New Hometree

Morning

Already dissolving anyway. Rained last night.

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Afternoon

Snowed more yesterday. Now it's sunny and cold.

Here, it's crazy. In the night it goes below zero, and in the day to around +10. Few days ago, at 5AM it was -2 and at 2pm the next day like +15

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Well ... and people are still telling me that my 'feeling' the weather pattern changed clearly is worth nothing and data show this and that. Srsly? Experiences, eperic knowledge has to be taken into account. But yeah - they might go on and ignore it. Ignorance wont keep you dry and warm and nature surely doesn't give a .

It's really cold again now and still sunny. But we too had about 8°C a few days ago. This is just crazy.

Morning

Yeah, I think weather patterns really have changed over the last years. I can't remember having so many storms or heavy rains in the past. And this December and January were statistically relevant more dark and overcast than any time period since they started officially noting down the weather since (I think) 1957.
Things are changing and whoever wants to ignore that is just plain stupid.
Okay, I also like to say "where is climate change when you need it" when another bbq is rained on, but that's just for fun... indeed it's a serious thing.

Over here finally cold and sunny, the kind of weather I had expected a month ago.

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Also the sun feeln very different. Back when I was a child summers could be really warm, but the air itself was warm, wrapping around you like a thick duvet. Today all the warmth seems t ocome from boiling hot sunshine that feels like you've been put on a grill. The air often doesn't get as warm as it used to (you can notice it whenever the sun goes away it gets much colder in a second). I miss this real warmth and sunshine that doesn't burn you within a few minutes.

When I told that the 'husband' of an aquaintance a while ago he reacted by trying to talk me out of my own experiences, saying stuff like "Yeah - but sometimes your feeling isn't really showing the truth." making clear that I might be really wrong about this observation as the numbers doesn't seem to indicate the same. Has he ever heard of the habit of authorities trying to play down problems as long and severe as possible so they can continue to ignore them? This has happened so often in the past that one wonders how anybody still just believes what they say without trying to check other sources. It's weird.

I was like... 8 or 9 years old. Winter break... For 2 days straight we had the constant heavy snowfall. So I visited my grandparents. Their garage had quite low edge of the roof. Snow was so thick, we compacted it a bit, and I could simply climb onto the roof of the garage. Snow was over 1 meter deep. That same winter, during the last night of the winter break, we had another heavy snowfall. Roads not cleaned etc. teachers living ih the city didn't come to work for this reason or that reason (read: lazy). But the english teacher, who lived in the village some 15 kilometers away did come. Roads covered with about 1 meter of snow. But the man climbed his tractor and came to work. THAT is what I call dedication. It is always very easy to find the reason for not doing something, but great people tend to find a way around the obstacles.

As for the ignorance... A couple of times I have tried to explain meteorological phenomenons to people... 9 out of 10 times they would look at me like "WTF is he talking about?!"

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I can't tell if it's ever been that bad during my childhood, but a few years ago we had two consecutive winters of crazy snow. During the first winter I had to drive 100km to and form work each day. And around christmas, after a night when it was particularly bad, I decided to stay home. Nothing like that is worth risking my life. I have no problem with people staying home because of bad weather. Nature doesn't care for 'appointments'.

Well yeah - even after all the years I just can't get wrap my mind around why people - even those who clearly ak . don't want to listen to the answer, because there might be more than 5 words in it.

Attention span of a three-year old. It's longer than a twitter text
It's something I've noticed in the web too - the number of real "articles" you can read is going down to be replaced by either short videos (I don't like watching those short videos - never know how to listen to the sound. In the office I'd need to find earplugs from somewhere - and I hate earplugs - and at home I'm usually listening to music, so I'd have to first turn down my music, then switch on the sound on the video... ugh, and just cause people are too lazy to really read a text instead??? ) or short texts, just enough that they fit on the screen of a mobile phone.
So of course all has to be boiled down to a few words, completely ignoring the fact that some things just can't be boiled down to a few words cause it leaves out essential information you need to understand the full picture.

And what happens to a brain that always gets fed all those short, easily-digestible little snippets of non-information? When confronted with the real thing, aka longer texts, explanations, whateveryounameit, it produces a bluescreen due to information overload.
Yay!


Oh - and morning

Brains of a lot of people are spoon-fed irrelevant stuff such are "reality" shows and such crap... And since brain's capacity to process information has its limits, all brains process is... crap, so there is no space left for science.

well - yeah, the intelligence forecast doesn't look too bright.


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Evening

Don't you love those days where you're that busy that you can't even have a sneak into the boards?

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Afternoon

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Good afternoon!

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Ugh. Snow. Do not like.
Can it be Spring already?

Kaltxi frapo!!

I know it's been a while since I've been able to check in. Atokirina and I have been extremely busy over the last year growing our FX Makeup business, which takes up every minute of our "spare" time, and we still have our regular jobs on top of that. We were fortunate to save enough money to finally take ourselves and my kids to DisneyWorld in Florida at the beginning of this month. We spent 10 days in Florida, 5 of those at the Disney parks, and 2 of those Disney days at Disney's Animal Kingdom park, where Pandora - The World of Avatar is located. WOW! What an experience. Disney did an amazing job bringing Pandora to life on Earth. You really feel like you are there. The attention to detail, the sheer number (and size!) of Pandoran plants, and the scale of everything is unbelievable. And at night all of the Pandoran plants glow, and there are several hundred (if not thousands) of them. Pandora is now the most popular area of Animal Kingdom, and the Na'vi River Journey and Flight of Passage rides are STILL lined up for hours non-stop from opening until close every single day. The rides, like the rest of Pandora, are completely immersive. For fans like us, and our special connection to Avatar, the Flight of Passage ride was almost emotionally overwhelming. Exiting the ride for the first time, we could barely speak, and had to pause for a few deep breaths. It's the closest you'll ever get to riding your own Ikran. We rode Flight of Passage 3 times during our visits, and just like with Avatar the movie, you notice new things every time your ride it. And you get a peek at some of the aquatic creatures of Pandora! The Na'vi River Journey is a traditional Disney boat ride attraction, and again, the details are amazing, including the animatronic Na'vi Shaman that is the most realistic animatronic that Disney has ever created. The mix of physical objects with cleverly placed 4K projection screens allow the creatures of Pandora to scurry about all around you. Windtraders, the gift shop that you have to pass through after you exit Flight of Passage, is chock full of the largest selection of Pandoran/Avatar themed merchandise we've ever seen. Once again, Disney did an incredible job of creating interesting and unique items that you can only get at the park. We went a little nuts and spent about $600 there, including 2 custom Nawmtirea & Atokirina Avatar figures (they scan your head and you chose other characteristics of your Avatar for a customized figure that stands almost 30cm tall), the Ikran that sits on your shoulder and moves, an art print, jacket, backpack, a cool light up glass ball with a laser etched Wood Sprite inside, a cute stuffed Pa'li for my daughter, and a Na'vi cave drawing-style photo frame.

Pandora is so incredible that we've decided that we're going to try to visit every 2 years. And there are rumors that Disney is adding a new restaurant and A 3RD ATTRACTION to the Pandora world, most likely to coincide with the release of AVATAR 2 in 2020! I'm sure there will be another AvatarMeet held at the park when the 3rd ride opens.

We'll post some pictures once we've caught up on our work again and sorted through the 100 or so photos that we took on Pandora.

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@Nawm: Wow - that sounds sooooooooo awesome. Sigh, I'd probably have spent all my time between that Iknimaya ride and the waiting line for the Iknimaya ride...
Looking forwards to the piccies!

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It's Sunday.

I might read that book if I find some time and nerve for it next week (now it's still Weekend and I try to avoid stuff).