Country philosopher

[The_Doc_Man]

Any cross-overs from Jon's Access forum will know me, but for the others:

I'm a retired grandpa from south Louisiana. Though I live in suburban New Orleans, both my parents and my wife's parents were definitely steeped in rural roots. My dad's family was from rural Georgia; mom's folks from rural Alabama. My wife's folks were from Cajun country in the vicinity of (but not from inside the city limits of) Thibadeaux, Louisiana. (Pronounce that one Te'-ba-do.) If any of you have ever seen the TV series Swamp People then you have heard the accents. My wife's grandfather was an alligator hunter.

My career? A bit strange by some standards, but it seemed logical at the time. I got my degrees from New Orleans - a B.S. in Chemistry from L.S.U.N.O. and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from U.N.O., and went to work with a company that automated oil and gas pipelines so one person could monitor and control an entire pipeline. Since my research was in automated experiment control and data gathering, it was a good fit. When the oil industry went bust in 1984, I had to change careers because my dad had passed and mom was in a nursing home, dying the slow and ugly death of Alzheimer's Disease. To stay with mom, I switched to a "pure" computing venue, the U.S. Navy Reserve's Headquarters, which was in New Orleans at the time. I retired 28 1/2 years later from the Navy Enterprise Data Center New Orleans (NEDC NO) as a systems administrator (certified for HP OpenVMS) and with a Security+ certificate.

Now I just do computer games and help my wife with housework. And I play with my grandsons, technically "step-grands" because they are from Linda's first marriage. I also visit a limited number of forums.

Hobbies? Fewer now that I'm older. My knees don't work so well for tennis and that limits me to neighborhood walks where there is no rapid side-to-side movement. I play a lot of first-person and isometric shooters. I still play music for self-entertainment these days. If anyone is curious, my instrument is a Technics F5 console organ. I worked my way through college playing organ with a rock group, mostly on a Bourbon Street barroom stage, but some dance gigs now and then for variety. As a result, though I remained as poor as a church mouse, I had no student loans to pay off.

Not sure what I can contribute here because I haven't seen the flavor of the forum yet, but I'll skim a few articles and see the lay of the land.

As old Justin Wilson, a Cajun philosopher and humorist used to say, "Take care and don't swear; be humble and don't stumble."

 

[Jon]

A (very) belated welcome to the board Doc. I do love your lengthy posts which bring an original perspective to all and sundry.

Do you consider yourself a "country philosopher" because you have lived long enough to look back and reflect, based on considerable experience? And now that you are retired, you have the time to step out from the hustle and look back on life and its' complexities? (Bee, correct use of apostrophe or am I back to Grammer 101 classes again?)

 

[Bee]

I had such high hopes for you, Jon. Back to grammar 101.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I'm a country philosopher because my viewpoints include many cousins from my mother's family and from my wife's family, all of whom either live or at least grew up in rural or sparse suburban settings. I have a mix of central Alabama and south Louisiana country cousins. We "chew the fat" quite a lot at family gatherings because in the USA "Old South" region, family reunions are common. I keep my ear open for nuggets of wisdom or insight. I have to temper that wisdom by noting that about 2/3 of my cousins (by informal count) don't like the way the modern world is changing. "Too fast" for most of them.

I'm not going to ask Bee for an evaluation of my grammar. I've seen what happens.

 

[Jon]

Is the "Old South" a bit like Spain, with a manana attitude to life, with the New Yorkers being all rather zippy?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The lifestyle of the "Old South" can be a bit laid back. In Alabama, things get done but not at a pace so frantic as to leave you gasping. My cousins from that area are all good, solid people who love the USA and who love their families, though their idea of fun sometimes is subdued by my standards. But then, that's because of my wife's family. (And before that, because of my uncle's family.)

The lifestyle of south Louisiana is a bit different because of the storms we often must endure. Hurricanes Betsy, Camille, Isaac, and Katrina burned loss, damage, death, and hardship into our lives, but this is our home and we stay because it IS home. Disasters strike everywhere, whether you talk about tornados, forest fires, floods, storms, blizzards, or stifling heat waves. We have come to realize that life is too short to always take it seriously. So we have earned a "party" reputation and it is definitely true. In south Louisiana we say "laissez le bon temps roulez" - rough French for "let the good times roll." We party because we don't want to wait until a funeral to go visit friends. We party because we haven't got enough kids to marry off to have wedding receptions very often. But as long as the grocery has steaks, chops, and seafood, ... and beer, we are "good to go." Life has enough tragedies, so we tend to balance those out by having festivals, parties, and celebrations - just because we can.

 

[Jon]

I've always thought the heat must play a big part. Not sure how your area compares to somewhere like Vegas. I presume you are closer to the equator?

Tornados are always one of those things the alarm me. In the UK, we get them but rarely and tiny baby ones. Nothing of significance. I've seen plenty of monster ones on YouTube and frankly I am not sure how you can protect yourself against them all. What if you are fast asleep? Or are nighttime tornados a rare occurrence?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Tornadoes are any time, night or day. You protect yourself by knowing if a storm front is in the area because the big ones only occur at frontal boundaries unless they are fire tornadoes.

New Orleans is right at 30 degrees North Latitude (and 90 degrees West Longitude). That makes us about 2100 miles north of the equator, give or take a few. We are not in the tropics. But with our summertime weather normally being 90 degrees Fahrenheit and 90%+ humidity, and with the occasional 95-by-95 days thrown in, an afternoon party under a tent or party shed is common. The outdoor picnics happen but not then.

Las Vegas, because it has no nearby water to moderate the temperatures, can easily get to over 105 degrees F. South Texas is no better. I remember being in San Antonio one day with my parents; we were playing "tourist." The radio station announcer read the weather stats and something he said made me laugh my butt off: "And here in sunny downtown San Antonio, it is 110 degrees - but not to worry, with the wind chill factored in, it is only 102 degrees out."

 

[Jon]

I've never heard of theh term "fire tornadoes" before. This seems rather like my post about the Eskimos knowing 50 different words for snow.

I went to Vegas 3 years ago during July. They had a heatwave and it was over 110F. I remember sitting by the pool bar at the hotel, where they had a water mist spray all around it. I was panting but didn't know why until the bar lady told me. Never experienced that sort of heat before.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Actually, the fire tornado was previously considered rare, but the recent wildfires in California included a few. The "fire whirl" was more common but this year the effect escalated with the presence of all that dry heat and extra energy in the area.

In essence, a tornado is a tight air vortex where rapidly circulating air, fed by thermal forces, starts to spin faster as the gases expand and try to get away from where they are. The circulation comes, of course, through Coriolis forces - the same ones that make northern hemisphere hurricanes rotate counter-clockwise and why draining water in a level kitchen sink often spins counter-clockwise as well. It's what physicists call a "couple" - meaning a joining of forces to produce some effect. The moving water "couples" with the moving mass of the Earth.

Anyway, the heat of a big enough fire can feed the vortex and as such can cause tornadic winds. Then the tornadic winds "fan the flames" and make them hotter and more devastating than they already were. A vicious circle if ever there was one.

https://www.rt.com/news/438899-canada-fire-tornado-battle/ (including a video of a firefighter losing control of his fire hose due to the excessive winds of the mini-tornado.)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-studying-fire-tornadoes-to-learn-how-to-fight-wildfires/ (at/near 1:40 during this video, there is an aerial video segment showing a huge funnel cloud of fire.)

Frightening to contemplate even in pictures!

 

[Jon]

Ahhh come to think of it, I did see something on the telly about that a long while back. But those links you gave are amazing! Never knew they could create an enormous tornado. From memory they were piddly little things.

I also saw a demonstration of someone standing on the equator line. They did an experiment to test whether water spins one way below the equator and another way above. It did! Very strange!

I always loved this video:

 

[jen_etic_flaw]

Oh wow. New Orleans! I have always wanted to go there. I had an acute interest in that area when I was in my early teens. More so with the French and Haitian influence.

It actually spun off from a game that I liked to play!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Jen, New Orleans can be fun place to visit. It is neither more nor less dangerous than any other moderate-to-large city, safer when you are in crowds such as a convention. The music venues are a bit subdued now on Bourbon Street because the city took action some years ago to "tame" it a bit, make it more palatable for family tourism. When I was working my way through college 45-50 years ago, it was a lot crazier.

The food is still good, with creole and Cajun varieties. Our Haitian influence is limited in the main tourist areas. My digestion isn't so good after my liver and I had a disagreement and my gall bladder left in a huff, so I can't enjoy the typical fried seafood as much unless the cook does a good job of draining everything after taking it out of the deep-fat fryer.

The weather right now in July is oppressive, but our winters make up for it. Rarely snows, rarely freezes, roads aren't usually impassible due to ice. A good jacket and either good warm boots or heavy socks and comfortable shoes, and you are off for a good time.

Earlier in this thread, I mentioned that we party a lot. The Louisiana Bureau of Tourism publishes all sorts of booklets on our festivals. We have something going on somewhere in the state every weekend except Christmas and New Year's holidays. So 50 weeks per year of places to go, food to sample, music for groovin' and dancin' your butt off. Now that I'm retired, I find I don't have the stamina for the heavy party atmosphere, nor do I have the money for hitting all of the good parties.

I make this offer to everyone on both of Jon's forums, but only a couple of folks have ever taken me up on it. I don't offer places to stay and can't swear that I can afford the festivals or keep up with folks who have a frenetic energy level. But if someone ever did come this way, I wouldn't mind meeting said someone to go to one of our more "traditional" restaurants. I can't bar hop any more because of my liver, but if someone wants a history lesson or a discussion about our life styles "up close and personal" I'm always willing to try.