Weather or NOT

Yesterday Los Angeles experienced thunder and lightning. That's not typical of storms here. As I was growing up in Texas there was hardly ever a rain cloud that did not bring lots of thunder and lightning. In the flat geography of the Texas panhandle you could see a lightning bolt fork to the ground for miles away. It was always a spectacular show.

However, in the thirty some odd years that I have lived in LA I have heard thunder less than five times. It is so rare that I first thought it was an explosion in the distance. And this lightning storm was deadly killing a couple of people. One person was struck and the other was killed as a result of lightning striking a tree which fell to the ground.

It will be rainy in Basel, Switzerland when we are there, but for the most part it will be great weather. I am looking forward to being there and finding out what it is that I will be doing exatly. Although my part is the Ringmaster, last time the director did not write the dialogue until the night before. I assume he will write something else this time. I remember it was very esoteric translated from native French into English. At one point I remember asking the director Philippe if the audience would understand the complicated references contained in some of my dialogue. In a very serious French accent he said, "Perhaps not". I wasn't sure if that was a comment on my enunciation or a statement about the audience.

I did activate the Sim chip in my Blackberry so "thumb blogging" is a possibility from Switzerland. However, Sandi is going with me so any blog time will probably be taken up with "exploration". Perhaps this is a chance to actually twitter? I'm just not sure that a travel log delivered at 140 characters at a time really tells the story. I don't go to twitter everyday, but I have been following Astronaut Mike's twitters when I do. If he can't make the daily life of an Astronaut exciting, my little trip to Switzerland is probably not going to make it as a twitter. I am also taking my camera of course, but there probably won't be in any pictures published here until I return.

We leave for a couple of days in New York tomorrow very early in the morning. I will do my best to post a Friday comment.

As you were,
Jay