Ostrich Pecker

This guy really looked like he wanted to peck my eye out. He was really interested in Zach, and the feeling was mutual.

I do not imagine that an ostrich would be a good pet for a baby.

Tiny Goat

This miniature goat was not much bigger than a cat. Probably doesn't use a litter box, though.

Fair Cows

Zach seemed to be pretty casual about the cows at the Iowa State Fair.

I guess I did not expect him to run from them or want to jump on their backs, but he seemed to take them for granted.

Minature Train Display

We went into the miniature train display at the Iowa State Fair, and it was fun. Zach seemed to think it was just OK, until he realized that there were moving trains in there.

The funniest scenes were three drunken revelers outside of a bar, a man being arrested and handcuffed, a little guy with a still in the woods, Superman holding a car back from being swept away and a little Beetlejuice character in a cemetary.

High Winds II

You know you're in trouble when the clouds coming over the Interstate look like an alien spaceship from a movie coming in for a landing.

This cloud looked a lot like a giant mushroom cap. It was like an inverted bowl with the edge quickly moving to block the highway and the inside filled with black snaky clouds.

I was all for trying to ourrun it, getting north past it. Andrea wanted to pull over in Cameron and get into the basement of the local hospital.

Pshaw! I said, and kept driving.

The highlight of the trip, beyond the 60 to 70 mph winds and the trees whipping around like they were pieces of grass, was the semi truck and trailer on their side in the median after they were blown over.

The lowlight of the trip was the moron in an SUV that stopped in the left lane under a highway underpass, almost blocking the road, but virtually gauranteeing that someone would drive into him in the blinding rain. A day and a half later, going back through, we saw road signs and billboards that were knocked over and blown away. So I guess we were lucky.

The temperature dropped from 100 to 66 degrees in the course of the experience.

Escape from I-35

You know that someone on MODOT is not doing their job when you sit on an interstate at a complete standstill for 40 minutes and people have been so desperate to escape the stupidity that is this traffic nightmare for so many days that they have worn smooth dirt escape trails to the outer road.

High Winds I

This is the first incident of high winds, the freak storm on Wednesday, August 11th. A thunderstorm rolled in, as is very common this summer, only this time, it had these huge gusts of wind that came in with it.

I had beaten the storm home and was watching the storm from the dry comfort of my house, but it was a really fierce wind that kept kicking up. It would be going sideways for 2 to 5 minutes, stop for 10 or 15 minutes, and then do it again. This happened 3 or 4 times. Later, the sun tried to come back out and I noticed that there was leaf litter and debris in the street. It came from the walnut trees to the right, not the closer trees to the left. It threw the leaves over 100 feet and covered the road until the traffic cleared a path through it.

No one else in my office reported the winds at their house that night. The rain gauge had almost nothing in it, because every time it rained, it was coming down sideways, which did not allow rain to go into the gage.

More than just your regular little summer rain.

Butterflies and Caterpillars

Powell Gardens did it again. They had their annual Butterfly festival.

This year there were supposed to be moths the size of dinner plates, but we did not see any of those. We went out as early as we could to miss the midday sun, but it was still incredibly hot by the time we left.

While we did not see any giant moths, we did see blue morphos, which reminded me of the jungles of Panama, and the tiniest monarch caterpillars I have ever seen. They were about as big as two of the periods at the end of this sentence.

Fun Flat Rainbow

I took Zach into the Hen House Market, and the nice lady in front of me in line left her umbrella leaning against the check out stand. The nice young bagger ran out into the parking lot after her with the umbrella.

The checker asked why that silly lady had an umbrella. It was a reasonable question, the store opened to the West and the sun was shining bright in that direction. Usually the weather comes from that direction, too.

I left and headed east, and there was this strange storm that boiled up just east of town that I drove into. Before I got into it, I saw this huge flat rainbow.

Lush July

This is one of those wet summers. The grass is not turning brown, but staying bright green and needing mowing every week.

The storms keep rolling through every few days, like someone ordered a continuous stream of them.

That works out great when it's 85° or less, but this summer it's usually 95° or more and it's like trying to breathe through a wet washcloth.

Doing Daddy's Work

I brought Zach to work one hot Sunday afternoon, trying to escape into the air conditioning.

I quickly put him to work, but his one-finger typing leaves much to be desired. He's just not very fast yet. He makes up for it in enthusiasm, though.

I'm an Excellent Driver

Zach sometimes wants to get in the driver's seat when we get home.

It's only a few years before we start teaching him driving. I think we need to get him into a go-cart first. Actually, he needs to manage his Muffin Man scooter without slamming into the cabinets. Then he'll be ready.

Storm Warning

I was driving back from Salina on Tuesday night last week with a Regional Manager of ours. We were through some seriously hard rain.

It was a weird night, weather-wise. There were all kinds of storm cells forming and moving, we were constantly in and out of the rain. The lightning was unbelievable, from giant bolts to crazy sheets all over the sky.

When we got back, we headed to the Regional Manager's hotel, which is near a bank that had this big top tent looking fabric cover over their drive through. The wind shredded it.

There were tree limbs in the street and little power outages around the area. There were no tornadoes reported, but this as close as it gets to tornadoes without actually having them.

Voodoo Baseball

We went to the Royals game on Wednesday, hanging out in the Diamond Section, in relative comfort.

We had to meet up at the game, so Paul made a map for me.

It looks like a voodoo rendition of a skeleton without the head, doesn't it?

Blades of Death

For those that are unhappy about wind power, siting newfound concerns for bat or bird populations, or ascetic or auditory reasons why these things should not be there, I did some field investigations.

I found the nearest windmill to the road to be surrounded by cattle. Upon closer inspection, I did find that the cows were covered with a fine layer of shredded bat, but other than that, the sound was not too bad, and I found them to be quite picturesque.

Deep Freeze

I found a group of pictures from Mid January that were taken to illustrate how cold it was. My car thermometer had 1°F and another showing the weather station readout at home showed .6°F. This photo shows the extreme frostiness on the windows.

I don't even remember what it feels like to be that cold. It's like a furnace out there on the day I'm writing this.

Frozen Old Man

Last December there was a big pile of snow in the parking lot outside of my window.

This pile looks like an old man that was frozen after falling down on his side.

Except for the yellow pole that would be coming up through his back.

Wintery Landscape

I missed posting some photographs from the winter, which are odd to look at when it's 90° out, but interesting, too.

This was a foggy day, with the air saturated with moisture from the snow. I had taken Zach out to see the Elk at Fleming and drove around Jacomo on my old 8 mile running track around the southeast side of the lake.

Winter Owl

I was looking back at my December 2009 photos and found these photos of an owl that we spotted the first day I took Zach to see the Elk at Fleming Park.

It was an overcast and snow-foggy day, so the light was poor enough that I could not get a clear picture, but it's still pretty cool. The owl was about 40 feet away and believed itself to be invisible.

Steamy Playground

There was a case of restlessness on Sunday, right about the time that the thermometer was pushing 96 degrees.

This is why we had the playground to ourselves and a red faced baby by the time we were through.

For some reason, Zach likes the horizontal ladder, even though it's out of his reach. How did he figure that out?

Johnny Ray's Classic Cars

There is a tiny drive-in in Lee's Summit that has been there as long as I can remember. Johnny Ray Jr. was in my class at High School, but the restaurant was named after his father, if I remember correctly.

They have these little corn fritter things that we get an urge for from time to time, and when we went in on Saturday afternoon, we saw that they also have a Classic Car rally from time to time.

Many of these model cars were being restored and used by people my age in High School, but some were quite exotic.

Bad Fad

First it was baggy jeans with the underwear sticking out over the top.

Now it's pants on the head, looking like a Court Jester.

I'm not sure I approve of this new fad, but it's too late. Cousin Cole has already infected Zach.

Corn Envy

Zach is learning about his cousin's sweet corn business. Actually, all he cares about is how you can throw them.

Children of the Corn

For years now, my brother Warren has grown and picked Sweet Corn as a College Fund for the boys. They sell out each truck full of corn in less than an hour usually.

I'm sure they get sick of my reference to them as Children of the Corn. Hell, I've never even seen the movie or read the book.

Chalk Art at the Mission

The parking lot in front of the Mission was covered with chalk art.

I've seen art festivals like this before. There's something interesting about the fact that the works will be washed away by the rain eventually, that they are temporary. I think in California they are less temporary than they would be in Kansas City. We get more rain, by my impression.

There was no shortage of themes, from Reggae and Marti Gras. There were portraits that reminded me of Thomas Hart Benton, to ones that looked like a Kansas Album Cover.

My favorite by far was Leonardo da Vinci flying over the Mission in a primative hang glider.

People in California must do art like we do barbeque. Always practicing.