Hurling wind, blowing wind and twirling wind

February was a chaotic month and I did not post to this Blog. Between my personal, academic and professional schedules, the remainder of the day (5 to 7 hours) was spent in slumber or with a nasty flu that seemed to plague everyone this season. And just a quick editorial note: it's little more than 2 months after the world's deadliest tsunami struck, and already people have completely forgotten about southeast Asia.

If you haven't looked at Mad magazine recently, give it a try. Personally, I haven't stopped reading Mad since I was old enough to read. I think it's entirely possible that I scanned through my uncles' Mads even before I could read since the 1960's Mads were peppered with pictures of scantily-clad girls and what pre-teen (now called "tweens") wouldn't want to look at that. Since Mad is now put out by the AOL/Time Warner oligopoly, it is printed in color on slick paper and is full of advertisements for things like video games and zit ointment. It's still funny and timely and edgy.

March is the start of severe weather season here in Illinois. Where I live in Plainfield is right in the middle of "Tornado Alley" and was the site of the only F5 tornado ever in the Chicagoland area on August 28, 1990...it claimed 29 lives and injured 350. Check out this brochure entitled about thunderstorm, flood & tornado safety from the National Weather Service. Tom Skilling was at Plainfield Central High School on February 26, 2005 to speak at a weather spotter training. Here's what Skilling had to say about weather spotting and the Plainfield Tornado. Incidentally, this tornado was so remarkable, that it actually received the name The Plainfield Tornado and is referred to as such in the encyclopedia and in National Weather Service training for meteorologists. The F5 Plainfield Tornado was also so remarkable that Dr. Ted Fujita (for whom the F- scale is named) himself investigated the damage of the tornado and wrote about it in 1993. My best friend's mom died from injuries sustained in the tornado. She was a teacher at Grand Prairie Elementary School and was inside when the tornado struck the school. The building was ripped apart and fell all around her. Her name was Kathy Nelsen, she was from Iowa, she attended Knox College and she was a great person. One night on the way home from Scouts, she said "Rob, why don't you work on getting your Eagle?" and I did...I became an Eagle Scout...it's one of the most important things I ever did, and essentially it was at her prompting. In Plainfield we take the danger of tornados seriously; I hope you do, too.