Ben Benner’s Blog

So the weather here in Cedar Park is no bueno at the moment.

Gina has rounded up all the animals, the two rabbits (Nortbert and Zoe), the bird (Jasper) and the pups (Buddy, Emma, Curly and Basil). To be honest, the guest bathroom is feeling a bit like Noah’s ark. We heard some nasty sounding hail about 10 minutes ago. We had a quick dip in the power for a second, not enough for everything to actually go dark.

The radar is showing that there is likely a funnel cloud up there in the general area, hence the fact that we have hunkered down in the bathroom (being the interior room with no windows). I am going to contact a roofer after this and see if the roof has been damaged.

The radio just made an announcement about the storm, from the sound of the announcement the storm is south of us now. I just checked the Weather Underground and it looks like the storm is pretty much south of us right now.

We are going to hang out for at least another 20 minutes and then see venture out, see if there is any damage. All the animals are taking the little field trip here fairly well, with the exception of Basil who is always a little tweaked.

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… vs wisely.

I chose poorly this morning.

I wore shorts to work instead of a longer legged garment (ie jeans or pants). I have been normally checking the weather every morning before making my wardrobe selection, I skipped that part of my routine this morning. And as the wife pointed out to me, I had gone outside earlier this morning and returned to the house saying loudly “Wow, it is cold out there. And did you see the ice on the deck?”

Ummm, yeah so I should have put 2+2 together and gotten that it was going to be cold ALL day. However, in my meager defense the weather here this past week has been that it starts way COLD and during the day gets WARM (or at least one day it was like 80, which means it was HOT, for winter).

All in all, I am reminded of the fact that I used to wear shorts to Sexton (high school), partially to be weird, the other part because the school was heated with radiators which meant that it was usually too HOT to be comfortable in jeans.

This time around, I made a poor choice. In part thinking that it would be warmer during today, based upon the widget on my desktop it is 37 degrees (Farenheit) outside. Also, I cannot remember if the office that Jeremy and I share is too hot during the winter times. In part, our office is way too COLD in the summer. I was assuming they would kick the heat into overdrive during the winter. Thus far, not so much.

Lunch is over and time for a meeting.

Laterz

Update: On the way into work today, I was thinking about my blog post from yesterday, as I wore pants. And it struck my why all day the “I choose poorly” didn’t look quite right. I am going to blame it on being in a hurry, but it struck me on the way into work, I apparently “wrote poorly” yesterday too.

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Now, some of you may or may not know this term. I just learned it myself, from my father-in-law.

It is the hole or break in the bad weather (or clouds) that gets folks to think that the weather is finally shaping up and is going to be just fabulous, therefore they get their swimsuits on, they load up the boats or jet-skis and head out onto the lake. Then it hits you, the clouds roll in and most likely the rain starts.

Ummm, so we were all packed up (I mean the car was completely loaded and we were like five minutes from loading dogs) and then it got sunny and the weather turned nice, so very nice.

You guessed it, we stayed another day. I even got the silver floating lounging blow up thing and was in the water, I borrowed the anchor and tied to the lounging thing (don’t worry Tom I returned it to the boat when I was done, right were I found it).

However, the weather was only nice for about an hour or so, then it started to get cloudy and about five minutes after that, it started to rain, about 10 minutes after that it started with the thunder and lightning.

Major suck.

The storms blew threw after about two hours, resulting in only a mostly cloudy situation. We went back out onto the dock and hung out for a bit. I was too cold (seeing as my shirt and shorts were still wet from lounging in the lake earlier. Gina on the other hand stayed out there for several hours.

We had dinner at The Club in Central Lake, they have by far the best burger I have had in Michigan (there are a couple of contenders down in Texas for Best Burger Ever).

I woke up and let the dogs out and found the lake covered in a pea-soup like fog. An hour later the fog had burned off, the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky, the lake was crystal clear and calm. Gina jumped in and had a quick swim and began the debate on whether or not we were going to stay up north just one more day.

I told her we should probably head down state today and remember the lake being beautiful rather than staying and possibly being sucker holed again, though I am sure with our luck it was gorgeous all day long.

Well, we are back in the Lansing area. We have done our shopping for MSU gear and had the chance to  hang out with Joe Kursch at Buddies in Okemos (or whatever town is out near the Meridian Mall).

Tomorrow morning we are having breakfast with my mom and then lunch with my pops down in Pleasant Ridge (near Detroit).

I need to wrap this up and get to bed, morning is going to come too early and breakfast is at 8:30.

Laterz

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