The sun peeks over the Sandias.
Speaking of filthy weather, looks like I made the right call when I skipped cyclocross nats in Illinois.
USA Cycling announced via Twatter this morning that powerful winds had caused “heavy damage to both the course and the venue,” and that the industry races would be canceled and other events delayed and shortened.
Still, could be worse. This is apparently a love tap from a series of storms that roared through the Midwest and South like Sherman marching to the sea.
Kentucky may have gotten the worst of it, though a tornado in Illinois ripped open an Amazon fulfillment center like a wassail-crazed holiday reveler taking a box cutter to a package.
“About half of it’s missing, it’s gone,” a fire department captain told The New York Times. The building was about 400,000 square feet. One wonders how many car condos were parked nearby, their occupants grabbing a bit of shuteye between holiday shifts.
Here in The Duck! City we awakened to temps in the teens, but the usual blue skies appear poised to prevail. The furnace is running like a cyclocrosser with a 60-mph tailwind, but at least the roof is still on.
Tags: Amazon, tornadoes, USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships
Mad Blog Media 
December 11, 2021 at 10:28 am |
Oh know ! All those poor packages.
But really, your mention of the warehouse workers is to be appreciated. Let us hope that the vehicles they have were in fared well.
Beautiful image POG. Is that something you can take from your home at this time of year. Kind of liked StonedBinge?
December 11, 2021 at 10:36 am |
I hadn’t taken the time yet to read any national news yet prior to my post. The weather events were much more devastating then what I thought.
December 11, 2021 at 10:39 am |
Illustrating these news nuggets can be troublesome. I don’t want to violate anyone’s copyrights, and it’s not always possible to create something locally that serves my twisted purpose.
Also, frankly, I’m not much of a photographer. Especially since I no longer have an actual camera, just this elderly iPhone SE (2016).
But this one just leapt out at me as I walked around the corner of the house to the trash can. Pure dumb luck that I happened to be cleaning the litter box at just that moment.
And yeah, unlike me and thee, those storms were not playing.
December 11, 2021 at 11:19 am |
You have a good eye for composing your pix.
Mayfield, KY, took a big hit last night. It is 30 minutes from Murray, KY, where Andy and Liz have lived and attended Murray State University. They both graduated from there, grad and undergrad. They have friends in Mayfield but no news.
December 11, 2021 at 2:08 pm |
Thank you, sir. Boy, Mayfield took a beating. The Washington Post has a photo/video collage up, and the mind, it boggles.
December 11, 2021 at 11:21 am |
First task before all others:: Clean the litter box – As instructed by Miss Mia
I think that all of us could put together a small gallery of images, taken over the years and that would be considered quite good by most visitors to that gallery. Although when reviewing our images we all believe that they / it could have been composed better, and we certainly believe that with “advanced gear” the image would be better, but in most cases timing, luck and having the momentary idea for the image is what makes it appealing.
and of course, operating under the directive of a furry creature with sharp claws doesn’t hurt to motivate us.
December 11, 2021 at 12:33 pm |
Filthy weather indeed. Locally damaging winds are forecast from 4 PM today until 5 AM tomorrow. Mask mandate for all indoor public spaces to begin Monday in NYS.
December 12, 2021 at 8:35 am |
Keep your head down. Evil weather and The Bug are not your friends. This is not how I envisioned spending my Golden Years.
December 11, 2021 at 11:00 pm |
I watched the Accuweather and Weather Channels for an hour when I got home tonight. Holy wow, what a mess and crazy loss of life. Was horribly windy here too. Kept me up all night with 50 mph winds. And we were 200 miles north from all that.
So a customer comes in tonight that I know from the cycling community and asks if I was out doing the photography for the events in Wheaton the last few days. I had no idea what he was talking about. Told me he did that it was the cyclocross U.S. championships. “Huh?” I still was ignorant about it. “Cantigny! They’re over in Cantigny” he says. “Hmmm.” I replied. “Through tomorrow too, on Sunday.”
Well I guess I blew it. Now I know. And Sunday I’m working the full day. Blast.
You know what also upsets me? Cantigny is just 2 miles down the road. That stuff would’a sure looked good in my cycling galleries.
December 12, 2021 at 8:35 am |
Yeah, you gotta follow the fringe media to keep up with these fringe sports. If they had an e-bike category or maybe a gravel component it might draw some mainstream eyeballs.
I’d forgotten about cyclocross nats myself until I saw a mention of it in BRAIN’s Twitter roundup. I heard the Chicago Tribune had some pre-race feature, but when I went looking for it I stumbled into a quagmire of popups, autoplay videos, and other annoyances.
My last nats was in Boulder, back in 2014. Easy drive from Bibleburg, but not two miles easy.
I guess you can watch today’s action on Flobikes, but I can’t get excited about it, especially since they don’t seem to want to tell me how much they charge for their service.