What the ?!

Granted I just finished a fictional book about dramatic climate change and I think it's a well known fact that no one really remembers the weather from more than a week ago but things have just gotten pretty weird here.

Christmas Eve/Christmas morning we had a thunderstorm come through. Quite odd. Who has thunderstorms in late December? But unusual weather isn't really all that unusual is it? A freak storm ought to happen once in a while statistically right?

Well we've got another thunderstorm moving through tonight. The thunder woke Helena once already and looks like there is more moving in from the west tonight.

But hey, what better way to end the year that there was a Hurricane Epsilon (as in " In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on." We got to the and so on.)

Ho Ho hmmp

Well the Christmas holiday is over. Amazingly I wasn't pelted with lumps of coal.
I was a good holiday. The girls had a blast. Lisa's folks stayed with us and we really did have a great time. Now comes the unenviable task of trying to find a place for all the new toys.
Some pictures are in order...






Best line of the day was after Helena opened nearly every present she'd exclaim, "Oh my goodness! This is what I've always wanted! I've wanted this for years!" Half the time it was then followed by "what is this?"

Tomorrow Lisa's cousin Rob comes into town for a visit from the far away land of Raleigh.
That is of course if he can find our e-mail address to ask for directions.

Mysterious booms lead to surge of speculation

Tim McKinney knows for sure what caused the blasts "– the Seneca Guns," he said.

He's heard the mysterious coastal rumblings a thousand times, but never with the intensity he did Tuesday while working on the set of
One Tree Hill in downtown Wilmington.

"That'’s the strongest I've ever felt it in my life,"” he said.

Something certainly caused a series of thunderous booms about 4 p.m. that sent some hurrying to call 911 and others looking skyward for answers. Curtis Reeves, who lives near Belville, said he initially feared an explosion at the Military Ocean Terminal at Sunny Point, near Southport.

"“It felt like an earthquake,"” he said. "“It shook every house in this neighborhood."

But officials reported no problems at the ammunition depot or elsewhere. And with nary a cloud in the sky, the booms weren'’t weather related, said Ron Steve, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington.

Steve said he spoke to the U.S. Geological Survey, which said there had been no seismic activity in the area. The weather service radar did, however, pick up signs of "“chaff" off the coast of New Hanover and Brunswick counties, he said.

Chaff is like metal confetti that military fighters emit to trick radar-seeking missiles, he said. It'’s possible that jets off the coast broke the sound barrier as part of a military exercise.

The public relations office at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in Havelock was unable to confirm by press time if Marines were on exercises nearby. Some people reported seeing military planes and helicopters flying in the area after the booms.

But McKinney said the sound came from the ground, blaming the mysterious booms that have been reported in the area for centuries. The name, “Seneca Guns,” comes from a similar phenomenon in New York and Connecticut.

Legend has it that the Seneca Indians are getting their revenge with the guns that Europeans used to displace them.

More scientific explanations say the boom of the guns comes from earthquakes, material falling off the continental shelf, or pockets of hot air exploding like balloons.

More reporting here and here

At first I thought it was someone blaring their stereo obnoxiously loud but it just kept getting louder and louder and louder until the windows were shaking. Helena ran out from her room wondering what the load bangs were and half of the neighborhood was out looking around wondering what the heck the noise was. My guess is sonic booms but who knows. Perhaps I'll have to set up an old computer and mic to record everything for a few years to see if I can figure it out. But then Big Brother might get peeved I'm crowding his business.

In fact, we have fallen off the face the earth.

Or at least it feels that way.
Ho ho ho. Can the Christmas season be over yet? It isn't that I'm a total scrooge, but the closer we get to the big day the more I find myself saying bah humbug. Were it not for the girls, I'd be content to consider myself a cultural Jehovah's Witness and just forgo the whole thing.
For the past week it's been baking, shopping, decorating, shopping, baking, shopping and shopping.
But enough of my grinchy-ness I just share some of the past week or tow in photos.






Bonus points of captions for the last pic.

Four year old's tough day.

It has become a near daily ritual for the kids and I to hang out with the neighbors across the street after the mail arrives. Helena and C. are near enough the same age that they have a good time playing and Megan and H. are essential the same age so they act like 17 month old and play around each other.
Yesterday C. had one of his other friends over and the three big kids decided to play chase Mr. Tom. It's great fun and a really good work out. Think I'll make an exercise video out it and sell it for 2 easy payments of $19.99 (of course if you act now I'll drop one of the payments....)
During one of the lulls in play while C. & H. mom was inside grabbing a sweatshirt, I noticed C. was acting a bit down. So I asked what was up. As best I can recall the conversation was as follows:

"What's the matter C.?"
"Oh, nothing, I just had a bad day at school."
"Really, did something happen?"
"School is hard", his visiting friend offered.
"What sort of stuff did you do today?"
"Nothing," C. sighed. "We just did a whole lotta of crap."
"What?"
"We did a lot of crap today."
"What?!" (these are 4 year olds remember and even saying poop is considered risque. I must have stood there for a minute or so slacked jawed and dumbfounded before it hit me.

"Ohhh, crafts. You did a lot of crafts today."

I spent the next five minutes laughing and trying to explain what was so funny without actually explaining what was funny.

Your civic duty

Why would I urge everyone to go vote in the 2005 Weblog Awards? Because one of the nominees links to me. Oh, And he runs a pretty good blog.

So if you've got Flash 7 installed on your computer, go vote for Cynical Dad.

No.

Every family has one (at least) and in ours it's me. I'm the IT department for the Schutte House. Not complaining, I'm comfortable in my nerdom. XBox is modding, DVD ahem backups, laptop repair attempts... I don't mind. In fact I enjoy it.
And when parents or siblings have issues with their hitech gadgets, I don't mind being called on for help. And I certainly don't mind the occasional requests for assistance in exchange for cash from neighbors or folks at Lisa's lab.

But when you're a former coworker who only calls when your computer is acting up, and I've told you a dozen times to just break down and buy a new machine and you seem dumbfounded when I mention my rates...
Then the answer is No, I will not fix your computer.

Check that 'tude.

So yesterday I was suffering from a sinus headache. One of those where you can just feel it inching over to migraine territory... (I'm feeling much better now though, thanks)
But I must have been in a pretty nasty mood because I kept hearing Helena talking yelling vociferating at Megan all afternoon on.

Megan! Stop banging your cup!

Megan! Get away from me!

Megan! I don't like you talking so much!

Mind you that was Helena's tone, not mine. Even when suffering the excruciating pain of a throbbing sinus cavity I'm still always pleasant. Really. She must be picking up from Lisa.
Seriously though, it's neat & scary how those kids can pick up on our attitudes.