Balloon Messages from Long Ago

I ran across this in the news.  Quick summary:

"On Saturday, thousands of people nationwide will search the skies in a high-tech scavenger hunt designed to test how far-flung groups can use the Internet and technology to work together.  The DARPA Network Challenge calls on groups to pinpoint the locations of 10 red weather balloons scattered around the country -- with a $40,000 prize going to the first team to find them all."

Fascinating concept.  I wonder how long it will take for a team to find them all?

Thinking of hunting for balloons makes me think of two things:  1)  "Balloon Boy" and his family - the crazy people who wanted a reality tv show and whose pretend hunt for their six-year-old son dominated recent headlines and wasted tax dollars (is there a way to scour that out of my memory?  I could use that space for something worthwhile); and 2) my childhood balloon correspondence.

A fact of childhood is that kids wind up getting helium balloons at parties and restaurants and all sorts of places.  Rather than just letting them grow wrinkly and lose floatation in the house, my Dad came up with a better purpose:  balloon mail.  Dad would have my sister and me write little notes, encase them in some kind of plastic (usually little plastic baggies) and seal them with the balloon string or twist tie.  We'd trim off all the excess everything - paper, plastic and string - to make it as light as possible.  Then we would release them from the back deck of the house, watch them float into the sky, and usually forget about them.  It was quite magical watching them float off into the blue (or gray - this is Syracuse, after all) wondering just what they would see and who they would meet on their journey.

We did this fairly regularly over the years.  One year for Christmas I remember the appearance of a helium tank in the living room, and a big bag of assorted balloons.  That year we peppered our area of the Country with balloon notes.

Most of those balloons drifted off into the great Never Never Land of nowhere.  Who knows where they wound up?  Now I cringe slightly thinking about the litter and potential for critters choking on rubber balloons, but I try not to dwell on it.  People didn't worry so much about such things back then.

There is no denying that it was wicked cool to get an occasional response.  And get responses we did, as you can see.  (Click on the letters to enlarge them to a more readable size.)  Each balloon turned out to have its own story: one traveled as far as Ohio, one got discovered by an ice fisherman, another in a cow pasture.  I love to wonder about the kind people who sat down and wrote the responses. 

I am a packrat when it comes to manuscripts, letters and other sentimental documents.  I have a huge rubbermaid bin in the attic full of correspondence from all bits of my life.  I lament the lost art of correspondence (the real kind, involving pen, paper and stamps).  A rummage this evening through the bin uncovered letters I wrote to my parents when I was in summer camp, letters I wrote home when I was studying abroad in high school and college, my and my sister's balloon correspondence, and even a brief exchange that was carried on between the hotel maid and my favorite stuffed dog, Le Mutt, when my family took a trip to Toronto when I was probably about 8. 

Le Mutt, you see, also sent some of the balloon letters that got responses.  He was - and in fact still is - quite literary. 

My beloved Le Mutt, his brother Mutt Jr., and their sister Fifi La Femme all still reside with us, although they no longer send out balloon notes.

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Exasperation Central

I've half-jokingly mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of winter.  If I were to be completely honest, I actually do like a lot of things about snow and cold and ice (well, for at least the first month or two of winter, then it starts to get old, and I always hate slush, salt on the roads, and cold toes). 

What I really dislike about winter, though, is how short the days are.  It's amazing how much of a psychological impact that has on me, and how confined it makes me feel.

I come to work as soon as it gets light.  I then work all day.  I then drive home in the dark.  That means it's hard to get any time outdoors in daylight.  Evenings tend to be more frenzied, too, since we have fire-tending and wood stacking responsibilities to add to the daily chores. 

Work is particularly busy, which isn't helping.  It always is at the end of the year.  I'm buried with all sorts of things, and am being consumed by a couple of litigation matters.  In my line of work litigation generally takes one of two forms: 1) somebody spilled something icky and a fracas has ensued; or 2) somebody is about to build something that other people don't want built, and a fracas has ensued.  I have one of each at the moment, on top of general permitting, compliance and transactional matters.

This time of year I'm so busy with holiday preparations on top of everything else that it's even hard for me to get outdoors on the weekends.  THAT is what really makes me grouchy.  I can survive the cold dark weeks with my head down, so long as I can hope for a break of fresh air, open sky, critters, and a botanical foray on the weekend. 

But this week, shopping for family members and colleagues and an adopted family in need is likely to consume much of my weekend.  The rest of the weekend will be eaten up by Christmas cards.  For some reason Spouse got the harebrained idea that I should paint the design for them (one of my other many hobbies) and have him print them (he works for a printing company) this year.  For some insane reason I agreed.  That should at least double the amount of time we spend on the Christmas cards.  It will probably double the amount of money we spend on them too, but nevermind.

Actually, I don't mind doing any of it, and even enjoy most of it.  I just mind that it all supplants my other typical weekend activities. 

What this all means is that I'm grouchy (I think I already mentioned that), and I'm short on outdoorsy blog material.  It also means the dogs are cooped up and particularly fractious.  Are there still trees and sky out there?  I know there's mud - the dogs track that in the house for me.  But are there great critter tracks in the mud?  Is ice forming on any of the open water bodies yet, and are there still a few die-hard leaves stuck to branches?  Are there birds feasting on berries? 

Hello, wilderness, are you out there?

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Another reason it needs to snow...

and get colder:  I'm tired of playing track the (canid) wildlife through my house via mud prints,

from the back door:

through the kitchen and into the library:

up the stairs:

to the upstairs hallway:

and beyond:

Darn.  Once again, I forgot to check for muddy feet before I opened the back door.  When's my backyard/mud pit going to freeze for the winter?  And where'd I put the carpet cleaner?

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Where, oh where is the snow???

I woke up to the very first dusting of snow at my house for the year.

It's December.  That's pathetic.

Apparently as of yesterday Syracuse had just set a record for the longest streak with no snow accumulation - since February 23, 2009.  That's 276 days.  See here.  What is this, Florida?  If we want the golden snowball (I love that site) this year, we'd better start doing some snow dances.  Honestly, though, it doesn't look like Rochester and Buffalo are doing any better than Syracuse at the moment.

A few sad wet flakes that melt with the morning light hardly get us caught up.

Given how weird weather patterns are, I understand that it's generally impossible to attribute any single weather phenomenon to global warming.  For example, one of the effects of global warming is to cause the jet stream to do weird dipping and swooping things, occasionally bringing frigid arctic air into Syracuse and making all the commenters on syracuse.com say a streak of below-normal temperatures is proof positive that the global warming scientists are full of it. 

(A complete aside:  how syracuse.com collects so many wacky, uninformed and boorish commenters, I don't know, but the majority seem to be completely appalling on nearly every topic.  My sincerest apologies if you happen to be one of the few sane and articulate commenters.)

It seemed to be a fairly cool rainy summer, but that may just be because I was comparing it to some recent scorchers.  Every above-average temperature day, every non-snow streak, every winter that has an above-average temp overall, every drought makes me nervous.  I guess I had better get used to less snow and warmer averages, less biodiversity and more invasive species taking advantage of the milder climate.

I don't think I ever will get used to it.  No matter how much I pound my tiny fists and stomp my tiny feet, I'm powerless to stop it.  It makes me squirm and writhe in helpless frustration just to contemplate. 

Snow, where are you?  In my mind, snow is the only excuse for winter.  Why be cold, gray and have such short days if there's no payout with the fun white stuff?

"Where's our snow?"

I want to go up to Tug Hill and the Osceola Tug Hill ski center and buy myself some long-overdue new cross country skis.  I want an excuse to splurge on the snowshoes I've been drooling over (although realistically skis and snowshoes can't both be in the budget for this year).  I want to try out my new Nokian Hakkapeliitta snow tires (they're gnarly suckers).  I want to feel like a tough chick for fearlessly venturing out in blizzards and shoveling feet of snow out of my driveway before I can pull in.  I want to again watch my shrimpy dogs bound through snow that's over their heads, and laugh at the cat for dipping his paws delicately into the snow, shaking them off, and returning quickly to the house with a look of distaste on his face.  I want to make a snow fort.

Anybody know any snow dances??  Wanna teach them to me???

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