Category Archives: Travel Tidbits

One encounters all sorts of interesting things on the road. Or even a little ways off it.

Future Dogs

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Some of you may know of my dream of someday owning a pug, which I would name Manfrick.

A pug, which may or may not also be named Manfrick.

Imagine, if you will, a calm household with an aura of creative enlightenment. 40-yr-old me is in the sunroom, reading a book on anthropology in a comfortable modern armchair. I decide to give my dog a treat.

“Manfrick! Here Frick! C’mon Frick!”

A small energetic pug comes waddling as fast as he can waddle, feet clattering eagerly on the wooden floor, occasionally spraying doggy saliva as he pants with excitement at the prospect of human attention. His little bulging eyes look up at me adoringly as I pet him.

“Good boy Frick!”

All the while, he would be waggling.

This was my dream for a while. A small dream, but a dream nonetheless. Well, my travels have changed me. My hosts in Anoka, Alex and Syneva, had the coolest dog ever and the projected Manfrick in my head has changed. It is no longer a pug. Besides, pugs can get eye injuries from their eyes sticking out so far and their faces not sticking out enough. (The sniffling problems, rather than being another drawback, were part of the attraction for me.)

“What is this cool dog that replaced those terrible pugs?” says Attractive Girl with a shudder.

Wait, Attractive Girl, you don’t like pugs?

“No. They are not attractive at all.”

Dude. That’s why pugs are awesome. Anyway, to answer your biased question, here’s the new Manfrick:

Old Manfrick: NO! New Manfrick: YES.

This is an actual picture of Alex and Syneva’s French bulldog, Thomas Peterson. He is awesome. Friendly and strange and funny-looking and not too excited and still just a little bit wheezy. I want a Thomas Peterson!! (Except of course it would be named Manfrick.)

Also, isn’t Future Dogs a great band name?

Oh my gosh, it really is!!

EDIT: Wow, I also just noticed that Thomas Peterson has his own blog! What an amazing dog!

Awesomulonimbus Clouds

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Here is something which you could have seen if you were in Chicago on July 10th, 2008. Which, circumstance of circumstances, I was! I popped in somewhere for a restroom break, and it was super nice out.

When I popped back out (that’s how I enter and leave buildings — popping), I saw this bad boy coming at me real fast:

That is a wall of solid storm comin atcha.

It could be CG, but it's so not. It is real.

Right after I pulled out my camera, I felt the wind picking up quite a bit and heard tornado sirens whir to life. I only had time to snag those two shots before it was overhead.

These are known as struthionimbus clouds.

It was a large overhanging Shelf of Swirling Stormy Darkness. It was moving incredibly fast and super low, and the coulds right behind it were very confused, swirling around like crazy.

This formation is known as a cumuloswirlus cloud.

What you miss in these shots is the amazing moving 3-D-ness of all of this.

Another shot of some spinnostratus clouds.

Actually, after the initial wall passed, the cloads went up quite a ways. I felt like I was in a giant cloud dome.

A frisbee! That's the simile I want. It looks like a giant dangerous cloud frisbee.

During these shots the wind was starting to whip things about, and it became markedly cooler. Not long after the above shot, the rain began to start. I’ll leave you with perhaps my favorite shot:

This combination of spinnostratus and cumuloswirlus clouds is called an altocirronimbulus.

Just thought you all might enjoy seeing this.