It’s called “I Lobster but Never Flounder,” and it’s by Pinkard and Bowden. I hope that someday my sister will make her version of this song — for me, if for no one else.

I Lobster but Never Flounder Pinkard and Bowden – I Lobster but Never Flounder

Your vehicle is capable of receiving XM Satellite Radio anywhere in the United States except Hawaii, Alaska, and Canada.

Now, why would we want all that cold? And on that note, I wonder how many illegal immigrants are here from Canada?

I printed the screen of my web browser because I think it’s really cool the way that Ike is still defined over Illinois:

The spiral structure is still there!

According to the tracking map at WeatherUnderground, it looks like it’s going to head out to the Atlantic up the Great Lakes as a Tropical Storm. Cool.

And later today after the rain stopped, I filmed some video footage. Good stock footage in general, but I pieced together the following for the fun of it:

Remnants of Ike

Heh, a pause while I continue to move my bedding downstairs, to type on my computer still upstairs. Cardinal’s baseball and severe storms. “For those of you tuning in upset that the storm is once again interrupting your baseball”… such memories… so many storms…

And an eventful night nation-wide, not just in the central states, as Obama claims the democratic nomination?

Back to moving downstairs…

Down here, now, camped next to the “Tornado Closet,” and I’m going to post this before a power outage occurs. More later.

Later… HA! Once again, my area of the county seems to be in the donut hole, though, since I can’t judge what’s going on by the look of the clouds, because it is dark outside, that’s fine with me (as I mentioned before). The cells that were so threatening, generating warning after warning a half hour ago, have weakened. Kudos to RC McBride, whose name I remember from so long ago, when I was still a kid. I associate the name “RC McBride” with Cardinal baseball and severe thunderstorms. I should add that I’m a Cubs fan, and that I associate him with Cardinal baseball solely because it always seems as if WJBC is broadcasting a Cardinals game whenever severe weather hits. Much like my mom’s grilled chicken interruptions from severe weather. And as WJBC scales down their severe weather coverage and returns to baseball, I turn off the radio and listen to the light but constant rolls of thunder outside the window.

Flash flood warnings span the width of the state of Illinois, along the storm line, from near St. Louis to Danville.

Or, weeks that my dad went on business trips, when we were sure to get a tornado warning in the dead of the night. I remember one night, where the walls were visibly inhaling and exhaling in a pressured rhythm until the damper on the fireplace slid open. That may seem like nothing much, but my mom used to have to pound the damper handle with a hammer to get it to open. When we ventured out the next morning, the cap on my neighbor’s chimney was gone, and his staggered wooden fence was dismantled as if someone had walked along it, gently lowering each log on his way. Such strange happenings.

I’ve been told that most people go through their lives without ever having seen a tornado. I count myself lucky to be among those who’ve seen one (more than one actually), and also haven’t been touched by it. Physically touched, or negatively emotionally touched; I’ve definitely been touched with a love of severe weather.

I’ve seen five tornadoes, a funnel cloud, and rotation that later became a tornado. I was actually scared of thunderstorms, even the calm ones, until I was in fifth grade. I remember before fifth grade, when my mom and dad would be putting away the dishes after I had gone to bed, and I would hear the cupboards shut, and I would sneak out of my bed timidly asking them if we were in a thunderstorm. I was much like our dog, Oliver, in that way, as he was terrified of thunderstorms as well, though he wasn’t afraid of the cupboards. During one of our numerous tornado warnings, my dad, as usual, was wandering around the house looking out the windows, peering this way and that trying to get the best view of the clouds. Occasionally, much to my mom’s dismay, he would roam outside looking into the sky. I remember trying to convince him to come to the basement with me, yet he very insistently asked my sister and me to come look at the cloud that was rotating above our house. Terror turned to fascination. Since then I’ve seen only one tornado. Four tornadoes before and the lone funnel cloud before as well.

We’ve avoided the brunt of all storms so far since I got back in mid May, much to my dismay. All we’ve gotten is rain. And lots of rain. The ground is waterlogged, but so far of the creek has not flooded. I detest nightly tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, because since the sun isn’t around, I can’t see the cloud formations. We’re under a tornado watch until 2 a.m., and it doesn’t look like anything is going to happen before sundown, so if anything happens after then, I’ll be quite disappointed.

The tornadoes I’ve seen:

• Heyworth cone
• NE column
• 2 tornadoes and a funnel cloud while on the expressway in Colorado on vacation
• The F0 fluke, on the day before I started junior high school, in the field south of our subdivision

(With a bit of editing, I could turn this into a creative nonfiction piece. Something for me to keep in mind.)

While clearing out the house a few days ago, the continual process that it is, I found one of my journals from when I was in college. In perusing it, I could tell that during those years I continually wrote (as a writer for my college newspaper, The Argus). My writing voice was punchy, and I didn’t continually depend on a handful of words and constructions. This post and my previous posts on this blog lack the voice I had as a writer. They lack ME as a writer. And I lack the discipline with which I used to expand and expound on a subject in an entertaining way. The paragraph above can be a creative non-fiction piece, or any other form, and could flow better, and tell itself better. Such is the challenge to me. Where I used to take liberties with my writing, and succeeded as an established writer in my niche, now I stand-by for the short, monotonous exposition.

I just pulled my ankle out of socket leaping down the hallway. Yeowch. I need to look into kickboxing, or some sort of kicky-swingy-concentrative activity. That’s sure to both keep me in the shape I’m in, and provide a constructive outlet for my energy. If I’m not careful, I may decide to leap over a park bench or some other construct. That’d go well.

The carpets get cleaned tomorrow. I must return to hauling breakable junk out of and off of furniture, and temporarily moving the boxes downstairs. Junk, junk, junk. I’m ready to sell it all! Well, most of it anyway…

• Just Basketball, by Dave Kindred (2001) (an IWU hook)
• In a cozy little gym, it feels like the big time, by Bryan Burwell (nothing to do with IWU)

There’s also the first book that Coach Bridges published, A Dunk Only Counts Two Points. Shocked, I was, to see the prices it is selling for at Alibris’ used books, topping out at $87.50.

And of course, I must add Quill’s blog, Titan Tidbits, on which I found the links to the 2 articles.

I was fortunate enough to be back in town for most of the 2005-2006 basketball season, when the Titans again made it to the Final Four. Though I had been the men’s basketball reporter for the Titans while in school from 1998-2002, and therefore in 2001 when that team made it to the Final Four, I had taken that spring semester to study off-campus, with the Lakota Nation program at the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership, and in doing so, was not present in person for the entire championship run.

CCIW Chat board on D3hoops.com (a most entertaining conversation)

I suppose when it gets down to the fan level, when you ignore all the national media hype present in D-I, the experiences are congruous. Yet, I think that to be a fan at a distance, it may take a bit more work to be a fan of D-III. Not that that provides a reason to be a D-III fan, but it circles back to the hype that surrounds D-I men’s basketball. Perhaps streaming technology has changed things since 2001, or maybe the steady stream of comments and posts concerning “pure” basketball has awoken small cable stations to provide footage of D-III games; this I wouldn’t know. I do know that while sitting in my room in Lower Brule, SD in 2001, I was glued to my computer, where thankfully I had a fast enough connection to hook into IWU’s home-town radio station, WJBC, and listen to the broadcasts of the playoffs, when they weren’t pushed to the side because of Illinois State games. It takes effort to uncover coverage of D-III games. And I’m lucky that I chose such a high-profile school in the world of D-III men’s basketball. As D-III schools go, IWU gets a lot of local coverage, comparatively.

Sounds like I’m saying news coverage is good! Coverage is, but I don’t like hype. When it becomes about making money over the players and the sport. With everything that the internet provides, I think D-III could eventually go they way of D-I, not with the small step to the NBA and the over-excitement this causes the money-makers, but with the possibility of bringing in funds for the schools themselves, or for the sponsors, or some third party. Unless something is written in the code books against that option. And I don’t like that possibility.