A Cacophony of Clouds, Critters, and Clowns

Errata:

Might as well start with them and clear the air.

1. Yesterday I wrote about Copenhagen and a few of the fun things that King Christian IV or VI or one of them brought to the city. I mentioned Christianhaven, the neighbourhood, and I mentioned Christianborg, the castle. I did not include a very important letter "s". It's Christian's Harbour and Christian' Castle, so the correct spelling is Christianshavn and Christiansborg.

I supposed I could have just gone back and fixed them and few would be the wiser. I'm not even sure if spelling mistakes count as something that get covered in errata. I doubt it, as you'd just cover those in a second printing.

Huh, maybe I should go back. And don't be surprised if you see an errata on errata once I get around to learning all the rules.

2. Now, this one is maybe even shakier on the errata side of things, so maybe this falls under the category of "unfinished business".

I did a crap job explaining why clouds get so big and fluffy. I tossed out dewpoint and other words that kinda explained why they form, but didn't, to my mind anyway upon reflection during our drive to another town yesterday to take a ride on a steam train, actually explain anything. It doesn't help that we all had this chat the other evening as well, wherein we discussed the various adages that can be summed up as "if you can't explain it to a five year old, then you don't understand it". I use a variation of this about grandmothers that I rightly or wrongly attribute to Einstein. 

Have you noticed how he and Churchill get all the good quotes?

Anyway, I did a crap job of explaining clouds, and had plenty of time to ponder this while staring out either a car or train window yesterday looking at lots of clouds. They spoke to me of my guilt. I have come here today to pay my debt.

I didn't talk about inversion.

Normally air is warmer lower to the ground and then cools as it gets higher. This can get flipped around for a number of reasons, and often happens along warm fronts or also in areas where oceanic upwelling occurs. That when the wind pushes the water around enough that the warmer water on the surface gets replaced with the cooler water from further below.

So when air temperature and dewpoint get to be the same, the cloud starts to form. The higher the inversion goes, so the more warm air you've got going on, the bigger the cloud gets, and I guess keeps going until the temperature and dewpoint differ enough that things stop condensing. If it can actually get itself up to a point where the temperature is freezing then we get precipitation, and the temperature at the bottom of the cloud determines whether everyone in London pulls out their umbrella or runs around in panic not knowing what to do with centimeter of white stuff that has covered their drive.

Errata:

This took way longer that one minute to get the basics. 

So the five year old version of this would be:

Big fluffy clouds happen when moisture in the air gets cool enough to condense to form the cloud. If there's enough area of air in the sky that is at the right temperature compared to the rising air, then the cloud gets to keep growing. Eventually the difference between the air coming up and the air around it changes enough that this process stops, and, voila, you've got your cloud.

Okay, so you may not, but I feel better now. Not only do I now understand that better, and made up for a shoddy writeup yesterday, I've now, I think, answered another question I've been asking myself for awhile now while travelling, about why the clouds seems so much bigger and closer where we've been then at home in Toronto.

At first I thought it had to do with there being so much more sky. Toronto is a tall city. You don't get a huge unbroken skyscape without making an effort to do so. Most places we've been so far you just need to look out the nearest window and the vastness of this thing we all share no matter where we are on the planet is quite obvious.

Now I think it has to do with areas where inversion and, more importantly oceanic upwelling, occur. UK. Denmark. Surrounded by water, makes a kinda sense.

Wrong. Just looked up where oceanic uprising occur on the planet. Mostly along the west coast of North America, so BC and California get alot. The only eastern coast is Arabia.

That one took less than a minute.

So that question remains unanswered. For now.  And sure, maybe it's a perception thing rather than a precipitation thing. I'll figure it out eventually and let you know. Enough torture for now.

Thanks for sticking with me through that one.

Oh, probably a good point to remind you all of the previous tip I gave of leaping over large bodies of text and going straight for a picture. 

Next time.

Oh, and probably also a good time to add a disclaimer.

My friend Morgan has a great disclaimer for his show The Emergency Monologues. I've mentioned him and the show before, but that was at the beginning of all of this and some of you may not have read about it, or need a reminder. He got Best in Show at the Fringe in Toronto this year, and I am so frickin' happy for him I cannot say enough.

Anyway, my disclaimer is nothing like his, and is not nearly as good. But here goes.

Don't quote me. I do not know what I am talking about, and as you may have noticed, my researching practice is shoddy at best. The internet is full of junk that is wrong. I proved this to Noah a few years ago by finding a site that offered scientific proof that the moon was made of cheese. It was prettty convincing if you didn't already know that it was made of petrified bellybutton lint. This is one of those places. While I endeavour to be right, there will be places where I am wrong. And I don't know which ones are wrong, or else they'd all be right and we wouldn't be having this talk.

So don't quote me. 

Actually, a disclaimer on the disclaimer.

DON'T quote me on matters of science, history, or other areas of facts, academic studies, or anything you might learn in school, from a reputable tour guide, or any other authorized source for knowledge. 

DO quote me if you think I've said something clever, witty, poignant, insightful, or anything that makes me look good to whoever you are quoting me to.

Thanks.

The one thing about falling behind is that things keep happening, stories keep presenting themselves, and I get excited about sharing them with whoever might be reading this thing. Well, I'm with family now, and if there is one thing that happens when I get together with who I refer to as "the swedes", stories get told. So I've got all these mental notes, most of which will leak out my ears before they find the solace of a webpage to rest their weary colons. (Too many leftovers.) And that makes me anxious to get to them, which means I need to finish up in Denmark first. But I don't want to give Denmark the bum's rush, as that was a fantastic time, and even if it wasn't, it still deserves it's fair allottment of storytime.

You know, as much as that above statement is true, you must all have a hard time believing it given I've just been going on about clouds for so long.

I have issues prioritizing.

We went to the Copenhagen Zoo on Wednesday. And yes, we still need animal shots from Edinburgh. They will come eventually I have been assured.

Let me get started immediately on the raging debate that has been going on between Noah and Jake.

Which is cooler?

The tiger?

Or the Lion?

Let them know please.

This is a collection of cute little creatures that display similar pack behaviours, to my mind anyway, as meerkats.

Ringed mongoose.

Prairie Dogs.

Otters.

They didn't have meerkats, or I would have included a shot of those and we could have had a debate on which was the cutest. I would go for otters. But that is likely because whenever I am asked what type of animal I would want to be I pick the otter. I think they're cool. And they certainly look like they know how to have fun. By fun I do not include what they have been shown to do with baby seals. I am not going to go into that. I'm even going to provide a link. Just go find it for yourself if you really want to know. But yes, I can still like them. Heck, I still think Eric Gill prints are amazing, and WB Yeats one of the greatest poets ever.

Actually, I do suffer a bit of anxiety when someone I really appreciate for their artistic ability, or something they've done, turn out to be absolute pricks. What's worse is when someone you don't like as a human being displays talents you have to respect. Why can't all our heroes be nice humans as well? Why can't people who suck at being people just suck at everything else too? Otters are now in this category for me. Sadly. No, they're not people. They suck, but I like them.

Damn.

These are a few birds. Emus.

I have no idea.

These are relatively large herbivours. You can play the name game now if you'd like.

Rhino-rhino-bo-bhino...

Bonana fanna fo famel...

Me-my-mo melephant...

Giraffe!

I believe a giraffe's head may be too heavy for it's long neck, especially if it is a very clever giraffe. So sometimes they need to prop them up with something else.

These are quite beautiful creatures that have a funny way of looking at you. That said, think of how we look at them and all the odd objects we put in front of our eyes to do so, which then involves flopping our arms around, crouching, shifting, getting on our toes.

I wonder if there is a meditation practice that strives for the stillness of reptiles, without having to first ingest an entire goat? Whole.

These are just stupidly cute.

No, not these ones. That's us at the beginning of our evening at Tivoli Garden on Wednesday.

Left to Right: Jesper, Noah, Jake, Jeanett, and Lasse, Jeanett's son. You may not have recognized Jesper and Jeanett in their costumes, so I figured they needed to be pointed out.

This was our quest.

And I don't know all of our favourite colours so you'll just have to toss me off a bridge.

There are many ways in which one can enjoy themselves while courting the potential for dizziness and vomit.

This is an example of one of the ways that Noah and Jake, and Jeanett and Lasse, tried.

And this is the more direct approach that Jesper and I took.

Note that the result is similar.

Happy.

Happy.

 Happy.

Happy.

Happy.

I should stop before I infringe on Pharell Williams copyright.

It is arguable whether Tivoli is more garden than it is amusement park. It is, I believe, the second oldest amusement park in the world, the first being Bakken, and also in Denmark, just north of Copenhagen. And it certainly has plenty of rides and other amusements, but for me, it's more about the gardens.

Why? Because I get dizzy and puke on rides. I mean, I get dizzy on a merry-go-round. Heck, I was getting a bit dizzy climbing the winding staircase up to the Whispering Gallery in St. Paul's. It's pretty sad. No, it's very sad. Pitiful in fact. But true.

And oddly enough, I don't enjoy that experience. So I don't.

Conveniently Jesper is also not a lover of rides, though I do not know the reasons, so we strolled around for a bit. And see? Pretty gardens.

There are several performance venues at Tivoli and we happened to be walking by this one at 8pm, having just finished our dinner.

When this happened.

Yes, a show. We got to see a show at Tivoli. My thanks go out to everyone for going along with it when I begged us to stop and watch "for a few minutes", which turned out to be 30 minutes, which conveniently, was the length of this bit of, what I'm pretty sure counts as Commedia dell'arte.

There is no dialogue, only music, movement, and gesture, so the story I'm about to tell, which is close to what I was mumbling at Noah and Jake as this was going on, could be totally wrong. It could be an episode of CSI in period costumes for all I know.

Let's try both.

Traditional: Older Gentleman (vecchi) who is a ward of a young fair maid (amorosi), and employs a fine young man (zanni AND amorosi) in his household receives a mysterious letter. The two young ones love each other deeply, but it is a secret they are keeping from the old dude.

CSI: Ted Danson receives a note from a serial killer who has been stalking Elizabeth Shue. CSI Stokes has another case but is hanging around anyway to offer keen insight into the composition of the wax used to seal the letter, so that he can impress both Ted Danson, his boss, and Elizabeth Shue, who he's got a secret thing for that the writers don't know how to work into the storyline yet, but trust me, it's there.

Traditional: Older Gentleman seeks the help of his other vanni, which is a servant by the way, and who, in this case is the most famous of all the dell'arte characters, Pierrot. Pierrot is a bit of a skallywag and likes to find ways to play both sides of things, generally to the benefit of his fellow servants and to the chagrin of his masters, but always, always to the benefit of Pierrot. Anyway, Pierrot MUST find out who wrote this love letter to the girl. It is indecent. It must be resolved. Find this man!

CSI: Ted Danson gives instructions to CSI Sanders, that kinda goofy fellow, who though starting as just a tech, has worked himself up as a field agent and now commands a great deal of respect as he is so awesome at everything he does. Sanders is on the case.

Traditional: A whole lot happens that I have pictures for but did not include and the story concludes with the young lovers happily united, the gentleman having learned an important lesson about not getting in the way of true love, and Pierrot, while having had a few narrow scrapes, being super pleased with himself as he has successfully manipulated them all well enough to make sure everything turned out right in the end.

CSI: CSI Stokes and Sanders continue to work various sides of the case while subliminally selling you a new SUV from General Motors. Eventually they discover who the serial killer is, but as they approach the deserted warehouse to rescue Elizabeth Shue from him (she got drugged and captured after the second commerical break) the building blows up. Five times. From six different angles, including a couple close-ups, a good all inclusive distance one, one through the windshield of the SUV you are supposed to buy (see how clean and safe the glass is?), and two, count them two aerials. And yes, actually aerials. Unlike me, who has to climb hundreds of winding steps to the top of a tower, getting more light headed along the way to finally get a half-decent view of whatever city we are in, they have access to helicopters. And they really sprung for this one.

Scene.