An Old Ringgit

Posted on April 27, 2015 by admin

Warmth + Rain =
At least here in temperate North America. Flowers are emerging, too, as well as bush buds. The trees are still more cautious about the whole notion of spring, but they’re coming around.

Tucked away in my envelope of nearly worthless — sometimes flat-out worthless — paper money is a RM1 I picked up either in 1992 or ’94. The formal name is a ringgit, though informally it’s a Malaysian dollar.

By the early 1990s, the note was on its way out, replaced by a dollar coin, an example of which I don’t have. These days, RM1 is worth about US 28 cents; I remember it trading for about 40 cents. I’d do pricing in my head in dollars, even though my pay was in yen, and 40 cents to the ringgit made it easy: half minus 10 percent (Singapore dollars were half plus 10 percent in those days).

The portrait on the note is Tuanku Abdul Rahman ibni Almarhum Tuanku Muhammad (died 1960), the first Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaya. That is, the supreme head of state, elected by the country’s other sultans, in office before the country was reorganized as Malaysia. I don’t think there’s any monarchical position anywhere else quite like it.
That’s the National Monument in Kuala Lumpur, which memorializes the Malaysian dead of the Japanese occupation and the Malayan Emergency.

Thursday Misc.

Posted on April 16, 2015 by admin

More spring on the way: a baseball game in the field visible from our back yard; budding bushes; woodpeckers; almost warm days, though I hear that next week won’t be so warm. Such is the seesaw of spring.

Ad leaflets are appearing at my door, promising yard service. One recent one was a large Post-It-like notice, stuck to my door, offering to keep my lawn to bourgeois standards for only $25 a week. That wasn’t quite the wording, but never mind. I suspect unkempt lawns are going to be the fashion in a few decades anyway. Either because a new-found appreciation for the aesthetics of long grass, or maybe because in a hotter and drier climate, long grass will be harder to grow, and therefore more prized.

I found out today that the Colorado House Speaker is named Dickey Lee Hullinghort. Say what you want about Colorado pols, they’ve got some interesting names, including Gov. John Hickenlooper as well. (The President of the state Senate is a more prosaic Bill Cadman, though).

Recently I did a short squib about a drive-in movie theater that managed to raise the money necessary to re-fit with digital projection equipment, and so will be able to stay open (that’s a blow for Americana, or something). Then I thought, we should go to a drive-in. The family’s never been to one. There’s a functioning drive-in in the suburb of West Chicago, which isn’t the one I wrote about, and which already has digital projection.

Trouble is, I don’t want to see Home, which is one of the features, and I really don’t want to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, which is the other. Previews for that movie have been showing up on YouTube recently, and as far as I can tell, its formula is Kevin James Falling Down = Funny. I’ll go along with that, except substitute “≠” in that formula. (Also, what kind of name is Blart? Did they pick it because it rhymes with “fart”?) Maybe something better will come along.

Opening Notes of Spring

Posted on April 13, 2015 by admin

The opening strains of the northern Illinois spring symphony have begun. The grass greened up almost overnight last Thursday after a sizable amount of rain. Large puddles were left over, too, though that’s not necessarily a harbinger of spring.

After a few days, it was merely a soggy, muddy patch. The dog enjoys the mud. She’s been with us two years now.

We took a walk with the dog at the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve on Saturday, and I heard throaty frogs awake and (presumably) singing for a mate. On Sunday, I heard the faint strains of “Turkey in the Straw” from my office, and went to the front door to take a look. Sure enough, it was an ice cream truck.

Speaking of spring: A note to Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Hillary Clinton, and Marco Rubio (so far): I don’t want to hear about your efforts to become president. It’s the spring of 2015. I don’t even want to hear about it in the spring of 2016. It can wait till the fall of that year. Except maybe the candidacy of Vermin Supreme.

Sort of a Blizzard ’15

Posted on February 2, 2015 by admin

Going into yesterday’s snow event, it was simply going to be a winter storm. At some point during the storm, officialdom started calling it a blizzard. I’m skeptical. A lot of snow fell, but it took all night and day, and some wind blew, but it wasn’t a howling fury. That’s what a blizzard is to me: howling fury. Like in ’99 or ’11.

I went outside twice yesterday and once this morning for snow removal. So it the pain-in-the-butt, risk-your-heart sense, I guess it was a blizzard. The Tribune tells me that “As of about 7 a.m. Monday, O’Hare International Airport had a total of 19.3 inches of snow, making it the fifth-largest multiday storm on record, according to the National Weather Service.”

The snow certainly made mighty piles. On my deck, some of them.

Also, the ornamental bridge is just as buried this time as in 2011. (Has it really be four years since that happened? Four years to the day, in fact, before the latest storm?)

The wind sculpted some odd forms. On the other side of our roof, there wasn’t much snow cover at all.

It looks like you can’t open the door with our hitting the snow lip, but it’s hanging far enough away that the door doesn’t touch it.

Snow in Osaka

Posted on February 1, 2015 by admin

Snow throughout the night and into the day today. Not a blizzard exactly, just a steady build up with some wind. Just when our driveway was more-or-less clear from previous non-blizzard buildup. But at least it’s February. The best thing about that is that it’s not January any more.

The view of the back yard around noon today. Much more snow was to come.

Osaka’s hot and humid much of the year, with mild winters. A gas-burning space heater was all I needed to heat my small apartment in the winter. But it did get cold. Early in 1994, Osaka got snow. Like the San Antonio snow event 21 years earlier, it was novel enough so that I took pictures.

Just a coating. The white building in the background was my apartment building, known as the Sunshine Mansion. The windows of my third-story unit are mostly obscured in this shot by the twin utility poles, but I had a fairly good view.

A few blocks away is the Nagai crossing of the JR Hanwa Line. The partial rainbow marks the site of a pachinko parlor. Behind that was a grocery store I went to often (pachinko, never).

Follow those tracks far enough, and you get to Wakayama. In the other direction is the much closer Tennoji terminus, which is in the city of Osaka. But I rarely took the Hanwa line. Not far away was the Nagai station of the Midosuji Line of the Osaka subway system, which is how I usually got around.

Oz Day ’15

Posted on January 26, 2015 by admin

Early Sunday morning more snow fell here in northern Illinois. About as much as in the pictures of subtropical Texas with snow posted yesterday — which is to say, not much for this part of the country. Not even enough to cover the grass completely. On the whole, it hasn’t been so snowy this winter, unlike last. But there’s still time for that.

Snow doesn’t deter the dog from checking for the sight, sound, and smell of intruders on her domain.

Australia Day’s rolled around again. We could use a bit of that Southern Hemisphere summer about now, but not the aridity. Years ago, I had access to National Lampoon’s Tenth Anniversary Anthology, 1970-1980, which included japery by the young PJ O’Rourke, originally published in the magazine’s May 1976 issue: “Foreigners Around the World,” subhead, “A Brief Survey of the Various Foreign Types, Their Chief Characteristics, Customs, and Manners.”

More than 30 years later, I remember parts of it. So I found it online. The entire thing is linked here. It isn’t for the easily offended. From the section on Australia:

AUSTRALIANS: Violently loud alcoholic roughnecks whose idea of fun is to throw up on your car. The national sport is breaking furniture and the average daily consumption of beer in Sydney is ten and three quarters Imperial gallons for children under the age of nine. “Making a Shambles” is required study in the primary schools and all Australians are bilingual, speaking both English and Sheep…

Proper Forms of Address: Steady there, Cool off, For Christ’s sake, not in the sink, Stay back, I’ve got a gun!

Snow in San Antonio

Posted on January 25, 2015 by admin

In the winter of 1973, snow fell on San Antonio twice. That much I remember. That’s memorable because the number of times that snow stuck to ground in San Antonio during my youth there — 1968 to 1979 — was twice. By the time a foot or so fell in 1985, I was elsewhere. The 3 inches that fell in San Antonio February 1966 was before my time, but that might have been when it snowed heavily in North Texas, where I was. I remember that too.

So naturally we went out for a look. And to take pictures. I’m with Jim in the above image, and I took the one of Jay and Jim below.

This must have been the first snowfall, which was 0.8 inches on Jan 11. It looks like that much, not the 2 inches that fell on Feb. 8. Also, I doubt that Jay would have been around in February.

A front yard picture of a tree long ago dead and removed. I don’t know why I didn’t take any pictures of the February snow. Maybe no film. More likely sloth.

Back yard picture, on the deck that was later covered. At the time, it was open, and home to a decaying grill. Mostly I don’t remember cooking much on the grill, just building fires in it from time to time.

Thursday Odds and Ends

Posted on January 22, 2015 by admin

Throwback Thursday? Where did that come from? I’m always late to the meme party, not that that makes any difference. I first saw the term after I sent my old friend Tom an image of him that I scanned from a color slide.

I took it outside my house in the spring of 1979, and it’s now proof that Tom once had hair. He posted it on his Facebook page on Jan. 1, calling it a “Throwback Thursday” picture (though curiously, Jan. 1 is a day people tend to look ahead). I don’t think I’ll throwback on Thursdays, except for this picture. Thursday’s a good day for odds and ends, though.

Part of Isaac’s Storm, which is mainly about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 (see Jan. 19), mentions previous big blows in passing, such as the Great Storm of 1703, which slammed into Great Britain. I didn’t know, for instance, that that storm destroyed — completely scoured off the rocks — the first Eddystone Light. With builder Henry Winstanley and his crew, who were doing repairs, still inside. More about all four lighthouses on those rocks is here, including the incredible fate of the lighthouse keeper when the second one burned down. Here’s a short of a fellow visiting the current lighthouse (a cool destination if there ever was one).

I don’t think I have the patience to read Daniel Defoe’s work on the subject, The Storm — or, to give it its full name, The Storm: Or, a Collection of the Most Remarkable Casualties and Disasters Which Happen’d in the Late Dreadful Tempest, Both by Sea and Land — which is available thanks to Project Gutenberg. But it’s good browsing. Some people died in 1703 from falling chimneys, for instance:

In Threadneedle-Street, one Mr. Simpson, a Scrivener being in Bed and fast a-sleep, heard nothing of the Storm; but the rest of the Family being more sensible of Danger, some of them went up, and wak’d him; and telling him their own Apprehensions, press’d him to rise; but he too fatally sleepy, and consequently unconcern’d at the Danger, told them, he did not apprehend any Thing; and so, notwithstanding all their Persuasions, could not be prevailed with to rise: they had not been gone many Minutes out of his Chamber, before the Chimneys fell in, broke through the Roof over him, and kill’d him in his Bed.

I suppose that counts as a throwback, too, though I bet most people who use the term don’t go back as far as 1703. So here’s something new: socks that Yuriko brought back from Japan for Ann.

Too cute for words, as Japanese design sometimes is.

Thursday Debris

Posted on January 8, 2015 by admin

Snow’s back in some quantity. We even have a minor drift on the deck, caused by persistent wind. Doesn’t seem to bother the hound.

Yuriko’s been back from Japan for nearly a week. Just got around to copying the pictures she took from the SD card. Here’s one I liked.

It’s the Osaka City Central Public Hall on Nakanoshima, aglow in the night. I used to walk by that pre-war structure often (almost pre-first war, since it was finished in 1918). It had to good fortune to survive the Pacific War, as they call the second war in Japan, and post-war urban uglification, too.

She also enjoyed some artful eats.

Japan’s a good place to find that.

The worldwide competition for Barbarian of the Year got an early start in ’15, alas. We don’t even really know who the latest entrant is. Last year it was a toss-up between ISIS and Boko Haram. The jury’s still out on that one.

Millions Will Freeze!

Posted on January 7, 2015 by admin

The hunger for eyeballs – which sounds like a concept from some zombie movie – is leading to ridiculous web site headlines. Then again, draw-’em-in headlines goes all the way back to yellow journalism. This from Weather.com this morning, in the wake of a completely ordinary January cold front pushed that through much of North America.

DANGEROUS ARCTIC BLAST IMPACTING 190 MILLION: IT COULD FEEL LIKE 50 BELOW!

50 F below, if you happen to be in Bismarck or Bemidji or some such; a circumstance local residents would call “Wednesday.” Granted, it’s probably fairly cold in the South as well – 26 F above in Nashville this morning, for example, but it’s winter there, too. This event didn’t even count as a blizzard.

Anyway, I just wanted to check our local temp at about 9:30, which turned out to be 0 F. Not to worry, it’ll be back in the upper 20s by Sunday, which will seem positively toasty. But not toasty enough to melt our modest coating of snow.

I will say that if scroll down far enough at Weather.com – past most of the click-bait stories – you’ll come to a graph that details the apparent course of the sun throughout the day. It tells me, for instance, that solar noon today was at 11:59 am, and that sunset came at 4:37 pm. Even better, it demarks civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight – 5:09, 5:43, and 6:17 pm, respectively. Also, moonrise and moonset: rise is at 7:25 pm tonight.

I probably won’t be out for any of these events, since it isn’t going to get above zero today, but it’s nice to know when I can track them without going outside.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Weather