a gathering of eagles...

Dave sent me these photos from friends of his that live in Eagle River, Wisconsin. they snapped them this past December. the temperature that day was -5° F with a deep blue sky and, as you can see, it had just snowed. the eagles were right near their house. actually, it looks like they were sitting on someone's house...

they are incredible...

now that was a snowy winter...

We've been hearing news story after news story and weather report after weather report about the amount of snow the country is having this winter. Milwaukee seems to be leading the totals this year when it is usually Buffalo, New York.

With all the talk of weather change, we have forgotten exactly what winter is about. Chicago for the last several years has had very mild winters. However, we've had a lot of snow this past week and the temperature outside right now is -2° with windchills of up to [or should I say down to?] -26°.

This is more like the winters I grew up with. As a reminder, here is a picture from 1967 and the snowstorm/blizzard on January 26th. We had 23 inches of snow in 12 hours with 6-12 foot drifts!


Lake Shore Drive, the major lakefront roadway
No one was going anywhere.

Over the next couple of weeks there was more snow and, in typical Chicago fashion, the temperatures plummeted. It seems, for as long as I can remember, that everytime there is a major snowfall in Chicago the thermometer drops and we have a period of extremely cold weather.

I remember the storm in 1967. I was at university and hardly ever came home. I did that weekend for a friend's wedding. She had the wedding [it ended in divorce; I wonder if there's a connection?] I also made it back, driving, to school on Sunday. I don't remember how. The buses were stranded in the middle of the major streets. It took weeks for people to dig out in some cases.

Weather is always a topic of conversation with people. Usually one of the first things we talk about when we meet. We're the same here in Chicago. We have one other saying about weather that is really pretty accurate:

If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes. It'll change.

it's usually true...

the California fires - the fight is just starting...

The little voice in the back of most people's heads is probably questioning if global warming has anything to do with it.

but...

Michelle Malkin has already said that it is the environmentalists who caused the fires.

The wildfires are being compared to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

One cable pundit is saying that the people who live there deserve it.

A more famous one had this to say: "There always has to be a global warming peg, and they bombed out on the hurricanes, so now this is being blamed on global warming."


There's a drought in Georgia; there are wildfires in California; there was a disastrous hurricane in New Orleans; the ice in the Arctic is melting so that there may finally be a "Northwest Passage."

At this point, doesn't it seem a logical idea, even if global warming eventually does turn out to be just a cause célébre, to act as if it were true, just on the chance that maybe, maybe the world is under attack by the insanity of man and we should save it from ourselves? We may learn something important.

Below is a photo from NASA's Aqua Satellite of Southern California taken late yesterday.





when you see this doesn't it make sense to take some, any, kind of action? just in case?

just asking...

there is unique beauty in the world...

...a scene we will probably never get to see in person.

This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point. You also see the sun below the moon.



awesome...