Wind

More compelling video from Sneed Studios. If you are alive and living in the United States you have to be aware that a lot of Southern California is on fire. The homes of the rich and famous, as well as the broke and anonymous are in jeopardy. The culprit in this calamity is the Santa Ana winds that form in the high desert on west side of the Rockies and east of the Sierra Nevada, in the Great Basin. The heat of the winds is caused by the compression of the air as it sweeps through the Sierra Nevada mountains and down toward the ocean. As we all remember from school, things under pressure get hot. I am fortunate to live in an area of the country largely untouched by natural disaster. We don't get bitter cold, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, wind disaster, widespread flooding or earthquake. If we get a severe natural event, it is usually short-lived and localized. In exchange, we endure blistering heat for several months of the year. Except for the illegal entrants who try to cross the desert or the folks who get lost in the desert, no one dies from our heat because we have low, low humidity. Today, we are having very high winds, 30 miles per hours, with gusts to 40 mph. Probably from the same source as the Santa Anas. I'm no weather guy, so I don't really know. This is the explanation that I heard our weather guy give. Blah, blah, blah, clockwise, blah, blah, blah high-pressure, blah, blah circulate. Unlike the California winds our high winds are cool. We live in the high desert at about 3000 feet above sea level, so our winds don't compress as they reach us. It was howling before six this morning when Son Sneed and I went to his appointment. As I sat and waited for him in the hospital waiting area, I noticed that Steve Carell was being interviewed on Good Morning America. I couldn't hear the sound, but I suppose the interview is about his new movie, Dan-something. I really like Carell and The Office is one of the couple of shows that I faithfully watch on television. I wonder about Carell's career, though. His character in The Office is ideal for him and his comedic talents, but he benefits from a terrific cast of co-stars and good writing. Sometimes actors in an ideal role have trouble moving beyond it. Take Micheal Richards and Jason Alexander from Seinfeld fame. After that show they have struggled to find their next role. They both have been flops on television. Of course Richards inadvertently found notoriety as a racist jackass, but I'm guessing that wasn't his plan. I hope Carell isn't making the same mistake by starring in hideous clunkers like Evan Almighty. Carell got good reviews in the 40-Year-Old Virgin, but I hope he doesn't let himself be dragged into every movie that is pitched to him. As if the early appointment and the winds of hell weren't enough, I had to go to the dentist this afternoon to get a filling. Dr. Yahoo asked me if I wanted to have the area numbed or not. I voted "not". I'm pretty sure he charges extra for numbing. It was a quick and painless procedure. Dr. Yahoo says my teeth are in better shape than most people's, which I find hard to believe. My teeth look like someone went through a tooth junkyard and assembled the set from parts. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky