Lights Out!

Once again we were in the cross hairs of a major storm. On Grinders Island we lost power for two hours but with so much lightning you could almost read a book.

Blake's Thunder Cap seemed to work OK from a electrical stand point as he did not feel the need to be grounded. He DID feel the need to hide in the basement but there was no hyperventilating as he normally does.

We only had about 1.37 inches of rain but the blast front was pretty darn impressive. Here are a couple pf photos I toot(k) looking south from the balcony!

Sadly you can not see the movement of these clouds as they looked like boiling water.
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What you are now witnessing is a character flaw in good ol' Rod. Once something latched into my brain I get pretty obsessive about it. In the last 10ish years I have obsessed over wine appreciation, flower gardens, the stock market, Texas Hold'm (which earned me $40,000) and photography. I can always tell what my obsessions are by looking at my book case.

Well . . . . . I ordered another book on home brewing and will have three. OH OH!!!

For some reason I feel that if I'm going to get interested in something I must immerse myself into it, learn as much I possibly can. Talk to as many people and read everything I can get my hands on.

I was doing just this. I was reading an article about Diacetyl and how to get rid of it (more on that in my Homebrew blog (used to be my poker blog)). The writer mentioned Murphy's Law "If anything can go wrong, it will."

Here is where that "law" came about!

Captain Murphy was part of an engineering team out at Edward's Air Force Base in California. Their team was investigating the effects of high gravity de-accelerations on jet pilots back in the 1950's. One of their tests involved strapping a test pilot into a rocket chair equipped with strain gages and other sensors to help them quantify the effects of high G stopping. The responsibility for the placement of the various sensors was Capt. Murphy's. Well, the test was run (subjecting the pilot to something like 100 G's of deceleration) and he got pretty banged up.

Only after it was over did the team realize that of all the possible combinations of placing those sensors, Murphy had done it in the one configuration that resulted in useless data. They would have to run the test again. Upon realizing this, Murphy stated, "If there are two or more ways of doing something, and one of them can result in catastrophe, someone will do it that way." Upon hearing this the team leader said, "That's Murphy's Law." The next day at the test de-briefing the team leader shortened it to the now famous, "If anything can go wrong, it will."

Murphy still likes his version better.

I'm thinking of creating a small Brew club - seems to be a lot of brewers around. Maybe a meeting once every couple months - have people bring whatever they brewed - I wonder if the Kurth would be open to that kind of meeting!
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I actually went out and registered our UFO report to the National UFO Reporting Center. I feel there has to be a logical explanation but neither DJ nor I can think of one.

Of course my report is pretty boring compared to on in Port Jefferson NY.
"Glowing orange objects, which you could see were round disk/sphere in shape when glow dimmed completely."

This one from Oxnard CA was close and only a few hours before we saw ours

"My wife and I and friend had just finished watching fireworks on the fourth of July. We were on bicycles. After the fireworks had completed we then rode approximately 200 yards or so to the beach, my wife and friend was in conversation and I was just looking up at the stars. Then I noticed something that really caught my attention. I saw a star wobble back and forth; I then pointed this out to my wife and friend. My wife noticed that there were two stars moving the same way. One was dimmer than the other. I kept me eyes on the brightest one. It was easier to see. It was really strange. They both looked like stars in the sky. There was no strange shape to them at all, they just looked like stars. They both zigged zagged back and forth a few times and then I didn’t see them anymore. We witnessed this for about 2 to 3 minutes it seems. Have there been any other reports of this event at all? I have always heard of things like this happening, but this is the first time that I have ever witnessed anything like this before."

WE'RE NOT ALONE!!!!

Have a great day!
Rod