To Sequence or Not to Sequence, That is the Question

Last night I took the simplified sheet music for Silent Night over to the synthesizer and powered up the electronics.

First I sat at the midi controller and slowly keyed the notes on the keyboard. I’m not good at reading music and picking out notes,  but before long I’d memorized the first eight notes: G, A, G, E, repeated twice. 

By the way,  this is the C major version.  Then I played those measures a couple more times and darn if I hadn’t memorized it.  That is mind blowing, because I’m “not supposed” to be able to do that.  

Then I sat down with the ER-101 Quad Sequencer and started entering notes.  Two weeks ago I had created a “cheat sheet” for that sequencer showing all of the notes that it could produce (99 of them) and correlated that with an 88 key piano keyboard. Then I added the peculiar notation used by the sequencer and created a matrix with the addition of midi notes.  This “cheat sheet” gave me the confidence to add the first 14 notes of  Silent Night into the sequencer. So I pressed “run”, and I sort of recognized the melody.  There were a few mistakes,  notably (pardon the pun) notes entered in the wrong octave.  Then I played it again and realized I had not entered anything resembling duration.  You see, this song has dotted quarter notes, half notes, eighth notes and other expressions of musical time. 

Adding duration to the notes took twice as long as entering the notes themselves. I understood the relationships between the lengths of the different notes, but had to come up with a quantification of the ratios. This time when I pressed “run” it sounded much more like the hymn. 

I’m still not completely satisfied because I’m not sure my tempo is matching up with the 3/4 time signature. So, I’ll practice my best SWAG (sophisticated wild ass guess) on it and see where it takes me. 

Then, I need to add the remaining 33 notes to complete the song, and set up the correct duration, and perform SWAG  for some of the calculations. 

I am excited about pushing the envelope (pardon the synth pun) on the ER-101. This has come about by a decision made about six weeks ago to dig deep into the basics of what I have.  It involved patching the ultimate basic patch and putting out a YouTube video explaining the patch. Then I pulled aside one module and did an in-depth exploration of the module and put out a YouTube video explaining it.  These explorations are primarily for my sake. I’ve learned over the years that if I study something well enough to explain it then this crosses over into the realm of deeper learning. Preparing to teach something helps me learn it. 

Today I walked past the band stands of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.  They come to the cafeteria at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama one day a year to play two Christmas concerts.   In between the concerts I dropped by the cafeteria to get a sandwich. As I casually strolled past the double bass lying on the floor I glanced up at the music sheet on the stand. Hah! All of his music is in the bass clef, I never would have even known that two years ago. This journey has been so much fun.

Who knew about this visual illusion, the Shepard's Tables?

I recently came across the Shepard's Tables illusion and was completely flummoxed.  Those tables just "cannot" be the same size.  But they are :)

Check out this link:   http://www.psychologyconcepts.com/shepards-tables-illusion/












not my art..... it was borrowed from:
 http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/Geometry/Shepard.shtml


Or how about The Dress?  This optical illusion is even more stunning because it is about Color!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress




It is still quite surprising that our perceptions can be “tricked” by reality!

Michael Was Worse Than I Thought

Hurricane Michael, while not directly causing a large number of fatalities, rearranged the landscape for tens of thousands of people and caused effects that will linger for many years.  The category 4 hurricane, which at landfall was only 2mph below category 5 status sent in a storm surge that nearly wiped Mexico Beach off the map. The barely weakening storm wrecked the east side of Panama City and roared north through rural Florida entering Georgia as a category 3 hurricane.  It appears that millions of trees, many of which were planted in pine forests to be harvested, were downed. People were being rescued from their homes for days after the passage of the massive storm.

In one place, that I first came to know and love in the 1990’s, the St. Joseph’s Peninsula, the geography was rearranged.  Hurricane Michael cut through the peninsula in two places, isolating the T. H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park.  Satellite imagery released by NOAA on October 11, the day after the impact of hurricane Michael showed the Gulf of Mexico flowing through the channels cut in the land.

I have loved “The Emerald Coast” for my entire life, even when folks called it “The Redneck Rivera”. The kitschy outdoor games, the beautiful bay, the unparalleled Gulf of Mexico with its sugar sand beaches have been an enduring part of my life.

If you can, please contribute to a verified charity that will endeavor to reduce the suffering of the folks along hurricane Michael’s path of destruction. The citizens of the Emerald Coast and those living inland who are digging out of the destruction will be grateful.

I've Got a Bad Feeling About Michael

I've got a bad feeling about Michael.  This hurricane popped up from a tropical gumbo where it stewed for a few days without any defined characteristics. Then, BOOM, this hurricane forms and it is tracking toward our beloved Florida Gulf Coast. The amount of shear (not so much) and warm waters (quite a bit) and approaching cold front are forecast to move Michael to the Florida Gulf Coast in less than two days.  It might "bomb" and explode in intensity bringing it onshore as a Category 3 hurricane.

I don't normally blog about this sort of thing, but there is a feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that this might be the worst hurricane to hit Panama City in my lifetime. I really hope this is not the case.

Prayers, crossed fingers and hopes - "please, no!"

Stay tuned...

Who Knew About Auditory Illusions?

My friend O.Z. Hall passed this on the Birmingham Electronic Music group’s FaceBook page today. This is quite an intriguing experiment, one that you can do alone which will cause you no discomfort.



“While working on some deep learning related audio projects I came upon an interesting

auditory illusion that shows how our brain associates memorized phrases with auditory stimuli. Below is a sound generated by randomly stimulating a neural net that was pretrained on approximately 1000 recordings of brass sounds (both single notes and entire musical phrases). The resulting “drone” is totally uniform and has no temporal development at all (in the sense that there would be individual notes present in that mixture). If you first listen to the audio file it just sounds chaotic and maybe a bit disharmonic, nothing to see here, move along. But wait! Try running the file in the background for several minutes in a loop and you will notice that it appears as if there are suddenly notes, even entire melodies emerging from the mix. ” 1

http://blogs.zynaptiq.com/bernsee/evoked-melodies-in-auditory-illusion/



1. Quoted from his blog post: Stephan Bernsee’s Blog , August 31, 2018

Tonight’s Modular Synthesis Update

Well, this won’t be a daily feature but tonight there was some success in areas that needed it.

The DLD was patched to handle two Mother32s who were sequenced by the GRP R24.  Bingo! Each synth was running through a separate channel of delay simultaneously with its own custom delay time.  This not only worked beautifully but sounded great.

Later, using some radical off the wall patching the tELHARMONIC began to sing in a voice never heard before.  This patch will need documentation because most previous efforts to play this module ended in non excitement.

Lastly the TimeFactor was tested with each channel separately and it puts out beautiful delays as well. So it appears that four voices can be delayed separately.

The next goal will be to take existing stand alone VCOs and run them through one or the other of the delay paths.  The first test along this line using the ER-101 was not impressive. I’m sure that somewhere my technique went off the rails. 😀

The Weather So Far in 2018

It’s been a very busy year. One of the consequences of that busyness is that I’ve neglected to track the weather as close as I prefer. Tonight I ran through the F6 from the Birmingham National Weather Service (NWS) station.  The F6 is more widely known as the PRELIMINARY LOCAL CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA form.  The data in these forms are in all CAPS for some reason. One day I’ll look into why that is the case. Anyway, as I was saying, my investigations into the first nine months F6 forms and my comparison to the current Climate Normals yielded some interesting “headlines” for this years weather. 

First a small digression to provide a salient definition. “Climate Normals” are the current 30 year average of weather for each month of the year. The current Climate Normals are comprised of the averages from the years 1981-2010.  Every ten years the NWS puts out a new dataset. In the year 2021 they will deliver the next range of years for Climate Normals: 1991-2020. 

These Climate Normals are precisely what climate is: a thirty year average of thousands of weather measurements at the Birmingham NWS station. Every NWS station utilizes a set of data from which they derive their own Climata Normals. Using the Climate Normals and comparing them to our current year’s weather is the motivation behind this evening’s blog post. 

The first “headline” this data produces is: “The Month of February is Missing from Calendar Year 2018”.  Well, my calendar has February in it, and so does yours, so what does this headline mean? It’s actually quite simple. If you take the average highs and lows for this year’s February they are almost identical to the average highs and lows for the month of March found in the Climate Normals. This year’s weather just skipped the February temperatures and went from January to March temperatures.   And since this year’s March was just barely warmer then the March of the Climate Normals, this year we got double the fun!  Two month’s of March weather. 

The second “headline” this year is that the May-September period was hotter than the Climate Normals. This extended warm spell started out wet (6.98” in May) but ended up dryer than normal. July only saw 1.81” of rain at the bottom of the rain gauge. 

The third “headline” this year is that the weather in September was a clone of August.  So, this year we got two month’s of August weather, and that was following a July that was noticeably hotter than the Climate Normal.  As a matter of fact this year’s September was warmer than this year’s August! 

The fourth “headline” this year is a continuation of the last one.  “September is Hotter than the Normal July”.  Now everyone around here knows that July is the hottest month of the year. August is the second hottest month, followed by June. This year’s September’s temperatures were as hot as or hotter than the Climate Normal July. What we are saying here is that you could be more miserably 
hot this September than you could in the vast majority of the thirty year’s month of July (1981-2010).   Wow, that is hot!

The year is not over yet!  We just started the fourth quarter on October 1st so I’ll have to return to this topic in January for a look back at any future “headlines”. Until then, keep your eye on the sky. 

Celestial Cruze

I’m not sure why this last piece of music has entranced me.  It’s not the most beautiful, not the most danceable, not even the most ambient piece I’ve recorded.  It resonates with me on an existential level and repudiates my conscious efforts to produce anything along the lines of Berlin School space music. There are no atmospheric cloud banks of sequencers pulsating at different tempos and timbres. The soft and sweeping violin pads are not to be found in this sound scape.

This piece is in a unique way a piece of me.  The drones expanding and contracting interrupted after a length of time with struck notes sounding like a gigantic collection of piano strings connected to a steel I-beam. Sound, echo, and silence feature and fulminate in a sometimes turbid, other times timid embrace.

This piece is not recorded to any media other than video, and hence is both a live performance never to be repeated, and a recording that cannot be edited later to correct errors or oversights.

Living and breathing, sounding and resounding, starting and finishing. From the depths of deep dark notes to high pitched three to five octave leaps and sweeps, this piece moves slowly toward its denouement.

Celestial Cruze:

https://youtu.be/APwvIlXyf0g

The Seven Sisters in a Veil of Snow

This is how you know that you've waited too late to take a ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I'm standing on the shore of Lake Tomahawk in Black Mountain, North Carolina looking north at the Seven Sisters mountain range. An early snow fall has covered the high elevations above 4,500' and rendered the parkway closed at that point. We were blessed with abundant sunshine in the valley below the peaks and even caught a rainbow on that chilly day in October 2017.

Arwen and her Pre Brush Communion

Arwen is by far and away the single most responsive cat we’ve had the pleasure of living with.  We’ve had a cat (only one at a time) for the past 37 years. The first two were Siamese, Arwen is mostly Maine Coon. She does not have papers to detail her bloodline, she was a rescue cat.  Her obvious and striking gratitude in being adopted was obvious from the first hour she connected with Debbie. The entire crowd in attendance (Debbie’s surprise birthday party) were amazed at how fast the two bonded.

Arwen has demonstrated to me, on hundreds of separate occasions that her command of the English language is far more sophisticated than expected. She picks up and responds to subtle conversations that Debbie and I have. Her daily expectation of her ritualistic grooming is delightful to see, and at times exasperating because typically my arrival from work coincides with her desire to receive the brush.  She knows she cannot get brushed until we “meet and greet”.  This ritual is played out every afternoon at some point in time between 4:30 and 5:30.  She awaits my movement to sit upon the ottoman. Once seated she comes up to me and rubs against my legs for dozens of times.  I’ll rub her as she passes by, or twirl her tail. She continues circling back in elaborate figure eights across the den floor and swipes both legs coming from the left. Then, in a mirror image of the previous maneuver she swipes from the right side. After some minutes of this slow motion activity she heads over toward the brush.

——- to be continued.

How Much Hotter is Your Hometown Today Compared to the Year of Your Birth?

The New York Times offers up a glimpse of how many of those 90 degree days we typically saw each year and how many we may expect to see over the next twenty or more years.


All you need to do is input the name of your home town and your year of birth. Note, the data set does not go back further than 1960, so those born earlier than then can use 1960.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/30/climate/how-much-hotter-is-your-hometown.html?emc=edit_nn_20180831&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=8099462420180831&te=1


I'm going to "cheat" and give you the results from my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama.  In 1960 the temperature hit 90 degrees an average of 56 days a year.  Then we went through the well known short period when the climate chilled a bit in the late 60's - the 1970's.  I remember those times as snowy in the winter too!  Today, in 2018 I can expect an average of 69 days above 90 and by the time I'm 80 years old that figure is expected to be approximately 84 days!

Why don't you pick your hometown and give it a whirl? 


                                                        -------------------------------------


The climate modeling was performed by Climate Impact Lab.
See the bottom of the web page for details on the numerical models used for this graphic display.

Cruising for breakfast

Arwen has food anxieties. No, she isn’t starving and her bowl of dried food is never empty. She just wants to insure that her human caretakers understand the importance of receiving canned food on time and served with a flourish. This morning she “got in my face”about it, albeit with the sweetest demeanor. Yes, she will receive her breakfast in about five minutes!

What’s Going On

Well, after a hiatus I’ve returned to my blog and hope to keep up some semblance of continuity. We’ll see if that pans out. In the meantime I’ll close today’s activities with a link to one of my recent Modular musical excursions.

Cumulous cloud Terrarium floating over Morpheus

Napping after book reviews

After those book reviews it is time to take a nap.

Vacation Books - Arwen's Recommendations

Vacation means many different things to different folks. One of the things I associate with a vacation is trying to pick up a “vacation book” to carry along and read when ever time and space allow. This past week I had two books to read. Both of which fit the “vacation book” criteria: not work related, not too intellectually taxing (no philosophy books), and interesting. Arwen has exactly the same criteria! She is sharing our vacation books with you. 

“Hope Never Dies” is a work of fiction (obviously), wherein Joe Biden and Barack Obama play the part of amateur detectives in unraveling the mysterious death of an Amtrak train conductor. This at times hilarious, and at times thought provoking novel is the work of author Andrew Shaffer, whose work “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” established the author as a purveyor of malarkey! Arwen agrees that the book is pretty crazy at times but an entertaining and fast read. She recommends this book but refuses to give any plot secrets away. 

“The Stranger in the Woods” is the non fictional account of a man who walked into the woods of Maine and disappeared as a hermit for twenty seven years. Christopher Knight survived in the woods for almost three decades by ingenious survival techniques and by becoming an accomplished burglar. A lake community was terrified by the unknown and uncatchable thief who was highly selective in what he stole, and what he refused to steal. After being arrested his encounters in jail, court and with a community of people, and his difficulties in dealing with that transition are detailed in the book. The author also examines the life of hermits, and others who have walked away from mankind and dealt with solitude. 

Arwen likes this book because the hermit did not kill animals to stay alive. She recommends this book highly!

Snow again?

Well we had a beautiful snowfall in December here in Central Alabama and it appears we might get a small bit of snow tomorrow.


The above is a model depicting the forecast for noon on January 16, 2018. That is the 14:08 CST run of the WPC/NDFD model.



This is the official Birmingham, NWS timing map for tomorrow's freezing precipitation.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out!

Travelling To The Stars With Space Music - guided by Chuck Van Zyl

In a never ending attempt to "explore strange new worlds" the last year has found me exploring making music with a synthesizer.  It's been quite the challenge with a learning curve as steep as Everest.  As a long time lover of "Berlin School" space music my searches came across the music of Chuck Van Zyl. His extraordinary soaring timbres and clouds of rhythmic sequencing provide a fantastic modern exploration of that genre of  space music.  One of my favorite videos of his work is below.
I hope you enjoy!

The YouTube link is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoP5J_YpcwY

Hurricane Hunters follow a Pattern

#NOAA42 finishing 3rd and last pass through the eye of #HurricaneIrma collecting Doppler radar data for #HWRF. https://t.co/jwh0azKHML


Sent from my iOS phone.

My Year in the Premier League - In a Manner of Speaking - FA Cup

Part of the Story:

The FA CUP

Association Football (what we Americans call soccer) is so firmly entrenched in England (Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, and 7 dozen other countries) that it is part of the social fabric.  For example, during the month of March in the United States basketball fans are treated to March Madness with a bracket of 68 seeded teams who play each other to determine a winner.  This basketball frenzy sweeps the nation for several weeks and then it is over. 

The oldest association football competition in the world, the FA Cup, is an annual knockout competition in men's domestic English football. The competition is open to any eligible club down to Level 10 in the English Football Pyramid.   Each year the competition features over 600 teams with the first game in August and the FA Cup Final in the month of May. There is nothing closely resembling this competition in the US.  

Early in the competition, when lower ranked teams play teams that are much higher in the pyramid the possibility of "giant killings" is greatly exciting to the football public.  The fact that a poorly funded team that centers on a small village could play and beat (it has happened!) a top ranked Premier League team (a giant) is an unexpected delight to the competition.  

A Football Term Defined:

 Transfer Window - Tranfer Deadline Day

The transfer window is not some pane of glass on the back side of a transfer truck. No no no. The transfer window for the Premier League is twelve weeks of public speculation bordering on the side of insanity about which club is going to buy or sell which player. If you are a fan of a team then you can expect that the amount of discussion and speculation will rise and fall with the revolution of the earth.  Yes, after midnight it calms down and then picks up again about 6 am. However, since the earth is round, and at  every moment in time it is daylight somewhere, then the pace of the frantic speculation never really ceases.

There are two transfer windows in Premier League Football. A four week window in the middle of the winter (January) and the eight weeks comprising July and August. Today, the last day of August, is Transfer Deadline Day. In case you missed it, here is all of the activity during he Summer Transfer Window. 

Most importantly what on earth happened to Liverpool during the summer transfer? 

This article is part of a series where I discuss, define, experience and try to explain my passion for Premier League Soccer, primarily as it is expressed in my semi fanatical support for the best team in the world: LIVERPOOL FC .

Logo borrowed from:  http://www.lfchistory.net/Images/lfc/LIVE_5396.gif

January Tropical Cyclones in The Atlantic & Pacific. At The Same Time! - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal - AGU Blogosphere

http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2016/01/14/january-tropical-cyclone-in-the-atlantic-pacific-at-the-same-time/


Sent from my iOS phone.

Robinson Springs United Methodist Church - Millbrook, AL

Robinson Springs United Methodist Church in Millbrook Alabama, one of the oldest churches in Elmore County was built in 1848.  It is built in classic Greek Revival style which was very popular in the 1830s through the 1840s. The heart pine foundation is still solid and held in place by pegs. Amazingly there are several families worshiping at the church who are the eighth generation of their family to remain in this congregation. 

Miriam Sagan's Blog On the Forthcoming Book

https://miriamswell.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/rod-scott-on-the-churches-of-alabama/

Laughter

My father sleeps under the blue lagoon
dreaming sweetly of grassy days in
dappled sunlight,
cousins playing vibrantly around
the many ancient oaks,
hiding behind the trunks with
fierce intent....

Scream! Leap! Tackle!

The children lay rolling in
bales of laughter, caring
not for dirt stains, or
scuff marks,
only for
laughter.


Owl's Nest - Wildacres - NC - October 7, 2015.

Yale University Photo Archive Of The Depression Released

http://beautifuldecay.com/2015/10/14/yale-university-releases-170000-incredible-photos-great-depression/









Sent from my portable computer.

Appropriate Tools For Writing

Haiku 14

Haiku 14

Grey ghosts fly overhead
Together in a vee shape –
No honking today.

Sent from my iOS phone.

Explanation ....

I've been experimenting with updating this blog via email.

Here are a couple of the ways that do not work:

          1) The Day One app.    This is my favorite app for writing on the phone.  However, when                      you send a note via email it clutters the subject line with a title that is relevant to the
               date the Day One app sent the file.  Your note Title is missing.

          2)  Evernote.  This is my favorite app for organizing notes.  However, when you share via                      email the shared "Work Chat" becomes an icon to click, therefore you cannot update this
            blog in that manner.


The one thing I did learn was that when using standard email to update this blog the contents of the subject line become the title of the blog entry.  Perfect!

If I forget the subject line, the first line of the article becomes the title of the entry.  --- Not optimal!

NIGHTSIGHT

Nightsight

Cloud caressing towers create man

made canyons that drown in 

dusk induced darkness.

Vagrant wind glances down the dusty street

startles windows and slaps soiled

newspapers across yellow lines.

Humpbacked shadows flicker like

indecisive moths

circling unevenly spaced street lights.

Colorless cars evade airborne paper

skirting pools of halogen light

stirring the shadows into decisive action.

Harrowing loneliness radiates from my marrow

pervades thoughts of my tomorrow and

strangle my fears of yesterday.

Solitary vertigo overwhelms my sight,

diminishes my spirit and 

quenches the fires of the night.

Birmingham, AL - February 21, 1990

The evening view from my cubicle on the

13th floor. 

Pre Autumn Chill

Pre Autumn Chill

The bird calls echo through the tall wooden
columns, underneath the leafy cathedral
ceiling, among the randomly arrayed
understory comprised of brilliant foliage,
shrubs, rotted debris, and four legged
creatures scurrying about in search of
food.

The calliopeic warble of the different
Avian families rebound and re echo from
corners of the cathedral, a building with no
walls, a building with no windows, open to
atmospheric flights of aerial mastery,
and the approachment of Autumn.

A chilled sunrise in late August speaks
Autumnal murmurations at the
latitude of thirty three degrees above the
equator; bringing a loving reminder that
alas, awhile burning summer heat is not banished
from the Southern landscape,
—– it's days are numbered.


Elmore N. Scott, Jr. ©
  August 26, 2015 -
 , Hoover, AL, United States

Sent from my iOS phone.

The Worst Hard Time

An extraordinary book about America's greatest climate disaster. The Worst Hard Time tells the story of the people caught up in the circumstances that led to a greed fueled desire to get rich, at the expense of the greatest grasslands on the North American continent. As the disaster unfolded the reader is taken into the dust filled lives of the ordinary people who watched their land dry up and blo...w away. Who knew that at one point the dust made it all the way to New York City and Washington D.C. and blew more than 200 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean . By the end of the book you have met many memorable characters, historic people, and the ordinary people who had to decide whether to leave or stay as their soil, their farms and their towns blew away.

from: Rod Scott

Hi Nimrodscott



http://dealsonfitness.info/clearly.php?cover=kk9kgek58uvzw9bx





nimrodscott@yahoo.com
Nimrodscott

Sent from my iPhone

John Cook Makes a Great Point about Communication

Scientists are from Mars, Laypeople are
from Venus:
An Evidence-Based Rationale for
Communicating the Consensus on Climate
John Cook and Peter Jacobs


http://reports.ncse.com/index.php/rncse/article/view/347/599

97% - The Evidence has been conclusive for years

Relevance

Are monastics and hippies and poets relevant? No, we're deliberately irrelevant. We live with an ingrained irrelevance which is proper to every human being. The marginal person accepts the basic irrelevance of the human condition, an irrelevance which is manifested above all by the fact of death. The marginal person, the monastic, the displaced person, the prisoner, all these people live in the presence of death, which calls into question the meaning of life. They struggle with the fact of death in themselves, trying to seek something deeper than death, because there is something deeper than death, and the office of the monastic or the marginal person, the meditative person, is to go beyond death, even in this life to go beyond the dichotomy of life and death and to be, therefore, a witness to life.

- Thomas Merton, "Clouds and Water"

I've dreamed of this photo for about 15 years. During that time I've stood in this spot gazing to the west at this particular mountain range under a wide variety of light conditions. I've seen these mountains in morning light, sunset silhouette, broad daylight, wrapped in clouds, wreathed in clouds (as you see here) and under a cloudless sky.  

This photo contains the entire range of the Black Mountains in North Carolina. Actually, that is only partially true. What you see here is the highest peaks of the North-Central portion of the range. Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains is near the middle of the photo. 

What I love about this photo is that the air was clear, and that clouds were clustered around the range. The shadows cast by those clouds under strong sunshine add to the visual beauty of the lower slopes of The Blacks.  

Hopefully this will not be my last photo of this part of The Black Mountains. I'm looking forward to exploring this viewpoint in the near future.

One of my favorite places - The top of Mount Mitchell, NC

Orion Departs: Mar 14, 2013

Orion Departs

Orion slips to the West, tilting as
He removes himself from
easy view in the pre midnight
sky.

Mid March cold flows down the
yard like a sluggish river bereft
of water craft,
chilling unprotected ankles
freezing toes.

The Barred Owl announces
to the small four legged that their
days may be numbered,
nocturnal hunt will
commence again soon.

My breath floats out
Dissipates…
Moistens the chill night air,
while I think of one who
will no longer be among us
no longer concerned with
impoverished breath.

Rejoice!
Another Saint is admitted
into the Eternal Kingdom!

We are glad,
for he who is no longer among us
suffers no more;
we are sad for he is no
longer among us.

Orion has floated from view.
I stand up, cold stiffened joints
protest a sudden start.
Tomorrow we begin again.
We move toward
that long away day
that day of Reunion in a
Heavenly country.

Copyright
Rod Scott
March 14, 2013

46° Clear
953 Riverchase Pkwy W, Hoover, Alabama, United States

Sent from my portable computer. 

At Peace: Apr 7, 2013

At Peace

Spring rain washed pollen filled skies
Trees shimmering with yellow sunlight
Drip and drop tinged water from
Fresh bright green leaves
born last night under the
warm spring stars.

Pollen yellow fringed puddles
dapple dot the black asphalt
down the hillside
down the roadway,
mosaic of gold and black stretches
the entire length of the Parkway.

Inhaling deeply I Remember:
A warm Spring morning when
I am six years old riding in
the back seat with my
window wound low
an extended arm,
a tilting hand,
surfing the ocean of air
flowing past the car;
My parents are in the front seat;
I am safe
secure
happy in the moment,
not a care in the world.

Rod Scott
copyright 2013
First draft was April 1, 2013
8th version.

Hoover, Alabama

Sent from my portable computer. 

Avian Congress: Apr 11, 2014

Avian Congress

I espied eleven eagles in one glance
gyring over the mighty Tennessee;
A congress of avian might,
clouding above the horizon they
commanded all beneath their wings;

Lowly mortals consigned to speeding along the internet and four wheeled
gasoline powered vehicles have
no power over the Eagle.

Copyright Elmore N. "Rod" Scott, Jr.

 Florence, AL

 

DAWN SLIDES UP THE CURVE OF THE WORLD. Day One Entry: Oct 27, 2013

Dawn slides up the curve of the world
on noiseless clouds, punctured
by mountains that redirect the light,
bending the sight lines to the eye of
the beholder.

Time stops;
then the thrice crowing cock
echoes in the valley below,
sounding among the hills,
and frost crisped fields.

Hidden dark cerulean clouds are
illumined by splintered solar fire,
by solar storms from afar…

In a puff of time, the pre dawn sky,
Coyly yielding to the day,
Departs in a moment,
Exploding into the
dawn sky, the
New Day Sky.

Elmore N. "Rod" Scott, Jr. © 2013

35.0037° N, 84.0295° W

Sent from my mobile phone.

SHACKLEFORD POINT - FEBRUARY Day One Entry: Feb 15, 2014

Shackleford Point - February

In the blue light before dawn the pine needles shiver in the sub freezing air. The north wind causes the trees to sashay in circles while the remnants of last night's fire permeate the air. The animals that are awake at this hour move silently under the trees, their footfalls covered by the wind tossed forest. Deer, quietly nibbling tender branchlets, the fox blinking at the slow light in the East, swift motion beneath the feet of the trees betray the scurry of the chipmunk.

Time stands still as the entire world pauses on the cusp of a new dawn. Fresh breezes blow away the detritus of the previous night, causing fresh insight into the days ahead. For a moment I am young, and old, simultaneously. The juxtaposition is momentarily unnerving, then accepted as the Moment Itself. A Relationship as large as all outdoors kindles the last tendrils of sleep, and unifies all that stood in disarray.

I turn to the North, inhaling the keen breeze, letting it revivify every cell in my body. Singing and tingling with new life, filled with clarified purpose I return to the campfire to make coffee.

Sent from my mobile phone.

TWILIGHT --- Day One Entry: Mar 14, 2014

Twilight

The wind rises from the southwest
Causing tree branches to sway with leafless abandon;
The clapper caresses the tubes of the wind chime coaxing pure notes to ride the wind across the forest.

The Barred Owl hidden amongst the highest oak branches sings a nocturnal ditty, persuading a response from avian kinfolk.

Do they survey their territory and announce their boundaries in such a manner?
Or is this a call of Love wanted, or Lost?

The dusk spreads like a heavy woolen Pendelton blanket
smothering the wind and diminishing its power,
silencing the call and response of the owls,
muting,
the wind chime.

Rod Scott

Sent from my mobile phone.

Floating : Jun 1, 2014

Floating

Sometimes the body mind floats, on automatic pilot, with no direction, step by step, breath by breath, with no conscious effort or attention….just coasting, like a kick ball out of bounds heading down hill to the road below.

Sent from my mobile phone.

Musical Epiphany Day One Entry: Jul 30, 2014

Musical Epiphany

Sometimes while listening to favorite music, the kind of music that leads to the genesis of epiphany, a Higher and better Dimension peeks through the chords and speaks Wisdom to my Heart.

Sent from my mobile phone.

Day One Entry: Aug 20, 2014

Grief

"Grief is so individually expressed, so uniquely experienced, that we have no capacity to experience another's pain. Sadness rooted in painful memories, triggered by anniversaries, are reminders merely of the passage of time, not of ability or desire to cope with the pain. There is no balm that can be applied or received from afar that will magically assuage our grief, eliminate the pain, or speed up its passage. Grief lives like a tree, growing at its own pace, fruiting and leafing at its own pace until one day a branch rots and leaves drop. Then on another day, perhaps distant in time, or sooner than expected, another branch breaks. The tree has fewer branches, fewer leaves, less fruit. The tree still lives but in a diminished capacity, it no longer takes the same amount of time to rake up the leaves in Fall. Even if this tree were to fall over in a hurricane, the wood would still be on the ground. The rotten carcass of grief slowly absorbed into the dirt. It might take a lifetime for that grief to disappear, or it might take a little less."

Rod Scott

90° Mostly Sunny
1980 Parkway River Rd, Hoover, AL, United States

Sent from my mobile phone.

How we'll remember the 2014 World Cup - film from Birmingham, AL

http://www.cbssports.com/world-cup/eye-on-world-cup/24619997/the-milestone-past-milestones-how-the-2014-world-cup-will-be-remembered

Hard to believe that video was filmed in Birmingham, Alabama. We have come a long way!!!

Sent from my portable computer. 

Life Intervention

Three years ago the rapidly declining state of my father's health required that I spend increasing amounts of time managing his health and financial affairs. A series of unexpected health set backs, including his succombing to blindness necessitated major changes in his life.

He lived first in an Assisted Living Center, then a Nursing Home. Last year he died on March 12, 2013.  Much of my time since has been handling his financial affairs since that time.

These very important issues, an Intervention from "Life", have taken me through the valley and the shadow. My writing has continued but has not been seen on this blog.

Perhaps one day I'll play catch up...but for now this blog is getting very little attention.

I've very proud of my father. He was an amazing gentleman who was humble before his God, and gave generously of his time and his talent. I'm attaching some photos of him in his later years.

Hey Dad----you are gone but not forgotten. 

Love,
Rod

CENSORED NEWS: Chief Arvol Looking Horse's Message May 2013

CENSORED NEWS: Chief Arvol Looking Horse's Message May 2013

Indigenous leaders ask for prayer.....

The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society

I was unaware of this group until today.  It sounds (and reads) like they've been doing this work for quite a while.


"The Tree illustrates some of the contemplative practices currently in use in secular organizational and academic settings. This is not intended to be a comprehensive list. Below the Tree you will find links to descriptions of many of these practices as well as a more in-depth description of the Tree and image files for downloading."


http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/tree

Tweet by @climateprogress via TweetCaster

Climate Progress (@climateprogress)
11/16/12, 1:24 PM

The Earth Is Warming And Human Activity Is The Primary Cause: The Climate Science Paradigm Grows Stronger http://bit.ly/ZIGec9

Shared via TweetCaster (http://tweetcaster.com)

Sent from my mobile phone.

Eloquence-Belief-Paradigms

One of the more masterful analyses of the resistance to changing one's beliefs. Especially one's political beliefs. Especially when one's beliefs are contradicted by reality. Especially when one's beliefs are repudiated in a very public fashion....like a National Election.

Jeffrey C. Stewart, professor of Black Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara writes:
"Charles Sanders [Peirce], the greatest of American philosophers, wrote a brief essay, "The Fixation of Belief," that holds some lessons as to what is wrong with the GOP and how, most likely, it will not solve its problem in the immediate future.

Pierce showed that humans are not fundamentally seekers of truth; we mainly want to avoid doubt. And when events occur, like the 2012 presidential election landslide by Barack Obama when most Republican analysts predicted a Republican victory, doubt emerges. But as Pierce shows, people hold to their beliefs tenaciously long after it has become plain they no longer accord with reality.
Notice how Karl Rowe refused to believe the conclusions of Fox News's own statisticians that Ohio had been won by the president. Or Donald Trump's rant that "We can't let this happen. We need to march on Washington and stop this travesty." These comical reactions are merely extreme versions of the looks on the faces of those assembled at Romney headquarters in Boston who could not believe that their beliefs were so out of step with most of America's voters; and the paid Republican prognosticators - George Will, Dick Morris, etc., etc. all failed to anticipate the 100 electoral vote thumping that Barack laid on Mitt Romney. "
 Read the rest of his article at the link below:

Permalink:
http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Jeffrey_C__Stewart_0BF5B29B-67BA-4F3C-B5F5-54A4526BC9FC.html

 

An hour with Dad

There is a brief breeze as the air pressure from within the building escapes into the warm sky. The door slides shut, the breeze stills and I'm inside once again. I both dread, and look forward to these visits. The dread is easy to explain; who on earth looks forward to being encapsulated in a skilled nursing facility, a nursing home.

I sign in smiling at the lady behind the desk, we exchange normal pleasantries then I turn entering a different world. Sometimes that world begins outdoors, when the residents in wheel chairs sit outdoors catching a few sun beams. Mostly the world become unmistakable before making the left turn, but certainly after turning down the hall and entering another universe.

It is never hard to take that walk down the hall. Everyone of these residents have loved, laughed, cried, and been angry. Everyone of these residents have family who interact with them, or at least did to get the admitted. The humanity shared by each of us causes me to smile at the lady in the wheelchair, and she smiles back. One of the ladies always asks me if I am going. My response is the same, a genuine smile, and a spoken "yes", and then I take the turn by the nurses station.

Waving at Lily, the RN, I turn the corner and head for Dad's room. He is sitting in a chair in front of a TV that is tuned to ESPN, and a college football game. He is asleep, I gently put my hand on his right shoulder and speak my name loud enough for him to hear. Sitting on the bed, reaching for the volume control on the TV I greet Dad.

Dad entered this alternative universe a year ago when he went blind. Eye surgery was attempted, but the end result never changed. His sons and daughters in love attempted to care for him but that proved a full time job. A job you could only take if you quit your day job.

We moved him into an assisted living center. That was hard. That was hard for him, and that was hard for us. It was a time of accelerated challenges, and a learning curve at least one light year long. Dad's loving heart, his intelligence, his good humor stood him in good stead as he adapted to his new world.

Within a month he was making his way down the halls that he could not see. Within two months he was establishing new relationships, always showing the Love of Christ to everyone he met. Yet time is not an ally when important parts of our selves deteriorate. The steady decline, while nearly impossible to see while measuring with 24 hour yard sticks, becomes painfully apparent at longer intervals. When the body and mind decline in concert, the music goes off key, and sometimes things break altogether.

Dad had been fortunate to fall gently, tearing only skin and not bone. When the bones started breaking everything changed again. Five months of assisted living came to an abrupt end, and the family scrambled again to find a new universe, a new home away from home. After less than two weeks one final catastrophic fall removed Dad from vertical existence and put him in bed.

I sit gently upon the bed remembering first experiences with the bed alarm, the startled awareness of a siren going off because the sensor was reporting, incorrectly, that someone had fallen out of bed. We talk, in a slow deliberate way, leaving long pauses for secondary comments and space for grace to appear. This is not the way our conversations started so many months ago. My nervousness at being in a nursing home prompted me to fill conversational silence with words. Not all of the words were superfluous, not all of the words were wasted.

Yet a greater peacefulness suffuses the room as acceptance appears and sits with us. That acceptance may be more on my part than Dad's, yet it changes the chemistry of the moment, embraces the arms of grace that always appear when I raise my hands to the sky in surrender.

Today is not the day for spirited dialog....indeed, the synapses of silence confirm that fact.

Dad either sits in the chair, or lies in bed. His back injuries were so grievous they precluded any serious physical therapy. Besides, this is not a place that many return from. For many this is the last earthly dwelling place. For many this is the last home.

I still recall the conversations he and I had over the years regarding his probable future. The nursing home was not a destination to be anticipated. We speculated what might happen, and the possible sequence of events that might transpire. Neither of us had the imagination to forsee what actually took place.

He receives a stream of visits from his family. Some are able to make it almost every day, others including myself, drop by several times a week. More distant relatives make a journey of it, arriving in a full car after an hour or two on the road.

Dad's gratitude for a visit comes across in the gentle movements of his arm as he feebly waves them in the air. Sometimes his arms trace an ephemeral shape as his hand swings out, guided by the sound of my voice, to seek out a loving human touch. He marries those movements with low murmured compliments, questions about the family members who are absent from the room, and questions about what others are doing.

Before I know it, our time together has passed and I'm making preparations to depart. We go through our "goodbye ritual", which to my eternal delight includes a final parting phrase: "Au revoir". My footsteps retrace the path taken earlier, neither the hall nurse, nor the ladies in their wheelchairs are in sight. A quick signature in the book, a wave at the lady behind the the front desk, and I step through the sliding glass in a mild breeze. Outside the warm sun is still shining.



















Sent from a tiny DEC MicroVAX.

Hot Hot Hot Land !

The hottest summer over land was recorded this year.  For whom you ask?  The Entire Globe!

Yes, you heard right.  The hottest land surface average temperatures ever recorded. This is the NOAA report released today.  When you throw in the ocean temperatures (at 7th warmest) you find that taking land and ocean temperatures this was the 3rd hottest three month period on record.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

June–August	Anomaly		Rank (out of 133 years)	Records
	°C	°F		Year(s)	°C	°F
Global
Land	+1.03 ± 0.15	+1.85 ± 0.27	1st Warmest	Warmest: 2012	+1.03	+1.85
			133rd Coolest	Coolest: 1885	-0.61	-1.10

Who is worried about Climate Change

We all know who is not worried about climate change, Mitt Romney while speaking at The Republican National Committee. http://www.inquisitr.com/318181/mitt-romney-mocks-climate-change-during-rnc-speech/

But who is worried?

The US Military for one:
in 2011
 http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/A%20National%20Strategic%20Narrative.pdf
in 2010
http://www.defense.gov/qdr/qdr%20as%20of%2029jan10%201600.pdf

In each document the inevitablilty of climate change is a given, a proven expectation, something that needs to be mitigated.

Most of the S&P 500 Corporations for another:

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) surveys the S&P 500 corporations every year on numerous topics including climate change. Over 80% of the Standard and Poor 500 corporations have officially integraged climate change into their risk management strategies, and over 70% have merged planning for climate change into their regular business strategy.

"Climate change has been further integrated into
enterprise risk management (83% (281) in 2012 versus
75% (254) in 2011) and overall business strategy (73%

(247) in 2012 versus 65% (219) in 2011)." 1

1 Page 9 of https://www.cdproject.net/CDPResults/CDP-SP500-2012.pdf

A list of some of the top corporations involved in incorporating climate change into their strategic planning include:
Microsoft
Sprint
UPS
Cisco Systems
AT&T
Google
Home Depot
Wells Fargo

Many of the World's Largest Cities are also committed to addressing climate change:

"While international negotiations continue to make incremental progress, C40 Cities are forging ahead. Collectively they have taken more than 4,700 actions to tackle climate change, and the will to do more is stronger than ever. As innovators and practitioners, our cities are at the forefront of this issue – arguably the greatest challenge of our time."—Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
 http://www.c40cities.org/home
           C40 is a network of the world’s megacities taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With a unique set of assets, the C40 works with participating cities to address climate risks and impacts locally and globally.

Time is Relative

I went to visit Dad today in the nursing home.  Over the course of the hour long visit he asked me four times what day it was, what month it was, what time it was.   Visiting Dad is like taking a trip through a time tunnel.  I'm never sure when or where I'll arrive. It is a rare space, a space where time is elastic and a space where the relationship is wrapped in love.  Love....is what comes out....pain and reality intervene...but in the end Love is what remains. 

Dad believes he will die soon.  Why does he hold this thought?  A doctor told him.  We know that no doctor would have told him this, but this is seen by some who've had more contact with this elastic time warp, as the mind wrestling with life and it's impending end.  His heart remains pure and when you meet his heart with truth and love, relief flows between us.  Is this situation dire?  Yes.  Is there recovery from this position in life? Not likely.  Is there potential for growth and maturation? Yes there is...on the part of the resident and on the part of any visitor.  I've heard that the way you live your life is the way you end it....I have no idea whether there is any truth to that or not....but Dad lives now in Love, even as he lived before in Love.

Climate Normals

Climate Normals

 Last summer the new Climate Normals were released to the public on July 1, 2011. These Climate Normals are the latest in a string of three decade averages for the regular climatological variables (including rainfall and temperatures).  The new Normal covers 1981-2010 and replaces the previous dataset that covered 1971-2000.  This data is in raw form but is eventually broken out into more user friendly products.  The 1971-2000 products are described here.  An easy to use web breakout of the 1981-2010 products can be found here.

How do we use Normals?  Trying to remember the past weather over a 3 year period is tricky, not to mention a 30 year period.  The Normals give us “just the facts ma’am”, and supplement our memory. They give us an accurate context for understanding today’s temperature, today’s rainfall, and the other “core” Normals. Your local television meteorologist uses the Normals to compare today’s temperature and rainfall with past averages to give a more accurate perspective than relying on memory. 

 

How many weather stations contribute to the Normals? The 1981-2010 dataset included data from over 9800 stations.  Stations in different parts of the country report different data. An obvious example is that stations near Miami, FL do not report snowfall totals, but those near Minot, ND do! 

 

How many official Normals are available?  The United States started computing Normals based on a recommendation of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).  The WMO is an agency of the UN that has a membership of 189 “Member States and Territories” .  The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is the producer of the official Normals for the United States. 

 

If you’d like to see a webcast (a PDF) of the release of the 1981-2010 Normals check out this link.

 

So did anything change when we updated our Normals?  Yes, there are numerous changes in the average temperatures, most of which can be seen at a glance when you view them graphically.

These images show the Statewide differences between the 1981-2010 and 1971-2000 Normals, top image is differences in Maximum Temperatures, the bottom shows Minimum Temperatures.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/normals/img/Normals_State_Dif_Tmax_2.jpg

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/normals/img/Normals_State_Dif_Tmin_2.jpg

What do the Normals tell us about the state of the climate in the United States?  Firstly, the Normals are not developed to be a metric for measuring climate change. Secondly, based on all of the factors involved, the new Normals indicate an average temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees F.  However, these differences could be due to station moves, methodological changes, hardware (instrumentation) changes, etc. For those wanting to track differences related to climate change they need to analyze the time series maintained by the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN).  For a further detailed look at analyzing the climate and trying to determine if a change is occuring and to what degree, the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) is in place.   

January - June 2012 - Hot so far

We'll talk about how hot this year was from now on out...even if the rest of the year "behaves" and approximates climate normals.  Here are 4 charts illustrating how hot it has been so far this year.

Climate extremes just got even crazier

The Derecho of June 29, 2012

I just had to save this link.  The "Derecho Superstorm" that blasted to many millions of Americans that last week in June. NWS Documents the Derecho of June 29, 2012

Beauty can be found almost anywhere

Even on a train travelling from New Jersey to New York City.... Still Life Gallery of the Meadowlands

Strange Comment from the State Climatologist

I've been digging around in the climate data for the last few days, really mining some "ugly" raw data.  However, once the data is organized a great sigh of relief is heard around the office.  Now the data is useful.   I hope to post it online in the near future.

In other news:

Dr. John Christy is the Alabama State Climatologist.  He had something interesting to say in a recent online article.

Using data from 75 weather stations from Greenville to Tennessee, Christy developed a set of temperature records going back to 1883. Looking only at average high temperatures for June, July and August, he found that the average for the past six summers was the hottest since 1952-1957.
While 2006-2011 was the hottest six-summer stretch in more than half a century, it was only the tenth hottest six-summer period on the 129-year record. That seems to eliminate manmade global warming as a likely cause for the recent hot summers, Christy said.

(Emphasis mine)
reference: http://nsstc.uah.edu/essnews/stories/06292012.html

Now as we've stated before in this blog... the globe is a big place. What happens in Alabama does not determine what is happening over the entire globe.   I won't repeat that speech here but you can read it -->> http://blognimrod.blogspot.com/2010/12/one-minute-global-warming-speech.html
if you like.

It would be interesting to see that raw data dating to 1883 and run the computations to see what the numbers show.

Until next time!

Hot Hot Hot - March 2012

March 2012 is one for the records books.  One of the hottest (in the sense of records broken) months in USA history, and certainly one of the all time hottest March months in USA history. See one map below:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77465

As you know from how I've defined Global Climate Warming, this is not a proof of such.  Yet, these are the types of regional anomaly that are predicted by a global warming.

I suspect we'll not see another March this warm in the next couple of decades, especially when you consider all of the details about this one:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=66

Just keep reaching for the iced tea!

A new experiment

Always looking out for new methods of communication can bear fruit upon occassion.  This time I've entered into the publishing industry, but not the kind of publishing you may think.  The paper I'm publishing is an internet auto aggregation from twitter.  The subject? Weather, what else.  The link to my paper is here: http://paper.li/n1yz/1321760746

It will be fun to see where this takes me next. Enjoy!

WIndy August Day on Grand Traverse Bay, MI

It was just a beautiful day with the wind howling from the West.  We stood on the shore near Elk Rapids and watched white caps blow across the bay and clouds race by.

How Hot Was This Summer?

Weather historian Christopher C. Burt presents a fascinating article on the summer heat records that were broken during the HOT summer of 2011.

For the complete article with a Map and lists go here:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/article.html?entrynum=40

 "I have shaded the region that has just recorded its warmest summer on record. This represents about 15% of the contiguous United States (45 of my 303 stations)." (from Christopher's article).


 

Yellow light over the Black Mountains of North Carolina

I still remember that evening, driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway trying to chase the sunset.  The sun disappeared before we could get to a vantage point to view and photograph so we hung around for a while until this gorgeous light was revealed.  

 

What is that in the sky

This evocative cloud formation appeared two hours before the severe weather moved in. I'll look for this next time :)

The Trees Lost

During the historic tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011 many tens of thousands of trees were bowed and broken. This is just one of the many.

Belief

Belief is not enough to shelter you from ignorance and stupidity, nor shall concupiscence save you from the disingenuous. History is littered with campaigns that crashed and burned upon the truth-that-is-so.

So what is a Mother to do?

Don't preach that "gospill", or pass it along with a cup of water, teach people how to learn, teach people how to research, teach people logic, teach people how they can discern, teach teach teach teach....don't preach.

Another Climate Change Convert

He says it better than I could.... http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/climate-change-convert