Clifton’s Place

Some of you know that I have some unusual interests, among them
portable manual typewriters.
The University of Pittsburgh has designated the coming week as "Love
your Computer" week.  I take umbrage at this, and I counter-designate
next week, "Love your Typewriter" week.  In celebration thereof, I
will take a troublesome computer from my house into the woods
and "unlove" it with my Mossburg shotgun.  If I’m
lucky, I’ll stay out of jail.

As mentioned before, I have been exceptionally grumpy the past couple of weeks, and my  long-suffering mate has diagnosed me with the PMS - Parked Motorscooter Syndrome. I am happy to report that I have been able to relieve it, somewhat. Wednesday and Thursday, I had doctor things, and rode my Silver Wing to those and then to work! Wednesday was a gorgeous riding day - temps in the 60s, sunshine, the works. Thursday sucked, with cold and light rain, but I rode anyway. I am anticipating Sunday morning, when I meet with the scooter club. It will be cold, but one more ride!

Yeah, I know, I have been slack updating this thing. I’ll try to do better. As I write this at 1:00pm, the temp outside is 39 degrees, 16 degrees below normal high for this date, and a continuing of about a 4-week stretch of below-normal days and nights. Damn that global warming!  I have some real physical problems with the cold, and have been unable to do anything outside or ride my scooters for about three weeks, and I am grumpy. My wife has diagnosed me with PMS (Parked Motorscooter Syndrome) and is hoping for some warm sunny weather soon, almost as much as I am.

Speaking of global warming, I am *not* a subscriber to the panic of man-made global warming. The ol’ ball o’ dirt here has been warming and cooling since it has been here, and will continue to do so. For those of you in panic because "Greenland is melting!", I would ask you to kindly Google "medieval warming period", and you will find that about 1000 years ago, the south end of Greenland was really green; Nordic farmers, sheepherders, all that. That all took a dive about 1400, when the cycle reversed and a "mini ice age" set in, making the northern hemisphere welldigger’s-butt cold for about 300 years. You should also know that the polar caps on Mars seem to be receding, and there ain’t no way to blame that on earth-bound SUVs. Always remember that this same bunch of "scientists" have, in 40 years, been in a panic about global *cooling*, overpopulation, catastrophic starvation, global deforestation, we have been supposed to run out of crude oil about every 5 years since the 1960s, etc etc etc. There is a period of warming going on, yes, mostly due to increased sun activity over the last 25 or so years, and it is a regular thing.  Look people, Mother Nature is in charge here, and she can be a goddess or a bitch at any time. She will be rid of us when she is ready to be, and there is not a damned thing we can do about it. Just enjoy the ride; our lives are too short as it is.  Cheers.