven't need one either.

Nonetheless it is good to hear. :) At least sometimes the community can get together and get the job done!

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So, it was dry walking to the train station, and from Union Station to the Daley Center.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten how impossible it is to avoid being engulfed in tobacco smoke on city streets.  The whole downtown trip I was being passed by smokers, walking past people who turned out to be smoking, or having a smoker in my path and no good way to avoid them.  I'm allergic to tobacco, and still had a little bit of a cough lingering from my cold.  The combination meant that I was coughing a fair bit by mid-morning.

I wouldn't mind serving -- it would be interesting, and I trust my own judgement better than a lot of other peoples' *coughTrumpvoterscough* -- but we were told the trial they assigned my group to was likely to last a whole week, and it would be awfully hard on the practice to have the number of appointments cut in half for a whole extra week!  I wouldn't lie to get out of it, even so, but I did manage to get asked a couple of things I could honestly answer that one side or the other might not like.  The plaintiff was clearly going for big bucks, including not just medical expenses and pain and suffering but "loss of future income," and I believe that such things are very difficult to predict.  (I worked with someone who went to law school, was a lawyer for a few years, then quit and went to vet school, then after a few years of practice quit seeing patients and went to work for a pet food company.  Friends with excellent computer skills have been unemployed for extended periods.  That sort of thing.)  They also asked about hobbies and passtimes, which include a lot of Mensa meetings -- my dad always said as soon as they found out he was a professor of mathematics, one or the other side wouldn't want anyone who could think that logically and he'd get dismissed, so I was hoping the same would apply to Mensa!

The girl next to me just slipped in the phrase "tort reform" and was dismissed.  I consider the phrase "jury nullification" to be the "nuclear option" so to speak, and wouldn't resort to it unless it was an even worse burden -- one of our techs once got assigned to Grand Jury duty, which meant having to report one day a week for eighteen months!  But if I had to, I could honestly say that there are cases where I would not in good conscience follow the law, something the equivalent of antimiscegenation laws perhaps.  If the law says it's legal to fire someone for using medical marijuana, or for being gay or Trans, etc. I'd have no problem nullifying.  :-)

I was in the first group to be considered and questioned, and that took until lunch time.  I walked to the food court in the Thompson Center across the street, an architectural wonder I'd seen on TV, and wound up inhaling more tobacco smoke despite it drizzling.  I was pretty miserable by the time we resumed.  We're not supposed to drink anything in court (although I was annoyed to see that the judge and lawyers had glasses and pitchers of water in front of them!) but I asked the bailiff for permission to keep me drink and take discreet sips as needed.  She'd stared at me when I coughed several times, and she reluctantly said okay, as long as it was discreet.  Luckily, first thing they did after lunch break was to announce who had been dismissed, and along with the tort reform girl and a few others I knew would get kicked off, they also announced my name.  Not sure if it was the lost future income, Mensa, or the fact that I kept coughing while they were talking.  ;-)

I got my check for a whopping $17.20 for the day.  With Metra fare of $7 each way, that will leave a whopping $3.20 compensation -- good thing I didn't take the bus from Union Station!

I had originally thought about going to Lincoln Park Zoo or Navy Pier or somesuch, but I was feeling bad enough with the coughing that I decided to just go home.  Texted my boss that I was done and would definitely be at work the next day, walked through a very faint misty drizzle to the train, and by the time it got to my stop the rain had let up completely and it was just threateningly dark grey for the walk home.  Got home by 5pm, took a long nap, and felt a lot better.

 

On 4/18/2017 at 9:28 PM, ProfessorTomoe said:

We were pretty stoked about that—a trip from Chicago O'Hare to our house, using public transportation the whole way. That's going to be a fond memory that we'll pass down to any grandchildren we may have.

I was impressed by the protected bicycle lanes they have downtown now.  If I'd known how safe it would be, I probably would have taken a Divvy bike.  I may yet do that in some weekend off in the future.  Go downtown on the train, get around by Divvy bike, stay overnight at the downtown hostel, and just play tourist!

Edited to add: Here's hoping that your grandkids are amazed that anyone would see that as at all unusual!

Edited by CritterKeeper

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54F

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High near 60F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.

Either one big honking front coming if from the West or several back to back. Way too much orange on the radar screen to make me happy.  Hoping for minor, if any power fails, but shutting off the laptop and the iMac just to be sure.

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It's here.  I can look forward to several days of rain now.  The bluebird of happiness has filled my cup of joy.

[edit]

And the humidity is making me sweat like a sweating thing.  Not the same as the waking up heavy sweat thing however.

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Not as warm, but no threat of rain, either.  Good walking weather, but I only had half an hour at lunch and I'd forgotten my cell, so I just walked around the perimeter of the parking lot and then a few houses down and back a few times to get some exercise.  (I also used my hand weights that I keep next to my desk, which I don't do as often as I should.)  Supposed to be similar the next few days, gradually warming, then get rainy again next week.

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We had a nice line of storms come through at around 11:00 p.m. or so last night. The neighborhood storm siren went off. Last time that happened, an EF4 tornado destroyed most of far southern Garland and a good swath of Rowlett. Time to pick up the cat (a feat in itself), wake up the wife (similar), and get everyone into the bathroom. The cat was freaked and kept pawing at the bottom of the door, trying to get out. He got a freeze-dried chicken treat in exchange for his anxiety after the siren stopped.

Turned out the siren was for large hail coming through the area. It missed us. We saw pictures of hailstones that fell earlier last night—one was as big as a large orange. Impressively dangerous stuff. One of my friends' house was right in the path of the storm—he and his wife were on vacation. A bit of texting revealed that they were less concerned about damage to their house and more concerned about window damage that would let their cats escape.

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