Tag Archives: The Director

Bear Strips

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Like much of the mountain west we have been plagued by pesky bears. They’re everywhere. For some reason *The institute has even more bears than the average bear-plagued place, with dozens if not more undocumented bears roaming around The Institutes grounds with impunity. They’re like locusts, you go for years without seeing a single locust then suddenly you are up to your Fuon Bwey Bwey’s in them. Such as it is now with bears. There must have been a hell of a party over the winter to have so many young bears running around now.

These bear cubs reach a point where they have grown to a size that their parents, especially their moms, say “OK that’s it, you’re out of here. Go find your own way if you’re so damn smart, Mr. know it all.” and sends the little bugger packing. These are bears that are the equivalent of adolescent to teen age bears. One bear year is equal to ½ human year. That’s two bear years per human year. So if you got a bear cub for your first birthday and you’re fifty now, you bear is a hundred years old. Leave him alone. Don’t ask him to do bear tricks and run and fetch the ball. He’s not going to do it. He’s old. And Cranky. He is more likely to tear your throwing arm off and tell you to go fetch the ball yourself.

By the same token if you were given a Hamster when you were born, their age is 11¼ years to one of ours so if you’re fifty that hamster is 562½ years old. If you ask it to get in that wheel one more time, well we won’t even go there.

This bear above was caught trying to steal the red jeep of one of our senior advisers here at The Institute and had already hot-wired it and was trying to find a good station on the radio when luckily it was spotted. All we can say is this is an example of poor parenting by it’s mother and father and will eventually lead it into a larger life of crime if it isn’t stopped.

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After being hit by pine cones and yelled at from the registered and insured owner of this vehicle it nonchalantly moved away from the vehicle but took time to stop and blow raspberries and make rude gestures before retreating further up the hillside. This is a bad bear in the making.

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After it found a spot in the boulders to watch for another opportunity to do a mischief the staff and The Director held a meeting titled “What To Do About Bad Bears and Is It Ethical To Smack Them Around a Bit”. As you might imagine there were several strongly held beliefs about this. We decided that since The Institutes motto is “Do No Harm Unless You Gotta” we went to our Department of Solving Unusual Problems and asked our people there to come up with a solution to Bad Bears.

They did and it’s a doozy. Not only will it rid us of bad bears but we see a huge potential for making some money here. This is how it works, we call it “Bear Strips”, like in Fly strips you buy to put up in your milking room at the farm. These are really sticky, I mean really sticky, pieces of film-like material scented with a smell that flies like, such as Old rotting meat or Essence of Modern Politicians, so that as soon as the fly smells it, it goes right to the strip, gets snared by the sticky but smelly goo that covers the film and that’s it, they’re done.  After the strip is filled with deceased flies you take it down and put up a new one. Works like a charm and the sight of dozens of fly filled strips hanging around produces a nice ambiance while you work.

What our people did was develop a thin canvas like film that is tough enough to hold a snarling bear entrapped on its sticky surface and coat it with our new proprietary coating called “Bear Snare”. It can hold up to a dozen bears actually if both sides of the strip are used. The super strong strips are approximately 3½ feet wide and eleven feet long and are hung on tripod-like structures in places bears like to go. When the bear strip is full or before the health department and the Fish and Game folks do their inspections we simply take down the Bear Strip, roll it up and put it in the Recycling bin down at the bottom of the hill. No bears are hurt with these revolutionary new Bear Strips except maybe when they pull the strip off down at the Recycling center but that’s a problem for them to solve. We’ve done our part.

There was one small problem when one of our interns accidentally brushed up against a Bear Strip on his way to the field latrines and became entangled. They are still trying to extricate him from the strip without losing that ¼” deep skin layer that comes off along with the strip. We had classes and put up warnings that Bear Strips were in use but apparently this guy liked the smell of modern politicians, We don’t know, he’s been sedated since he started screaming. But setting that aside our new Bear Strips are working marvelously. Our bear numbers are down, we’ve had fewer vehicles stolen and all in all it’s worked out well. We’re fairly far along in manufacturing our Bear Strips. Our marketing program is ramping up and the tripods used to hang the Bear Strips are just going into production. Like my old man used to say “If you find yourself in hot water, take a bath.” that’s what we do here at The Institute. We make lemonade.

If You are interested in obtaining some of our patent applied for Bear Strips, They’re new! They’re Fun! They Work! Contact our in-house Sales Representative on our new Toll Free number 1-808- StopBadBearsNow. Ask about our extended payment plan and our pamphlet titled “Fun Things To Do With Bear Hair”.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about he Institute, Nevermind.

Ninth Annual National Get Outdoors Day

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Well, don’t we feel silly. Today, as no doubt all of you know, is the 9th Annual National Get Outdoors Day. That’s right. Snuck right up on you didn’t it. To be honest I didn’t know about the other 8 annual ones that have passed already. I must have been outdoors doing something.

A very good friend clued me in this morning about it so I quick jumped on Google and found out she wasn’t lying. There really is a National Get Outdoors Day, and it seems everybody is quite proud of it. This is what they say, “Participants from federal agencies, nonprofit organizations and the recreation industry are again teaming up to host the 9th annual National Get Outdoors Day (GO Day) to encourage healthy, active outdoor fun at sites across the nation. On Saturday, June 11, 2016, these diverse partners will offer opportunities for American families to experience traditional and non-traditional types of outdoor activities. Prime goals of the day are reaching currently under served populations and first-time visitors to public lands, and reconnecting our youth to the great outdoors.”

Gob-smacked, that’s what I was. And as the leader of one of America’s greatest learning, teaching, researching, exploring, and publishing organizations, more better known as *The Institute, I feel like we have let down a huge portion of the American Public that looks to us for guidance and up-to-date  announcements of worthwhile things that are happening.

So we did what we always do when we feel the need for some expert counseling and guidance, not to mention therapy to assuage some of the guilt we feel for letting down our readers. Above is our ‘go to’ specialist in the world of therapy, Dr. Kai Ote. A Jungian and recent graduate of “Become a Therapist for Fun and Profit” online college and Snack shop. We cannot begin to remember the number of hours spent in his office telling him our tales of woe, and of the staggering numbers of problems we have running a worldwide organization like ours. The staff problems, about which we go into excruciating detail, and how it takes all of our energy to keep the interns from revolting. Not to mention the disappointment and frustration from being turned down by the government for yet one more grant to do our valuable work. All of this and more we tell him until you would think a normal therapist would lose interest and strangle you from sheer boredom.

 But as you can tell by the expression on his face, he revels in helping us, hanging on our every word, showing you by his expression how he feels about you. We don’t know what we’d do without him.

After droning on and on about how we forgot about National Get Outdoors Day we asked him for some advice, “What should we do, Doc?” and as always his response was dead on. “Uhmm”, he replied, “Get Outdoors.”

See what I mean, he’s worth every penny. So we can only pass on this invaluable advice and hope that you follow it. “Get Outdoors, you’ll feel better, and the feds won’t come down on you.” That’s always a plus.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

The To Do List

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The To Do list. Everybody’s got one. Even here at The World Renowned headquarters of *The Institute. Our time is usually spent investigating scientific mysteries, discovering new frontiers in Math, Geography, the Arts, building our own Hyperloop out near Cleartop Mesa, numbering the stars visible in our night sky with Roman Numerals for easier identification, discovering new facets of Origami, research of all types, publishing, finding out new ways to have fun with cast iron, the list is endless.

All of that activity takes a lot of  manpower, Man/woman power (NOTE: OK, this whole man/woman thing is getting awkward, we’re changing it to Manoman power for clarification. That means everyone, man, woman, or some combination of both whether they’re equal or not, are going to be under the heading of ‘manoman’. We had some flack from some our middle-aged female staff who were lobbying for WoMan power but The Director said no freaking way that sounded too much like runaway feminism, so Manoman it is. After all this is a benevolent dictatorship here, not some loosely run democracy. ) manoman power to get everything done. As all of our staff has some incredible responsibility they have to complete if they want to eat and can’t be excused to work on the To Do list, we have had to take steps. We have had to go outside our organization for the first time to find qualified To Do list completers. That’s why we brought back Aunt Pheeb and Uncle Skid.

Some of you may remember them from previous posts. We swore we would never again on this Earth have anything to do with Uncle Skid. Aunt Pheeb too, except she does have some redeeming qualities and is the only one who can control keep Uncle Skid in line. She has got this voodoo power over him and if things get too weird she will withhold her patented, free will offering monkey-love and that does the trick. Skid pops right back on the straight and narrow then. So they come as a package.

Uncle Skid just got out of seven years of rehab and seems ok, but if we know anything about him we know that he is a recidivist of the highest order. That’s why we have closed down the Buenos Noches Cantina on campus for the duration. This nearly caused a riot amongst our interns but we had to err on the side of safety. Because if Uncle Skid gets into the Everclear, ain’t nobody safe. Even Aunt Pheeb can’t do anything with him until the following Thursday.

Apparently Skid got some training in construction while he was away and consequently we assigned him the task of repairing the fire escape that leads out of the back entrance of the main campus area here at The Institute. The picture above is after Skid worked on it. Granted it looks a little rough at first glance but it is better than the rope that was hanging there before. Skid has been in the office every single day wanting funding for three 60′ aluminum ladders so you don’t have to scramble up the rock face to get to the bottom of the fire escape. Plus a little extra for the wire to lash the three together so they’re long enough. So far our cost and regulatory department has been reluctant to release the $2800 and change to do this. That and no one will sign off on Uncle Skid going off campus with that kind cash. We’ve had to up our insurance just to have him on the property as it is. So it looks as if we’ll have to use the rope again. Just to get to the bottom of the fire escape anyway.

Aunt Pheeb has been the rock of that family. If it wasn’t for her the whole bunch of them would have fallen on rack and ruin. She has supplemented the family income with her distillery and quilt repair business. And since she installed that brand new cigarette rolling machine her income has risen dramatically. That’s good because the 73% we skim receive off the top helps our coffers too. And what with times being like they are everything helps.

So far we’ve been proceeding with cautious optimism with Uncle Skid. Aunt Pheeb went out and purchased 37 of the newest strongest Abus 37RK/80 Granit Extreme Security Steel Padlocks made in Germany and available through Taylor Lock & Security Co. to add to the welded shut doors and windows of the Buenos Noches Cantina. These padlocks meet highest security standards and are considered to be among the most secure padlocks in the world. Their tensile resistance is over 6 tons. We thought that it was overkill but then she told us that Skid had also taken lock-picking classes while in rehab so we authorized her to get a few more just in case.

In the last four months we have been able to cross one item off our To Do list. Well half cross it off. We still have to deal with the aluminum ladder issue. We have had reports that maybe Aunt Pheeb has been a little free with the results of her distillery, selling small bottles of hooch out of the back door of her quilt repair store instead of to her regular customers in town. But we haven’t been able to catch her. The security people we set to watch the backdoor have told us through blurry eyes and slurred speech that they haven’t seen anything yet but then they were some of the biggest complainers when we took the campus dry. There’s always something.

Maybe, just maybe we’ll get some real productivity out of Uncle Skid. You never know. Seven years in rehab ought to have had some effect, but then you’re talking about Skid here, so we’ll wait and see. And keep our fingers and toes crossed. And our insurance paid up.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

 

Chaco Canyon Redux

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As alert readers you may have noticed a decided lack of fresh new posts with their scintillating images and incredibly succinct prose lately. That’s because The Director here at The Institute said “OK, I’m taking a break. We have not been on one road trip this year and I’m tired of looking at all these Monet’s and Rembrandt’s here in The Institute’s main art gallery. I’m tired of looking at all these first editions in the Presidential library. You can only look up so many words in the Gutenberg Dictionary before it gets to be boring. I want to go out and experience life again amongst things and places that are real. That have relevance in the real world. “So fire up the Bokeh Maru. Load the stores. Find room for the interns and we leave at first light.” The Bokeh Maru as many of you know, is our smaller research vessel and is used primarily for our shorter excursions.

That was it. About a week or so ago we followed the moonlight down the mountain having rigged the Bokeh Maru for silent running so as to not disturb the neighbors and turned her bow South by Southwest. We had two main agendas to complete. First and foremost we were headed to the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend the largest gathering of Native American tribes in the United States and Canada for a weekend of dancing, competitions, fellowship and fun, (much more on that in future posts) and secondly, we needed to stop and revisit *Chaco Canyon Historical Park, one of the singularly magical places you can visit.

* http://www.bigshotsnow.com/life-and-other-things-of-interest/

* http://www.bigshotsnow.com/la-ventana-de-oro/

It was a brisk morning with the sun just rising and burning off the light fog that covered highway 287. The Bokeh Maru was in rare form wanting to run into the wind as she hadn’t had a real outing since last fall. It was a trial just holding her back to maintain the speed limit. It didn’t help that the interns were frisky as well and had taken to bouncing up and down in the back of the rig just aft of the head causing the Bokeh Maru to wallow and list and nearly raising the front wheels off the pavement. After several admonishments and stern warnings to cease that childish behavior we stopped, tied several of the ring leaders to the back bumper and set off down the road. The anguished cries and sweating faces pressed up against the rear window soon had the rest quieted down and our progress became smooth again.

Our first stop was Chaco. Chaco is a place every human being should visit once in their lives. Not all of you at once of course, but make sure you do it. Check with your neighbors so you don’t all cram in there at the same time. It ought to be in the top ten of your bucket list. Above is an image from Pueblo Bonito, one of the main building sites in the park, there are many more of course, but Pueblo Bonito is the largest building constructed by the ancient ones and feels like it has the most magic.

You can enter into the ruins and wander and sometimes crawl through the small openings from one room into another. Touching the cool walls deep in the recesses of the palace, calling it a palace is no exaggeration by the way, feeling the reflections of past lives pass by you, listening to the quiet that is so deep and profound until the wind finds its way through the passages, rubbing against the cool stone walls to finally brush up against your face, is an experience that cannot be duplicated. TV and movies just don’t cut it, you need to be there. Occasionally you will hear a raven call as it flies high up against the cliff face that stands behind the building it’s plaintive squawking filtering down upon you. This is a special, special place and the feeling you have is not unlike entering a cathedral, the same feeling of exhilaration and profound peace is there.

It was at Chaco that several of our interns wandered off into the desert in search of whatever was in their minds at the time. This happens. We start off with a dozen or so interns and as the trip progresses there is a certain attrition and we come back with fewer if any when the trip is over. That’s why we always take more with us than we need. One word of caution to the potential visitor to the park. You must want, really want, to get there as the last 16 miles of dirt roads will test your resolve. Anything over ten miles an hour will have a disastrous effect on your vehicle. The Bokeh Maru made it without mishap but it let its displeasure be known to us by showing everyone all the new squeaks and rattles and fallen off bits that it incurred during the trip there.

After Chaco we returned to roads that had blacktop and concrete on them and things got easy again. We arrived at the Gathering of Nations without further mishap and although we had been told it was big, we were unprepared for the enormity that greeted us. It was held in the West Pies arena in Albuquerque and the word was thousands upon thousands of visitors attended it. This was probably an understatement as it felt like a lot more. There were over 2800 registered dancers and competitors alone registered for the show. It is almost beyond words to describe the cacophony of color and sound and whirling bodies and drums and singers that assaulted your senses in a good way when you walked into the arena. This was a huge event and we’ll be posting images from it for some time trying to give you some feeling for how it felt to be there.

This is where we lost the rest of our interns. There were only seven or eight left by that point anyway. We should have known better. It was just too overwhelming an event to thrust these young minds into. Occasionally we would see one of our interns out in the middle of the arena floor dancing with abandonment, eyes rolled up into their heads, oblivious to the modern world, then they would be lost in the swirling crowds of dancers on the floor and that would be our last glimpse of them. We were sorry to lose them of course but it did improve the Bokeh Maru’s gas mileage on the trip home.

Soon, as our processing department catches up on the several thousand images taken while we were there we will begin posting them for you viewing pleasure. As always it feels good to make it back to The Institute unscathed, or perhaps just a little scathed. Everything connected to The Institute’s grounds survived our absence and we’re beginning to regroup and prepare for the next excursion. The summer is filled with exciting events to attend and we’ve scheduled many of them. Stayed tuned for details of our travels and adventures. Maybe we’ll see you out there.

Buffalo Jokes

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“Whadja think of the joke Carl.”

“Oh man, I really lost it on this one. I think I made a mess in the wallow.”

“Yeah it has it moments but what about the negative social implications of anthropomorphizing a small feathered creature with some severely chronic disorders for the amusement of a few misguided readers.”

“Yeah, well screw that. I thought it was funny.”

“Maybe so but I still bet we’re going to take some heat on this one.”

Note: As you know *The Institute and The Director take a firm stand against ducks smoking or even walking into bars. But we really discourage ducks being made an object of ridicule, or duck shaming, as it were. Normally we would have rejected this joke out of hand, but Carl and Rodger the two buffalo that appear in Buffalo Jokes, said they’d walk if we pulled this one and as you know Buffalos Jokes requires buffalo so we had to let them have their way on this one. Besides Carl, the one on the right, thinks Susie the reader who sent this joke in is really hot, so it was going to be published whether we wanted it to be or not or we wouldn’t have had a Buffalo Jokes post today. They have editorial control of this segment of the blog so there you have it, A Duck Walks Into A Bar joke.

Remember duck shaming or any kind of shaming is morally and ethically wrong, even if it’s an alcoholic, COPD-bound duck suffering from SPD (sensory processing disorder). However we make exceptions for it sometimes, especially if it is really funny, not that this example was, but we’re just saying.

As always we invite our readers to send in their own twisted, semi-sadistic, warped sense of humor jokes and our Buffalo Jokes committee, composed of mainly Carl, Rodger and The Director, will consider publishing it.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

April Fools Day – Sorry Australia

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April Fools Day, the bane of serious scientific organizations all over the world.

Here at The Institute we have enough of an image problem without adding to our misery by trying to play lame-ass jokes on ourselves or other scientific organizations so we have had a ban on playing April Fools jokes from the beginning of our presence here on the World Wide Web.

Take our Space Program for instance. How can you be a creditable user of space when no one takes you seriously. You can’t, that’s how. So first thing this morning we sent up our usual reminder to our crew in the “Institute1” our own space station and Earth orbiter, built and launched from our space center over behind the commissary right here on The Institute’s complex saying “No Freakin’ Jokes Today, Got it !”.

Well we were too late of course. We sent the ‘no joking around’ message in plenty of time but the goofs up there were doing that thing with the radio where they say ” What’s that? Can’t hear you.” and “Sorry you’re breaking up,” making those fake wind and static sounds, ” must be solar interference.” then they hang up and keep doing what they’re doing. We could hear them up there laughing and making those fart noises with their hands in their armpits, someone had butt-dialed Earth and didn’t know it, so we could hear everything they said. That really cheesed off The Director, as not doing that joking stuff is one of his most stringent rules. Somebody’s butt is grassed when they get back down here.

Well you can see what they had done in the image above. They had already drawn all over Australia with a white permanent Magic marker dividing the country up into sections. They had sections for who had the most beer drinkers, that’s the spot down in the lower right hand corner where it’s almost all white, a section for how many Australians who had actually seen a wild Koala bear, zoos didn’t count. How many really carried those big knives and actually said “That’s not a knife, this is a knife” pronouncing knife like knoife, and which ones thought Great White sharks were like totally their best friends ever and would swim with them whenever they were asked to. That would be those big blue areas in the middle of the country. We understand the sun shines there every single day and it’s really hot so that could explain that lapse in good judgment.

We finally got a hold of the crew later in the morning and gave them a stern talking to. However the damage was done. We told them to get back there and start cleaning that marker off the place but they said “Sorry, no can do, we ‘re already over Indonesia and by the time we make another circuit the marker would be so dry there was no way it was coming off.” then they started that “Can’t hear you” crap again. Man that’s irritating. Now we ‘ve got to apologize to the whole damn  Australian country explaining that we did it, but we didn’t mean it. ‘Sorry it was an April Fools joke that went awry.” Like they’re going to buy that. So much for our credibility.

To indicate our displeasure with the crew up there in Institute1 we have informed them that their next shipment of oxygen will be a week and a half late, oops sorry, our bad. Maybe they’ll pay attention to the rules next  time. Actually our guy over at Mission Control says they only have enough air left for five days. That could get dicey.

The Institute1,our space station, was designed and constructed right here on The Institute’s grounds. Since our Space Grant had not come through for the fourth time in a row we decided to tackle the job ourselves and build it out of available funds. We were able to get five of those 40′ shipping containers, a tuff shed, some of that 8′ diameter sewer pipe they bury in those subdivisions and a huge deal on off-brand duck tape from our local hardware store.

Picture the five storage containers joined at each corner forming a pentagram with the tuff shed to store the oxygen tanks and other explosives suspended in the middle of the pentagram by the 8’ sewer pipe and all joined together by massive wraps of duck tape and you’ve got a picture of what the Institute1 looks like. Of course there are holes cut in the roof of the storage containers for venting things that have  to be vented, bathroom areas, the area around the pellet stove, and so on. There are also Plexiglas viewing ports around the outside perimeter of the station so they can take pictures, use that pricey single tube 16x telescope we got when Wal-Mart had their sale, and to wave and make faces at the Russians as they go whizzing past in their fancy new space station, the Ублюдок!!!.

If we can keep the Aussie’s from going ballistic over the white marker thing we may not have done our space program irreparable harm. And we’ve got to get our new spaceship, the “Flying Flounder” up there to delivery the next load of oxygen bottles and pick up the empties. The late fees on returning those are horrendous so things have to proceed as normal, otherwise we have to consider pulling the plug on our entire “Visit Space – The Place Where Nothing Is” program. That would set back our entire Scientific Mission structure weeks and weeks if not months.

So one thing we can be thankful for is except for our friends down under, we didn’t play any practical jokes on the rest of the world. That’s a relief. So if anybody from The Institute says “Happy April Fools Day!” to you, just ignore them.

Stored Away Storms

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Today is kind of a rainy, snowy, a little hail-y, wet sort of day here at The Institute. There’s a reason for that. Mostly because it’s still sort of wintry, or on the tail end of it anyways, and the second is because we need to use up our stored away storms or lose them. That’s right The Institute has a program where we store up moisture-laden storms for future use.

Many of you long-time readers know that The Institute is renowned for its weather modification program. Virtually since the beginning days of The Institute in the far distant past, we have been active in controlling weather. At the beginning it was a modest program. If it was raining we’d just go back into the house so we wouldn’t get wet, or we’d squat down behind the half-track when the wind was blowing so we didn’t wind up in Kansas somewhere. Gentle but successful modifications. Some say it was more of a reaction to the weather rather than a bona fide modification but you have to start somewhere. As time passed our programs got more sophisticated. We built machinery that could modify the weather around The Institute’s campus, then farther and farther away as we could afford more D-cells to power the energy hungry weather modification machine. We’d make it rain in the summer when the asparagus was wilting, or have a little snow storm in June just to make the tourists freak out. Now we can make California go crazy if we want with rain storms, Tsunamis etc., and we’re right on the edge of being able to scare the hell out of Hawaii.

Naturally we use this power for good.

We have developed a program over the last few years on the storing of moisture for future use. We went through a period of drought here at The Institute. Years of nothing but hot sunny days and no rain. There were a lot of problems. The trees would sweat, Chickens quit laying, we had to shift our entire inventory of 10w-30 motor oil to 10w-90 so the oil in our vehicles wouldn’t wimp out and seize up from overheating, our interns were forced to wear skimpy clothing when they wore any at all. Social upheaval ran rampant. Times were desperate. Something had to be done.

 We began a program with a Federal government, ours, and various water boards and other institutions around the state where we would capture and store individual storms before they had a chance to run out over the countryside and discharge all their moisture in the form of rain or snow, or in some cases dangerous clumps of ice that could cause injury and property damage if they fell onto anything unsuspecting. After lots of trial and error our meteorologists and mechanical engineers here at The Institute discovered a practical way to store these storms so they could be brought out later and used when needed. They developed a proprietary algorithm that can compress any storm to 45% of its original volume while maintaining all of its energy. This was a pretty cool feat to accomplish on the wages we pay.

Due to a delay with the patent office over whether it is morally or ethically proper to take over this much control of a natural phenomenon for our own personal gain, that being the weather, (we of course maintain the position that “Hey! We thought of it. You guys didn’t so we should be able to make a buck here.”) and since they haven’t given us a decision yet, we can’t tell you how our storage process works. Sorry. We have to keep it secret. What if somebody bad stole it for their own nefarious uses, like North Korea, or some company Trump owns. Then where would we be?

One of the small little issues to be worked out with our program is the cost of maintaining the storage situation for all these storms. The storage units we use (the U-Lock It, You Better Pay On Time Storage Center) wants us to pay a month in advance, every month whether we have storms stored there or not, and renting an entire section of storage units is very costly, and because sometimes the autopay from The Institute’s checking account doesn’t clear in time, they’ve threatened to lock us out and just dump the storms out on the sidewalk so to speak. Well that would be, like, catastrophic. So we can only store so many storms before we have to release some back into the weather whether we want to or not. They have an expiration date.

So due to a critical underfunding problem we can only rent so many storage units and purchase all of the batteries for all the storm compactors we need, and then we run out of space and we have to release our storms approximately a year after we put them in storage. You can only jam so many storms in one of the those lockers before things get tight. Note: We inadvertently let a portion of our secret proprietary storage method leak out here. Please disregard it and do not tell your friends and/or neighbors what you read here today. Thank you, The Director. P.S. It could screw us up big time in our patent application if somebody figured out our system and beat us to the punch. Thanks. T.D.

That’s what’s happening today. The small storm you see in the image above was captured up in Rocky Mountain National Park in the early fall of 2014 and had already gone past it’s “use by” date so it had to be dumped today. We get a lot of flack from the uninformed public over our dump days. Complaints like “Yesterday was in the low 60’s you yahoos, and today you dump a storm with rain, hail and 40° temps? What the hell were you thinking?, and it’s Monday too.” They don’t understand it is “use it or lose it”.  Hopefully if we get bigger and more important we will be large enough to just ignore the ignorant and do whatever we want, kind of like the government does. That’ll be a Day to remember. Anyway that’s why we got a wet and cold one today folks, just remember “We need the moisture”.