January has decided to go out like a polar bear after a lamb-like interlude yesterday afternoon when the sun came out and temperatures could properly be described as balmy. This morning Uncle Jack had to fight his way up to the beach against a 20 knot wind out of the north which produced a sub-freezing wind chill that dissuaded him from staying long enough to watch the sun top the horizon. Winter on the Outer Banks is nothing if not weird.

     Uncle Jack is eagerly awaiting the final version of President Bush's economic stimulus package.  Some senators want to give money to retirees like Uncle Jack who are not included in the House version of the bill and he would, of course, like to get his head in the trough, too, right next to Bill Gates.

     His guess is that most of the people who get a modest amount of money out of this dubious legislation will rush right down to the nearest Wal-Mart and spend it, thus providing the Chinese economy with a nice boost that it hardly seems to need at this point. 

     The penultimate day of January (Uncle Jack thought it would never come) is rainy and overcast so he regrets there will be no happy sunrise pictures this morning.

     He forgot to mention on Monday that he and Mrs. U.J. had to go to Durham on Tuesday where she was scheduled to have her innards inspected at the Duke Medical Center.  (She emerged from the procedure with flying colors if that is the correct term for the outcome of a colonoscopy).  Anyway that accounts for the absence of a weblog entry yesterday.

      The trip was not totally uneventful.  While Uncle Jack was whiling away time in the basement cafeteria of the hospital lights started flashing and horns honking and he was informed that he had to evacuate the room immediately as a fire had been discovered somewhere in the kitchen.  He tried to imagine how this state of affairs might affect a patient in mid-colonoscopy but he later learned that the emergency did not extend beyond the immediate area of the cafeteria for which he breathed a sigh of relief on Mrs. U.J.'s behalf.

      The trip home on the new, improved highway 64 was uneventful except for a mysterious traffic jam a few miles west of Plymouth.  All eastbound traffic came to a complete halt for about 20 minutes but upon resuming normal speed there was no sign anywhere along the road of what might have caused the stoppage. This was probably the most interesting thing that has ever happened to Uncle Jack in 35 years of driving on route 64.

Warning:  Keep your windows tightly closed in the vicinity of Roper.  The mammoth

Tyson Farms chicken operation which now spreads over a vast area produces a stench that would gag a maggot.  He wonders if the local residents call it "the smell of money" the way Pittsburghers who lived downwind of a steel mill used to refer  to the orange smoke that frequently wreathed their neighborhoods.

     Arriving home at 6 p.m. they ruefully discovered that their balky heating system had once again failed and the indoor temperature was 53 F and heading downwards to match the even colder outdoors. They holed up in their bedroom with an electric heater for the night and are now eagerly awaiting the arrival of the furnace guy once again.  He has become such a regular visitor that we have offered him the spare bedroom to use until he can get the furnace working properly for more than a day at a time.

    C-c-c-ciao.

     Well it wasn't exactly a sunrise but Uncle Jack took a quick picture and fled before he froze to death.  It's nasty up there this morning with a frigid north wind blowing clouds of stinging sand down the beach. The ocean is roaring and the beach is too narrow to walk on in many places.  It's the kind of morning that would have given even the redoubtable beachwalker Nelly Myrtle Pridgen pause.

     Uncle Jack has a friend in Camden, Maine who does a weekly radio show called "The humble farmer" which you can listen to online.  He plays great jazz music interspersed with what he calls "rants" which are his commentaries on anything that comes to his fertile mind.  Uncle Jack loves his show, the latest edition of which arrived in his inbox yesterday.  If you would like to check out "humble's" show just click on the link below the pictures.  It's a treat.

     Sunrise this morning wasn't very exciting but it was the first one in several days so Uncle Jack hurried up to the beach and took some pictures.  It was exceedingly cold at 7 a.m. with that same sharp wind blowing out of the north so he didn't stay long.

     His furnace has gone off again and his fingers are getting too cold to type so he will let the pictures speak for themselves this morning.

    The Charlotte Observer editorialized on the subject of sandbags yesterday.  If you'd like to see what that paper has to say you can click on the link below.

    c-c-c-ciao. 

     Once again Mother Nature has failed to provide a sunrise for Uncle Jack to take a picture of and once again he is not complaining.  She provided him with an excellent excuse for not going up to the beach this morning and subjecting himself to the torments of sub-freezing air pushed by a brisk wind out of the north.

    Unfortunately it appears that the same conditions will soon prevail inside his house.  His furnace went off sometime in the night and the temperature has been steadily dropping from 72 at midnight to 64 at 9 a.m.  He and Mrs. U.J. are holed up in their bedroom with an electric heater while waiting for the furnace guy to come but on a cold Saturday in January they may have to wait until hell freezes over---literally.

     He was pleased to learn upon arising this morning that Charter Communications had apparently solved the problem that left many customers without TV or internet service for about seven hours yesterday afternoon and evening---including Uncle Jack. As a result of this hiatus he found an unusual number of emails in his inbox this morning, most of which he was able to delete without reading. (No, he is not interested in taking a round-the-world cruise on the Queen Mary next year at any price).

     He did find one item worth reading although it left him shaking his head in disbelief.  It has to do with a recent decision by the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission to allow homeowners on Oak Island to rebuild houses that were washed away or damaged now that the beach in front of them has been restored through costly beach renourishment projects. There is something profoundly wacky about this in Uncle Jack's estimation but it probably seems completely rational to the folks on Oak Island.  You can read more about it by clicking on the link below.

     Uncle Jack continued to mess around with his picture collection yesterday and discovered a few more gems that he thinks might deserve seeing the light of day again. Enjoy.

     And have a nice weekend.

     It's 6:55 a.m. and Uncle Jack just looked out the window long enough to ascertain that there will be no sunrise photos this morning. There is a minuscule quantity of pinkish sky in the general vicinity of where the sun would normally rise but considering that the temperature is below freezing and the wind is blowing 20 knots out of the north he has decided to stay in and make another cup of tea.

    He continued to pick through his massive photo collection yesterday which has turned out to be a lot of fun.  The pictures below are just a sample of what turned up.

     Uncle Jack's friend Ray Midgett who keeps a keen eye focused on the fiscal antics of the Dare County Board of Commissioners has raised a number of excellent questions about some of their recent activities. Uncle Jack is happy to reprint his memo here for those who may not be on his mailing list or have not seen this Thursday's Coastland Times in which it is cited in an editorial. If the commissioners issue a rejoinder at some point, which he hopes they will do, he will reprint that here, too. 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray" <obxsaltydog@charter.net>
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 8:16 PM
Subject: It's Your Tax Dollars


> Dare Taxpayer...Please read this and pass it on to another taxpayer....
>
> The following comments were entered into the official minutes of the Dare
> County Commission on September 18, 2006.  They are as relevant today as
> they were then; especially in light of the recent announcement that the
> Dare Commission, due to 100% cost overruns on the estimate to renovate the
> old courthouse, intends to add on to the new county administration
> building.
> I urge you to read these comments and ask yourself if your tax dollars are
> being spent wisely on such extravagant buildings.  We are building a
> structure to house less than 75 county employees for a larger sum that we
> spent building school buildings to house over 400 students, plus teachers,
> gym, cafeteria, etc....Please remember this when you vote this year for
> three of our existing county commissioners...We need commissioners that
> will truly spend your tax dollars wisely.
>
>
> September 18, 2006 – Meeting - Comments
> Dear Commissioners,
> I would like to speak to Item #3 on today’s Agenda, that being the
> construction of
> a new county administration building at an estimated cost of approximately
> $13
> million. (cost is now higher)
> I note that the average costs of the new Nags Head, Manteo Elementary and
> Manteo Middle Schools stand at $13.6, $13.6 and $13.3 million,
> respectively.
> By comparison, does not this alone, make the costs associated with the new
> administration building, terribly excessive?
> I have reviewed public data available for this new structure and I truly
> believe that
> Dare County is getting a “Cadillac building”. The question is, “Are we
> paying a
> Rolls Royce price; and do we need either?”
> For example, out of the 40,000 square foot total, I see 2,710 square foot
> allocated to our county manager. This space is larger that some of the
> finest
> homes in Dare County. Why?
> I see 1,226 square feet allocated for your county commission. Does each
> commissioner get an office. I thought future meetings were to be held in
> the old
> courthouse once it is renovated.
> Why does the Public Relations Office, with 2 employees, need 2,100 square
> feet; again, the size of most homes in the county?
> The plans also show additional support space, exclusive of offices, at 11,
> 217
> square feet. Is this excessive?
> Finally, the outside facades of this building will rival any courthouse in
> our State;
> yet, it is not a courthouse. We are only building an office building for
> 68 county
> employees. Again, I ask, “Why?”
> Please take some time in today’s meeting to explain to the voters why Dare
> County needs to spend so many of our tax dollars on such an extravagant
> structure.
> Thank you,
> Ray Midgett
> Southern Shores

    Another cloudy, cold, probably rainy day in Sonag.  Uncle Jack is not complaining;  after all it is late January and one should not expect anything else at this time of the year.

    Being forced to stay inside has its compensations.  For one thing he has had plenty of time to spend with an excellent book his only begotten son, Eric, gave him for Christmas. It's called "The Coldest Winter" and it was the last book written by one of our greatest journalists, David Halberstam, before his untimely death last year.

     It's a doorstop of a book with print so small it has posed a challenge to Uncle Jack's aging eyes but he has stayed with it because it is a fascinating account of an event in American history in which he participated to a small degree---namely the Korean war. (His U.S. Navy destroyer arrived off Pusan, Korea 30 days before the armistice was signed in 1953 at which time he knew almost nothing about the war---a state of ignorance in which he has blissfully remained until this week).  This magnificent book is unlikely to receive Oprah's imprimatur any time soon but it surely has Uncle Jack's.

     When his eyes give out and he has to give "The Coldest Winter" a rest he returns to the Herculean task of organizing and shrinking the vast collection of digital pictures currently scattered among his several computers and various other storage devices.

    In the process he has unearthed hundreds of images he hasn't laid eyes on for years, some of which are quite interesting as historical documents.  For example he has taken numerous pictures of the Surfside Drive area of South Nags Head over several years during which Mother Nature battled with  and finally defeated the combined forces of FEMA and the Town of Nags Head.  Nobody will ever write a best-selling book about this war but it was interesting and revealing nevertheless.  Any town that is preparing to enter into a turf battle with the ocean could profit from careful study of the pictures below. 

     Light rain was falling when Uncle Jack looked out the window at 6:45 and the sun was not seen for several hours, and only briefly at that,  on this damp, overcast morning.  The paucity of sunrises in recent weeks suggests that he might perform a useful public service by posting a few heartwarming sunrises from times past.

     For those who, like Uncle Jack, never tire of reading about the trials and tribulations of communities that are trying to cope with beach erosion he provides below a link to an article from a Tallahassee, Florida newspaper.  The similarities with Nags Head are remarkable.

     Uncle Jack saw some pink in the sky when he looked out the window at 6:50 so he and Mrs. U. J. drove down to James street in the Mini and took a couple of pictures.  Rain had already started before the sun actually appeared so they had to abort the mission but it was pretty while it lasted.

    Hard to say what kind of a day this will be on the Outer Banks.  It's 20 degrees warmer than yesterday which is nice but the big black clouds all around suggest that rain will be part of the picture off and on.  A visit to the Y is definitely in order this morning.

    His friends at Google forwarded Uncle Jack an interesting piece from a Beaufort, S.C. newspaper about the problems they are having down there with beach erosion.  Apparently the company called Coastal Science and Engineering that played a heavy role in the aborted plan to nourish Nags Head's beaches has moved on to what they hope will be greener pastures in South Carolina.  Actually things don't look too promising there either. You can read the whole piece by clicking on the link below the pictures.

     The good news is that there was a sunrise this morning.  The bad news is that it was so cold up on the beach that Uncle Jack could not stay long enough to take a picture of it. The wind is whistling out of the north at a good clip, the ocean is all riled up and the temperature is well below freezing so he only stayed for a minute or two lest he perish.

     Conditions were not nearly as bad as they were in Green Bay last night, though, where the Giants beat the Packers 23 to 20 in overtime.  Uncle Jack watched a little of the fourth quarter but the sight of all those thousands of people trying to applaud with their mittens on reminded him too much of his childhood in northern Wisconsin (200 miles NORTH of Green Bay) so he had to turn it off.

    The game did remind him of a column he wrote many years ago that has appeared in this space from time to time.  He dragged it out of the archives again and here it is for the few who might not have read it before:

     At least it isn't snowing. Or raining.

     Otherwise it's more of the same. Cold, overcast with big clumps of black clouds looming in all directions.  Another good day for Uncle Jack to stay in and work on organizing his pictures when he isn't reading the Sunday Times or napping. Ah, the excitement.

    He did locate the missing picture of Wink's grocery store which was one of the  area'sprime purveyors of foodstuffs and much more in the days before Food Lion and Harris Teeter. (See below) While looking for it he discovered a vast store of pictures he had forgotten about in his old desktop under the heading "Picasa" which is a free Google picture-handling program he used for a few years.  Where will it end?

    Enjoy the long weekend if you possibly can. Life is short.

     Another day without a sunrise to photograph.  It's chilly and overcast in Sonag and the weatherman says it's all downhill from here. Yuk.

     In lieu of sunrise pictures Uncle Jack does have a few more "nostalgia" pictures which he presents herewith. These should bring back some memories for those who are old enough to remember. In spite of his heroic efforts to organize his pictures he has already lost a great one of Wink's in 1950.  He will post it when he finds it again.

    The following article from WRAL is sort of a harbinger of things to come as the May deadline for sandbag removal draws nearer:

The sandbags protecting these beach houses along the North Carolina coast from the Atlantic Ocean will have to be removed by spring 2008, according to a state regulation.

Video

• Sandbags No Longer to Hold Back Ocean Along N.C. Coas

Related Stories

• FEMA Paying $3 Million To Save Kure Beach Condo Complex

Posted: Jan. 17, 2008

• Reporter: Bill Leslie
  
• Photographer: Richard Adkins

     No sign of the sun again this morning. The weatherman says that most of the clouds will go away by this afternoon but we will have to wait and see. At least it isn't raining and that's unusual---and welcome.

    Uncle Jack has been using these rainy days to try to bring some order to his massive collection of photos.  They are scattered among the hard drives of three computers and stored in several flash memory devices and even on old floppy disks at the moment.  He has embarked on a project to burn them all in some rational way to DVDs.

     There is a fair amount of tedium involved in this kind of work but at times it can be a lot of fun, especially when he stumbles across a long forgotten trove of pictures like the ones below.

     In the first picture Midway gas station is shown at the top. It stood until recently at the intersection on Roanoke Island where the county administration building is now under construction. For many years it was the largest and most modern service station on the Outer Banks but time did not treat it well.  The historical marker at the extreme left commemorates a Civil War battle fought nearby.

     Daniels' Cafe was, in Uncle Jack's estimation, the Outer Banks' only world-class restaurant when it was owned and operated by Basil and Beulah Daniels. Uncle Jack ate there many times back in the 70's before the Danielses retired. The building itself was later incorporated into the Lone Cedar restaurant and survived until the fire last year. 

     No sunrise this morning, Uncle Jack is sorry to report.  Drizzle is the word of the day unless it becomes downpour later on.  A good day to be in the Bahamas or the Galapagos or even Cleveland. Well, maybe not Cleveland.

     Uncle Jack has been reading with pleasure the long thread on the main message board where folks have been reminiscing about the "old days" on the Outer Banks.  It reminded him of a column he wrote quite a few years ago in which he did the same thing.  He exhumed it from the archives (again) and here it is:

      A thin film of ice covers Lake Whitecap this morning which Uncle Jack noticed on his way to the beach at 7 a.m.  Lucky for him there is very little wind so he was able to hang around long enough to get a couple of pictures of the actual sunrise at 7:12.

      It's cold enough to send him and Mrs. U.J. to the Y again this morning.  She will swim and he will do his basketball equivalent of "tai chi" which involves a lot of bending and stretching and flailing his arms around while he practices shooting.  Great exercise for the elderly. (Now that he's making about 90% of his free throws he wishes there were some other players around to hustle but, alas, he has the gym all to himself almost every day).

     For those who are interested, as Uncle Jack is, in the plight of the small fisherman here on the Outer Banks and elsewhere he herewith attaches a recent piece from the Camden Herald in Maine.  Read it and weep.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An attorney who lives in Appleton, Roger Fleming, is involved an a lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on behalf of New England groundfishermen, seeking to ban herring trawlers from critical fishing grounds.

The public interest law firm Earthjustice filed the complaint on behalf of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and the Midcoast Fishermen's Association. According to the organizations, the lawsuit seeks to close a loophole allowing industrial herring midwater trawlers to fish in designated groundfish-closed areas.

These waters have been identified as spawning grounds and sanctuaries for cod, haddock, and other groundfish stocks and are currently off-limits to nearly all other fishing vessels.

“Small fishermen in New England have made sacrifices to preserve a livelihood for future generations. But the current rules are undermining our hard work,” said Glen Libby of Port Clyde, a commercial fisherman and chairman of the Midcoast Fishermen's Association.

According to Earthjustice, mid-water trawlers drag massive small-mesh nets behind them, sometimes working in pairs towing an even bigger net between them. Stretching to 165 feet, these vessels can hold more than one million pounds of catch.

Midwater trawlers were initially banned from groundfish-closed areas in 1994, says the organization. But in 1998 federal regulators decided to re-open these areas to trawlers, based on an assumption that the herring ships would catch little or no groundfish in their nets.

The policy has proved disastrous, says Earthjustice. While shortcomings in the federal monitoring program make precise numbers difficult to obtain, it is estimated by the organization that in recent years midwater trawl vessels have caught hundreds of thousands of pounds of mature and juvenile groundfish as bycatch.

In a well-publicized 2004 enforcement sweep, personnel from the Maine Marine Patrol and Massachusetts Environmental Police caught midwater herring trawlers illegally trying to land thousands of pounds of juvenile haddock and hake mixed with their herring catch.

“Federal officials have turned a blind eye to the effects of this ill-conceived policy,” said Fleming of Earthjustice. “These areas are the last place you want high-volume industrial ships. This lawsuit is demanding that officials close sensitive fishing grounds to herring trawlers before it is too late.”

According to Earthjustice, scientific reports issued last summer show that overfishing is occurring on eight of 19 managed groundfish stocks, and that 13 stocks remain overfished.

(Tilapia anyone?--U.J.)

P.S.  Stephen from Texas sent a link to a YouTube video of  a new approach to surfing.  It's pretty funny and you can see it by clicking on the link below today's pictures.

     It's another bright, sunshiny day on the Outer Banks. It was near freezing on the beach at 7 a.m. but by noon it should be warm enough to walk without discomfort. 

     Uncle Jack retrieved his beloved Mini from the mechanics at the Checkered Flag dealership in Virginia Beach yesterday and he can tell you he is happy to be behind the wheel of a real car again after five days in a barge-like Toyota Corolla.

     Have a great day.

      The sun was nowhere to be seen at sunrise but it's up above the clouds at 10 a.m. and it should be a lovely day to drive to Virginia Beach and retrieve the Mini.  Pictures at 11.

      Uncle Jack did stroll up to the beach at 7 to check things out and he was rewarded with a bit of pink in the sky. After two days of incessant rain it was a welcome sight.

      There is a heartbreaking article in this morning's New York Times about the plight of Senegalese fishermen which resonates with information in the book "The Unnatural History of the Sea" which Uncle Jack plugged in a recent blog.  The fishermen of Hatteras have a lot in common with their Senegalese brethren.  You can read it if you like by clicking on the link. 

     Uncle Jack put on his winter coat and started walking to the beach this morning before he realized that attempting to photograph the sunrise would be an exercise in futility.  The sky is completely overcast and the weatherman says it's going to stay this way all day.

    He and Mrs. U.J. did go for a walk  yesterday afternoon after the rain stopped.  As the picture shows it was low tide again and the beach had been swept clean.  The sand was packed so hard it was like walking on concrete.

     It was still balmy late yesterday but it's a lot colder this morning and the threat of rain hangs heavy over the Outer Banks. Uncle Jack is already looking forward to his afternoon nap which may turn out to be the most exciting thing he does all day.

     His beloved Mini will be spending the weekend in Virginia Beach (what a ghastly thought) which means he will have to drive an ordinary car for a few more days.  His loaner Toyota is o.k.  but it reminds him too much of the many years he spent behind the wheel of numerous Plymouth Voyagers.  Boring boring boring. 

       All of this reminds him of a disquisition on cars he wrote some years ago which he has plucked from the archives once again for the perusal of the two or three readers who may not have seen it before, to wit:. 

     Uncle Jack walked up to the beach fifteen minutes before official sunrise this morning only to learn that there would be none.  As the first picture shows the southeastern sky was obscured by thick clouds that will delay any view of the sun for an hour or more. Even so it was an improvement over yesterday's thick fog that blanketed all of Sonag (not to mention the rest of the Outer Banks) at dawn.

     He had to take the Mini to Virginia Beach yesterday morning for servicing at Checkered Flag Mini.  It was his second round-trip to Norfolk in the past four days and as always it was a voyage down memory lane (which he most often made in his pre-rusted Voyagers).  Nearly 40 years have passed since he first traversed the old two-lane 168/158 corridor with its gauntlet of aromatic hog farms set among spacious fields of corn and soybeans.  In the ensuing four decades the once-bucolic Currituck county has gradually transformed itself into what will soon be a 75-mile-long strip mall complete with at least three of every kind of retail business known to man (and a dozen of some of them---like impromptu used-car lots, for example).

     Many of the landmarks from the 70's are gone now---and unlamented as in the case of the reeking hog lots.  He noticed yesterday that Hilltop Market, once the premier vegetable stand on all of 158, is rapidly succumbing to an overgrowth of weeds since it closed a couple of years ago. Seeing Hilltop in such a parlous state reminded him of Anna Gallop's fabled stand which once thrived just down the road a couple of miles where the cognoscenti shopped for veggies at half of Hilltop's prices. (Ms. Gallop's rickety premises probably discouraged a lot of potential customers but those in the know were undeterred).

    Conversely the once weatherbeaten, sagging old elementary school at Jarvisburg, once one of the most photogenic sites in the county, has now been restored to a condition of pristine perfection that has rendered it almost completely uninteresting. Uncle Jack almost regrets contributing to the rebuilding fund.

     He will have to drive his loaner back to Checkered Flag to retrieve the Mini in a day or two and this time he will try to remember to take some pictures.  Who would believe that Jarvisburg now sports an ice-skating rink?  Stay tuned.

     Monday was a stupefyingly lovely day in Sonag and it looks like today will be another.  Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. took a long walk on the beach yesterday afternoon in their shirtsleeves and still felt overdressed as the temperature soared into the 70's.  He took a bunch of pictures of the incredibly wide and beautiful beach but somehow managed to delete them from his new camera before downloading them into the computer. Further proof, if any is needed, of his rapid descent into mental decrepitude.                                          

     Uncle Jack reported for duty at the magnificent Dare County Palace of Justice at 10 a.m. yesterday and sat through a tedious process whereby a functionary attempted to determine who had not showed up. Dare county is sufficiently multi-cultural now to make the reading of a list of names a real challenge for a native speaker. ("Austin" is a lot easier to pronounce than "Rodriguez").                                   After the would-be jurors had been ushered into the courtroom the judge made a short speech over the new state-of-art sound system which, unfortunately, Uncle Jack was unable to hear.  He asked the man sitting next to him what the judge had said and he replied that he was inviting all potential jurors who wished to be excused for cause to approach  the bench and plead their cases.

       Uncle Jack promptly joined the  line of supplicants and when the time came he explained his predicament to the judge who, in effect, told him to get lost so his day in court ended after a little more than an hour. Needless to say he was more than happy to be found  too old and decrepit to serve the cause of justice in Dare County. 

     To paraphrase Uncle Jack's Uncle Carl, the fog came on little cat feet last night and pretty much scratched his attempt to photograph the sunrise this morning.  South Nags Head is socked in.

     Uncle Jack must surrender to the authorities in Dare County's magnificent Palace of Justice this morning at ten for possible jury duty.  He may still earn a reprieve when they learn that he is exceedingly hard of hearing and that the judge and both lawyers will have to shout or he won't be able to hear them.  Whatever happens this morning you will hear all about it tomorrow.

     Have a nice day.

     "Clear" is what the weatherman predicted for this morning.  With high hopes for a scintillating sunrise picture with his new camera Uncle Jack hurried up to the beach at 7 a.m. only to find nothing but thick clouds.  A bummer.

    Even worse he then drove up to New York Bagels to get his weekly supply of whole wheat everythings only to find that the Nags Head Mall outlet is closed for  the season.  Another bummer.

     Last night he turned on his newly connected TV to watch the Celtics-Pistons game only to discover that it wasn't being broadcast. A really big bummer.

    He switched over to the Steelers-Jaguars NFL playoff game only to learn that Terry Bradshaw and Mean Joe Greene have apparently retired. No wonder the Steelers lost.

    Now he is off to the airport in Norfolk to fetch Mrs. U.J.  She will find a way to cheer him up.

     Uncle Jack is a little late posting his weblog today for various reasons but he is pleased to report that he did get up to the beach at dawn this morning.  He stayed around long enough to make a video of the actual sunrise even though it was still beastly cold.  You can transport yourself to the beach in South Nags for four minutes and two seconds by clicking on the YouTube link below the pictures.

     He is also happy to report that his new camera arrived yesterday but he didn't discover it sitting outside the front door where Brown left it until 10 p.m.  If he can figure out how to work it his pictures tomorrow will be taken with a 12.1 megapixel Sony Cybershot DSC-200 and they better not have any spots in the background or he will send it back. Stay tuned.

       It's still frightfully cold in Sonag this morning but Uncle Jack thought that in the absence of wind he could get up to the beach and photograph the sunrise without compromising his health.  Unfortunately he mis-timed his trek and got there about ten minutes too soon but even with no wind it was too cold for him to hang around until the sun actually appeared.  Hence the sunless pictures.

 He and Mrs. U.J. are doing some industrial strength babysitting today so he will not have time to blog properly.  Here's an oldie from the archives that a few of Uncle Jack's newer readers may not have encountered before.  It sort of resonates with yesterday's piece about disappearing fish. (His apologies to all those who have seen this enough times to memorize it by now).

      It's another cold, windy, cloudy day in South Nags Head and once again Uncle Jack cannot post a beautiful sunrise picture because the sun didn't show up when it was supposed to. If you want to know the truth he would not have left the house at dawn for any reason because it is COLD out there.

                   ****************

FLASH!!  It's snowing (sort of) in Nags Head.  Uncle Jack just returned from a very successful free-throw shooting session at the Y (27 out of 30 in one blistering run) and he drove home through swirling snowflakes all the way. He doubts they will accumulate but perhaps they are a harbinger of more to come. 

     One saving grace of the inclement weather is that it gives Uncle Jack more time and incentive to read.  He has just finished a fascinating book (a gift from his brilliant daughter Emily who always seems to pick books that are right up his intellectual alley) called "The Unnatural History of the Sea".  It was written by an English scientist named Callum Roberts and published by Island Press in 2007.

     Basically it is a history of fishing from the Middle Ages to the present day and it lays out in graphic detail how the creatures who inhabit the watery parts of the world (which makes up 95% of the earth's biosphere) have been systematically slaughtered down through the centuries to the point that many species have been eradicated and many others---including many of our favorites---are on the brink of extinction.

      Needless to say this is a very distressing book, partly because of what it says about man's tendency to do really stupid and vicious things to the other creatures who are unfortunate enough to share the earth with us.  Man's inhumanity to man seems to be exceeded only by man's inhumanity to fish (and buffalo and passenger pigeons, etc. etc.)

     The book also goes a long way toward explaining the distressing plight of commercial fishermen on the Outer Banks who have fallen on hard times for many reasons, not the least of which is the scarcity of fish to catch.  They are, as the book explains, victims of what the scientists call "the tragedy of the commons".  To find out what that means (if you don't already know what it means) Uncle Jack suggests that you read this very sad but enlightening tome. 

     If you don't have the time or inclination to read the whole book there are a number of excellent reviews and some audio excerpts available through the miracle of Google.

     And have a nice day anyway.

         Uncle Jack is pleased to report that the sun rose at the appointed time this morning, which fact he ascertained from the comfort of his living room. Having learned from his laptop that the outdoor temperature was 34 and that the wind was gusting to 25 mph out of the north he wisely decided to eschew his usual pre-dawn stroll to the beach. He won't be winning the Nelly Myrtle Pridgen prize for courage in the face of bad weather this week, that's for sure.

     Besides being New Year's Day yesterday was important for another reason.  He finally stopped reading reviews of digital cameras and went ahead and ordered one.  Sometime in the next couple of weeks Brown will  bring him a brand new Sony Cybershot DSC-W200 with 12.1 megapixels (whatever they are) and a host of other features that he will probably never figure out how to use.  He can hardly wait.

      He bought the camera from Dell after learning that it would cost $52 more to buy it directly from Sony.  Perhaps when it comes he will discover why.

     The big New Year's Eve party fizzled out at about 7:30 p.m. when Isabella and Sophia fell asleep watching a DVD of "Polar Express". (Uncle Jack doesn't blame them---the book is a lot better than the movie). Consequently he was able to get to bed early enough to get up this morning and film the first sunrise of the new year which can be viewed by clicking on the YouTube link below the pictures.

    All indications suggest that New Year's Day on the Outer Banks will be delightful for all those not too hung over to enjoy it. Uncle Jack walked at least two miles on the beach this morning and plans to top that off with a bike ride this afternoon.  There won't be too many more days like this now that January is here.

     Once again, Happy New Year to all from Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J.