Is it any wonder?

I've just spent the last week in a workshop about cloud seeding.  You know, "making it rain"?  Turns out that it's actually possible...well, I guess not really.  The seeders can only enhance the amount of rain in an area.

Basically, they either use military canons or old airplanes and fire silver iodide into the right spot in a cloud called the inflow.  The combination of gun smoke and silver iodide allow ice crystals to form in the cloud, which get bigger and bigger until they fall and melt on the way down- in other words, rain.

Now, for states and countries that are in the midst of droughts, this sounds like a dream come true....

...until you read the history.  Turns out that the biggest areas to seed clouds are Texas and China.

AND...when we look at a map, just where are Texas and China?

Oh, right, there's on either side of the areas of the world that have the biggest Fing droughts.

Now, a lot of people are blaming global warming for these changing weather patterns, HOWEVER, I would like to point out that cloud seeding has been ramping up over the past twenty years.

Oh, wait, that rings a bell!  Isn't that how long California, Arizona, and New Mexico have been in a drought??  The same has been true of the Middle East.  

DO YOU THINK THAT THERE JUST MIGHT BE SOME CONNECTION BETWEEN AREAS NOT GETTING ENOUGH RAIN AND THE AREAS THAT ARE PULLING IT OUT OF THE AIR!?!

I mean, REALLY!  Do you REALLY think you're MAKING rain!?  NO!  You're pulling water from the atmosphere...THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH OF IT IN THE WORLD, YOU KNOW!  

(Chemists, don't get mad for me making that statement because we all know it's an on-going cycle of breaking and forming, but it's ABOUT the same)

But I digress.

JUST MAYBE, these snake oil salesmen are doing more harm than good?  DID ANYONE ever think of that?  I'm sure it must have come up in the NOAA meetings because THEY discontinued funding cloud seeding.

So, if you have the opportunity, please do pass along your thoughts to the cloud seeders- like, DUH!

The part that REALLY chaps my hide is that this water that is pulled from the air- it's not undergoing CONSERVATION.  It just rains on chemically-laden crop fields and then runs off and becomes non-potable sewer water.

I mean, SERIOUSLY!  Take some damn responsibility for your actions.  You're killing us all!

Boys Will Be Boys

So, I'm early to my all day workshop.  It's a workshop where most of the people do not work together in person, but they do over the phone...so, I found it very interesting to see the following:


1. All the boys sat together. (Okay, MEN).

2. There were only 3 men for 10 women in the IT planning meeting.  I point this out because I find it absolutely fascinating that women have infiltrated all EXCEPT the top two positions on the project.  Uhm, glass ceiling?

3. All of the native Minnesotans were obese or morbidly obese.  I found this sad because, for the Europeans in the room, it could only confirm the US stereotype that 80% of Americans are obese. (which was the case here).

4. All of the Europeans were fit.  I'm not saying fat or thin- they were fit.  They obviously participated in physical activity.  That I thought went a long way of confirming, for me, the European stereotype that Europeans are more healthy than Americans...since 100% of them were here.

5. It is amazing how much I HATE in-person meetings...and it's not just the stupid things about having to sit in the same room together.  It's the side conversations.  Everyone trying to get your attention on to them instead of the topic at hand.  When it's over the phone, there ISN'T room for that nonsense.

6. Because everyone works via WebEx, no one really looked at each other.  Hey, it's training, right?

I definitely prefer the virtual meetings- more productive and more on-topic AND you don't have to smell the BO of the obese person sitting next to you trying to tell jokes while you're taking notes.

OCD and Me

Does this picture drive you a little crazy?

There's nothing quite like walking past the blinds that are just slightly askew or not flipped correctly...or pen caps not being on all the way...or an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.

The one on the coffee table got me enraptured for an unexpected 30 minutes today...and it took all my willpower to walk away without finishing it.

Amazon Falls

I remember back at the turn of the century (man, that makes me feel old) when Amazon was this great little book store.  You could some books or DVDs and then they would magically appear in your mailbox within two days.

TWO DAYS!

And they were shrink wrapped to a piece of cardboard inside, which was literally part of the box.

And everything arrived in perfect condition because the contents of the box were not loose.  There was no banging around inside- it was all very tidy and all in perfect condition.

And that's because Amazon used to employ people to pack the boxes.  But then they fired those 60,000 workers and decided to put robots in their place.  We all know what the result has been.

The boxes are packed too heavy, so a delivery man can't lift it, so he tears open the box to lift it and then the contents fall out or get damaged.

The items in the box are just thrown or dropped into one box regardless of what they are:  gallons of cleaning fluids with light bulbs and potato chips.  No, seriously, this was and actual order.  I don't think I need to tell you want happened to the contents, do I?

So I started sending things back because they arrived damaged.

Now, I've been black listed.  I got a nasty-gram from Amazon saying that I've returned too many things and now "each one will be reviewed".

Uhm,

I hope ALL of my returns have been reviewed your Fing Assholes!  I don't order from Amazon for the shear thrill of finding out what they've managed to mangle.  I order because the price is right or I can't find the item elsewhere.  I HOPE you're reading my comments back and return to the time when you actually could deliver something in its original, manufactured condition.

Ah, but there's the catch.  You see, when the box arrives mangled, Amazon blames the delivery services.  The cost comes out of their delivery fee, so Amazon doesn't ever have to pay for the contents.  The way I see it, UPS, FedEx, and USPS ought to get a class-action suit going against Amazon for all the sprains, strains, and deferred costs that Amazon is pushing off on them.

Perhaps, then they'd realize that people know how to pack a box better than a robot.

And then MY package wouldn't have been returned to Amazon mid-delivery because it was damaged.  (And, no, Amazon, didn't notify me that there was a problem.  The package just didn't arrive).

At Least I'm Not the Only One

It's a perfect example of how dumb ideas get perpetuated in our language.  I'd blame George W, but this predates him.

Grad School Means Glasses

It's something I noticed early on:  the number of researchers and grad students that have glasses is pretty amazing.  I'd venture a guess at 90% or more.

I guess someone conned some money to do a study to count those numbers.

I think that the only interesting part is that it's myopia (near-sightedness), which I find a bit ironic from a holistic medicine perspective:  The more you learn about a subject, the less you see of everything else.

Kind of poetic, huh?

Public Pools

So, those of you that pee in the pool (and you KNOW who you are), ought to know that you are poisoning everyone in the pool.  You've obviously failed chemistry or any science and math class because otherwise you'd know that chlorine only kills small organisms- it doesn't PURIFY the water.

The only thing that purifies water is a water filter.

So, peeing and pooping in the pool just leaves that excrement in the pool.

AND on top of that, studies have now found that urinating in the pool actually combines chemically with the chlorine to make cyanide.

In case you don't know what cyanide is, it's the little blue pill that they give astronauts to kill themselves in case they get trapped and can't return.  So, by peeing in the pool, you're creating that lovely toxin in the water for everyone to breath in.  And while the study says that it's only a small amount of cyanide that gets formed from one person depositing their duty in the pool, you can imagine how much more is created when it's the kiddy pool.

It really makes you wonder how many people dye of cyanide poisoning from public pools.

It should also open your eyes to drinking chlorinated water from your tap.  If you can smell the chlorine, you really ought to think about what's IN it that they're killing off...

...because unless YOU'RE filtering the water, you're drinking whatever is in it.

thirsty?

Anger Management

Hi, everyone,

My advice to you for buying a house is this:

don't buy a used one.

No matter what, there is going to be SOMETHING that the owners aren't telling you.  And when you uncover it, you'll have to spend more money proving that they knew about it to get them to pay for it...and in Minnesota, that means that you're still out the lawyer fees because you can't pass those along to the defendants.

But I have to say, nothing in the word says vengence like having all the major appliances in your house fail in the first two weeks of ownership...and finding leaks in most of the plumbing.

Oh, and let's not forget the mouse because you know when you see one, there are more in the house.

So, forgive me for not writing.  I've had SO many things going on that I'm surprised that I make it through every day.

But at least the cats have found new entertainment.