Friday, March 27, 2009

ShamWow Dude in Hot Water

Vince Shlomi, the creepy ShamWow dude is in a heap of trouble. He was arrested in South Beach, Florida for an alleged felony assault of a prostitute in his hotel room. Looks like he won't need a ShamWow to soak up his earnings. Lawyers and fines will probably do a good job of that. This reminds me of the episode when celeb bad boy Danny Bonaduce beat up a tranvestite hooker back in 1991.

ShamWow always seems like just a sham to me. Why would anyone buy from such a smarmy, creepy looking dude anyway? If you want a good drying cloth, spring for a real chamois. Besides, why is a ShamWow any better than that other pretender that preceded it...the SuperShammy?

Chinooks Overhead

Sitting here in the house, I just heard a pair of very, VERY loud helicopters going by. As I ran to the door to seen them, they were very low and clearly identifiable as US Military Chinook helicopters. I got this shot of the second one, and interestingly enough, there is something visible that I have never seen before. Just above the aircraft in this shot are vapor trails coming from the rotors as they spin and compress the air. The lower white arc extends from the rotor blade, while there is another just behind it (above it in the photo) from the pass of the previous blade's pass. How cool is that?

To see this phenomenon more clearly, click on the photo for a larger version.

Treecicles

On Spring 2009 Blizzard day plus one, we also have beautiful icicles forming on the branches of trees as our big, life-giving sun sends its warming rays 93-million miles across space to create a beautiful scene for us right here in Colorado, USA, planet Earth!

Play Misty for Me

One thing that I didn't see too very often when I lived other places where it snowed, was the sudden evaporation of the snow into the air. Usually, it would turn into a dirty slush, followed by melting into dirty water.

While we do get some of that, our thin air at 6000 feet above sea level, coupled with the general dryness of the atmosphere here in Colorado, and we usually see something entirely different. Today, as good old Mister Sun has started warming us up after yesterday's blizzard conditions, the snow has started evaporating back into the air from whence it fell. In these photos I took while going to grab some lunch, you can clearly see the new clouds forming as the snow evaporates from the road surfaces which have been plowed and are now warming up. These "baby clouds" will rise into the air again, and bring some other place their rain or snow, as the cycle continues. It is fun to watch it in action.

Anybody Need Some Snow?

Some sun and blue sky is starting to displace the storm clouds that have moved into our neighboring states of Kansas and Oklahoma. And even though we had winds during the blizzard of up to 50 MPH, the snow still got to pile up pretty high.

The snow on the driveway was as deep, and deeper in the drifts, as this on the picnic table. And it isn't our light, dry, fluffy Colorado winter snow either. This is our wet, heavy springtime snow that breaks your back to shovel. Yeah, I'm complaining. So what! One thing is pretty cool...look how the snow on the chair arm in the foreground meets that on the table.

At least we have a break until the next snows move in next Monday and Wednesday.