Where is my summer?!?!

" Hot town
summer in the city,
Back of my neck
gettin dirty and gritty..."

Love that song, but it seems like this year it sure hasn't been true so far! This is mid-July, and I am comfortable wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts. That is completely wrong. I should be sweltering in hot, sticky weather, waiting for the end of the work day so I can jump in the swimming pool and enjoy a refreshing dip. I have been in the pool exactly once! and that was to work on cleaning it. In fact I haven't even been too worried about getting it completely cleaned yet, because I'm shivering in the morning and just happy to be warm in the afternoon.

I know that it's related to the global warming, and the truth is that in our temperate climate the loss of hot summers is one of the things that will happen, meanwhile the equatorial regions will be sweltering and probably in drought. It's all related people. I remember back in the early 90's when we had some doozy winter weeks and Time Magazine had a cover that showed Niagara Falls ice bridge, and the headline was something about a new ice age. It's all related. The warming melts the ice at the poles, which in turn slows the ocean currents, because the temperature gradient isn't as high, so the warm weather stay in the warm regions, and the cold weather stays in the cold regions. Eventually the cold builds up and the heat builds up and neither the twain shall meet. Yep The ice age is brought on by global warming. See? It's all related!

Oh well, I just want to be hot and sweaty and looking forward to a swim!! I can't do it this week, because now it's gonna RAIN!! (Plus it's still too cold!)

traffic, weather and guns....

The world is falling apart and everyone is blaming the other guy, nobody wants to look in the mirror and point at themselves. Bumper stickers abound talking trash about everything, and the pundits on the airwaves have it all figured out. The conservatives blame the liberals and visa-versa. I don't have all the answers, I will leave some of that to the people who are way smarter than me, but I know some things, and I feel that I need to say something. Here is what I see:

In my local city, (Rochester) they are getting government money to install red-light cameras at particularly troublesome intersections. These cameras are designed to snap pictures of the license plates and drivers of vehicles passing through intersections that have red lights. Duh! "The great Orwellian society is taking over." "It is the age of big brother." This is the cry of the public now. Um... Guess what? There are cameras everywhere you go these days waiting to catch you doing something wrong. In the parking lots, in the malls and the stores. In the gas stations, and in the restaurants. Anywhere that people congregate there are cameras watching. The biggest difference is that, MORE PEOPLE BREAK TRAFFIC LAW THAN ANY OTHER LAW. Sad sack sumbitches think that now they will get caught doing something that they shouldn't. Mostly because they have been doing it for so long that they figure that they will forget the cameras are there and get nailed. I'm sure they will. I don't like it, but people have proven for generations that they can't be trusted. When I was a child someone once said to me, " A lock will only keep an honest man honest." I think that is probably one of the truest things I have ever heard in my life. There is something in a human being that makes them wish to "get away" with something. Whether it is extra dessert when nobody else gets it, or finding an open door or slipping through a red light when no one is coming. Even the most Honest person in the world will eventually slip up and let nature goad them into something. Maybe they peek in a window and see a naked lady, or snitch the last donut. IT happens. It's human nature, like fighting and arguing. Sadly traffic cameras are more about generating income for a city than they are about traffic enforcement. It's a newer and sneakier tax. There is another things that the police are using now to catch scofflaws too called a traffic scanner. It's a highspeed camera attached to a computer that scans plates and stickers for validity and warrants. Lazy cops! Whatever happend to knowing your people? Get out and walk around the neighborhoods! Get off the bbicycles and out of the patrol cars and walk. Get to know the people again.

Guns are in the news and in a big way. People dieing and people killing. Whole families wiped out because of the despair factor. Insanity and instability making people go out with a bang. (pun intended) But there is another thing that I know the Pro-gun and the anti-gun crowd haven't considered as a contributing factor here. It was dramatically pointed out in the Pittsburgh Police officers deaths. The Pro-gun people have been harping constantly on how President Obama is going to take away our guns. The truth is that he has so much more to concentrate on, that it is highly unlikely that it is up at the top of his to-do list. Yet as long as the NRA and others keep pushing the buttons it will spur idiots to do stupid things, and this only adds fuel to the Anti-gun fires. Everytime a child dies or a family is torn apart or a maniac goes on a killing spree, the drums beat louder to take away our 2nd amendment rights. This will literally take a LOT of doing and no one president or congress will be able to do it. It will take most of a generation to get that kind of change enacted and it just isn't gonna happen yet. Sadly, the despair brought on by the economic situation in this country makes it more likely that people who were borderline stable to begin with will go off the deep end and do something to hurt themselves and those that they "love". Selfish bastards! Still, look at the overall statistics and you will see that more people die on Americas highways than at the end of a gun. And now here in Rochester we have a new problem...

Last Saturday morning (3 am) a man shot and killed a 17 year old kid who was breaking into cars. The basics of the story are this; A man heard noise and looked outside to see people moving from driveway to driveway. Being a leaglly licensed gun owner he grabbed his gun and told his girlfriend to call 911 and get the police coming. He went outside and yelled to the people to stop what they were doing, he warned them that he had a gun and he was calling the police. He found that it was three young men, and two of them took off running. The third one charged him despite his continued warnings. He fired two shots stopping the young man. He immediately ran back into his house and relayed to the police via the 911 operator that he had fired his gun and was afraid that he had killed the young man. He laid down his gun and put his permit with it as instructed by the police. He was arrested and put in jail and indicted by a grand jury. The young man's family has spoken out that their little angle could not have possibly been doing anything wrong. If he wasn't doing anything wrong, why was he out at 3 am? Why was he breaking into unlocked cars? Why did his cousins run and not look back? They are as culpable in his death as the man who pulled the trigger, and they should be charged as well. If they had stood still and kept their cousin from charging a man with a gun, they would all be alive and most likely on probation. Now a good man is going to stand trial and probably lose his job and half of what he has worked his whole life for, because he tried to do the right thing. To much to discuss here, but it's another example of neither side willing to see the middle ground where real life happens.

Scientists wish to put reflective particles into the atmosphere to cool the earth. Idiots!! I can't even believe that they are truly considering this act! The planet will fix itself if we give it the chance to come back into balance. Stuff in the atmosphere is the reason for our problems. I have watched enough of the History channel and Discovery to know that they are talking about Carbon Black. It's a very fine powder that when released in the atmosphere will cause cooling over large areas because it will block the suns rays and reflect them back into space. Uh huh. In small scale, earthbound, laboratory expriments it has proven to work, yet I truly fear putting this dust into the air. In 1980 when Mount St. Helens exploded, there was a decided cooling in the atmosphere and the summer was particularly mild. This was a natural phenomenon, and we had no control over it. The dust eventually settled and the atmosphere warmed back up the following year. Carbon black is FINE stuff and it could actually stay airborn in the atmosphere indefinitely. How long do we really want it up there and what would be the effect if it stayed there for a few years? How much crop loss would there be? How much crop loss could the world stand? We are near the edges of production capability on many things and even one year of significant crop loss could be plenty hurtful to many economies, but 2 or 3 years? That would be utter devastation and probably the beginning of the apocolypse. Screwing with the atmosphere in a deliberate way is worse than all the damgae that we have already done. We could easily bring the planet back into balance in a generation with some minor fixes. Messing with the atmosphere is too dangerous. It is the atmosphere that keeps us alive. We must have it to live. Without it we are done for. No question about it. The magnetosphere keeps out the excess solar ratiation and the atmosphere gives us life. Carbon is what got us into this mess and Carbon is NOT going to get us out, unless it is used as a way to gather solar energy and convert it into electricity. Solar power and wind power are the two things we need to develope in order to stave off the disaster that is looming in the future of humanity if we don't change our ways.

There I got that off of my chest! I feel BETTER, but still not very powerful!

Over Population

This is one of those issues that has so many sides that you will go insane thinking about it, but it is also a very important issue. The world is suffering from population pressure and I have noticed that it seems to be getting worse. In biology we learn that in nature, animals will control their populations based on availability of resources such as food and living space. In the wild, they will stop giving birth when there is a lack of food, or the population density gets too high. Pretty smart for critters who supposedly can't reason.

Humans on the other hand, are completely different. They will continue to breed and add to the population density to the point of disaster. Humanity is a cancer on the planet. If you don't believe me, think about it this way: Cancer is unregulated growth of cells that will eventually overwhelm and kill the host body. Humanity grows on the planet, apparently unregulated, and without some regard to the future, will soon overwhelm our host and kill it. We have been killing it slowly for some years now. Of course the planet will recover, it doesn't need us, we do however need it and we need to keep it healthy.


The human population is growing at an ever faster rate. In 1800, the worlds population was estimated to be 978 million, yes, Million. 100 years later this figure grew to 1.65 billion! That time it's a B as in One Thousand Million. Let us jump 1 more century, and now the population in the year 2000 is known to be 5.99 Billion! And 9 years later, according to the U.S. Census Bureau,

04/01/09 --- 6,770,332,394

Of course huge portions of these people are concentrated in certain parts of the world, India and China come to mind immediately, and these places show the extremes of life in a place where the population really exceeds the resources of the area. India is known for its' slums and the quick way that disease spreads in these areas. It was recently brought to the fore of the world consciousness in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Children abandoned by their families, because the family can't feed them. They live from garbage cans and survive by the force of will. Too many of them die. In China it has been long known that the government tries to control the population growth by limiting families to one child. So the Families will often abort a healthy child or in even worse cases kill a healthy baby girl at birth so that they can try to have a boy child. Boys are more likely to be able to get a better job in the future and perhaps make a better living. This is the story we are told anyway. But what does this give us? A HUGELY disproportionate ratio of men to women in the general population. That's sure not a good thing. Men with no jobs and no women end up making an army, and armies make nothing but trouble.

This is not the only worry about this population pressure, what about energy? This many people will need energy resources, electrical, motor fuel, raw materials for building structures and products, as well as food and water. Where does all this energy needed come from? Ever expanding power grids and distribution channels. Sooner or later something will not stretch any farther and things will begin to cascade out of control. There are many ways to make electricity, but the most common are currently, coal fired steam, hydro, and nuclear. Coal is the worst for the environment, it puts so much carbon in the air and contributes to the problem of global warming. Not to mention it is also responsible for additional smog , resperatory problems and Beautiful sunsets. One good thing just doesn't outweigh the bad stuff there. Hydro power has the advantage of not needing to pollute the atmosphere, but it takes it's toll in other ways. It can destroy huge tracks of land as well as wildlife habitats. The Earth is made to have certain balances and losing one population of crittes can have a domino effect that may be unpredictable. Suddenly an invasive species may run out of control, or a preditory species will lose a food supply and begin hunting something else. When messing with wildlife habitats, you can never fully predict what will happen by losing a species. Nuclear power is generally considered to be safe overall, but the problem is what to do with the spent nuclear fuel. It's a radioactive substance that needs to be locked away for a thousand years or so. We all know that there has never been a country that lasted for 1000 years. Regions, and cities, have kept their names while regimes and ideologies change. I don't know how many crazy ideologies I would trust with Nuclear waste!!

What about food? As population increases so does the need for food. In South America the rainforests are disappearing so that they can be used as farmland for the ever growing populations. The rainforests are the lungs of the Planet, and by losing this lung tissue the planet breathes harder. The conversion capacity for processing the CO2 in the atmosphere back into oxygen is taking a huge hit. So while the increasing need of electricity pumps CO2 into the air, the razing of the Rainforests takes away the planets' ability to reclaim the Oxygen, and keep the planet balanced. But back to the food, populations grow and they spread out, the cities grow and the farms move ever farther from the population centers. Transportation needs increase. The tillable land areas shrink and the need to get ever greater yields from ever smaller plots increases the need for more tillable land. Forests are cleared, mountains are terraced, and technology gives us hydroponics and greenhouse abilities. Food is produced year round in places where it never could be before. Storage Technology learns to store food better and longer so that we may survive a bad season. But what about 2 or 3 in a row? Increased scale of global warming makes it much more likely that areas that have long been the bread baskets of the world will become untenable as farmland within the next 100 years, and if the population growth continues on the scale that it has been going, there will be some hard times ahead. When people are worried about where they are going to sleep and get something to eat, education takes a back seat.

Large under- and uneducated masses of people are good places to foment rebellion and plant the seeds of war and destruction. Hungry people are easy to anger, and uneducated people are easy to convince and guide. The smart and ruthless will use this knowledge to their advantage and it will be some big wars that end some of the population presure. I just hope that they stick to killng great numbers of each other with conventional weapons. If there really is a nuclear war, I doubt that there will be enough of the planet left usable to sustain any population for very long. I really fear for the future of the children, not only the ones already here, but also for the ones born in the next few decades. As I have gotten older I have found that I would like to raise a few rugrats of my own, but I can honestly say that it scares the hell out of me to add to the problems that the world already has. But then again, what if it turns out to be my child or my grandchild that saves humanity? Highly unlikely, but you never know do you?

I guess I need to have someone in my life to actually breed with, before I should worry about the decision, but there is still a lot there that affects me and that I wonder about!

Season In the sun...

Yeah, I know the song, and I used to listen to it over and over on my dad's old turntable, I nearly wore out that old 45. Who remembers 45 rpm Records? show of hands! If you know what they are, then a 33 is easy to remember, but who really remembers the 78's? I loved the 78 setting to play the 45's because then they sounded like squirrels on meth!

But I digress, and since this is MY blog, I am allowed to digress, so there! THPPPP!!

My goal today was to wax philosophical about the seasons, I may even get poetic, but be sure it will have no rhyme scheme! Today was what is often referred to as a perfect Indian Summer day, the mercury climbed well up into the 70's which in western NY in November is unusual. Our normal temps at this time of year are usually in the 50's during the day, and at or below freezing at night. To have a day for t-shirt and shorts this time of year makes me wonder just what effect global warming is really going to have on our climate. Many of the experts claim that the northern hemisphere will slip into a new ice age when the great ocean currents stagnate, and until the oceans salinity returns to the correct levels and begin the convection again, we will remain an ice-locked area. Do you know what the great convection is? Look it up! it's the interconnected worldwide ocean current that moves the dense cold water from the poles down into the equatorial waters, and then the warm equatorial waters into the poles to cool. This current regulates the temperatures of the oceans and the atmosphere as well. With the melting of the Arctic, and Antarctic icecaps this current is slowing down and is truly in danger of completely stopping. When it does, the real climate change will begin. The northern hemisphere holds the bulk of the landmass of the planet. If you don't believe me look at a globe, and see how much land is north of the equator. Now see how much is below. I was right, huh? See, I payed attention in school. Well actually to the History and Science Channels! But anyways, what this means is that the heavy cold air from the north will not have a jet stream in the upper atmosphere to drag it around the planet and warm it up, nope, it will just settle and push itself south across the land and in the darkness of winter the snows will fall, and as the snow falls it will pile up. Without the jet stream to bring in the warm air from the southern latitudes the sun will not be able to warm the land and the snow just won't melt away. This is how an ice age starts. Each season the snow gets deeper until it forms a glacier, and on a continental scale it will once again resurface the planet. Those of us alive now will never live to see the glaciers, but there is a possibility that the youngest of us will see the everlasting winters. I feel sorry for them, because they will miss the real pleasure of the changing seasons.

We all have our favorite seasons, and some people search for the endless summer, or the endless winter. I have lived where there is no snow, and I didn't care for it. I have visited where there is no rain for long stretches of time, and I truly miss the occasional rainy day. A rainy season just isn't the same as a beautiful summer rain. I was born in the winter, and when I was a kid I knew that my birthday was getting close when I saw snow on the ground. With this in mind I actually remember a time when I would wake up every morning and look out the window to see if it had snowed! So what if I started after the 4th of July! I was 4 and had no grasp of a calendar yet. lol So in that respect I missied out on some interesting things while I was so caught up in waiting for winter. Now It's not so much of a problem.

Ever notice that the older you get the faster time seems to go by? It is truly a perception, because when you are five years old an year is 1/5 of your life, and month is 1/60. When you are 2o years old a year is now 1/20 of you life and a month is 1/24o. So carrying the ratios out, when you are 60, a year is like a month when you were 5!! Yikes!! and we wonder where the memory goes! it's not the memory that goes, but the perception of time that screws it all up

When your a kid you look forward to summer, when school was out and you had all day to do whatever you wanted, or at least all day after your chores were done. I loved to be out in the fields and the forests. I would climb trees and boulders, and explore the creeks and ponds around my home. Tracking deer in the woods, and picking wild blackberries and currants, and strawberries. Finding apple trees where there used to be farm houses, and getting a stomach ache from eating green apples and pears. I explored the hedge rows and hollows of every field within 5 miles of my house and I knew every fox and woodchuck burrow around. I knew where the deer went to drink, and I knew where the best place was to catch a fish, or a snapping turtle. SO much has changed since then that I would barely know where to start these days. But I still appreciate the summer, only now it is for a different reason. Now it is for the fresh vegetables from the farm stands, and the girls in their skimpy clothes. I appreciate the summer for the hours spent riding my motorcycle through the hills and valleys of my home state. I appreciate it for the long days when I can get out of work and still have hours of light left to go swimming or to putter around in my garden. The lazy Saturday afternoons, when the yard work is done and I get to sprawl out in my hammock under a shady tree and swing in the cool breeze. The Satruday afternoon parties when friends gather together with cold beer and loads of food cooked over the open fire, and eaten with gusto. The warm evenings with fireflies swarming in the trees, and the stars winking into view overhead. Watching the big fat full moon rise over the eastern horizon. knowing the familiar whine of mosquitos busily buzzing your ears while you are trying to cook a hot dog on a stick over the campfire. Sleeping in a tent listening to nature rustle in the leaves outside. hearing the giggles of the children playing jokes on their friends and parents. The smell of the air before a thunderstorm. The smell of the air after a thunderstorm. The smell of a dewy summer morning, and watching the sunrise, bright and clear, into that perfect cerulian, summer sky. These are the things that mean summer to me, and the things that make it special each and every time.

As summer slowly unwinds into autumn there are new sensations and memories to be made. The return of the great yellow monsters to the traffic patterns, school buses to slow down everyone and make you cautious again. The days are getting shorter, but the grass is still growing, so you have to work harder on the weekends because the grass still needs to be cut, and the garden needs tending and the harvest is really ramping up. The fields are slowly emptying of fresh produce. Gone are the fresh cucumbers and squash, and the pumpkins are showing their great orange tummys to the world. The hills are alive with color as the maples and beeches and oaks lose their summer green and show the flaming colors hidden underneath, like naughty girls flasing Victoria's Secret to the world! The smells of the occasional fire in the fireplace to chase the chill off in the morning. The smells of the autumn. The fresh and crisp mornings when you walk outside and see frost in the grass. Saturday night parties when you build the big bonfire to have a little warmth even though you are wearing a sweater or even a jacket. Watching the great harvesters bobbing and weaving along the byways and back roads going from field to field. Haversters running into the night seeing the lights moving through the fields like so many UFO's eating the corn and soybeans. The trucks loaded with corn groaning down the roads headed to the markets or the farms. Orchards with row after row of apple trees, their branches heavy and bent low with big juicy apples. Driving by the vineyards of wine country and smelling the grapes, the air so thick with the smell that you can almost taste the fruit. Leaves falling from the trees and making multi-colored drifts in yards and fields. Squirrels scampering around gathering nuts as quickly as they can, and hording them away in places where they hope to be able to find them in the dead of winter. The hedge rows turning crimson with the end of the sumac season. Seeing the geese in the air their great flying V's crossing the skys headed south for the winter. Honking noisily to announce to everyone their presence. Little twittering groups of other northern birds filling the trees for a day or two as they follow the geese, and the sun. Hunters and posted signs. Camo and blaze orange. Idiots with guns and bows out in the fields, too close to my home. Slowly the world goes from the bright vibrant colors of summer to the monochromatic hues of fall and winter.

Soon the days are too short, and the nights too long, and they are filled with wind and cold. But the house is cozy and the oven is pumping out hunger inducing smells, fresh bread, and cookies, stews and casseroles. The stovetop steaming with fresh soup and sauce. The windows fogged up from all the cooking. Too much temptation, no way to avoid eating all the tasty treats going into the holiday season. Still autumn right into December, by now there is regularly snow on the ground, and when you walk outside your shoes squishing in the snow and your breath is always a little cloud when you breath out. Thanksgiving is past and Christmas and New Years quickly approach, shopping for just the right gifts for everyone on the list. Wrapping presents and stashing them away where you hope they won't be discovered. The holidays themselves, each one full of traditions and family and friends. Christmas with the family, the gifts, and the laughter and the tears. The meal and the gathering and the noisy fun. The smells of the dinner cooking in the kitchen, the cookies and candies on the tables. New Years Eve gathers friends together, and the countdown to the New Year. Cheering and kissing and hugging, and congratulating, welcoming the beginning of another year with a champaign toast. The Rose Parade! The holidays are over and now it is the long slow climb out of winter. Plowing and shoveling snow until the January thaw. Brown slush filling parking lots and streets, then freezing again making it all rough like a furrowed field. The icy blast of February tempered by Valentines day, and the thoughts of love. The beginning of NASCAR season sitting in the living room while the winter rattles the windows, the TV filled with the warm Daytona sun, and the cars and teams filled with promise, gathered to start the season. Running out of space to push the snow . March and the hints of spring, in like a lion and out like a lamb. The growing daffodills and crocuses. Tulips poking out of the ground showing the world that they are awake and looking for the sun. Winter trying it's best to hold on, blowing it's icy breath across the land reminding us that it isn't gone yet. Snow on the Daffodils. April, the warming ground slowly giving life back to the grasses and the bulbs hidden beneath. The apricots and apple trees loaded with blossoms filling the air with their perfumes, along with the peaches pears and cherries. May and the fields are turned with the promise of the new season, The lilacs showing once again their fleeting beauty, filling the air with their sweet scent. June as the crops begin to poke eagerly from the ground, corn, soybeans, wheat, oats and everything else.The colors returning to the trees and the blossoms. The first cutting of hay piling up in the barns, and the promise of another summer filled with new promise and memories.

So to say that I feel sorry for those who don't experience the seasons is an understatement, but for many of them they are like the blind who have never seen. They have not a concept of what they are missing. Maybe someday they may give it a try.