We may not have known it, His (her?) creatures great and small, but Saturday had an additional second, a leap second if you will, because it had to-other wise the very fabric of the cosmos would have unraveled or worse (there would be no more third class mail delivery on Saturdays or something).
So it's possible all the weather damage in the Middle Atlantic States was part of the leap second recalibration and if so I can certainly understand why people who live there would prefer to do hard time the next time. Pat from TV5 via Munchen and NASA had a house with no power for some of the weekend and I'm wondering if maybe Roger of Roger and Dar did also. I suspect that was also the case for John C in Newport News.
Round these parts, weather-wise it didn't get silly until late yesterday afternoon into early in the evening as the skies grew dark, the National Weather Service got all excited and then, for the most part, we called it a weekend. Except I have to be honest and tell you we did have something similar to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, even if all the ponies were under the hoods and the cars were black and white cherry tops.
I'm starting to better appreciate why we need a new thirty-four million dollar public safety/police station in the middle of downtown. I'm being overly kind (as I so often am)-in the middle of what would be a downtown if there were a downtown worth its name in which to be in the middle. Between long term investments and short term memories, we're going to have after the end of our City Council deliberations tonight at least two ballot initiatives for November that together will cost us about forty-five million (American) dollars. And worth every penny of it to hear those with power tell it.
I'm hoping when that new super-duper police station is built we'll have a sealed storage vault for all the Mayan calendars that must be floating around in the current station, since as we were walking down to the fireworks Saturday at Norwich Harbor (I really hope that link works, I'm never sure with so much of this tech stuff), we marveled at the prophylactic traffic control efforts of the Norwich Police Department working from what I am guessing was a Mayan calendar that will never again see the light of day, no matter the year.
I love the sense of humor it took to put dozens of these signs on yellow sticks attached to blocks of wood and strategically place them along choke points for the apres-fireworks automotive exodus. The notices seemed to work just great as no cars were parked anywhere where they were displayed and dispersed which means we are either a peaceable and pacific people or we simply can't read.
I've been in the middle of too many argy bargys in two decades around here to believe the former and have gotten enough Notes from folks who learned spelling via correspondence course during a mail strike to have zero faith in the latter. Maybe we're all just really bad at math. After all, looking again at the notice sign, when exactly is Saturday July 2, 2012 anyway? Have we missed it or is it yet to happen? Am I going to get another lecture on the difference between ignorance and arrogance? I would hope not, at least not for me.
And since I'm the one so concerned about the three stooges or was it the Four Horsemen, do you suppose any of this happened because of the Leap Second? Can we get My Little Pony on the line and arrange a meeting. I'd offer to check my calendar but that's what got us into this mess.
-bill kenny
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