Daily Archives: May 22, 2011

Asia, Literature, Weather +Climate

Be Patient With Yourself

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Beltane                                               Waning Last Frost Moon

An afternoon of thunder, swirling clouds, torrential rains.  Another episode in the missing spring of 2011.  We sat huddled in the basement amongst our workout equipment, watching the downstairs tvs with green rectangles and red rectangles.  Occasionally, the EAS, Emergency Alert System, would blare its attention getting noise giving us notice that the national weather service had released a tornado warning for our area.

As we sat down here, I reconsidered my smug comments about those people that live near:  the ocean (sea level rise), in earthquake zones, beneath volcanoes, where hurricanes play.  Someone out there, watching the TV and pictures of damage in north Minneapolis, just said, “God.  How can those people live there when they know tornadoes come along all summer?”  Good question.

The first 12 Tai Chi classes have ended.  Next time, starting June 5th, I can go to the 6:00 pm class and practice the first few moves, then move on to the 7:00 pm class and learn the next moves in the form.  My learning curve here remains steep though I have seen progress.  I read it in Monkey’s Journey to the West, and our Tai Chi instructors have said many times, “Be patient with yourself while training.”  Very useful to me.  Very.

On Monkey’s Journey to the West.  This is a delightful story.  I’m a bit over 30% through it, I imagine it will be June before I’m done, maybe into July.  It’s so different from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Romance is a military and political epic; Journey is part fantasy, part religious and cultural instruction manual, part adventure.  I see Ai Weiwei as a Monkey King figure.

GeekWorld, Weather +Climate

An Intimate Relationship?

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Beltane                                                                      Waning Last Frost Moon

I spent the morning convincing my computer that the new laserjet printer I purchased exists, could be a good friend, one with whom we might enter a long term relationship.  Boy, was that a hard sell.  Something about the printer being made before Windows 7 and the run as command.  After beating about a bit, I finally got a software package (downloaded from HP) that my computer would admit into its intimate confines.

Then.  I stepped in and attempted to attach the USB cable to a printer not turned on.  Didn’t work. I’d stretched the power cord when getting to the USB port.  Took me three tries to realize what I had done.  Finished just before the thunder made it.  I turn all computers off during thunder storms.  I have too much invested in my electronics.  Not the computers so much as the external drives.

During our nap Kate and I had to get up to go down in the basement.  Another tornado headed north of Minneapolis, headed north and east.  Which is where we are.  After forty-five minutes sitting on a bench I use to do bench presses and triceps curls it became clear that this one, like so many in recent years, would track north of Minneapolis, get up into Coon Rapids, but move east on trajectory well south of us.  I’m not sure what’s going on but this seems like a track multiple serious storms have taken over the last few years.

Grocery store.  Then dinner, a bit of dithering around about Brazilian Visas, at $160 each.  Ouch.  That doesn’t include processing fees.  Geez.

Now, off to Tai Chi.