Skaters, Bull Whips, Tornados, Hurricanes, and the Mother of Cyclones

We all have seen how an ice skater enters a slow twirl and accelerates the rotation by bringing her arms in close. That's basically conservation of angular momentum. When her arms are outstretched, the mass is farther from the center of rotation. As the arms move in, the mass is more centralized and has to spin faster to maintain the same momentum. 

That phenomenon is part of what makes a whip "crack". A loop of decreasing radius travels down the whip, and at the end it is rotating very fast, resulting in a pop or cracking sound (and a painful touch if you are there at the end).

A tornado is formed when a column of air begins to rotate. The column begins to have negative pressure compared to outside, which shrinks the column, which makes the rotation speed up, which creates more negative pressure, and pretty soon it can suck up an entire house with a young girl and a dog inside and deposit the whole caboodle in Oz. The negative pressure is caused by air squirting out of the top of the column.

Tornados are often spun up in the "arms" of tropical storms. These arms are acting like big bullwhips and spinning off vortices as they crack.

There is a well documented thing called the Central American Gyre, a huge low pressure system that hovers over central America and the western Caribbean in late summer. This system slowly rotates, hence "gyre". This relatively slow rotation has "arms" too, and these generate large spin-off vortices. Most of these just spin away, but some begin to consolidate (shrink and hence speed up, like the skater). These consolidated vortices can become tropical storms and leave the Gyre as independent entities. We even make up names for these children. The Gyre is the mother of (many, but not all) tropical storms in the western Caribbean. She spawned Helene, and maybe another one soon.

A Life Well Lived

About ten years ago I had a pine struck by lightening and die. It was large (about 20" diameter) and tall (75-80 ft). It was near the lake shore and endangering my dock, so I had a local climber top it to a 20 ft tall "stump". 

That butt height was safe for the dock and provided a lot of habitat over the years. Woodpeckers (at least one Pileated family was raised in it) and smaller critters enjoyed it's safety and bounty.

As inevitable, the butt finally slumped over, forming a barrier to lakeside maintenance, so it was time for a cleanup and cremation. This is where I started taking some pics. 

The dissection revealed an inner core of heart pine through most of the butt, valuable as "lightwood", natures fire starter, so I decided to salvage some of it. In the process some of the smaller forest floor dwellers appeared.

The outer softwood was mostly soft soil by now, which I scattered and left to fertilize the area. Along with relocating the living critters still there. The two short video clips at the end show carpenter ants and termites. (These would be hard to spot in a still photo.)

The remaining scraps of lightwood pile into the hollowed-out stump and make a fire, good enough to take the stump below ground. 

The salvaged heart wood will light many fires in the fire ring at WinterCamp and in the wood stoves at Bucksnort.

Four days later - all smoothed out for regeneration of ground cover. 

Dogs

You know that Far Side cartoon, where Fido is trying to lure the cat into a clothes dryer with a sign reading "cat fud this way" ? Well, we may think that's funny because the dog appears so stupid. But really we are stupid to laugh at it. The dog (1) has no sense of cruelty, like we do; and (2) communicates about food with a sense of smell. If we attempted to put something together like that sign, only in the smell medium, we would be far outclassed by Fido, who is far more oder-iterate than we could hope to be. This cartoon captures the sorry tail end state of our relationship with dogs, and it is a sad one.

We have had dogs in our lives since the dawn of reason, and we probably owe our intellectual capacity to them.

Just sayin'

Don't Go to the Doctor

(Initially published as a story of facebook.)

Feeling nerve pain in my left shoulder, arm and hand, enough discomfort to prevent sleep, I paid a visit to the walk-in clinic. That was August 2022.

The initial guess - there was a pinched nerve in my neck, likely because I made the mistake of mentioning I had bonked my head standing up under a tree limb. (It's usually not a good idea to plant seeds like that.) As is common for people my age, X-rays did show a narrowed gap around C5. That and the "bonk" did make the pinched nerve at the neck seem plausible, so I went with a prescribed regimen of PT at their facility, along with a cascade of Prednisone. After several weeks of that, I felt stronger and more flexible in my upper body, and the night-0time pain was alleviated, so all seemed good.

Unfortunately, exactly in step with the ending of the Prednisone cascade, the initial problem returned. Note that all this time I had no actual diagnosis because, as one of my MD consultants put it, Tallahassee is underserved in neurologists. Meaning, there aren't enough of them. I had been on a waiting list to see one since the initial visit.

Finally, in early December, I got the call. Diagnosis: classic carpal tunnel pinching. Easily fixed with arthroscopic surgery done with local anesthesia. SIGN ME UP!

Just one little hurdle, due to my age any surgery, even this minor procedure, can't be scheduled until my main guy signs off on it. A kind of permission slip. No problem, I thought.

Well, everything looked good, as I expected. But, since I hadn't done an EKG in 10 years, in the interest of thoroughness, they harnessed me up. The caregiver took the printout away, but returned saying it was a bit fuzzy so they wanted another one. (I thought, here we go.) She came back and said they wanted a 3rd confirmatory reading. After looking that one over, she returned with the news that I was, at that very moment, in Atrial Fibrillation. I'm thinking, why don't you have paddles in hand?

Turns out, one can have "afib", to use the friendly nickname, with no symptoms, including not hearing anything abnormal via stethoscope.

So I'm immediately put on "blood thinners" and sent off to see the "electric heart guy", who, apparently can't be the same as my previous cardiologist who does only "general" cardiology. Electric heart guy wants to run 2 tests (echo cardiogram and stress EKG) followed by a shock treatment.

I know some of you are thinking, it's about time they fixed that old SOBs brain, but you're wrong. This is essentially the paddles, done while put under for a few minutes because "it is very painful". I asked if it was more painful than being tazed, the answer is "it's different" - devoid of the information I was seeking.

Well, finally, on Valentines Day, I went in to TMH and got all that done. I passed the two tests, with only one casualty being my right foot, and the shock treatment flipped the ole ticker out of afib ... for the present. I'm told by everyone from Dr to custodial staff that I can slip back into afib at any time. I asked, how will I know? There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer, but I'm advised to check my pulse regularly.

So, now, I'm hoping to be cleared to get the carpal tunnel procedure and with luck cure the original complaint.

RE: the right foot - when I was wheeled in concentric circles and up and down various elevators without being informed as to the reason or destination, I ended up at the stress EKG facility - a treadmill. With my shoes still far far away at my cubby which I would not be able to find in hours of searching. Using the treadmill vigorously, barefooted, stressed my right plantar facia, and I'm hoping I can nurse it back to health in a few weeks.

PS: In no way is this story intended to reflect poorly on any of my physicians or other medical personnel. I hold all of them in high esteem and am quite fond of those I've known for a while.

Bad Day for 98.6

Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Woke up to this scene:

Top of a pine blown off by last night's storm and tossed across our drive. No big deal. Tree work has been going on steadily for several weeks, I can take care of this in no time. It's such a simple job I won't bother to put on my boots. Run get the tractor w fork lift, powersaw, and woodsman bag and get to it.


Well, after sawing up the trunk and limbs into length I was loading the last round and noticed I had missed sawing off one limb from the trunk. So I jumped off the tractor, grabbed my ax, with heavy gloves still on, and started to lop off the limb. Something slipped in the forks and a pine branch jumped out and bit my arm. Now I'm pissed off at the tree. So I took an ill-advised swing at the limb.

Recap: (1) no boots, (2) heavy (awkward) gloves plus sweat, (3) poor concentration on fundamentals. That is three strikes. Bam:

It doesn't take much with an ax. A modest swing carries a lot of momentum, and of course I like to keep tools sharp. The only, ONLY, defense is to keep body parts (your and other's) up-vector from the direction of force of the ax. In my haste and loss of cool (temperature and temperament) I did not follow that rule.

Literally, after 70 years of axmanship initiated by my father, my first ax injury. Sorry Dad, I knew better. I'm still a work in progress.

This photo was taken in the front yard. That's Michelle's arm (a friend) holding the leg up while I'm pulling on a make-shift tourniquet (old belt). Kathy was on the phone guiding the EMTs in. They estimated I spewed out more than a liter of blood. (They said one and a half, but I was still conscious, so maybe a little less.)

The EMTs arrive and took over - cut off what's left of the sneaker, took one look, and applied their real tourniquet. (It was a CAT Tourniquet, the kind I've been meaning to acquire ...). That's an EMT holding up my leg, the red tag on the CAT is barely visible on my thigh.

The rest is straightforward - trip to the ER with #trauma, immediate service, got some blood and other fluids, stitches, etc., home before noon.

No tendons, ligaments, or major arteries cut - most of the bleeding was from veins, maybe a small spurter.

About 48 hours later, it looks good. Still sore! Keep it clean and dry.

Lessons to re-learn:

1. If you work with woodsman/woodswoman tools, you should always wear safety equipment and have at least two IFAK items handy at all times: A tourniquet and a quick-clot bandage.

2. You are never too experienced to have an accident.

3. If you have an accident involving heavy bleeding, it is an emergency that you will not survive without immediate first aid. Carry, and learn to use, your tourniquet.

My heart and condolences go out once again to the family of the woodsman from North Carolina who cut himself in the top of a tree here in Tallahassee while helping the locals recover from Hurricane Michael. He severed an artery in his leg and could not get out of the tree before bleeding to death. My understanding is that he did not have a tourniquet in the tree with him.

Weezie

May 24 at 10:28 PM · 

Weezie Lacher
August 11, 2004 - May 23, 2018

Weezie was born Drafting Design, of parents Dodgem By Design (dad) and Eastside Romp (mom), on August 11, 2004. She was raised as a professional racing greyhound. Her racing career ended with early retirement from the Jefferson County (Florida) Kennel Club in 2007 due in part to an injury whose scars remained with her always. She was subsequently adopted by a family that was unable to take responsibility for her and re-adopted by Chris and Kathy Lacher in the spring of 2008. She crossed over to the eternally happy family life on May 23, 2018.

Weezie was a delicate, gracious, loving, and impeccably mannered lady. And she could run like the wind. She loved her home life with her adoptive younger brother Beau, her younger feline cousins Louis II and Cleo II, and all of her greater human family.

Sweet dreams dear Weezie. We all love and miss you.

Rod Creagh

Rod Creagh

With deep sadness topped off with many fond memories, I bid farewell to my old friend and brother-in-law, Rod Creagh.

Rod was a truly great man. Professionally he was an oral surgeon of extraordinary skill. From the mundane (he extracted all of my wisdom teeth) to the heroic (repairing the obliterated lower face of a pretty UGA coed to like-new), he never turned away a patient. Farm-to-table gifts were not uncommon, in lieu of cash.

Rod was also a musician. He organized a "garage" blue-grass band, “True Grass”, in Athens, he wrote songs (one of which, famously, was recorded by both the CW singer Mickey Gilley and the jazzman Mose Allison), and after retirement he formed "3-Wire Music", a music publishing company, in Nashville. Many wonderful family evenings have been spent listening, chatting, and singing along with Rod.

The phrase "3-wire" comes from his days as a US Navy fighter pilot. Four arresting cables, or "wires", are on the flight deck to snag the tail hook on a plane as it lands, the third being the optimal wire. Rod once had the third wire rip the tail hook and lower fuel drain system out of his F4D Skyray, sending the plane off the front of the USS Shangri-La. He ejected just in time.

I have had many wonderful travels with Rod. We rode several TOSRV-Souths together, and even a couple of the TOSRV Tuneups many of us did back in the day. We did Mt. Mitchell a few times and the 6-Gap more than I can tally. We rode several week-long bicycle tours, including Ride Across Arizona (twice) and Peddle the Peaks in New Mexico and Colorado. We competed together in whitewater canoe races on the Nantahala and spent a week bringing a yacht from Cincinnati to Mobile (via the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, Tombigbie, Black Warrior, and Alabama rivers, using the Tenn-Tom waterway to get over the divide from Lake Pickwick to the Tombigbie).

Rod was always there to help and believed in going out of his way for family and friendships. While my Mom was living with us, Rod made it a ritual to visit and go out with us for "Tex-Mex", one of Mom's favorites. (Well, that and the Margueritas.)

The passing of great friends like Rod leaves holes in life that cannot be filled. We can only cover them with steel and live the new, diminished version.

Fare well my friend.