The Answer is Blowin' in the Wind

Lately we've been twirling the dance floor of spring severe weather with a dance partner that won't let us take a break and sit one out. It seems that the outbreaks have occurred either to disrupt the school day or to disrupt a night's sleep. Being a mild weather geek who lives in a garden home with no basement, this has given me no shortage of anxiety. I'm almost ready to call an end to spring and let's just get on with the heat wave.

Last night was no exception. Moderate severe weather category from the SPC (whose terminology is somewhat confusing: "Slight" risk is not really so slight and "Moderate" risk is not really so moderate.), midnight dew point in the 70s, and a peek at radars to my west added up to a big "Oh, crap," as I waited from wall-to-wall severe weather coverage from the battling meteorologists. My NOAA weather radio went off a dozen times for various warnings. When things got cranked up it was a doozy. The squall line was almost due west to east and the whole thing seemed to be rotating. We got the kids up and went to our safe place, lightning bounced them out of bed another time, and I got whiny with Joan, who wouldn't let me go out in a lull to check my rain gauge. It was a fun night.

But the party ended a little after three and we all got up a few hours later to clear skies but ferocious wind. We got ready for worship and as the service began I was reminded what today is in the church year: The Feast of Pentecost, of course.

As I lay down to rest after lunch, to try to make up for some of the rest I lost last night in the storm, I heard the wind screaming through the trees in my backyard. I captured a brief moment, and in celebration of Pentecost, and the Spirit, and rest, I give you, "The Wind:"



"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

"When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."

Come, Holy Spirit, come. Amen.

Million, Billion, What's the Diff?

These days, it doesn't take long for numerically-themed discussions to reach the stratosphere: the thousand-thousand, or million, and beyond.





Consider these numbers:

1. Birmingham's mayor wants to spend almost one million dollars to provide [irony]free[/irony] bus rides for the summer.
2. Jefferson County's sewer system is over three billion dollars in debt, threatening to bankrupt the county.
3. President Bush has asked Congress for seventy billion dollars for the war on terror, bringing total expenditures since September 11, 2001, to more than eight hundred billion dollars.

John Archibald had an interesting column in the paper this week. He says that numbers like million and billion are tossed about with little regard because we don't have a meaningful standard to compare them with. Given a recognizable scale, such as time, puts the differences in stark perspective.

Consider:

• One million seconds: 11 1/2 days
• One billion seconds: 32 (are you ready for this?) years
• One trillion seconds: 317 (hang on) centuries

Pretty soon, we're talking about serious money...