Tidal cloudwave

This isn't a photo of the storm and tornado system that went through Kearney last night (it's from 2001, instead), but I think if I saw something like this on the horizon I'd start running for my life...

Squall, Hail Core, and Wall Cloud of Kearney Meso

Kearney Hub video on tornado

link

Kearney Nebraska tornados

Tornados hit my hometown in Nebraska last night.

There was some damage to my dad's house, including an uprooted tree.

google search

Alien road repair

"It's a despotic building; it wants us to feel like termites."

This presentation gets hilarious about 5 1/2 minutes into it.

Fishwrap

1) I shouldn't have upgraded to the new(er) version of the flickr uploadr. It's crashing. What to do with the next (several) batches of kid's sports photos? Nothing's working very well at flickr right now.

2) This morning—to Portola Valley (and the beautifully situated Corte Madera Middle School) for Owen's soccer game. Between, on the one hand, San Francisco Bay (and, by immediate extension, the mostly flat and highly-localized Palo Alto that lies aside it) and, on the other hand, the immensity of the Pacific ocean, there rise the Santa Cruz mountains. You might imagine yourself flying west on a magic carpet, from the bay and toward the ocean, ie, over those mountains and to the sea, but always glancing down to see if there are any nice hideaways in the mountains on your way—"The pastoral mountains front you, face to face [...] The mountains have all opened out themselves, And made a hidden valley of their own." Well, just so, Mr Wordsworth. Here's a photo from the Wikipedia—do you doubt that it contains somewhere inside it some pleasant hidden valleys? Corte Madera Middle School is one of them:

Noonish—to Stanford, where Cole had diving. Evening—back in Palo Alto for Owen's baseball game.

3) I took the video camera to the soccer game (I almost never shoot video), and Owen scored a goal while I was filming. What to do about that? Maybe convert that tape (all the tapes?) to DVDs? That project has languished for a good five years. I'd like to subscribe to a digital media editing service—I take the photos (or shoot the video), and the service deals with uploading / massaging /editing / reformating / archiving / whatevering it. "I am an artist, not a System Administrator, you idiot!!!" [I admit to making up that quotation].

Owen dodging a fastball

Conversation in kitchen

THANE: These new swimsuits—they make people look like dolphins!

GLORIA: That's the point—they swim faster in them.

THANE: They want to look like a dolphin, or swim faster?

GLORIA: Uh—I think, swim faster. What do you think?

THANE: I can see they're porpoise.

GLORIA: Ugh...

THANE: ha ha ha ha ha

ok, more parroting

I'd never heard of this African Grey parrot named Alex, but I'm not much of a parrotologist.

bad parrot

From an article in the 12 May 2008 New Yorker by Margaret Talbot, "Birdbrain":

At the Brandeis lab, [Pepperberg] is training and testing her two remaining parrots, Griffin and Arthur. Griffin, who is thirteen, shows more promise than Arthur, who is nine. Both seem shyer and less confident than Alex. Pepperberg's lab manager, Arlene Levin, describes Griffin as "a timid guy, and a plucker." (Anxious parrots pluck out their feathers.) And Griffin grew up in Alex's shadow; he was the one whom Alex interrupted and corrected—"Say better," "Pay attention," "Bad parrot."