I’m coming out. My closest friends already know, my partner and children have always known (thank goodness), and my parents and brother sorta know. My acquaintances and co-workers suspect, but they don’t know the extent of this. But they will. Because …
I’m coming out — as a Proud Geek! And I’m gonna blog about deafness-related and/or DC-related geeky stuff. I don’t care if these bore you - after all, I’ve come out as a Proud Geek!
With all that said, here’s my first geek tip for DC-area deaf folks.
Weather in DC can be hell. [Cough] I meant to say, weather in DC can be heck. If the humidity doesn’t get you down in the summertime, then the lack (or mere mention) of snow during the wintertime can. We have several local television channels with weather forecasters with strange names like Topper Shutt or Doug Hill - but they often say different things and they’re only on a couple times a day. The Weather Channel’s terrific, but I’m selfish — I’m talking about just DC here, not global. Ditto for websites like Weather.com, Weather.gov, Accuweather, Wunderground, and their ilk. Washington Post’s weather stuff doesn’t have enough substance to satisfy me. And radio? Hmf, big help that is to us deafies.
For a DC-weather junkie like me and surely some of you, there’s only one option. Fortunately, it’s one heckuva option: CapitalWeather.com.
CapitalWeather is exclusively about DC weather, and is actually a website wrapped around an excellent blog. Approximately twice a day, CapitalWeather staff issues at least two complete weather reports for that day along with the next several days. A couple times a week or so, they also do a forecast covering the next week or two. Once a season, they also attempt (with surprisingly some success) to forecast the following season. During extreme weather, there are more reports — sometimes even up to the minute. These reports are filled with eye-catching maps, graphs, photos, and scales. Also on its homepage are forecasts, radar links, a live cam, current conditions, and more.
If I had any complaints about CapitalWeather, it’s that their website is a bit cluttered. But I get CapitalWeather’s blog posts via a RSS reader, so I hardly ever visit their website itself except during extreme weather. On the other hand, there is a massive amount of information on CapitalWeather’s website, and it does a pretty good job organizing everything.
Again, it’s CapitalWeather.com. Now you no longer have any excuse for not coming to work when we’re only expecting an inch of snow (sez CapitalWeather), or for not bringing an umbrella when CapitalWeather predicts rain at 2:35pm this afternoon where you are.
I was gonna have a Proud Geek Coming-Out party, but I had to cancel it because CapitalWeather predicted rain. Another time.
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9 Comments
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Excellent post, Josh!!!!!
May I also say congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. ;->
Hi Josh! Welcome to DeafDC…looking for more of your writings on “Geek” stuff!
thanks! i’ve long wished for a better “instant weather” option than weather.com. this site is just what i wanted!
Thanks, Josh, for the link. I’ll be sure to check it out.
It’s a beautiful thing for a geek to come out!!
What would be ideal for me personally is a weather widget for the Blackberry. Click an icon, GPS gets enabled and presto, a real time weather report appears!
So, Josh when is this party being rescheduled to? Everyone’s bringing their raincoats, right? :)
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI’m coming out. My closest friends already know, my partner and children have always known (thank goodness), and my parents and brother sorta know. My acquaintances and co-workers suspect, but they don’t know the extent of this. … […]
I never rely upon the weather forecast professionals. I am really doing fine on my own observance of what is going on with weather. I could tell from looking at the sky at night and early morning. I study cloud formations from several books. Of course, weather prediction could knock us off-balance.
I just look at the 7-days weather forecasts on various channels to give me a glimpse of what the local weather will be.
“Humans nowadays are too dependent on technology to nagivate life. Let the nature taking its own course and surprise us from time to time. That will make our life more enjoyable and unpredictable” - Robert L. Mason (RLM, 2007.
Real good to see you, Josh (in photo) again! I did see your partner last November 2006 at the Starbuck of Captiol Hill area.
Why you have to describe yourself as a geek? We are all big family of humanity no matter what our intellectual status, profession, success level and other things define who and what we are.
I usually seen you as a normal person. I know that you just self-depricate yourself for sense of humor.
Too many people are obsessed with self-identity and self-label nowaday which turn up seperating ourselves from the humanity itself.
Most important of all are good character, intergity, self-determination, playfulness and humbility among us.
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
Hmmm… will have to look for one for my local area. We use NOAA most of the time as the local ones don’t seem to be so good. I see snow forecast in April for your area????? Will look forward to more geeky reports, Josh, grin.