Ohio's Bound to Boomerang

  One thing I miss from my time in Ecuador (I miss many, many things and people and places) is the weather. In Ecuador the weather was, above all else, predictable. Imagine your ideal of a perfect Spring day. Sun shining in the sky with a few scattered clouds, green grass abound, flowers blooming, and temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees. Your ideal day might be a little different, but it probably falls within that range. Ecuador resides right in the middle of the globe. This means that they get a clean cut of 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness or thereabouts. The mornings start out a bit chilly, maybe in the low 50's. By noon the sun would be cranking at full power, which would mean that it was time to shuck off the sweatshirt that was necessary in the morning. This wonderful heat would stay until about four in the afternoon then it would start to lessen a bit as the sun made its descent.

  You could count on the daylight and the warmth but also one other thing: the rain. Almost everyday between 10 in the morning and 5 in the evening or so there would be a storm or shower. Usually it was over just as quickly as it started and most of the time it was refreshing. I miss taking mid-afternoon naps while the rain tapped on the roofs outside.

  But here in Ohio the only predictability in the weather is that it is bound to be inconsistent. Yesterday it was unseasonably warm outside, today it rained all day and the temperature plummeted. Tomorrow it could very well snow, or just as easily it could be as warm as a summer afternoon. Its all within the realm of possibility here.

  All of October and November it went from warm to wet to cold to warm to snowing to wet and back to cold. Going outside on any given day in Ohio, or in the Midwest for that matter, is like jumping into a game of ping pong that starts and stops of its own volition. You never know if its your turn to serve or return a volley. The weather here plays by its own rules and no one else's. And sure the erratic nature of the weather is due in part to global warming, but to give climate change the whole blame is unfair.

  As long as I can remember its been like this here. The snow might start in October and go through March. Though during that time its never consistently snowy. There's just as much of a chance of snow tomorrow as there is in March, but also of it being warm like Spring today or in January. Ohio's bound to boomerang as far as the weather is concerned. And while I enjoy the chaos and mystery of going outside each morning, some days I miss the clockwork predictability of Ecuador.

Icy Wasteland

  All week the temperature has fluctuated between way below freezing with snow, and up in the high 40's.  More than anything its been a gamble each day. Fast forward to last night, it had been near freezing all day then around 10pm it started to precipitate icy rain down upon the night.  Covering every possible inch outdoors with a hefty layer of ice.  Trees, grass, sidewalks, buildings all are coated, slick and shining.  I wish I had brought my camera along when I went outside, the frozen bits of grass look over-worldly.  It is an icy wasteland out there. As if Mad Max had occurred in Siberia.  Be careful out there, be smart, and step softly.

Noah and The Whale
Give it All Back

Cold Adventures

A gust of wind, strikes cold, leaving my eyeballs frozen in their sockets as I walk back to my dorm after class. It's Friday morning, all the tour groups of high school students and their parents are set upon the campus. I don't know about you all, but this week was really long, Monday seems like four weeks ago.

And several hours went by since I started this post, and I had quite a good adventure. Me and my roommate went walking uptown to get my DARS which are a scheduling tool you need here at OU to schedule classes each quarter. We did that, and it was much easier than I expected. Then we went to the record store that is down the street, a very cool place. I found a $2 Clint Eastwood movie called Firefox, which well it has Clint Eastwood, and it should be pretty badass. I guess its supposed to be about the air force and the future, and he's a pilot? I'll post once I've watched it as to how the movie turns out to be. Also got the Kaki King album Dreaming of Revenge, I have not heard it yet so I am kind of excited for new music, I'll maybe review that too later. So after the record store we went in search of a bookstore I had seen before which was closed at the time. After a decent walk we found it full of old, new and used books of all types. I liked it, seemed kind of cozy. From there we walked back to the dorm and on the way got to the topic of donuts. I was under the impression that there was no place on campus or in Athens to get bakery donuts. Apparently I was wrong, there is a great place across the high way called Mchappy's just a short walk away.

So we went there.

In other exciting news there are a lot of videos I would like to show you all, or at least enough to keep me going for a little while. The hard part is deciding which to showcase. Okay so I found this girl who plays ukulele and sings and plays covers of songs and she is pretty good. Her name is Julia Nunes, and I hope she doesn't care that I'm posting her video. Here's her cover of Spoon's Underdog:

Underdog
Julia Nunes



Enjoy the weekend!