Roger O Green

Stormy Weather

There was an earthquake 28 km (17 miles) W of Albany yesterday morning.

Here’s the current expected trajectory for Hurricane Irene. If all goes as this map suggests, the Category 3 hurricane will be hitting around Fayetteville, NC Sunday at 2 a.m., about 135 miles (217 km) from Charlotte, NC, where one sister and niece live, and where my wife and daughter will be visiting, starting on Thursday.

Meanwhile, there was that 5.8 earthquake yesterday at about 2 pm. EDT near Louisa, Virginia, less than 100 miles from Washington, DC. And I sure felt it in my office in Albany, NY. I was sitting at my desk and I thought I was having leg tremors, or something terribly physiologically wrong with me until I saw a cubicle neighbor’s picture swaying.

Last week, a 3.6 earthquake in Maryland hit, which was the largest recorded within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of Washington since a database was created in 1974.

Oddly, there was also an earthquake 28 km (17 miles) W of Albany yesterday morning. It was a 2.2, and I’m not sure that I felt that one.
***
I Feel The Earth Move-Carole King
Like A Hurricane-Neil Young
Good Night, Irene-Leadbelly

F is for Fire

The other fire songs here, which I also own, are about passion, romantic passion.

Here’s another look at a word that has, either alone or in combination with other words, has several meanings.

The most common meaning of fire, of course, is that chemical change that creates heat and light, and usually smoke, which can evolve into a “destructive conflagration”. It was one of four substances thought in ancient and medieval cosmology to constitute the universe, along with earth, air, and water; five, if you count spirit.

But fire also means:

*enthusiasm, passion e.g., “all fired up”
and in one is at work and NOT “fired up” one could be subject to dismissal from employment, “getting fired”

Also:
a severe test; a trial or torment, “under fire”
the discharge of firearms or the like, “ready, aim, fire!”
to bake in a kiln, such as with pottery
to throw with force and speed; “fire a ball at a batter”
to ask questions, “fire away”
exposed to attack, “under fire”
*a burning sensation sometimes produced by drinking strong alcoholic liquor, “firewater”
and a whole lot more

Word History: Primitive Indo-European had pairs of words for some very common things, such as water or fire. Typically, one word in the pair was active, animate, and personified; the other, impersonal and neuter in grammatical gender. In the case of the pair of words for “fire,” English has descendants of both, one inherited directly from Germanic, the other borrowed from Latin.

As is often the case, I have found some songs that address the issue.

First, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, a reference to hellfire. This song actually went to #2 in 1968 in the US, and somewhere I have it on some LP.

But the other fire songs here, which I also own, are about passion, romantic passion.

The Ohio Players, a #1 song from the winter of 1974-75.

Bruce Springsteen. His live 1978 version went to #46 in 1987. (I don’t know the vintage of this video.) And here’s a studio version. This Boss song was a big hit for the Pointer Sisters, #2 in the winter of 1978-79.

ABC Wednesday, Round 9

Things you didn’t know you didn’t know

Inscrutable.

I was catching up with my blog reading when I discovered that LisaF over at Peripheral Perceptions had called me out in one of her posts with this challenge. So I’m giving it a try.

If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?
I suppose winning my JEOPARDY! game. I would have breathed, instead of hyperventilating.

If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be? Just one?

There are so many. I suppose there was a friend with an illness, and I didn’t realize how significant it was, and I should have. If I had, I would have gone there to visit.

What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?
I have no idea. At some level, I suppose it’s one of those characters on that show the Big Bang Theory – which I don’t watch because I just can’t stand the laugh track – who knows a few things but is socially inept. I’m not as smart as those guys, but not as much of a dweeb either. Or Drew Carey on the Drew Carey Show.

If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would it be?
I honestly don’t think I could bring myself to push anyone off a cliff unless someone was trying to push me off a cliff and it was self-defense. Or I was defending someone else. Yeah, I might be able to do that.

Name one habit you want to change in yourself.
Going to that negative place. there might be five great things and one bad thing, and guess which one gets too much of my attention?

Describe yourself in one word.
Inscrutable.

Describe the person who named you in this meme in one word.
Colorful.

Why do you blog? (In one sentence)
Can it be a really LONG sentence?
I blog because I have found it useful, even necessary to write what I’m thinking and feeling, lest I interrupt my mental processing with ‘noise’; yet I’ve found it more beneficial through the interaction that has evolved with other, usually distant, people, not occasionally more meaningfully than those with people I see on a daily basis.

Now I’m suppose to pass this on and share the brain-racking insightful fun. So, I decided on YOU. You know who you are; if you think it’s you, it probably is. If you don’t, it’s probably you, too.

Summer Song: It’s Summer by the Temptations

The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.

I REALLY loved the Temptations, and even more so after they stopped being primarily the background singers for David Ruffin, who left the group in 1968. They became more a five lead-vocal group, under the production leadership of Norman Whitfield, who, with Barrett Strong, wrote most of their songs in this period.

While primarily doing psychedelic soul at this point, the Temps recorded, on the 1970 album Psychedelic Shack the ballad It’s Summer [LISTEN!]. I’m not a big fan of songs that involve a lot of talking rather than singing. But I was a big fan of the bass voice of Melvin Franklin, so I rather liked this. It also appeared as the B-side of the #3 single Ball of Confusion.

After some personnel changes, involving the departure of Eddie Kendrick and Paul Williams, the Temptations released the 1972 album Solid Rock, which featured the re-recorded It’s Summer [LISTEN!], which obviously swipes from the Gershwin brothers. The remake had been released as a single back in the summer of 1971, where it only went to #51 on the pop charts. The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.

Maybe because I heard the Melvin version first, I still prefer it to the remake.

How Far Have You Traveled?

I was surprised to discover that San Diego is farther away from Albany than Barbados, which is practically in South America.

Our recent excursion around Lake Ontario over the past two weeks was about 1074 miles (1729 km). I haven’t traveled all that much: 30 US states, 2 Canadian provinces, a little bit of Mexico, and Barbados.

Using Mapquest, I’ve ascertained the farthest I’ve traveled by various modes of transportation.

By car: 1108 miles (1783 km) from Binghamton, NY to Memphis, TN when I was in high school. Among other things, saw the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
By bus: 768 miles (1236 km) from Albany, NY to Charlotte, NC in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I do not recommend this.
By train: Albany to Charlotte, which is much more civilized.
By plane: 2884 miles (4642 km) from Albany to San Diego, CA.

I was surprised to discover that San Diego is farther away from Albany than Barbados, which is practically in South America. According to this site, San Diego is 2445 miles (3934 km) away, while Barbados is a mere 2206 miles (3550 km) – road miles and air miles will differ.

What is the farthest you’ve traveled by various modes of transportation? My wife’s been to Ukraine (by air, of course) in 2002.