Christmas 2012 From Within The Bunker

For those of us who live on the South Plains of West Texas, we awoke to a winter storm with a dusting of snow and wind chills down in the single digits.  The view out of my window presents a gloomy day.  I know when it comes time to venture forth from the bunker, I will have a very hard time getting the old pickup started.

This morning I decided to make a post of what I got for this Christmas and in the process write about what I am thankful for.

The greatest gift this year was keeping my land when I was facing foreclosure.  I once again have a job although it is a part time one.  In 2013, I hope that it can grow into a new full time job or another job entirely if it pays more.

I am also thankful for my friends this year.  I am not married, and I have no children to call my own.  I do have a little 3 year-old lady and her younger brother who have adopted me and I so do look forward to seeing their bright smiling faces every chance I  have. I have taken to calling them my "pretend grandchildren."

My extended family/friends last night have the tradition of opening their gifts on Christmas Eve.  They are large family with lots of young kids (including my pretend grandchildren) to scream and rip open gifts and shred the wrapping all over the place.  And everyone had a great time.  I was able to gave gifts to the kids this year and all of them appeared to like them.  

I myself was surprised by two gifts that I received in turn.  The adults did a not so Secret-Santa with one another this year.  The first gift was totally unexpected.  As a 53-year old man, I never had a BB rifle ever in my life.  But now, I have a Daisy 1938 Red Ryder spring air BB rifle to claim as my own.

This year, its BB rifles or pistols for all of us to play with.  Last year, it was the RC tanks and the year before that, RC helicopters.  Although I must add here, some of the kids got a newer generation of RC helicopters. I think we adults will be getting some for ourselves in the new year when we can afford to spend money again.

The other gift was most thoughtful.  Since I am a big Star Trek fan, they found me a tan T-shirt that had a cut-away view of the original U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701.  Image comes off of the Haynes manual and is what is shown on the front of my new T-shirt.

On a more mundane level were the gifts that I gave to myself.  A new CD player and two James Bond movie soundtracks to go with it.  The latest movie called "Skyfall" and the other was a chance discovery: "The Man With The Golden Gun."  

And for the kid in me, I purchased a 1/18th scale toy helicopter from the World Peacekeeper action figure line, also known as PTE (Power Team Elite).  It is modeled after the Chinese Zhi-9 (Z-9) army utility helicopter, which is a license-built version of the Aérospatiale AS-365N Dauphin II.  Aérospatiale is now know as Eurocopter.  The version released in the US doesn't have the PRC decal sheet, and it is also missing the missile launch tubes which is a bummer for me.  This will go along with the same scale UH-60 Blackhawk and UH-1 Huey gunship helicopters that I have in my collection.  The Huey comes from a different toy company, but is of the same scale.

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Ref.
1.  Image off of the internet after generic search for a Daisy 1938 Red Ryder spring air BB rifle
2.  U.S.S. Enterprise cutaway view image ( http://scifanatic.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/images/merchandise/haynes-1701.jpg ).

Biggest Dust Storm for Lubbock in Decades!

I could not believe what was about to strike us - a huge, old fashion Dust Storm. One that I have not seen since the late 1970s. In my younger days (i.e the 1960s-70s), I remember these big brown dust storms - but never lived through one that turned the sky literally 'black.' I remembered my parents telling me about that part of the dust storms from the 1930s.

Looking out one of the garage doors at Ricky's Auto Repair this afternoon, I was amazed. We had to close the doors and get everyone inside before the dust storm hit.

A strong cold front hit Lubbock county about 6pm. Visibility dropped down to between zero to less than a quarter of a mile. That zero visibility at the garage lasted about 2-3 minutes. Wind gusts as high as 74 mph.

The FAA had to evacuate the control tower at Lubbock International Airport and air traffic was directed from a backup control cneter on the ground floor.

Trees were toppled, roofs lost shingles. Rail road crossing gates bent. A small cargo plane was overturned at the airport.

The dust cloud was a by-product of the persistent drought in West Texas. Back on October 6th, the National Weather Service in Lubbock reported that there was a "high likelihood" that 2011 could be the driest on record across the South Plains.

With this blog post are some images that I took with my cell phone camera.

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Ref.

1. News.yahoo.com. "Dust storm roils through Texas South Plains" October 17, 2011. (http://news.yahoo.com/dust-storm-roils-texas-south-plains-023536510.html). ***Yes, the article's title was mispelled by AP.