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Cloud Watching in England

No Cloud Watching because...

There's no clouds!! There aren't even little wispy clouds or anything. Nada. Nothing.

#1 Cloud Watching

Take a moment and look....what do you see? What type of cloud is it? Why is it dark and light?

First off, this picture was taken with my husband's phone on our way to water our garden. I notice a few different things:

1. When I first saw it, I saw Europe.


But I think I always see Europe. That's because I want to go to there. Okay, I have been there, but only Great Britain and Ireland. I've never been to continental Europe. However, looking at this cloud formation, there's no Italy, and Spain is floating in the Mediterranean and we're actually missing other countries, so never mind. Just a random thought, how many of us really know the countries of Europe? I mean shouldn't we? It's kinda a petpeeve of mine when people don't know where European countries are. Hello! We fought 2 wars there, well 3 if you want to count the Cold War in sense, and our economies and politics are tied there. Know the world folks! Anyway, upon closer examination, this is not Europe.

2. There is a face in it. If we reference the map of the Europe, look where the North Sea "should be". There's like a mustache, I think it's a smile. Do you see it yet? There's 2 little cloud puffs or dots for eyes and then the 2 other big puffs are like pigtails. I think it looks like a Muppet or something from Sesame Street, like Zoe with her mouth closed or something.




3. One last thing I see when looking at this cloud a horse on its hind legs. So if we go back to our map of Europe, the horse is approximately where Ukraine or Eastern Europe is, that hole in the cloud, I think it looks like a horse on its hind legs....Or just had a thought a dragon with wings but not shooting out fire.





What do you think...what do you see?

"The Jungle"

From time to time I'll post about what I'm reading because that too is something I do.

I just finished "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. It was written in 1906 as an expose on the meat packing industry in Chicago. It follows a fictional immigrant family from Lithuania and chronicles their struggles.

I discuss Upton Sinclair and "The Jungle" when I teach about The Progressives and I have the students read a quote or two from the book but I'll be honest, I never read it. But finally this summer, I dove it and LOVED it.

While reading this I had to keep reminding myself that this is an expose and this was really going on. I think he captured the naivete of the immigrants, that it was going to be grand and perfect when they got to America. I think Sinclair does a great job at contrasting the hopefulness of the immigrants to the reality of the fact that nobody cares about them. Sinclair goes into great detail about how the big businesses manipulate and use the "raw material" (the immigrants) like they don't matter, because back then, they didn't! There were thousands coming off the boat every day and were willing to work cheaper than those already in the country.

I also appreciated the awareness that the characters come to gain by the end of the book, especially Marija. I think it's brilliant.

The only issue I had while reading was the socialist push at the end of the book. My opinion has nothing to do with the political aspect of it, I just thought it was the ending was disconnected to the rest of the story. I mean, I realize there was a large socialist movement during this time. And I recognize that maybe Sinclair could not have finished the story because, in reality, the story was not over so he ended it the best he could.

History Lesson:
After this book was published it really changed the country. Due to Upton Sinclair's expose of the meat packing industry, and others involved, we have the FDA and other food restrictions to make sure that the food we consume is as healthy as possible. Now many may argue that the food we consume today is still not up to perfections but that's a discussion for another time.

How Clouds Form

Okay, so heat rises and clouds form. That's pretty much it. Well, there's a little bit more than that. I just recently took a physical geography so I could earn my geography endorsement and the teacher explained how clouds were formed.



As the sun heats up the earth, it rises. The heat from the ground heat will continue to rise as long as the outside air is cooler than the ground heat. Then what will happen is that hot air must reach its dew point and mix with a cumulus cell nuclei and all that hot area has cooled and begins to condense. When the heat begins to condense, that's when you get a cloud!

In the Salt Lake Valley all clouds will be at the same elevation because it all has the same dew point.

Now when you see an anvil cloud, it means that the cloud has (the rising heat) has reached the stratosphere.

(An Anvil Cloud)

Also just as a side note. Darker clouds are more dense and brighter clouds are less dense. The reason why they are dark and bright is because of the sun. If a cloud is darker, not as much or no sunlight can get through and vice-versa.



*Again, these aren't my pictures.

Types of Clouds

Today I was going to go cloud watching but it's overcast so watching clouds really isn't possible today.

Instead we'll put on our nerdy glasses and talk the different types of clouds. (The following cloud pictures I did not take by the way).

Cloud Type #1: Stratus Clouds
These are flat layered clouds, not too puffy.


Cloud Type #2: Cirrus Clouds
These are the clouds that you see on hot days and that are thin and wispy.


Cloud Type #3: Cumulus Clouds
These clouds are the smaller cotton ball clouds.



Cloud Type #4: Cumulus-nimbus Clouds
These clouds are the big puffy clouds.



There are other variations of clouds but here are the general types.

Free Time?

All growing up and even now, I don't know if I've ever really had free time. I mean I've always been busy. I had school, lifeguarding, swim lessons and practice and other activities. I've read in my spare time or something. But I don't think I've ever had time to develop a "hobby" that would take up my free time.

Now I'm a teacher with summers off and I take continuing education class for the first few weeks of summer but then I have a month and half to do what? So for the next month, and hopefully beyond, I'm going to be trying a little bit of everything until I find at least 1 hobby that interests me and something I can do in my free time. If you have any suggestions please share. I already cook, and created a scrapbook and I don't play an instrument so that's kinda out of the question for the moment, even though I would LOVE to play the violin one day. (It's always been a dream of mine.)

On this blog, I'm going to record my journey of hobbies. Starting on Monday, it's cloud-watching mixed with photography!