Relative Something

The funniest thing I’ve seen regarding the news about Brett Favre yesterday was a faux announcement that after one day of practicing with the Vikings, he announced he was retiring again. Ah ha ha ha! Seriously, I cannot come to a conclusion about how I feel about him and this whole melodrama he orchestrates. A big part of me wishes we had never given him the platform from which to play out his attention-getting soap opera. However, there is still a part of me, the life-long Vikings fan, that is pleased to have a veteran quarterback with a history of having achieved greatness, leading our offense. I can’t decide whether I think it is sweet that he came from our archrival, or sour… because it is indeed both.

Does anyone else think it a strange coincidence that he comes to town and then suddenly a tornado strikes? In Minneapolis, of all places! And on a day that didn’t appear to have the expected raw ingredients to spawn such an occurrence. It wasn’t very hot out, it was generally rainy for much of the day leading up to the damaging funnel, it was early afternoon, and in the absence of the normal symptoms, there was no advance warning from the weather service. There was a lot of rain, but the tornado was a surprise.

There was so much rain, in fact, that the roof of the building where I work sprung a leak. Unfortunately, that leak occurred in the area of our suite that has a drop ceiling with the fiberboard tiles suspended in a metal frame. That means there are tiles to get wet and that’s not a good thing. Also, the leak was dripping at a point where it hit several things above the tiles; an old florescent light fixture from before the drop ceiling was installed, and a large round air duct are two that I was able to identify. Those cause splattering that creates a situation requiring more than one simple bucket to contain. Also, the splattering water collects on these other obstructions from which eventually there comes secondary sources of dripping. (More buckets.)

It is really frustrating to be working beneath this, near the tubs and buckets collecting the drips from the primary leak location, when suddenly I hear the sound of rapid dripping onto a tile overhead. Is it going to last long enough that I should jump up and get a ladder to pull back the tile? How long do I sit there and wait to decide? Then, when I finally do get up to react to it, I have no idea if the water is in a puddle on the tile I’m about to tip, or already soaked in.

I’ve got friends doing the BAM (Bicycling Around Minnesota) tour right now down in the southeastern part of the state, riding and camping during all this weather. It does add a lot of adventure and makes for good stories to tell, but riding in the cool wet is not something I wish on anyone. I hope they are doing all right, and I hope those who suffered property damage from the tornado(s) recover their loss quickly and get trees cleaned up without trouble.

By comparison, my frustrations are insignificant.