Here I am along with Dr. Ken Ripp being interviewed about our new organization – Integrity Health Network.
Almanac North June 2010 <
Almanac North #1832 from Almanac North on Vimeo.
Hey guys,
I think the rest of the Windchill story that was scheduled to post at the same times the original post – all went into drafts from the end of February through March. I did it while I was really tired at night this year – so it was sort of true to form to the original posts – unintentionally! Sorry if you had been following it and they suddenly cut off. I published them all two minutes ago so they’re not in order but sometimes technology isn’t our friend…
Jeff
The dictionary defines the term “meteorologist” as:
1. One who studies meteorology.
2. One who reports and forecasts weather conditions.
What it fails to include is item number 3: A scientific sounding name for being wrong nearly 100% of the time.
Case in point – for the past couple of days these esteemed fortune tellers of the weather have been warning us about the impending big storm. Road plow crews were placed on 12 hour shifts, people were told to hoard their children, gather food, burn their paneling and furniture, be ready to eat their pets, save bottles of air for when our communities lay buried under an avalache of snow, starting Friday night snow was to begin to falling in amounts tantamount to biblical proportions, by Saturday we were told up to a foot of snow will have befallen us – for those of us who lived to see it Saturday night would see a lull and Sunday it was all to begin again, with another half foot predicted. This morning as I look out at the slightly overcast sky and wondered if I should sweep the few flakes that had apparently gotten lost and fallen on porch, I wondered how much these people are getting paid.
What a perfect job. Paid to be right or wrong in percentages. How safe would you feel if you settled into your seat on the aircraft to hear “Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to welcome you aboard Snafu Airlines Flight 911, I’m your Captain, Allis Lost. Today there’s a 10% chance we’ll be cruising at 35,000 feet, with 70% chance of arriving safely at our destination…” Or go to the dentist to be told there’s a “40% chance I’m about to drill into the correct tooth, with an 80% chance of success (and that remaining 20% chance of accidentally drilling through your jaw)…”
“Yes sir, and how would you like that done? Medium rare? Well there’s a 70% chance you’ll be able to survive eating it without salmonella or some other horrible fate befalling you, and what would you like to drink with that last meal?…”
Or in my job, wonder how long my board of directors would keep me employed if I told them there’s a 60% chance we’ll be in the black next week, or telling staff there’s a 40% chance they won’t have a job if I screw up some other percentage. A large part of my job is forecasting, sometimes up to 1, 2 and 3 years out. If I screw it up, people lose jobs so there’s not this little comfortable “30% chance”. I’d imagine you probably have a job that requires some degree of accuracy in what you do – are you able to come within 20% and call that accurate and keep your job? So why do we give these chronic liars a scientific sounding title like “meteorologist?” Why aren’t they called weather fortune tellers? Guess I’d better go sweep up the few flakes from the perfect storm and let the animals know they’re safe, I don’t need eat them today.
YES! I survived the week… Weekend plans include holding up behind locked doors, peeking out from behind closed blinds with a suspicious look at everyone that approaches and yelling obscenities at passing wildlife.
WOOHOO – I finally figured out what was wrong with the inside barn cam. Believe it or not even the engineers were having problems figuring it out, this has been like a major undertaking. After this if we have a problem with the barn cams it’ll be much easier for anyone wanting to view it to just drive out and come watch us at work in person – that way you can have a cigar and hot cocoa along with the pleasure of our company! Anyway, please use the new address for that cam in the link above. I’m having another cup of coffee in celebration!
DIVORCE AGREEMENT
THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT’S BY A YOUNG PERSON!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I’LL VOTE FOR HIM.
OUTSTANDING!
Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
We have stuck together since the late 1950′s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.
Here is a model separation agreement:
Our two groups can equitably divide up this country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effort lessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.
We don’t like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).
We’ll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.. You can have your beloved homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s and rednecks. We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .
You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters.
When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them secu rity.
We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying the bill.
We’ll keep the SUV s, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volkswagon you can find.
We’ll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute Imagine, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.
We’ll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our flag.
Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I’ll bet you which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.
Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American
P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you!
March 7th, 7:05pm: To the world at large – the only word I can think of is WOW. I went to my PO Box today and apparently it is possible to send love through the United States Postal Service. My PO box was full and had several cards telling me to go to the counter – I gave the card to the rep who looked at it and said “Oh yeah, you have A LOT of mail.” In realm that existed before I had met you, the world, ‘a lot of mail’ meant it would fit in my arms or in a small box. A lot of mail meant the credit card companies had tracked me down and that I may have already won… What the new definition of a lot of mail is they have to let me use a card to bring it out and it’s a good thing I have a truck with an extended cab! You sent cookies, you sent gifts, you sent cards, you sent donations for his foundation. The Friends of Barbaro have registered a star in Windchill’s name – appropriately in the Pegasus cluster, we now have a beautiful framed declaration and location of the star (thanks Ann – who acted as FOB’s ambassador for this). There were care packages with hot cocoa and coffee. And in the spirit of the Appaloosa part of Windchill and in Native American tradition, Jill from Duluth sent a pouch with tobacco to keep near Windchill’s urn – which we will honor Jill. There’s an Apache blessing to keep near Windchill, honoring his spirit (and again, we will honor your wishes and keep it near). I hope those of you that sent such beautiful tributes will consider posting the tributes and your thoughts regarding them on Windchill’s forum. I don’t know if I can post it right here without possibly violating somebody’s copyrighted thoughts but they’re beautiful. Many of you have also sent poems and beautiful tributes and now that there’s the forum, I may try to start cutting and pasting some of them but I don’t want to risk violating anyone’s personal thoughts in doing so I’ve been cautious in that regard.
Somebody’s thoughts that I don’t believe will be offended that I share will be Ms. Millard’s 1st grade class from Meadowvale Elementary School, Elk River, MN. Ms. Millard and our little friends – the scrapbook you made is so beautiful. I know that you wrote it around the time Windchill’s friends at Northern Lights Elementary School in Superior, WI wrote get well letters and I hope that you all have read Windchill’s letter to you that he had left in his stall. Because Ms. Millard’s first grade class words have such hope for a little colt, I’m typing them up — they’re too precious not to share. I wish you could see the book they made, which they called “Someday”. Click here to read the wisdom carried by the young
March 7th, 11:02am: Morning friends. I’m sorry for the late post but I’m still adjusting to the normal world again and took the day off today to sort of ‘crash’. The pain is working its way out of my system, one of the nurses from work who has the unfortunate role of being my advisor when I goof something up (like the spilled coffee incident…groan…) said it will be some time before my own systems return to normal. In the meantime, it’s ibuprofen to take the ‘edge’ off and this morning just laying trying to get some rest. Fortunately people have been understanding and supportive in my work life.
More importantly for you – after two days of testing and working on the forum, it’s being moved to a new high speed server with a lot of bandwidth this morning. We think we’ve got the bugs out though you may prove me wrong once this starts but the important thing is that shortly we will have a way for everyone to talk, to post their thoughts and their grief and find out that they’re not alone. I think we all need that. I’ve done my best to respond to emails as quickly as I can but as I type this, there are 600 sitting in my inbox and some of you have sent back responses to my responses and I read what I wrote and wonder if I’m on any prescription medication or if english is my second language. The answer is no to both of those but at least that would’ve given me an excuse.
The new forum is located at: Windchill Forum
The forum is a work in progress – it will eventually be a component of the Windchill foundation site – I have a request out for people to develop the new site. Unfortunately developers have had difficulty understanding this is for a non-profit site. I’m also not sure how the blogging will work – if you still want me to be blogging. Not sure whether that should be here on this site, or on the forum. It probably won’t be part of the official foundation site since my views may not be what equine director emeritus’ Windchill’s views might be on things – for instance I make no bones that I like cigars and coffee, his views may be different on that (though he never complained once I might add). Thus please bear with us as we get this going. Even though we’re still tweaking the forum even as I type this, I’m going to announce it now so that you have a place to start talking. The speed issues will be resolved shortly as it migrates to its new high speed, high bandwidth server. One thing I’ve learned in ‘talking’ with you like this – you like to listen apparently. For you techies, this blog and site are now using around 120 gig of bandwidth. The most I ever used in the past was 4 gig for an entire month! Thanks for your support, your kind words and your prayers. You are amazing people.
By the way, we’ve heard from quite a few people hoping to come out tomorrow to see Windchill, the stall he lived, talk and remember. Some folks are flying in, many others are driving. I’ll try to post the weather later so you know what you’re in for. It’s nice out today, though still only 1 degree so a bit colder than some of the places you’re coming from.
Windchill books: I’ve mentioned the idea of writing a couple of books – one for ‘big’ people and one for ‘little’ people and gotten a lot of support for the idea (the proceeds of which would go to the foundation or fund). Ummm, does anyone have any idea how you actually publish the book(s)? Are any of you literary agents or knowledgeable in how to go about this? I suppose we could self publish these days. I don’t know, I guess I find with Windchill gone what energy I have I want to apply to the greater good. To me that’s meant finding a way to connect you all up to talk and heal, work on the foundation idea and the books idea. It’s probably left over adrenaline I’m guessing. Thanks for listening to these ramblings and letting me know your thoughts, this has helped me immensely knowing we haven’t been in this alone.
February 28th, 8:23am: Windchill was up standing and walking around most of the night – munching away and drinking most of his water. He sure loves the alfalfa! He’s in a really sweet mood this morning and trying to get up. You can certainly feel the difference in his neck, where he’s developing muscles and beginning to fill out. He’s also gotten heavier to lift and is standing taller so we’ll probably have to raise the winch up a bit.
We’ve gotten quite a few emails regarding visiting the little guy. Only weekday visitors need to be pre-scheduled by us- this coming Saturday is open to everyone all day – no reservations needed. Sunday the barn will be closed to visitors.
If you do come visit we ask that you please remember the barn is very similar to a hospital room or a nursery – indoor voices only, please do not bring your pets, if you do bring children please explain to them the need to walk and talk calmly in the barn area and that Windchill can only be fed the hay in the stall and limited other items we will have on hand. With 19 other horses to visit while you’re here, there’s plenty of opportunities to pet and feed lots of horses, a dog and cats. Barn & Farm Rules