Blame It On El Niño!

Today's paper blamed El Niño for the lack of snow in southeastern Wisconsin. To wit,

"Seasonal snowfall is also about 5 inches below average through today, basically because of the El Niño weather pattern in the southern Pacific Ocean." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 1/27/10.

(I would have loved to have just posted this stupid link, but the JSOnline search feature is completely wacked. Go ahead. I dare you. Try to find El Niño using JSOnline's search feature in today's edition. I have the hard copy and the article is on p. 8C, back of the Sports section. Just thinking about their search feature is making me tense. I want chocolate.)

It seems to me, meteorologist that I am not, that El Niño has been messing up our weather patterns for as long as I can remember. Or, to be more precise, for as long as I have cared about following the weather, which didn't occur until well past my blissful college years. (Do you know that I did not go to one basketball game the entire time I attended the University of Connecticut at Storrs? Not ONCE! And I was there at the beginning of their dynasty. ARGHH! In other words, no bliss, just regrets.)

No snow? Blame El Niño. Too much snow? Blame El Niño. Not enough or too much rain? Too hot? Too cold? Yes, it is true. It is .... El Niño.

So it is with great relief that I am finally able to find the cause for all of my personal and professional failings. El Niño. Those 15 lbs. I gained (and never lost) in graduate school?* My book, with 200+ pages of notes safely stored on a floppy (yes, that old), that has not yet been started? My bi-polar pantry whose contents range from organic dried wild Atlantic kombu and spelt flour to Goldfish and Spam? Yes, Oh Great Universe, all these and much, much more can only be the result of one thing.

El Niño.

And just like that, I am free.

*I'm working on it, I'm working on it!!!

Forecasting Cloud Computations

There is much I don't understand. So, so much. Econometrics, statistical mechanics, intentionality, how to identify poison ivy, why Gwyenth Paltrow is co-host of a food show, and now - God, will it ever stop? - cloud computing.



But it's more than just technological and scientific advances that I don't get. It's also wondering why people are increasingly using their speaker feature on their cell phones (Hooray. Now we can listen to BOTH ends of the conversation!) and why some think being labelled an "intellectual elite" is a bad thing. As if someone wouldn't want their child to go to M.I.T. and study environmental geophysics, especially in light of our planetary meltdown. That's a college major with some serious career potential.

Anyhoo, as I'm fond of saying, there is much I don't get. I try. I really, really try. Always have, always will. I've taken beginning sewing classes four times in a row but still am unable to do anything more complicated than a simple straight hem (on plain white sheets, to be exact). I got goosebumps reading Janna Levin's How the Universe Got its Spots but today have only a vague notion of topology except that it's something curvy and time-related and looks cool sketched out on a page. I like to order Shiraz wine because it tastes good and seems to carry more cache than Merlot, which is so 1998, but the truth is I don't know a damn thing about wine even though knowledgeable friends are continually recommending wines to match specific moods and foods. I carefully note the names of recommended wines on one of the bits of scrap paper littering my kitchen table, then promptly misplace them.

I try really hard to understand lots of things - from science & technology to politics & social events to psychology. I knit my brows and dive into whatever has piqued my interest or gotten my goat. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. This blog is my place in the universe for exploring all that I don't get...like forecasting cloud computations.