Musings While On Cloud Nine

Musings While On Cloud Nine

Just thinking …

Is this the best stretch of summer vacation weather we’ve had in years?

My life is now very empty that the World Cup has ended. No longer will I be able to doze off in front of the TV set during the “excitement”. Maybe it was the incessant thrumming of those “soothing” sounding (wink, wink) vuvuzelas that actually lulled me to sleep and NOT the game.

Seriously, I did come away from the matches with a new outlook on soccer. The more I watched, the more I began to get into the event and the game itself. I was tremendously impressed by the conditioning and skill of the players. However, I was under whelmed by all the “diving” and the officiating. But you can say that about a lot of pro sports these days.

How about this for a summer hot spell? Since June 18 only 2 days have had high temperatures in the 70s, 17 in the

80s, 6 in the 90s and 1 over 100. That’s nearly a month of pure tropical weather. On the down side, we’ve had only an inch and a half of rain during the same period. In spite of watering, my lawn has gone dormant.

Weather Trivia Question of the Week: The high temperature was 102 degrees on July 3. When was the last time before that date that it officially hit 100 in at T.F.Green in Warwick? (A Popsicle from Peter Pelagi if you guess the month and year and 2 if you come within a week!)

It’s much easier for me to peg a Ghiorse Factor on a winter day than it is on these muggy, tropical days. The reason? During the summer the weather can be so local. One spot can be sunny and warm while a few miles away there can be a flooding deluge. That means at the same time there can be a Ghiorse Factor of 1 or 2 where it’s gushing and a 9 where it’s sunny.

What’s up with the Red Sox and the injury thing? It’s getting so that I cringe every time I see a player run the bases or go for a fly ball. Sure enough, it seems like half the time they come up limping. I mean this is not football, hockey, rugby, lacrosse … or soccer. No contact, except when it’s Adrian Beltre and whomever he runs into going after a pop-up.

After an up tick there the past couple of weeks with Tropical Storm “Alex” and a tropical depression which hit Texas and Mexico, the tropical Atlantic has been rather quiet for the past few days. As August gets underway, I’d expect that to change rather dramatically.

The end of an era. I became a big fan of bicycle racing and the Tour de France in particular when Lance Armstrong first became a big star. It was sad to see that his time had come on Sunday when he crashed big time and lost so much time that he lost any chance of winning this year’s classic. It’s his last go round after becoming the greatest Tour champion of all time. But the story of his remarkable battle to overcome cancer and the inspiration he’s given to many to fight on and succeed in the face of insurmountable odds is his true legacy.

Right now, how many of you are longing for a January day with six inches of snow and slush, and a 10 below zero wind chill?

Weather Trivia Answer: Not that long ago. The mercury hit 100 on August 2, 2006.

I’m not sure if term limits is a great idea. I probably can be convinced by a good argument but I always thought that the chance for “term limits” came every Election Day. If we write them into the Constitution isn’t it sort of like waving the white flag on trusting the People to do the right thing?

Ooooooops, gotta go. The Peter Palagi truck just pulled up in front of the house!