The greenhouse effect

When I was a kid, I would read books about sports and science including those about the nine planets.

I thought I noticed an error in that the high and low temperature on Venus was the same. I pointed that to my teacher and she did not know why. At least she did not answer the question by stating it was a decision made by a supreme being.

(A book on evolution I read when I was 7 stated life began on earth millions of years ago and I asked a priest about the conflict between that and the Bible. His reply, "Faith." The next time I looked for the book in the St. Augustine school library was told it is no longer available. )

The answer to my Venus question was provided by Carl Sagan in the Cosmos episode titled The Greenhouse Effect. He explained though the planet is farther from the Sun than Mercury, it is hotter and not just the side that faces the Sun as it rotates aund the Sun in less time than it spons around itself once.

The massive amount of hydrocarbons spewed by volcanoes trap the heat from the Sun and even when facing away from the Sun, heat doesn't escape. That is why the whole planet is hotter than Mercury.

When there is a clear night on earth, heat radiates away from the planet a whole lot easier which is most noticable in winter.

Without any hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, the planet would get too cold at night but with too much, it does not get cold enough.

Weather is generally not a correcting situation. Heat produces more heat, rain produces more rain, etc. As more hydrocarbons get released, things are slowly getting warmer a little at a time. Enough years of this will make it more difficult for those on the planet to produce enough food.

This is the situation. We are making things more difficult especially when production and profit overcome responsibilities.

It will get extremely cold in the Chicago area the upcoming week. Weather happens. Right now in Australia it is so hot power grids are failing.

No matter what please do NOT state:

Where the hell is global warming?

You are likely smarter than the president of the United States and a person so stupid that she married me.

Looking at stats

One of the things I can't do on a tablet or phone is look at detailed stats from disc golf. Since playing right now would be difficult as the weather is actually reflecting the fact that it is January, I powered up the old work laptop that was given to me and looked at Illinois 50+ amateurs to see how I compared to them.

The default listing is player points and for 2018 for events in the 50+ division, I was 6th out of 82 total players who played in at least one event in that division. This includes players who are 60+ and one who is 70+ that played in one event in that division. Last year I was tied for 9th.

I then sorted the players by rating.and saw that I was 30th. Last year I was 46th.

I decided to sort by number of events played and my name was on the top with 12. (There were three events where I didn't play in MA50+ because that division was not available) In 2017, I was tied for third with 14.

The two who were ahead of me in 2017 were tied for second. Both of those players played more total events than 15 I did but they played 8 and 9 in other divisions including 2 each in the newly created MA55+ division which I will be eligible to play in 2020.

Ten year picture challenge (times two)

Many have posted to Facebook a side by side picture from ten years ago and recent to show how they changed.

Though I want to do that, can't without a computer so I will do this here but going back 20 years with three pics:

March 1998

This is against at the time World Scrabble champion Brian Cappeletto. He was tired and made a mistake at the end and I won the game. That is the same as beating Brooks Kopeka or Greg Barsby in a couple of holes at a practice round.

I don't remember what year my last Scrabble game against a human being (as opposed to a computer AI) was but with using all 7 tiles three times one of them being a triple-triple, scored 618 points against my mom.

March 2008

At the Dementia Radio part room at Marscon 2008. Was there alcohol in that cup? Of course there was. People would ask me why I would take the whole week after the convention off work. That was to physically recover from it.

March 2018

My last practice shot before playing my first rated event in 2018 in Olympia Fields, IL. That round was rated higher than any played in 2017 and equaled that of an elite player in the MA50 group who was on my card.

I am positive that spending the previous Sunday at that course practicing and not at a hotel 450 miles from there contributed to my success.

If my instincts are wrong and instead of dying in 2034 it happens soon, I would hope these three pics are in a memorial of me.