USAF veteran (1983-2003). Retired to Colorado, then moved to Idaho 21 years later.
Idaho, USA
Joined April 2022
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Don't mess with the Fay, and they won't mess with you.
Do you remember when Fairies used to cause major disruption to roads? No not me and me husband in July. In 1999, engineers building a motorway through County Clare found themselves facing an occult obstacle no survey had flagged. A single hawthorn tree, standing alone in a field at Latoon, just outside Newmarket-on-Fergus.
Lone hawthorns are not to be fecked with. Cut down as part of a hedgerow, they're just trees. But solo in open ground, they become a sceach, a fairy bush, believed to mark the meeting point of ancient fairy paths or bealaí sí.
These are the invisible routes the Aos Sí travel between one stronghold and the next. Interfere with one, and you invite misfortune. Interfere with one sitting on a fairy path, and you're inviting a supernatural shitstorm.
The Latoon bush had the misfortune of standing right in the path of the planned N18. Road crews arrived to clear it when word reached Eddie Lenihan, a seanchaí who'd spent decades collecting stories like this one from farmers and neighbours across Munster.
A local had once told him this particular bush marked a meeting ground between the fairy hosts of Munster and Connacht. This was some inter Provincial business. Disturbing it wouldn't just curse whoever swung the chainsaw. It would curse the road itself.
Lenihan went to the press and story went international. And somewhere along the line, the people actually responsible for building a motorway through Clare decided the safer bet was to build around a bush rather than risk finding out whether an angry crowd of nationwide Fay folk could really enforce some fairy FAFO.
The N18 was redrawn and what should have been a straightforward stretch of motorway ended up delayed for close to ten years while the alignment was reworked to leave the tree untouched. When it finally opened as the M18, the hawthorn was still standing exactly where it always had, in the median strip near junction 11, close enough to the tarmac that trucks doing a hundred kilometres an hour pass within a few metres of it every day.
Made sourdough batter bread today. Works good in the toaster, but also for grilled cheese and French toast.
Every time I get what I want, it's not what I expect.
We’ve received numerous complaints over the last several months regarding what cities we use on our forecast graphics. We hear you. To ensure we cover everyone’s complaints, we’ve added every city in Michigan to our forecast template going forward
Thank you for sticking with us.
~
Humor and sarcasm aside, it is completely unrealistic that we include every city. This is why I am taking a minute to hopefully capture your attention, and offer up some helpful heart to heart advice.
If you don’t know where you live on a map in Michigan, no sweat. It is super easy to find out where, and also easy to correlate it to our forecast graphics. Learning where you are not only helps you read and understand our forecasts, but also will help you during live severe weather coverage.
The easiest way to find out where you live on a map is by opening the “maps” app that comes by default on your smartphone, or by downloading Google Maps on the app store or play store. There should be an arrow or compass button within your map app that you can click which will then pop up a blue dot. This blue dot is your location. Now, zoom out. Michigan is shaped like your right hand, so where are you on the shape of your hand? Memorize that place. Lastly, find big cities and population centers close to you. We use major cities on our forecast graphics. So figuring out that you live close to Lansing, or Grand Rapids, or Flint will help you locate yourself better.
Once you figure out where you live, you can also Google what county your town/city/township is in. Knowing the name of your county is also a beneficial tool when it comes to weather information.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this!
Hero
Professional racing driver Ollie Millroy thanks competitor Loek Hartog for saving his life after getting into a fiery crash over the weekend in China.
Millroy says he'd be dead if Hartog hadn't jumped out of his car to pull him out of his burning car.
"I am still alive tonight, entirely thanks to one man. Loek Hartog stopped instantly with no flag marshalls or fire crews in sight, and risked his own life to get me out of the car."
"I don’t remember anything between 30 seconds before the crash and 1 hour after it, but I will remember his incredible act of bravery for the rest of my life..."
"I’m laying here tonight with 5 broken ribs, broken collar bone, broken hand and finger and a bruised lung, but it could have been much worse."
"Thank you Loek. I owe you my life for your selfless act today."
Rich R. retweeted
The word "emoji" has nothing to do with emotion.
E means picture. Moji means character. Together: picture-character. That's it. No smile, no feeling, no face. Just picture-character.
The word is Japanese, because emoji came from Japan.
A 25-year-old designer named Shigetaka Kurita drew the first 176 of them in 1999. He worked at a Tokyo phone company that needed a way to say more in fewer characters. He used a 12-by-12 pixel grid. He finished the set in about five weeks.
Every Japanese phone maker copied it within months. When Apple added emoji to the iPhone in 2008, they matched the shapes Kurita had made familiar. That's why a heart looks like a heart, and a smile looks like that specific smile, on your phone right now.
In 2016, the Museum of Modern Art in New York put his original 176 drawings into their permanent collection.
Most people don't know his name. Most people don't know the word is Japanese. Most people don't know that every heart on their phone was decided in Tokyo, by a man who was 25.
When I make sauerkraut, I mix a little active sourdough starter into my brine (1 tsp per gallon). When I do this, my Harsch crock is blooping CO2 in less than a day. In two weeks it looks like this and it goes into jars in the refrigerator ready to eat.
Looks like something that might have been in a science fiction movie.
Sixty-nine years ago today (13 July 1957), the USAF canceled the Navaho cruise missile program. Only 11 Navahos ever launched from Cape Canaveral, but its advances in guidance, propulsion, and rocketry helped pave the way for the ballistic missile and space age.
@ccspacemuseum
Can you imagine seeing this but not having a camera to prove it?
I’ve never been more certain Kilauea produced a tornado, specifically a hybrid volcanic landspout than just 40 minutes ago! @USGSVolcanoes @NWSHonolulu #hiwx #wx #volcano #tornado
