Meteorologiccal Winter Begins......Hurricane Season Ends

December 1st marks the beginning of "Meteorological Winter". Weather folks use the 3 month period of December to February, because they are the 3 coldest of the year.

It's also the end of the 2007 Hurricane Season. Dr. Bill Gray, the noted Hurricane Forecaster from the University of Colorado predicted, before the season began, that we would see 17 named storms with 9 hurricanes and 5 major hurricanes. A major hurricane is defined as being Category 3 or stronger, winds of 111 mph or higher.

In actuality, we had 14 named storms with 6 hurricanes and 2 major hurricanes. All in all, an active season, but since the 2 major hurricanes hit Central America, not a bad season for the U.S.

Back to winter.....while I am expecting the coldest air of the season early next week, most signs point to the likelihood of above normal temperatures and at or below normal precipitation.

Thanksgiving

I'm a pretty fortunate person. Sometimes I forget that, caught up in the minutia of life, mired down by the little things and losing focus of the big picture. I think Thanksgiving is one of those times that it is good to step back and try to get the BIG picture.

When I do that, the BIG picture is a good one. I hope that your BIG picture is enough for you.

This time of year, I also think about some past Thanksgivings. Ever since I've been married, August 20, 1989, my in-laws have come to visit us for Thanksgiving wherever we may have been living. New Orleans, Oklahoma City and Rochester, NY are the places I lived before Washington.

One year, back in 1999, things did not go as planned. For one, I was unemployed. On top of that, my wife's grandma was ill and my in-laws felt that they just couldn't get away. At the time, we lived in Rochester and my brother in-law also lived there. They live on Long Island.

Since I wasn't working I decided that we could save Thanksgiving. I cooked the turkey that we had bought and then carved it up and put it in the refrigerator and then I convinced Helaine and her brother that we could pack up the turkey and drive down to Long Island and have Thanksgiving with her parents after all. It didn't take much convincing, but the whole time down, my wife kept asking us if we should call. We kept telling her that we were doing the right thing and to stop asking.

We just showed up on Wednesday afternoon, un-announced In fact, they weren't even home when we arrived, but after a few minutes they showed up. They actually waited in the road for a moment trying to figure out whose car it was and then it all made sense. They were very happy to see us.

That was also the only Thanksgiving that my wife was pregnant which makes for even more special memories So, considering that we called a last minute audible, it was a pretty good holiday after all.

The in-laws are in town again and my son is now 7 and we'll have plenty more good Thanksgivings to come.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Mt. Vernon and Fall Color

I had the pleasure of going to Mt. Vernon on Sunday. I've gone many times for work, but this was the first time I went as a tourist, and it was a great place to just visit.

My in-laws are in town for the Thanksgiving holiday and they wanted to go, so we packed everyone in the mini-van and off we went.

About a year ago, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, which runs the estate, opened a new Visitors Center and a new Museum and Restaurant complex. Very nice. While the adults were given site maps, my son got a special children's discovery map.

There were some puzzles there and he really got into exploring the estate. There he is guiding his grandma and grandpa.

The thing that impressed me the most, was the stuff that George Washington did with farming and business. He was an environmentalist who used a 7 year rotation of crops to make sure that the nutrients in his farms were not depleted. He also instructed his slaves and workers to use fallen timber when possible. There was also a compost area for all of the human and animal waste. Once composted, this made for good fertilizer. Washington even left part of his land untouched. Did you know that there was a quarry on his property that provided cobblestones for the estate along with other stone for early federal buildings in D.C.?

At it's height, Washington's farmland totaled 8,000 acres. Today the estate covers only 500, but it's a beautiful part of the world. This is the view of the Potomac from the backside of the main house. I've been fortunate enough to see a sunrise from this vantage point and it is spectacular. Washington lived in this home for 45 years, and it was under renovation for 30 of those 45.

As beautiful as the place is itself, I could not get over the color in the trees. That's Philip, Helaine and Helaine's Mom and Dad. Sandy & Stan Weber visit us every Thanksgiving.

Here we are in mid November and there is still some great color in the leaves. It's been a weird fall, color wise that is. Perhaps it was the drought that was in full force at the beginning of autumn, or maybe it was the freakishly warm October. Whatever the reason, this has been a long a drawn out leaf season.

We also stopped to see the 16 sided barn. Washington came up with this design so that he could take horses and have them walk and grind up the wheat. The grain would fall through slats in the floor and there it would be cleaned and collected.

We may know him for the Revolutionary War and for the Presidency, but Washington was a true renaissance man and a trip to his home is still worth taking more than 200 years after his death.

Cool for the weekend, but there's still some warm air left...

A chill is in the air this Friday morning and there are even a few flakes showing up on Live Doppler 9000 HD. With the wind and rain on Thursday morning, many leaves were blown off the trees and the landscape is taking on a late fall look.


People are wearing jackets and sweaters and there's a sense that winter can't be that far away. Shameless plug time. Tonight on 9 NEWS NOW at 5PM, Topper Shutt will present the 9 WEATHER NOW Winter Prediction......

Back to the blog.


The rain lately has been great news for our drought. While we do have areas of "Moderate Drought", there are no more areas of "Severe Drought" in our region. Parts of southwestern Virginia are still dealing with extreme to exceptional drought.

After the dryness of the summer and early fall, our improving conditions are great news. We still need to keep the rain machine going (or snow
guns if you prefer) so that we can be in great shape for 2008. For complete details, check out the US Drought Monitor.

Thank to Veterans & Fun Pictures of Mike Walter

If you read Mike Walter's Blog, you'll see his post on Veteran's Day where Mike and I were at the McCormick & Schmick's in Tyson's Corner for Veteran's Day dinner. M&S gives free meals to veterans as a Thank You for their service. It's a great program and Mike and I were honored to be able to help greet and thank some of the veterans who came into the restaurant.

We were asked to come and help greet veterans by our dear friend, Jill Collins. Jill is in public relations and she's a very nice lady. She's the blonde one.

Mike is a pretty funny guy and a great story teller. There was a table with some veterans from the San Fernando valley, that's where Mike grew up and the three of them were doing the "California talk" thing for a while. All I could do was stand by and smile. Mike posted several pictures of the event on his blog, in cluding one where my eyes were closed. I only sent him 10 pictures, so I'm glad that of the 4 he posted, he chose 1 where my eyes were closed. Thanks Mike!

But, I wouldn't be a good friend if I did not return the favor. So, last night at dinner, while Mike was eating, I grabbed this beauty. Click on it and you can see the larger version.

Color

This whole blog thing kind of crazy. I write about all sorts of things never knowing if anyone is reading any of it. There are the occasional posted comments, but were those the only 2 people, outside of some of my colleagues, who actually check out my blog?

Anyway, I have to say that I have not posted as frequently lately as I would have liked. Life is getting busy and last week was no exception. We had the house painted. The guys did a very good job and were courteous and friendly. The house looks completely different. My wife loves it. I love some of it, but I'm not sure about some of the choices we made.

You should know that we have lived in the house for 3 years. We had white walls from the builder and areas of patched nail holes and little blue pieces of tape. The blue tape was there for the crew from the builder to know where to patch the nail holes. As many as I put up, there were still a few I missed. My friends/neighbors would tease me about the blue tape on the ceiling and walls. So, after 3 years without color, we made some vibrant choices. The main color is yellow(bee). The kitchen is green (leapfrog). My son's room is a dark royal blue(hyper blue). This is my favorite color in the house. The guest room are tan (tatami tan) and my bedroom is a teal color(lake shore). We have a tray ceiling in the master bedroom and the dining room. We put a darker shade of the teal color in the bedroom tray and a darker yellow/golden color(trinket) in the tray and under the chair rail in the dining room. Finally, the study is a deep red(poinsettia). It's a lot of color. My wife commented that our house looks like a Crayola box.

Our painter, Todd, likes Duron paints. I was particularly interested in their GENESIS line of paints because it has no VOC's (volatile organic compounds) and consequently, no odor. I was happy to find out that all but 2 of our colors could be made with this line of paint. The hyper-blue and the poinsettia were too dark for the Genesis base and they would be low VOC Plastikote.

Tuesday morning, when Todd shows up with the crew, only the Bee (yellow) and the Tatami Tan, were Genesis and everything else was the low VOC Plastikote. I was a little upset, but what was I going to do? The crew was there and the paint was what it was. I felt that the guy I had dealt with in the paint store had either misled me or just made a mistake himself.

My neighbor Valerie is really into the environment and she knows this place in Kensington that sells GREEN paint. Amicus Green has all sorts of environmentally safe building materials. American Pride paint is what Valerie had her husband, and one of my best friends, paint their basement with. It has virtually no odor, and their basement is a pretty dark green. If I knew that most of my Duron paints could not be in their odor free GENESIS line, I would have bought my paint here.

Other than the slight odor, the Duron paints are very good and the colors are great. The rooms where the Genesis paint was used, really had no odor. We slept in them for a couple of nights.

The whole house took about 5 days to paint. I helped by removing some wall lights and by taking down some alarm sensors. Yes, they can paint around them, but by removing them you get an even better looking job. I also took off one of the toilet tanks so that we could paint completely behind it. The crew even did a good job of cleaning up after themselves.Other than a good dusting and some minor cleaning, I have to say, we're in pretty good shape.

Now, I'm hoping for a few warmer days so I can open a window or two.

A Mature Age Bracket

Last year I turned 40 and this year was my wife's turn. In fact, November 4th is also the birthday of Walter Cronkite and Laura Bush.

I've known my wife, Helaine for 25 years and we've been married for 18. We're actually "High School Sweethearts". She doesn't care that she has turned 40 or that she has a few grey hairs. She just seems to cherish where she is. Over the past few months she has been exercising a lot more and she looks as good now as she ever has. In fact, a nice treadmill was her big birthday present. I stress nice, because if you buy a cheap one, they just don't last that long.

One of the benefits of us both being 40 came to my attention last week when I received a phone call from my automobile insurance agent. She called to thank me for being a customer and also to notify me that my annual premium would be dropping by 47 dollars.

I asked why and was informed that my wife and I were now both in a "mature age bracket". Wow, even though I'm far from mature, the insurance company places me in a preferred bracket. Ages 40 to 64 are considered a "safe" group of drivers.

If you're thinking that I have 20+ years of cheaper insurance rates, let me remind you that in 10 years, I'll have a son who will be driving.