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I was reading a fascinating segment in The Cloudspotter’s Guide about Swedish meteorologist Hugo Hildebrand Hildebrandsson ^{1 2}. In the late 1890s, Hildebrandsson published the first cloud atlas, defining a nomenclature for cloud formations. In it, he coined the terms ‘Cumulus’, ‘Stratus’, ‘Cirrus’, and in particular, ‘Cumulonimbus’, the particular cloud formation that led the cheery phrase “to be on cloud nine”.³

Cumulonimbus, a cumulus cloud of great vertical extent, was delegated the ninth genus in early editions of the atlas (it was moved to position 10 in later versions). The term gained particular fame in the 1950s and 1960s, with the song Cloud 9, as well as the Johnny Dollar radio show, in which every time the hero was knocked unconscious he was transported to cloud nine.

As an aside, another explanation is that the phrase derives from Buddhism and that Cloud Nine is one of the stages of the progress to enlightenment of a Bodhisattva (one destined to become a Buddha). ⁴

I ordered the book “Country”, by Jasper Conran for Sarah a few weeks ago. It turned out to be more gorgeous than I anticipated. The book is huge (300 pages), and its contents lovely.

There are already a bunch of reviews on it, but check this one out first:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/7421235/Jasper-Conrans-Country-exclusive-extracts-and-photographs.html

Included are beautiful views of the English countryside – a photographic essay was captured during a year of exploration around that area.

It’s a fabulously rainy morning in Minneapolis. I tuned into KFAI on my way to work, only to find Dig up the Roots playing some wonderful tunes that compliment the weather perfectly.¹

Dig Up the Roots is hosted by Cyn Collins, author of the book West Bank Boogie.²

Friends close to me know I’m a huge fan of American Public Media’s American Routes, which is syndicated across the country every Saturday at 7pm.³ Production of the show moved to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It’s on every Saturday night at 7pm (91.1FM in the Twin Cities), but you can hear the archives here at americanroutes.publicradio.org

I was poking around the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board site when I found a great history of the city’s parks.¹ You can download it in PDF format here:

http://www.minneapolisparks.org/documents/parks/Parks_Lakes_Trails_Much_More.pdf

It’s interesting to see how many things in Minneapolis are named after and inspired by poets and their writings (Holmes, Bryant, Longfellow, Nokomis, Hiawatha). The document is pretty long and amazingly thorough.

Some quick finds from the guide: ²

On Lake Nokomis…
The lake was known as Lake Amelia from 1819 until it was renamed on December 5, 1910. The lake was originally named for the daughter of Captain George Gooding. The name change was proposed in 1909 by the Hiawatha Improvement Association, an organization of neighborhood residents.

The change in the name of the lake in 1910 was appropriate. Naming the lake for a character in Longfellow’s poem, which had made Minnehaha Falls known around the world, was fitting given that the lake’s only role in early park thinking was as a reservoir to ensure an impressive flow over the famous falls.

One of the first mentions of the lake in park board proceedings was December 7, 1891, the day the board designated for acquisition the land for Minnehaha Boulevard from Lyndale Avenue to Minnehaha Falls, crossing Minnehaha Creek between Lake Amelia (Nokomis) and Rice Lake (Hiawatha). The board discussed at that time controlling the flow of the creek to ensure there would be water over Minnehaha Falls the next summer when the city would host the Republican Party’s national convention. Getting the convention for Minneapolis was a huge coup for the city; it was the first national political convention held in the “west,” and provided the city a chance to show off its heralded new park system.

In early 1892 Charles Loring, who had been the first president of the park board from 1883 to 1890, wrote that he hoped the board would secure Lake Amelia as a reservoir. “I have given the subject a great deal of thought the past two months,” he wrote to William Folwell, “and I feel sure that storing water there is the only way we can secure a flow over the Minnehaha Falls… By holding the water in Lake Amelia and only permitting a flow of say eight hours a day I believe we could keep the falls in very respectable condition.”

Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles
In July 1911 Lake Calhoun was “married” to Lake of the Isles with the opening of a channel between the lakes. The opening of the water connection between the lakes on July 11 was the focus of a week- long celebration in the city. The celebration featured canoe races, fireworks at Lake Harriet and a play about the city’s history that ran for three nights at Loring Park to crowds of 25,000 each night. A cartoon in a Minneapolis newspaper depicted the event as a wedding of the lakes, and indeed water from both lakes were mixed in a “loving cup” and poured into the canal to symbolize the union of the lakes.

Loring Park (aka Central Park)
In 1889 the board placed ten row boats on the lake which were available to be rented, and also accepted a gift of a pelican for the lake. When the board first approached the state’s game and fish commission about stocking the lake with fish, the commission reported in 1890 that the lake was so full of bullheads, it might have to dynamite the lake to get rid of them. Although there is no record of whether the bullheads were dynamited, the lake’s environment for fishing must have changed over time, because in 1918 the Minneapolis Angling Club constructed a casting platform on the shores of the lake. Many years later, in 1943, the lake was stocked with pan fish to provide a dietary supplement to rationed food during World War II.

Powderhorn Park
The smaller lake became home to an important attraction in winter, a speed skating track that hosted national skating championships and Olympic speed-skating trials in the 1930s. Attendance at the 1934 national speed skating championship was estimated conservatively at 50,000 for the two-day competition. Attendance at the Olympic trials the following year was reportedly hurt by sub-zero weather. The Olympic trials were held again at the track in 1947 and four of the nine skaters to win spots on the U.S. Olympic team were from Powderhorn Park. One of those four, Ken Bartholomew, won a silver medal at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St Moritz. The other Minneapolis skaters on the U.S. Olympic team were Arthur Seaman, Robert Fitzgerald and John Werket. (The speed skating track was moved to Lake Harriet in the early 1960s and later shifted to Lake Nokomis, but the popularity of speed skating waned in part due to a change in speed skating competition from pack skating to racing against the clock, the European style, on a larger track. The speed skating track was reopened at Powderhor1990, but was shifted to Armatage Park in 1999 as an experiment. It has since been discontinued.)

Sarah picked up a copy of this excellent book, “The Neighborhood by the Falls: A Look Back at Life in Longfellow “, documenting the history the Longfellow neighborhood. It is written by Eric Hart, a long-time Minneapolis Native, and the Longfellow History Project.

Find it here: http://www.longfellow.org/resources/longfellow-history-project-book.php

I’ve been reading up on weather quite a bit lately. Here’s some interesting stuff I found on dew points.

Weather Watchers on PBS has a great video that sums it all up. ¹

Humans tend to react with discomfort to a high dew point (i.e. greater than 15 °C (59 °F)), as it interferes with the body’s normal process of perspiring (producing sweat) to cool down. High relative humidity (which results in a high dew point) impedes the evaporation of sweat and reduces the effectiveness of evaporative cooling. As a result the body may overheat, resulting in discomfort. ²

Discomfort also exists when dealing with low dew points (i.e below −30 °C (−22.0 °F)). The drier air can cause skin to crack, become irritated more easily and will dry out the respiratory paths.

Lower dew points, less than 10 °C (50 °F), correlate with lower ambient temperatures and the body requires less cooling. A lower dew point can go along with a high temperature only at extremely low relative humidity (see graph below), allowing for relative effective cooling.

Those accustomed to continental climates often begin to feel uncomfortable when the dew point reaches between 15 and 20 °C (59 and 68 °F). Most inhabitants of these areas will consider dew points above 21 °C (70 °F) oppressive.

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 from a record distance, showing it against the vastness of space.

By request of Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission and now leaving the Solar System, to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space. ¹

The fact that we can still communicate with the Voyager 2 spacecraft fact from 13 billion miles away is positively mind-boggling.

Sagan gave this thoughts on the deeper meaning of this image:

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.”

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

My friend Justin led me on to this one night over beers. He expressed some interest in beekeeping, which I only discovered was legalized in Minneapolis recently, according to the Star Tribune and MPR. ^{1 2}

Wikipedia says Beekeeping (or apiculture, from Latin apis, bee) is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper (or apiarist) keeps bees in order to collect honey and beeswax, to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. ³

Here’s the interesting thing. Royal Jelly. Worker bees and queen bees start life as identical eggs laid by the parent queen. Whether an egg develops into a worker or a queen is determined by the way it is fed Royal jelly differs from the food given to worker bee larvae. Subsequently adult queen bees differ in many respects from adult worker bees: the queen alone is fertile, will mate and will lay eggs, very prolifically. She will live much longer than her sister worker bees. Royal jelly is therefore a potent food as far as developing honeybees are concerned. ⁴

While you probably won’t get rich keeping bees, you can contribute to their turnaround; as bees are disappearing across the globe. Check out Beekeeping, Urban Style. ⁵

Interested Twin Citians, should see Honeybee Ordinances in Minneapolis, “Chapter 74 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances relating to Animals and Fowl” ⁶

The category page, “Games of physical skill” is one of my favorite random Wikipedia discoveries. ¹

I found it after searching for the official rules in a staring contest.

The index includes a few games I was previously unaware of:

Greasy Watermelon
Ear Pull
Keg Tossing
Finger Jousting
Fascination (now this blog’s official parlor game)
Frozen Walrus Carcass

See also, “Games of Mental Skill”, a fascinating related category. ²

This set of articles should be plenty to occupy a bored office worker for the better part of an afternoon.

I found Sister Nancy on Pandora and have been hooked ever since. She is known to be the the first female dancehall DJ and was described as being a “dominating female voice for over two decades” on the dancehall scene. ¹ You’ve probably heard her signature song, Bam Bam in many reggae/dancehall sets ². You might have also heard her in collaborations with DJ Rupture, Kid 606, and Thievery Corporation.

Via an interview on Munchie, she says, very simply, “There is no secret of Bam, Bam. Bam Bam is just Bam Bam, I tell them all the time.” ³

A few of my other favorite tracks include Transport Connection and One Two. The bass line in Coward of the Country always makes me smile.