Random thoughts from the Aerie, September 23, 2011

Let's see now...

First day of fall.

Rain is falling in the northeast...again. (Or perhaps continually?)

Oh yeah, almost forgot, a huge satellite is falling to earth sometime tonight.

The Autumnal Equinox has occurred and the Northern Hemisphere has officially swung into the season known as Fall because it is a time for deciduous trees to drop their leaves and the thermometer to begin falling from the Summer warmth.

We had a brief harbinger of Fall a week or so ago. The overnight lows flirted with the 30s and the daytime temps didn't break 60 for a stretch. If it hadn't been for the rain that was falling at the time, those days would have been crisp and invigorating. Instead they were sorta soggy.

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Today's temperatures are a bit more moderate, the winds having been coming up from the south for several days, but the air is still water logged. Scattered clouds and showers moved in yesterday as we drove up to Corning and then Elmira. We got hit by a few of those showers but also drove in some sunshine through areas where the roads were dry or, in some cases, recently rained upon. I've a feeling that with radar mounted on the Jeep and more roads to choose from, we might have been able to avoid any rain at all. (Terry commented, "Of course it's raining, we were going to the doctor's." And, as I recall, I've now made four trips up there--initial visit, pre-op, op, and post-op--and it has indeed rained Every. Single. Time. All were on Thursdays, too. Go figure.)

Until night fall. That's when the clouds gathered together and it suddenly poured down in buckets. Since then it's continued to be overcast and misting, or overcast and showering, or overcast and...well...overcast. Temp's around 70 though so the weather's got that going for it.

I'm happy it's not too cool yet. I'd prefer not to be forced to turn the heat on in the Aerie until mid October or later. No desire or need to burn propane or firewood...yet, and the longer we delay the inevitable, the better. See, we'll need a delivery of propane soon if the heat goes on and the checkbook is a wee bit depleted right now. But the Tundra's last payment is due in November and that will free up some $$$ to pay for the heat.

More rain is not what folks in the process of recovering from two tropical storms and the attendant flooding need. This is also a bad weekend for rain from the standpoint of the folks down in Mansfield. This is The Fabulous 1890s Weekend celebrating the first night college football game ever played. There are all sorts of activities going on from craft fair, MU soccer game, reenactment of that first game, and a sprint football game pitting MU against Princeton. (Sprint football is like regular football but with a weight limit of 172 pounds.) Folks will have a good time anyway. They usually do.

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As for the satellite, the forecast is for it to fall sometime between 10 PM and 2 AM Friday night/Saturday morning in the South Pacific ... or maybe not. They aren't quite sure when or where. Six and a half tons of space junk is currently on it's way down, down, down. Most of it will break up and burn in the atmosphere but several largish chunks adding up to about half a ton of metal will make it to the surface. Don't sweat it though the odds of any one person being struck are astronomical. (Just don't call it a million-to-one shot, cause those always seem to happen!)

[UPDATE: It's down. "...somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean....between 11:23 p.m. EDT and 1:09 a.m. EDT. NASA said it didn't know the precise time or location yet."]