Ohio River at Flood Stage: 29.9 Feet, During and After photos.

Here are some photos from the week before last, alongside photos from a couple of days ago.  The water was right around 29.9 feet on the upper gauge at Louisville.  The river is actually back behind the houses you can see in the distance in these photos.  The school campus is right near where Little Goose Creek hits the Ohio, so I guess most of the water here is actually flowing from Little Goose Creek.

We spent some time this past Saturday cleaning the greenhouse, which was a mess.

In some part of the fields, areas where I often walk and kids play, the water was 5 feet or more deep.

The school's athletic field. The greenhouse had thigh-deep water, and parts of the field where the cross country team usually runs were shoulder-deep.

The bottom half of the lower parking lot/drive was flooded.  The field beyond, used for some overflow parking for school events, was 5-6 feet under water in spots.

When I think about this being all up and down the river, it really seems like an awful lot of water!

Some pictures from the summer of 1987

Ball State Pre College Visual Arts Program, 1987

Ball State Pre College Visual Arts Program, 1987

I am still in touch with a couple of people from this 2-week program, but I only have frequent contact with one of them (via Facebook.)  There are a quite a few more I'd like to run into again.

Cooking

I like it when I wing something for dinner and it comes out delicious. Tonight I wanted something to go alongside or atop some cheese tortellini. I had frozen fajita chicken strip (unseasoned) and 3/4 of a white onion and so thought maybe I could use those. I ended up simmering and sautéing them with minced garlic, chopped kale, and yellow squash. Added a little balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. It was good.  I am not keen on, nor good with, elaborate recipes, but at least I occasionally have a knack for figuring out what order in which to throw stuff in the skillet and for how long. I rarely cook with kale, and was nervous it would not work out, but the kale was the best part. It really soaked up the onion and garlic flavor.

Ohio River flooding in Louisville

Two days ago (Sunday) we drove down to check out the flooding.  This first photo is the view from the top of the steps of Virginia Chance School on Lime Kiln Lane.  A fellow was getting a small boat ready.  He cruised around the fields for a while.

This is a broad panaromic shot of the road and school field.  The school greenhouse is knee-deep (I estimate, anyway) in water.  Speaking of knee-deep, I could hear a lot of frogs. Upland chorus frogs, I think, but I don't know for sure.

Some people were driving or wading through the water to get to their homes on River Road.  Kim (who is at left in this picture) and I shut the school parking lot gates so people would not be inclined to park there--the top of the lot was still dry, but only a foot above the water, and although it was not forecast to rise much more we thought closing it off would be a wise move.

Flooding on Lime Kiln Lane.

Pity the poor tiny people who live in this tiny house!  Actually, it's used as a tool shed.

I spotted this fishing spider crossing the road from 30 feet away. He was big!

Miniatures

Last weekend I had some grand plans to work on a pen and ink cityscape of the Louisville skyline, and also to spend time gaming with some friends.  I also was going to work some more on a portrait someone asked me to do. The rest of my family was going to be gone, so I figured I’d have plenty of time.  Unfortunately, one of my daughters was sick over the weekend, so I stayed near her and tried to keep her happy and comfortable.  I did not want to work in another room—not because she was very ill, but because she was so annoyed and uncomfortable so much of the time, feeling tired and knowing that the weather was gorgeous and her sister was out having fun, and I didn’t want her to feel ignored.  So I stayed mostly in the room with her, and we watched a lot of her favorite shows.  But I did manage to get some pen and ink done while sitting on the couch (the city scape, which is proceeding well).

I also did something I used to do all the time, but which I’ve done very little of over the past 20 years:  painting miniatures.  I sat on the couch and painted a couple of figures.  The first is a Shadowrun troll street samurai (which I intend to use for my character in a current game, even though he looks nothing like my character, except for his size and homeliness).  The second is a halfling from a recent Reaper Minis Bones Kickstarter release that I went in on with some friends for an assortment of figures.

I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, considering that most of my paint is either between 10 and 20 years old, cheap craft store paint, or both.  In fact, I now wish I had spent just a little more time with my X-acto knife and metal files cleaning up the flash lines and cuds before I started painting.

Reaper Minis Bones Halfling

Shadowrun troll street samurai (front)

(back)

High Concept

I sent this to my pal Gary:

"I’m working on an idea for a TV series with which I want to approach Showtime.  This will be in the vein of that Resurrection show, and also HBO’s “Leftovers,” with hints of ABC’s “FlashForward” and “Lost.”  The overall plot framework:  A secret army research facility in Lexington, KY suffers a mysterious alert and goes on “lockdown.”  Suddenly, everyone in a 40 mile radius suffers from continuous, uninterrupted flatulence: everyone sounds a little different, but it’s non-stop, like droning whistles and clapping.  When more than 5 people are in the same room it’s hard to hear conversations.  An investigative reporter who was checking out the secret facility when this occurred will try to expose the cause, but government agents will try to shut him down.  The lead government agent was actually out of town during “The Occurrence,” and he comes back to Lexington to kill the reporter. However, he is also conflicted, because his wife and teenaged daughters are now passing gas continuously, and he wants to help them, and part of him also wants to help the reporter.  It turns out even house pets are affected, but animals that can’t pass gas, like hamsters, just detonate.  I’m planning on a J. J. Abrams-like ending in which the cause is revealed to be time-traveling ghosts with forbidden lusts, or you know, whatever.  I might need a little help with the script for the pilot. You in?"

Snowy back yard

My Brackets! Hooray for Mad Marchness.