The title of this post was swiped from Gerry Canavan.  The Boston Globe's Big Picture has some amazing photos of the devastation in Iowa...



 

I had to shut down all of the electronic equipment at VCAM twice already today to protect it from electrical storm activity and I might have to do it again if this weather keeps up.  Meteorologist Tom Messner would say there is a cold front moving across the region resulting in an area of low pressure and an instable air mass, causing heavy rain, high winds, lightning, hail and possible tornadoes.  I would describe this weather as "biblical."

The sunset was un-fucking-believable.  Pure golden glowy amazingness.  An hour before that, the sky turned pale green, and low, bruised clouds swirled about each other just like they do in all of those storm chaser shows on the Weather Channel.

The power is still on for now. 

I spend a lot of time outdoors, frequently with a group of like-minded outdoorsy people. The group fluctuates between me alone and as many as 6 of us on all things recreational - mostly at the extreme ends of the endurance, speed and psychologically punishing scales. While we pride ourselves on our abilities, we have recently thought of giving ourselves a 'team name' - even though there's no fixed membership - like a club - but have been unable to come up with anything.

So we're soliciting ideas from anyone and everyone with no caveat or limitations or qualifiers and frankly we don't care if your submission is seriously meant merely a complete squandering of bytes for the sake of seeing your words on this blog.

If you have time to kill, keep reading to see what others have submitted so far - and submit your own.

(NSFW text in the list below the proverbial fold): read more

My big brother (and Candleblog reader) Rob turns 43 today. Happy birthday, bigguy.

Although it's Rob's birthday, I'm apparently the one getting presents. First, I present you: The Perfect Vermont Day:

It's sunny and the high is going to be 75 degrees and the humidity is low.

Speaking of "low," it's now (after a few false alarms) looking like I'm going to be Neil Cleary's date to tonight's Wilco/Low show at the Shelburne Museum after all. w00t!

I've lived in Vermont for 24 years and I've never once been to the Shelburne Museum. I'm a bad Vermonter.

I like Wilco, but I'm not the rabid fan that it seems most of my contemporaries are. I LOVED I Am Trying to Break Your Heart though. Low is awesome. I'm excited to get to see them live. 

holy crap! i just got back from a 2 hr backroad bike ride and raced the developing thunderstorms. i took a look on my computer and found this:

=======================================================
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
504 PM EDT WED JUN 27 2007

VTZ004-006>008-272200-
LAMOILLE-CALEDONIA-WASHINGTON-ESSEX-
INCLUDING...ST. JOHNSBURY
504 PM EDT WED JUN 27 2007

AT 500 PM EDT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED
SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS OVER ELMORE...MOVING EAST AT 20 MPH.

THE THUNDERSTORM WILL BE NEAR EAST HARDWICK...CABOT BY 520 PM...NEAR
WALDEN...STANNARD BY 530 PM...NEAR WEST DANVILLE BY 540 PM...NEAR
NORTH DANVILLE...DANVILLE BY 550 PM...NEAR ST. JOHNSBURY AND
LYNDONVILLE BY 600 PM.

THIS STORM WILL BE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING WIND GUSTS TO 45 MPH...SMALL
HAIL...AND FREQUENT CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING. IN
ADDITION...RAINFALL AMOUNTS WILL BE AROUND A HALF OF AN INCH.

A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM.

$$
=======================================================

it's 5:15. clearly i have about 35 minutes to batten down the hatches. 

I have a close friend that ran in yesterday's Mt. Washington Road Race - Amy Parker Strong. Her husband Nate, a buddy Tim and I met her at the top.

The race runs the length of the Mt. Washington Auto Road: 7.6 miles, 4,650 ft in elevation gain. The fastest times are about an hour, and Amy crossed the finish line in just 1:33 - ranking about 125 out of 900 powerful men & women runners.

Nate and Tim and I were at the finish line watching runners in amazement - their expressions, their bodies, their breathing. Some looked as though they couldn't take another step while others finished with such power that we couldn't imagine how they could've run like that and survived. Here's a brief (4mb QT) clip I shot w/ my digital camera of the winner finishing the race. Note that the guy is RUNNING, not crawling on his hands and knees.

Regrettably, neither Nate, Tim nor I made the 2007 race lottery, but possibly this time next year I'll be posting a video of me lying broken and bleeding and gasping for breath on that same finish line!
 

My specially trained partridge posed for pictures yesterday on a bed of wooly thyme. Spring is indeed a time of rejuvenation and delight. Link
 

I do a lot of hiking all year 'round and in August, one of my hiking buddies ("g-$$$", pronounced "gee-money", so named because of all the gear he owns) asked me how many of the 48's I'd done. The "48's" are the 48 summits in the White Mountain National Forest that are above 4000'. He was up to 43 and a number of us had been accompanying him in part for the cameradie and in part because these hikes are classics and very interesting.

But back to his question: I didn't know. I was sure that over the years I'd done many of them, and "doing the 48" doesn't require any particular timeframe - it's like seeing all the Star Trek episodes. You could do them in a marathon weekend or over a lifetime - whatever suits your fancy.

The question kept coming up throughout the fall, and in October I finally sat down and went through my logs and found that I had done 34 of them. g-$$$ got me thinking about it and I decided to finish off 13 of my 14 and g-$$$ and I would do the last one together in the summer and have a picnic and a beer on the summit or something like that.

However the situation evolved very differently. The rest of the story unfolds below the fold.  read more

For a little variation on topics here, and to celebrate the season of excess, I've made a movie of an experience I had last Thursday on the summit of Mt. Madison in the high Presidential Range of New Hampshire.

Direct Link To Movie (3.5mb QT)

[True Tales of Action and Adventure Continued Below The Fold...] read more

Sometimes, even looking at the weather forecast can be scary:

So my heart is pounding, sweat beading in the crack of my ass ... but then I click on the red 'hazard' link, and it shows this:
Whew! All that sweaty ass-crack for nothing.