The weather was eerie in Erie today. Three waterspouts were spotted on Lake Erie and up to 5.48″ of rain caused significant flash flooding.  The water flooded the Belle Valley Fire Dept. up to 4 1/2 feet deep, causing 1/2 million dollars in damage.  A disaster emergency was declared in Erie as homes and businesses flooded and several individuals had to be rescued from stranded cars.  A number of streets remained closed Tuesday evening.  They still have storm total rainfall up at this hour at CLE NWS.  In Cleveland, 20,000 customers were without power after lightning blew out a major transformer.  Severe storms also caused lots of damage (trees on houses and cars) in Connecticut

We are mere hours (mere = 48′ish) from the beginning of this year’s Rothbury Festival. Our crew is assembled, and we’re all ready to bring you pictures, videos, tweets, and observations from all over the Festival grounds. The Rothbury section is all set up at woodtv.com, and is starting to be populated with stories – Jessica Leffler took an excellent look at the Festival setup process yesterday. I think she has a bunch of video left over, so I may try to poach that and share it with you later on.

Anyway, I wanted to take a quick moment and just introduce the 4 of us who will be up north (or down south, depending on where you live) this weekend. Hopefully, we can build some street cred… Except for Jason and Michelle’s first concerts – we probably lose 2 points each for those…

Here’s a quick look at our crew:

(more…)

The latest from Ed and Bill:  “With a spike up in everything oil/gas/diesel, we are very ripe for a spike.  I’m putting it at about 65% possible. The margins for Michigan and Indiana just fell below zero today after riding a period of profit taking. It’s possible we won’t see a jump right away as Speedway and the other stations wait for the weekly DOE report later today for which direction we should see for the end of the week. But it’s been a while since the last one, I’m betting on a spike up to the $2.67-2.73 range.  Do fill up as spike protection.”   FYI – It’s still $2.69 on Alpine…significantly cheaper just about everywhere else.

7:10 PM Monday-   Here’s GRR radar.   Chilly air coming down…it’s only 50 at Copper Harbor, 57 at Gaylord.  The mid-Lake Superior bouy shows an air temperature of 43.7 and a water temperature of 38.5.  Our air is coming off Hudson Bay which is mostly still ice covered.  Churchill, Manitoba on Hudson Bay has only had one day this month that got warmer than 60.  They are 4.4 deg. cooler than average this month, after being 10 deg. cooler than average in May.  It was warmer last night at the lakeshore with a west wind coming off the now warmer water.  However, the lake is cooling with the wind stirring up cooler water from below the surface.  There are whitecaps on Lake Michigan and red flag warnings on the beaches.  Hudson Bay is still mostly ice-covered (click on “Latest” under “United States”), as are many lakes in northern Canada.  Check out the view looking north at Barrow, Alaska over the Arctic Ocean (view 24-hours with the midnight sun up there now).  Here’s Kimmirut, Canada (see the ice on the bay – and nothing growing yet!).  There’s still a little snow on the mountaintops at Banff. Cool Canadian air is moving in for at least the first half of this week.  Time to give the A.C. a rest.  Peak Gusts Sunday afternoon:  40 mph – Battle Creek, 37 mph – Grand Rapids, 35 mph – Fremont & Saginaw, 33 mph – Kalamazoo and Flint, 32 mph – Holland, Lansing and S. Bend.  The visible (daytime) satellite loop or the infrared (nighttime) loop shows the clouds with the cold pool aloft.  Here’s current Michigan weather observations.  The surface map shows some chilly air from northern Minnesota northward.   The cooler air will be with us for the Monday-Thursday AM time period.  Here’s Lake Michigan Water Temps.  Rainfall amounts in our area Saturday Night were quite variable…from a few hundredths to 1.33″ at a gauge in Kentwood.   Nice quarter moon in the western sky in the evening now.

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” beats everyone at the weekend box office

There wasn’t really any doubt which movie would be number one during the weekend… it was just a matter of by how much… “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” pulled in $112 million for the weekend and $201 million since its Wednesday opening. “Transformers 2″ set a new high for a June weekend, its also the highest-grossing non-holiday, highest grossing non-Friday opening weekend and becomes the seventh opening weekend overall.   “The Dark Knight” is still the biggest 5-day opening all time ($203.8 million).

“Transformers 2″ boosted the entire box office 35% more than last weekend and at $194.97 million, it marks the biggest weekend of the year.  “Up” has passed “Star Trek” as the biggest movie of 2009 with $250 million so far.

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (estimated results):
1. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” - $112.00 million ($201 million total) (1st week)

2. “The Proposal”  – $18.47 million
(2nd week, was #1 last week, lost 45% from last week)

3. “The Hangover” - $17.22 million
(4th week, was #2 last week, lost 36% of audience from last week)

4. “Up” – $13.05 million  ($250 million total)
(5th week, was #3 last week, lost 45% from last week)

5. “My Sister’s Keeper” – $12.03 million (1st week)

(more…)

It’s not even noon on Monday and already everyone I run into is excited about the long holiday weekend.  I’m excited about strawberries, like the ones I picked up Saturday at the Farmer’s Market on Fulton in Grand Rapids.  These little mouthwatering gems came from Danstra Farm in Hudsonville and I was told they won’t be around for long.  Take advantage of this seasonal sweetness to create a red, white and blue dessert for the 4th.  Here’s a quick recipe I borrowed from Martha Stewart.  Share your favorite and get the berries while they last.

Mixed Berry Salad With Mint  (the white, of course, is the whipped cream or ice cream you serve with it)

Ingredients
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons orange-flavored liqueur, such as Grand Marnier
1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered if large
1 cup raspberries (4 ounces)
1 cup blackberries (4 ounces)
1 cup blueberries (5 ounces)
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, torn
Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together sugar and liqueur. Gently fold in strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and mint. Serve immediately (or cover and refrigerate, up to 4 hours).

So, when it comes to camping, I’m a huge chicken. Just thought I’d get that out there. The idea of things that I dislike (spiders, snakes, bees, whatever…) being able to share my sleeping quarters is a concept I’ve never been able to handle. However, I really like live music, so I’m heading to Rothbury – any sleeping that I actually do will be done in the “comfort” (?) of my Vue.

With that in mind, I have no idea what to pack. (more…)

The heavy rain of last last week added another inch to the water level of Lake Michigan. The lake is now only 4″ below the long term average for June. The level has risen 4″ in the last 4 weeks and now stands 10″ higher than one year ago. That’s 3.9 trillion gallons of water added to the lake in the last 12 months. Lake Superior is 6″ below the average level. Lake Erie is 6″ above their average level and Lake Ontario is 4″ above the average level.

    Lots of Wind Damage in NW Illinois.  Here’s regional radar, local radar, local lightning, Now, check out this video from a severe t-storm in St. Clair Shores Thursday afternoon and if you haven’t seen it yet, this video from 6/19 at Holland St. Park.  This is the current severe weather outlook for Day 1 (map will always update).  Here’s the GRR  discussion.   The pattern looks cool this week, near normal next week and maybe warmer than normal the week after that.   I had a good time in Muskegon at the Summerfest Parade on 6/27…then I went down to see daughter #3 at Port Sheldon…then home…got the front grass cut…a got a little sunburn…you’ll see that on Monday.  Final note:  I bought gas at $2.52 in Grand Haven…saw it for $2.47 in Allendale…still $2.71 on Alpine.  It’s as high as $2.39 in Lapeer to $2.89 in Cheboygan.  They’ll probably jack it up right before everyone starts travelling this weekend.  Then it’l likely go down after that, perhaps below $2.50 again before we start up again.

The Razer Sphex is massive, providing plenty of space for your mouse to roam.

More than a mousepad, the Razer Sphex changes the way you game.

If you have an optical mouse and are using a standard mousepad or just a desk, you may see some performance hits.  I’ve had the cursor jump across the screen while surfing the web, and my a surefire headshot has turned into a wild miss because the mouse jumped.

That’s what prompted me to get a gaming-grade mouse pad some years ago.  The Razer Sphex is a fairly new concept to me, not so much an actual mouse pad as a desktop skin.  Razer claims that the Sphex is the “thinnest mousing surface ever.” I see no reason to doubt them.

But does it deliver performance?  (more…)