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Gloom Despair and Agony On Me, that’s what ran through my mind as I gazed out the window this morning at a despairing gloomy agonizing gray sky. It was cold, the wind was blowing just hard enough to make its way down your collar no matter how far up you had it zipped, and to pile misery on top of woe it was starting to snow. Not the pretty Hallmark kind of snow that you see falling in pre-Starbucks villages, but the icy sleety Chicago kind of snow. The stuff that stuck to your glasses, stung your face and rolled up into drifts that had the density of cured concrete. That is except where you stepped on it and it broke through to submerge your foot to just over your shoe top in sub-zero water.

Then it dawned on me. Oh merde, the weather modification program that we run here at the Institute had shut down. If that intern had forgotten to program the time change into the auto settings again he was going to be out inventorying webworms on the mountain mahogany in his tighty whiteys til his little fuon bwey bweys turned blue.

We developed our weather modification program to please one of our previous assistant directors and after she went on to her well deserved place in the sun we liked it so much we kept it. It isn’t a big deal we just modify the weather that covers about 3-6 thousand acres, just enough to keep the grounds of the Institute under its effects. It ‘s a seasonal program that is tied to the time change and does things like converting really hot days in the summer to a balmy 65 to 70 degrees and turns a day like today into a sunny day with the deepest blue skies you have ever seen. We add just enough cold that you have to wear a down jacket but you don’t have to zip it up if you don’t want to.

That is when it works. It’s 29 degrees out there right now and the wind is blowing cold gray snow around and it certainly isn’t balmy and I’m on my way to check the duty roster to find out which poor unfortunate soul had the watch and didn’t get the job done. They only have a few responsibilities and if I find that this miscreant was into the Everclear while he was on duty, he will wish he had never been born.

One of the results of the WMD (Weather Modification Default) program is that when it goes down it feeds randomly selected images that are the exact opposite in seasonal conditions into the image stream for the blog. So today you get a color burst that’s bright, cheerful and warm looking. It is the lower Antelope Canyon and it was warm. So enjoy it. I know who I need to speak to about this snafu now and I’m off to give him his new assignment. If he’s lucky he’ll live, but I guarantee he’ll remember the time change this spring.