(no subject)

[randomdreams]

Today wasn't horrible. It was only frustrating. Work's the same: too much to do, and stuff that I'm not really great at, that just has to be done, with four projects running in parallel all with "we needed this done last week" problems for which the solution is, in three of them, hassling a vendor for information, that the vendor has to get from a subcontractor, so I have no leverage.
I'm making independent judgments, in a way that should, I hope, get everything solved later in the process, when it's more amenable to solutions.

Lunchtime showed up, and my manager and coworker basically talked me into going riding, not because I didn't want to, but because I have so much to do.
Nobody else would go. It was Windy. We rode largely protected running/cycling paths rather than out on open roads. There was one point at which I had to stop, pick my bike up, walk across the path, put it down, and start riding again, because I couldn't turn right hard enough to maintain forward progress due to the side wind. (Gravel path, and I had to be continuously leaning into the wind and turning, and the added drag in the gravel from pushing my tire sideways through it meant I didn't have the power to continue riding.) We cut the ride a little short as the wind was getting heavier, and came back. By the time we got back to work, trees were beginning to make like the Whomping Willow, gusts blowing their limbs down to ground level. We had to duck beneath some tumbleweeds, that had appointments in Kansas.

Then the wind really picked up. I was so glad we were inside. Chunks of trees began blowing off and smashing into the side of the building. The power went out with a loud boom, and after about ten minutes everyone started heading home.
I drove through a dust storm on the way. It was like movies of the Dust Bowl: the air went gray and then I could barely see the car ahead of me, like heavy fog only the car was shaking around as if people were standing around it rocking it. In the midst of one of the dust blasts, we had to detour over a semi trailer that had blown over on its side in the middle of the road. Several other semis had pulled off the road and parked facing into the wind.

There were no birds anywhere.

I got home okay. The power has been flickering here so I'm not doing anything with computers that I care about. (No 3d printing, cnc milling, laser cutting.) I made dinner, did dishes, did some cleaning, and retrued a badly bent front wheel for a friend.

A friend has since posted that the airport beside where I work recorded gusts over 80mph. I believe it. There are days I'm glad I'm not on a bike, or that I chose the better part of the day on which to be on a bike.

Comments

[elusis]

Jeez. Batten down the hatches.

[boxofdelights]

Wowzer. It was windy enough here that I'm expecting to see a lot of baby raptors blown out of their nests, but not windy enough to blow a strong man sideways.

[randomdreams]

At the height of the wind we briefly considered taking mountain bikes out and seeing if it was physically possible to pedal, but there was too much debris in the air...

[ivy]

If you ever try that, please get one of your cohorts to do it in a Wicked Witch costume, and take video....

[rebeccmeister]

Wow, sounds like a full-blown Arizona haboob, with bonus wind speeds!

[randomdreams]

The dust storms were, thankfully, limited to downwind of tilled but not planted fields. (There are a lot of those around where I work.)

[sistawendy]

We had to duck beneath some tumbleweeds, that had appointments in Kansas.

I snerked at this, but dayumn, I salute your macho for riding in conditions like this. As I so often say to you, don't die.

[randomdreams]

If I had known it was going to be like this I would not have gone out. Windspeeds were increasing throughout, and we should have gone earlier, if at all.

[alton_love]

You want someone to tie you down?

[randomdreams]

Perhaps just my kangaroo.

[amaebi]

*grin*

[amaebi]

Yeah, the wind's been something Wyoming. It definitely gives me good reason not to try being out gardening. From which perspective, good thing there are mornings, and the wind's not been using them.