Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Wintertime was magic when I was a kid. When the snow came, it transformed our world. It turned the forest that surrounded our ranch into an infinity of marvels, mysteries and delights. We could track the animals and follow their secret ways. We didn’t get a lot of snow, most years there wasn’t enough to dig tunnels even for kids on their stomachs. Every few years, though, we’d get two or three feet of snow that would stick. Then we would build the tunnels, sliding and pulling ourselves through them on our stomachs like demented penguins.
What I remember most about those snow tunnels was the color. It was an icy blue that only lived one place in my experience, in the snow tunnels. That color had a strange fascination for me, it was a source of some strange wintry warmth that could only be produced by the weather. Nothing else on my planet had that same color, nowhere was there that same icy blue as the snow tunnels. Even today, I get the shivers thinking of it.
Over at Judith Curry’s excellent and perennially interesting blog, there’s a discussion about what makes for a good scientist. One thing that has always pushed me to search for scientific explanations has been my never-ending awe at the size and the power and the endless varieties of weather around the world. I always find myself asking, how do they do that? What mechanisms explain that? How is that possible?
One of my first experiences of this kind of awe was at something I’ve never seen described anywhere since. That’s what got me thinking about the winter.
Near where I grew up, there was something called the “German ditch”, which exists to this day. It was dug by hand, maybe around the turn of the last century, by the early German immigrants. It brought water from a noble watercourse yclept “Atkins Creek” to a whole string of ranches along the lower hillsides. It was maintained by the collective labor of those who benefitted from the water, on the eponymously named “Ditch Day” which occurred once a year, or more as necessary. It picked off water from the creek and brought it in the ditch, which up at the head was maybe three feet wide and two feet deep (.9 m x .6 m), for some miles along the ridge.
Along the way, there was another creek that the German ditch had to cross over. It was spanned by a wooden framework holding up a wooden channel of about the same dimensions as the ditch. It was a lovely piece of work, all hand-done back in the day, with notches and mortice-and-tenon joints in the framework. At places, it was maybe twenty feet (6m) down to the creek below.
And of course, it leaked some. Not a lot, it was kept up, but some, as such wooden sluices are wont to do. Now, I used to like to walk the forest when I was a kid. And so on one very, very cold winter morning, somehow I ended some miles from home, up at the wooden aqueduct where the German ditch was dripping water. I had to walk through new snow to get there, and everywhere I looked it was that blinding white. Dark glasses? We’d never heard of them.
When I got there, I looked around. Where the sun was striking at the bottom of the framework holding up the aqueduct, I saw the most astounding, coruscating, vibrant, refulgent, wildly alive rainbow of light and color I had encountered in my young life. It was like the illustrations of the pirates’ chests in the books I loved to read, chests full of real jewels, gems I’d never seen with names like rubies and emeralds and sapphires, with light that comes blazing out in all colors when you lift up the lid of the chest. But this was for real! I was stunned. I remember just standing there, entranced, amazed that nature could be so full of wonders.
When I climbed down to the bottom, to my great surprise I found a conical pile of ice, from the drips from the German ditch. It had grown up to maybe waist height. At the top of the conical pile of ice, there was a hollowed-out ice bowl. And to my amazement, the ice bowl was full to the brim with loose ice marbles. The marbles were of various sizes, most about the size of the marbles we played with in the summer, some as large as the “aggies”, the larger shooter marbles we used. But these marbles were all made of ice. And I could pick up handfuls of them.
I watched, astonished. After a while, I figured out the reason that the ice marbles were loose was that every time a splash of water came down from the aqueduct above, it was strong enough to move the loose marbles around. That constant motion had kept them from freezing solid. At the same time, it had rounded off all of the corners of the marbles and made them into perfect spheres. It was also what was responsible for the shimmering, changing light—as the sun hit the moving ice marbles, it was broken into a thousand colored shards and spun in all directions. And even when the ice marbles weren’t moving the water was dripping down them and refracting the sunlight in changing ways. I saw how the conical pile of ice had been built up out of marbles that had spilled out of the bowl and frozen solid and gradually built up to waist height. I could not have been more gobsmacked. I walked away half in a trance, stunned by what I had seen.
I bring this up and I write about it for a simple reason—to recapture the energy bound up in that sense of childlike awe at the untold mysteries of the weather. I believe that for everyone studying the weather, there must have been some such sense of wonderment that started them on the path of scientific discovery. Sadly, far too many of us, including myself, often lose that sense of merry wonderment and infantile amusement at the antics of the weather. In the tropics, to keep the feeling alive, I’d go out in the pouring rain and laugh and jump at the thunderclaps. My mad mate Mike taught me to do that, to dance and cavort in my lava-lava at midnight with the raging thunderstorm tossing lightning around the sky.
I once walked out into the face of a cyclone (a southern hemisphere hurricane). Can’t remember the cyclone’s name, it was in Fiji. I was living up on a hill, it was blowing 70 knots and gusting above that. First I tried going out with no protection, but I couldn’t look upwind, the rain just bulleted my face and any exposed skin, it was unbearable. Plus when I opened my mouth to breathe, the hurricane wind just filled my lungs up.
So I went back inside and reconsidered, and I got out my dive gear. I put on my dive mask, and I put on my snorkel. I put on my parka and pulled the hood down around my face mask. I got out and put on my long pants that I never wore in the tropics, and I went back outside. Then, at least, I could face into the wind. It was all I could do to walk out on the hill, I had to lean at a steep angle. I’m sure I looked a right lunatic, with my parka and my mask and snorkel, nothing of my face exposed. But I could see, and I could breathe.
When I got up on the hill, I saw an amazing sight, the kind of sight to loosen the bowels of a sailor. The moon was out so there was some light under the clouds. I could see far out across Suva Harbour. The sea had risen up, the waves were coming over the reef that normally protected the Harbour. Only somewhat impeded, they rushed across the harbor and were breaking down at the foot of the hill where I stood. The whole of Suva Harbour, normally a placid blue lake, was nothing but wave after wave after breaking wave. Boats were jerking around on their moorings like crazed horses, rearing and plunging. Around me buildings were losing roofs, and coconut palms were losing heavy fronds that were picked up and tossed about.
The thing I remember feeling most at that time? Other than feeling really, really glad I was on solid ground and not at sea, no matter how big the boat?
Totally insignificant. Nothing that I could say or do, nothing that anyone or any group could say or do, would make the slightest difference to the scene unfolding below me. A ship was drifting ashore, to hit where it would hit. My sailor’s soul wept to see it go, it meant heartbreak for the owners. Telephone wires were keening for the loss on all sides. I went back inside, feeling somewhat like the little bird that picks the crocodile’s teeth …
That’s what I lose too often, and what I don’t want to lose, that feeling of curiosity-filled wonderment and total insignificance in the face of the magical marvels of weather, because I think a sense of awe is a crucial ingredient in what makes a good scientist.
w.
Roger Carr says:
December 29, 2012 at 4:14 am
This guy had the Willis in him:
Norman Joseph Woodland, co-inventor of the barcode that labels nearly every product in stores worldwide, has died aged 91.
One day he drew Morse dots and dashes as he sat on the beach and absent-mindedly left his fingers in the sand where they traced a series of parallel lines.
”It was a moment of inspiration. Instead of dots and dashes I can have thick and thin bars’,” (his daughter) Susan Woodland said.
___________________
The fellow who came up with Velcro was similarly inspired, as well as the fellow who invented…
such is the history of mankind’s innovations.
Innovation is honest science.
Innovation proceeds from observed reality.
Lady in Red says:
December 29, 2012 at 5:29 am
Indeed, dear Lady, indeed you are correct. I’m a reformed cowboy, but the reform didn’t take all that well, I confess to backsliding at times, but sometimes the cowboy must have his say … it’s a work in progress.
All the best,
w.
Don Monfort says:
December 29, 2012 at 7:48 am
Don, the problem is not whether you or anyone else has what you are calling “fawning adoration”. Some people like my writing, some don’t. Some like it a lot. I don’t fault people for not liking it, there are always folks that don’t, there are always folks who just come by to carp and cavil, there are always folks who want to tell me how I should write what I write, the list is endless. So why should I or anyone care whether you like my writings a little or a lot?
Next, I think in this case that what happens is that my writing reminds people of the awesome moments in their lives. They are grateful to me for reminding them of that, but it’s not “fawning adoration”, it is gratitude. Curiously, it is somewhat misplaced gratitude, since the real thing that is moving people isn’t my writing, but their own remembered sense of awe and wonder …
In any case, the problem for me is that your objections are often woefully short on both content and clarity. Take this post, quoted in its entirety:
Don Monfort says:
December 29, 2012 at 12:30 am
Say what? What does “self-importance is best kept to oneself” mean? Self-importance is your enemy, Don, just as it is enemy and the enemy of everyone on the planet. How can I keep that to myself? Can’t be done, so clearly that’s not what you mean … but what do you mean?
You see the problem? A one-sentence post like that can only be seen as an attempt to throw sand in the gears, rather than a serious attempt to contribute to the discussion by either agreeing or disagreeing or expanding or otherwise delving into the subject. The subject in this thread seems to be inarticulate, inchoate awe on the one hand, and self-importance on the other hand.
So if you have something to add to that, c’mon down …
w.
Willis,
You are confused, Willis. I did not say that you expected universal fawning adoration. I wasn’t talking to you. I was responding to the clown, who suggested that I should not express my opinion.
I like your writing. I said above that this current post is a “nice essay”. Maybe that was too faint praise, short on content and clarity.
“Self-importance is best kept to one’s self.” Another way of saying it can be unseemly to toot your own horn. But I am just an old ranger (not cowboy, airborne) and I could be wrong, on that and many other things.
Bottom line, you have turned a nice experience into doo-doo for some of us. No doubt very few, but still some. And you have given your inconsequential clown friend jae another opportunity to tell his mom that he has gotten under the skin of the famous Willis E.
Now I will give you the last 500 words. I have better things to do.
Good night, Willis.
Ask your ex-fiancee: stroke my cheek tonight, dear. Remind me. It’s all ok.
….Lady in Red
Don Monfort says: December 29, 2012 at 7:48 am
“….markx,…..Let me guess. The people you are talking about are those whose opinions differ from your own……I am sorry that my less than complete fawning adoration for everything Willis says upsets you….”
No, no, Don, not at all. Just giving you little heads up that sometimes personal opinions are best not unnecessarily aired, simply out of good manners.
And yeah, I’m not sure if it I’d call it fawning adoration, but even though I have never met Willis, I do sort of like the guy.
Might be having some similarly shared experiences. My mind goes back to my early years of living on a farm in a mountainous area with tens of thousands of hectares of forest I could ramble through. And perhaps the few years I spent as a builders’/brickies’/concreter labourer. (Man, I loved the hard physical work I could do then.. and never realized how fit and strong I was!).
Viv Evans said at 4:41 am (29th): “… Didn’t matter if it was sheep playing (yes, they do)”
Delighted to read that, Viv, having watched groups of young lambs “racing” in natural saucers (much like little veladromes) on the slopes of a paddock (field).
There was no compelling reason for this (and groups repeated it often), just an apparent joy in the stretching of fit young muscles in a structured environment.
It has always seemed improbable that animals were “playing” in such an organised manner; but your short “yes, they do” is a form of confirmation which adds to my pondering of their returning to the saucers and not simply just running in circles on the open paddock.
Don Monfort says:
December 29, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Quite possibly, I’ve been confused before. But I never claimed you said I expected universal fawning adoration. Instead, I said:
I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. You go on to say:
I didn’t say that either, I never said your praise was faint or short on anything, that’s wholly and completely your interpretation, nothing of mine.
Ah, the famous horn tooting. Thanks for the translation, your first formulation was unintelligible. However, it seems you were saying I shouldn’t toot my own horn. Or perhaps that you shouldn’t toot yours. It’s again not clear whether it’s a general statement, or is directed at me as implied by the “willis” at the head.
Don, no matter what I write or how I write it, someone will stand up and tell me I’m doing it wrong, that I should be kinder, or more aggressive, or more direct, or less wordy, or more wordy, or not so aggressive, there’s always some complaint, This appears to be an immutable Law of the Internet.
So in that regard, thank you for your claim that I’m doing it all wrong, I believe that’s complaint number #437,242, or thereabouts.
Seriously, though, if your experience is “doo-doo” i suggest that you search for the cause on your side of your eyeballs, not on my side. I’m having a great time here. If you’re not having a good time, well, as they say in Solomon Islands pijin, that’s “side belong you”, meaning your business, not mine.
If either you or jae think that, you are terribly mistaken. I can turn a flaming torch on the actions of someone like him without my blood pressure deviating at all. I use my outrage at his kind of action, I don’t let it use me.
No, you clearly must not have better things to do. If you did, you’d be off doing them. Instead, you are here trying to school me about what I’m doing wrong. That’s OK, but don’t try to sugarcoat it like you’ve given me all the assistance you can and now you are off to save the world …
Let me say again, Don, and others who mistakenly think I’m somehow “lashing out” or that jae is “getting under my skin”. I take my positions on all of these questions, scientific and otherwise, after much consideration. I select the posts and the people I respond to with some care, and with a clear reason for my response. I may talk to one person nicely, and to another person harshly, without any obvious reason … but I advise you, do not make the error of thinking that there is no reason. Some people I work to educate, some people I work to shock, most people I work to learn from, and some people I work to either change their ugly ways or alternatively to drive away from my threads. Maintaining a thread like this calls for constant attention and triage.
This is a very lightly moderated site, and I have to defend my threads from wreckers, trolls, personal attackers, scientific ignorami, and the various hybrids, cross-breeds and sub-species of those charming netizens … I invite you to do that without stepping on some toes, Don. You might not do it the way I do, but if you just ignore the trolls and the wreckers as you and Lady in Red earnestly advise, well, my experience when I have done that is that my thread gets trolled and wrecked.
So I don’t mean to disregard your concern, Don, and I take all serious comments seriously. But it seems I must be doing something right, lots of folks read my stuff. They may not agree with me, but they keep coming back … so I’ll keep doing my triage and doing my best.
Regards,
w.
After 49 days at sea (single sailor), they are nearing the Horn, icebergs (or remnents) are forecast in their path:
http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/
Willis,
Thanks so much for your essay. This is my second time back so that I could enjoy more of the responses as others shared their ‘awe, shucks’ moments. I spent a portion of my youth about 10 miles from your ranch, near Little Cow creek. We lived for a time in a 20’X40′ cabin on what was left of my great-grandfather’s second homestead. I too had the experience of two room schools and living in the woods to stare in wonder at the revelations that were to be found every day for those who could just open their eyes and really see. From the fascination of a wooden flume, still in use from the days when it was built to power a sawmill, to noticing that one dog always grabbed the head of the skunk when the fight started, to looking for the remnants left behind by those who had been on the land before we came along. I still remember the wonder of standing outside the cabin as big snow flakes cascaded from the sky. Not so odd. But what made it memorable was the thunder. The clouds were so thick that there was no hint of lightning. But for the first and only time in my life I experienced a thunder snow storm. Unforgettable. Thanks for bringing back some memories.
pbh
Restless Farewell – Bob Dylan (last two verses) …seems apt:
Oh, ev’ry thought that’s strung a knot in my mind
I might go insane if it couldn’t be sprung
But it’s not to stand naked under unknowin’ eyes
It’s for myself and my friends my stories are sung
But the time ain’t tall, yet on time you depend
And no word is possessed by no special friend
And though the line is cut
It ain’t quite the end
I’ll just bid farewell till we meet again
Oh a false clock tries to tick out my time
To disgrace, distract, and bother me
And the dirt of gossip blows into my face
And the dust of rumors covers me
But if the arrow is straight
And the point is slick
It can pierce through dust no matter how thick
So I’ll make my stand
And remain as I am
And bid farewell and not give a damn
Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs#ixzz2GVl6vjfq
Something fun about snow tunnels and igloos: 2 fun items!
1: Snow is a good thermal insulator. With some winter outerwear, even
only a little, it’s easy to be warm in a snow tunnel or an igloo. Please
consider that Inuit were able to reproduce, probably in igloos.
They may have used makeshift rugs and bedsheets, possibly they even
partially clothed their bodies for activities often done by others when they
are naked.
2: Snow is a good acoustic insulator. Snow makes things quieter.
Then-again, I have heard of an Inuit practice of lighting a candle in an
igloo, to melt its inner surface – and afterwards, let the melted inner
surface refreeze into a glaze of ice. That makes the igloo stronger.
And, I expect that hard icy interior glaze to be largely reverberant, as
opposed to the sound-deadening aspect of snow. (Less-badly-so if the
floor of the igloo is unglazed snow or better-still rugged with animal furs.)
Looks like more than 500 words, cowboy. You really got a burr under your saddle. Nobody said that you are doing it all wrong. A couple of us offered some mild, constructive criticism on your overreaction to that varmint jae’s inconsequential comment. But you got to blow it up and make a spectacle of yourself. You are a big baby, Willis. That’s why Mosher doesn’t like you anymore. Get a grip on yourself.
I hope you don’t get really mad and turn that flaming torch on me. I had enough of that rough stuff, during my time in the real wars.
I am out of this now, really. Unless you go off the deep end and start talking about my momma.
You should have your therapist read this thread.
u.k.(us) says:
December 29, 2012 at 8:51 pm
I read “Two Years Before The Mast” when I was a kid, and that cured me of ever wanting to sail around Cape Horn. I’ve fished in the Bering Sea, but I’ll pass on the Horn. That place has the Andes running down, and the Antarctic Peninsula sticking up, so it funnels both wind and water through that tiny gap. At least these guys are going downwind and downcurrent, that would help a bit, but still no place for me.
Plus, singlehanding through icebergs? Now, I’ve done singlehanding. You have to sleep sometimes and depend on the vastness of the ocean … but with icebergs in your path? That means you’d have to heave to at night, and only go forwards during the day when you can see the dangers ahead.
But of course these folks are racing, so they won’t heave to, they’ll just trust to luck … see, this is why I’ve never liked racing in a sailboat. Far too often, it is contrary to safe practice.
In any case, I wish them well, and as the hymn asks:
w.
Don Monfort says:
December 29, 2012 at 10:08 pm
So, my post is not only wrong, it’s the wrong length as well … got it.
True, my mistake. You said I was doing it wrong, but you didn’t say all wrong.
Don, your claim that you offered “constructive criticism” is totally falsified by your latest words, which reveal that under it all you think I’m a “big baby” … constructive criticism? Dude, you started out with a point of view. You think I’m doing it wrong, obviously.
Also obviously, I don’t give a tinkers dam about your opinion, which seems to have gotten your knickers in a real twist.
Don, you don’t seem to get it. You are just the latest of hundreds of nay-sayers who each in their time seem to think they should offer me their so-called “constructive criticism”. This always consists of telling me that my writing is too something—too simple, too complex, too angry, too bland, everyone has an opinion. I’m too mean to somebody, I’m too short and curt, I’m too much, I’m too far over the edge, something. You are no exception, in any way.
So you think I was too hard or too mean or too nasty to poor jae? SO WHAT? I simply can’t afford to trim my sails to you, as you are merely the latest representative of hundreds of people who, just like you, only popped in to give me some of what I have come to call “constrictive criticism”.
Don, you seem to have this idea that somehow I lost the plot when I wrote to jae, that I was overcome with anger or something. If so, please disabuse your self of that notion, that is absolute fantasy. I picked my words to jae with great care. I selected each one for its weight and what it added to what I wanted to achieve. I chose the length and the swing of what I wrote, I considered how it went from intro to exit. I read and edited and re-read and re-edited it until it was exactly as I wanted it, with exactly the edge and the content and the feeling and the angle I wanted.
I also knew for a fact some folks like yourself would have some kind of hissy-fit or other at what I said to jae. That’s predictable, it always happens, someone always ends up clutching their pearls and asking how a nice guy like me can be so krool at times, and murmuring minor corrections. So I always look to figure how much of that I’ll get versus how much of that I want, and I adjust my words and phrases accordingly, until it is exactly how I want it, and then I set it adrift on the electronic currents …
… and then you waltz in the door and just like I figured someone would, you start in with your constrictive criticism of my words. You appear to start by assuming that I just threw the words out there at random, so you’re gonna school me on how I should present my ideas, presumably based your thousands of hours of writing for the blogs and the millions of page-views your words have garnered.
You set out to convince me that my words, words that actually do get about million page views per year, words that I’ve spent thousands of hours writing, words that I’ve polished and shaped for a particular purpose, a purpose that you are unaware even exists much less what it is, that those words of mine are too hard or too soft or too hot and mean or too cold and controlling or some thing or other …
Really? You’re gonna open by jumping in my wheelhouse? You’re gonna provide the answers without asking a single question? You’re not going to start by asking me why I took exactly that tone? You’re going to foolishly assume I didn’t think about it or was pushed into it by my raging emotions, instead of realizing that I gave a whole lot of clear, rational thought to exactly that question of tone, along with other aspects of the post? A polite question would have been Willis, why did you decide to take that tone? Or, what other tones did your consider and why did you not use them? Or perhaps, Willis, what’s the backstory with you and jae?
But no, instead you assume I’m some fool run by his gonads who is blindly angry with someone at random, that there was no backstory between myself and the person, that there was no thought in my response, and so you’re going to graciously show me the obvious error of my ways by offering, what what it you called them? Oh, yeah, “minor corrections”. No questions to me about what influenced my choices, no sussing out of the situation, no getting the backstory, no taking the patient’s history, no asking me what I was trying to achieve and how I was working to achieve it, not one single question, you just step in the door and offer some “minor corrections”?
Next time, let me suggest that if you start with major questions rather than minor corrections, your subsequent corrections might be based in reality …
And then, when I won’t play your PC game and be some sensitive New Age guy, when I won’t say I was so wrong to be mean and cruel and heartless to jae, when I won’t acknowledge that your baseless and research-free suggestions have any merit, when I won’t pay any attention to your totally predictable objections, at that point you decide I’m a “big baby” and tell me I need to “get a grip on myself” … my friend, I can’t even begin to tell you how many wrong and foolish assumptions are present in that accusation … and besides, getting a grip on myself is forbidden in the Old Testament.
I am more than happy to take constructive criticism of my writing, Don. But to get to the point where someone would be capable of making that criticism, first they’d have to find out what it was that I was trying to achieve with my words, both tactically and strategically (I consider both … who knew?).
Then they’d have to find out what considerations led me to choose those words and ideas in that particular order and tone to achieve that aim. Only then could you make cogent, sensible suggestions, either to improve my aims or my methods.
But when someone like you just walks in the door and starts offering advice? Sorry, I pay their words very little attention, as you have seen. If they were truly interested, they’d have started with questions and not “answers” …
w.
PS—Regarding your claim about Mosh, Steven Mosher has never, to my knowledge, said he didn’t like me. I certainly like him, he is a brilliant man and I always pay attention to what he says, although we often disagree and his posting style drives me absolutely spare. I suspect he feels the same about me and my posting style … but we’re grown men, I don’t see that getting in the way.
And if it is getting in the way, he’s free to make his own statements about who and what he likes and dislikes at any given instant, which seem to me to be none of your affair in any sense.
So it seems to me that unless he has appointed you as his spokesmodel, you are both putting words in his mouth and meddling in other people’s business, in addition to trying to mess about with other peoples’ friendship … generally unwise at best, and it doesn’t cast you in a very flattering light.
W.. that was really the best ‘last word’ I’ve ever read. If I were at a bar with you I would offer you a drink.. heres to you.. an amazing wordsmith!
And yes, I agree that maintaining some semblance of blog coherence in an open forum like WUWT requires the schoooling of many a troll. I know that I do not have the talents to do it. So please hang in there, as you are one heck of a natural scientist. You amaze me.
I finally teased a reply out of Willis.
Even if, it was my only comment worthy of reply, it still happened.
Onward!
Donald L. Klepstein:
The Inuit often had more permanent shelters than igloos, probably animal skins over whale ribs (precursor to modern tents).
Igloos were more of a temporary shelter, relatively easy to make for overnight shelter (if snow was good – drifted snow works well, out in the open with some variation in terrain or with ice ridges there’d be drifting though not a huge depth of snow as source). I don’t know about partly melted snow which would have a hard crust but not necessarily cohesive depth, icing on the inside of the igloo would help if you could get one erected.
I don’t know if they planned their procreation so the baby was born in early spring. They usually had food in winter in the form of sea mammals.
My love for science has always been driven by my sense of awe at
the wondrous nature of our universe. I have read Willis’ story, and
the comments of many who have shared their own moments of
transcendent awe, with recognition from moments in my life that
have stoked up that same sense of awe.
To those–usually English majors–who have said to me in the past
that: “….describing something in an equation takes all the magic
out of it …”, I have developed a standard comeback. This standard
comeback? “Being able to scientifically describe the phenomenon
that you call ‘magical’ only increases the wonder
of it. For, if you add to the aesthetic appreciation of that phenomenon,
and the feeling of luck to have been able see it, the intellectual appreciation
for just how it has been shaped by nature and how all of the various
laws of physics cooperated to produce this spectacle, your sense of
just how ‘magical’ it is can only be increased.”
Similarly tribal people to the south had portable and more permanent abodes. Teepees were used by some, the long poles used as crude sleds (rest one end on shoulders, or on horse once the Spanish introduced those), other portables were used as well. More permanent structures may have been partly sunken, using various materials including animal skins, sod, and cedar planks (split trees).
I say even “Lady in Red” is way off base.
Does she expect your story of what you did, when by yourself, should be written like “The person featured in this story stood in awe of the scene….”?
Some people have no sense!
Notice the subtle mis-representation in “I am sorry that my less than complete fawning adoration for everything Willis does upsets you.” and the blatent mis-representation “The people you are talking about are those with opinions differ from your own.”
The tactics of a con artist.
Willis, you are wasting your time trying to respond to the jerks.
What you and the decent people herein might think about is why people are attacking you (as different from on-target critique of your technical work in other threads).
Perhaps it is akin to the “tall poppy syndrome”, perhaps just plain envy.
Now we know where you first lost your marbles!
;p
😀
How about: “You, again?”
Willis;
Effective troll-smacking is indeed necessary work. Otherwise a troll-feeding thread highjack is a near certainty. It’s what they post for, after all.
The OP is necessarily the best one to do it, and keep it within bounds. Otherwise “off-topic” is the least of what happens to the thread and discussion of its message. “Flame war” comes closer.
Brian H: Perhaps the same method used to discourage phone solicitors: just keep asking questions until they hang up. After all, the goal is to disrupt. Keep repeating the on-topic questions and comments over and over. (It’s okay if “they” read this–trolls have a compulsion and will continue even when outed.)