'Cane Watch
A little short on sleep today because I stayed up late watching Hurricane Felix. Of course, I wasn't watching it in person, but thanks to the internet I had all sorts of satellite pictures and charts of T#s and other statistics to view along with interesting commentary from hobbyists and professional meteorologists on assorted blogs and forums. It was almost as fun as the hurricane watches I used to do with my dad, back before the days of computers when we would hand track the path on a paper chart by listening to reports on the ham radio. I say almost as fun because even though there is more information on the internet and the satellite pictures were amazing to see (right as it was happening instead of in grainy black and white photographs days later), it just wasn't the same. Sentences typed in a blog, forum or chat don't carry quit the thrill of hearing the actual voices and personalities of the commentators crackling over the radio and searching for a blog of someone who might live in the affected area that might happen to be writing at the time wasn't near as much fun as figuring out how to make radio contact to that part of the world. But what was missing most of all was the sharing of it in person with a fellow enthusiast, one who was excited as I was about every new update or report from the hurricane hunter aircraft. Ah Dad, you probably have no idea how much fun I had or that I even remember those times so fondly. I'll have to mention it next time we talk.