The big story today: it’s *(&#$’n cold out there. Right now, my thermometer is giving me a -5, the Weather Underground page is reporting -14.4, and the local news station is reporting -9, and the windchill is -24.
These extreme temperatures just make everything a lot harder, seems like. Of course, my complaints come as a person with all kinds of modern conveniences. I have a fire going, the furnace going, quality clothing, ample blankets, a decently stocked pantry and refrigerator etc. etc. etc. I can’t imagine what these sorts of conditions were like for our predecessors with ramshackle housing, animal skins for clothes, only fire to keep warm, and having to kill and grow what they ate for themselves. Thank you modern conveniences!
Speaking of fire — and I’m really just rambling now — last night I was prompted to tell my five year old boy the story of Prometheus giving fire to the people. He really enjoyed the bit where Hercules came along to bust Prometheus out of his chains. It’s a good story, but I am also laying some foundations here. At some level the fight between Prometheus and the other gods about whether to let people in on the secret of fire was really about whether people were going to think for themselves and advance themselves through technology on the one hand or whether they were going to slavishly maintain the status quo commanded by the gods on the other. I would really like him to embrace the notion that our fate is self-determined and that people can improve themselves through ingenuity. On another level, I am inoculating him with god stories. If he ultimately embraces a religion, I’ll love him all the same. But, if he does so, hopefully it will be after he comes up with good reasons for assuming that the god of that particular religion is real while Zeus and Odin and Ra and all the other gods worshiped faithfully by other cultures were mere stories.
This started as a post about weather. That, my friends, is some good digression.
And along with that bread your wife is baking.. my homemade broccoli cheddar and ham soup would be great. Now THAT’s is change we can believe in.
Laying a basis for both Belief and Science is a good basic training.Life encompasses both. Ive had no problem balancing what I believe on faith and what I know to be theory in the physical world.
Belief is always easier because you just have to stand your ground..With science you have to keep up with things,and see how things are changing,and theories are nuancing…
If Belief and Science are at odds, science will eventually will out,but it will be a gradual generational shift for most. Just review the history of the RCC..It’s the perfect model for the historical battle of Belief vs Science. Belief survives while science prevails,but it can be a drawn-out process,and Belief can kill you in the process.( just my opinion)
For me, where there is no empirical evidence available, I’m happy enough to leave belief alone. But when empirical evidence contradicts belief, for the life of me, I can’t see a reason for hanging on to the belief.
The first week in February 1996 was the coldest I have ever felt. We were living in the Twin Cities and my wife’s company had just been bought out. She was afraid to skip work. Our car was outside and the cord to plug in the engine heater had snapped off in the weather. There I was splicing it together to get some heat to the engine so that my battery at about 5% power would get the engine to start. I’d warm myself every few minutes in my boss’ truck listening to the weather-it was -32 ACTUAL air temperature. I did get the car to start eventually.
That same day the coldest temp ever in the state of MN was recorded -60.
My wife and I did watch a nighttime Winter Festival parade that same year-when the parade kicked off it was -18 and when it ended it was -25.
Soooo-it could be worse;-)
Oh yeah, I found out today that the heat doesn’t work in our van. It goes in tomorrow to have that fixed.
BTW hd the power go out early Friday morning. We knew that Lake Cenral would be sending out their “robocall” at around five in the morning to cancel school, so both my wife and I ended up awake at around 4:30. I looked on the net and saw the actual air temp here was -19. We went to bed and five minutes later heard the carbon monoxide detector beeping (due to a low battery.) Called NIPSCO and about 20 minutes later heard two workers yelling at each other in my back yard as they worked on the transformer. About an hour later the power was restored. Tha was scary!
The van is also fixd. Ended up that basicaly every part of the cooling system that could leak did-short of the radiator. Fortunately between the etended warranty and Chrysler’s warranty-the bulk of $1400 worth of repairs was covered-and we now hae heat!!!