I now have power once more. Well, okay, I had it last night and just decided to enjoy catching up on house cleaning and whatnot. I would like to thank Tonington for his picking up the slack while my abode was under blackout conditions, and as his reward, I shall give him what he so desperately desires: tree death porn.
Now on with the carnage photos!
On Sunday, we had 60-70 MPH winds, so naturally, my first reaction was to jump into the world of investigative journalism. Lacking Dan Rather’s little yellow rain slicker, I was hardly prepared for how much trouble it is looking important in the midst of the elements…
My first action shot is some flowers…bent over by the forces of wind! Okay, that’s not so impressive, I’ll admit. But right next to it, a flagpole went bye-bye. Normally, when I give people directions to my place, I say to take a right at the second flagpole. Now, I can’t really do that anymore…
Next door to my apartment compound, there are a few businesses. As you can see, the sign for that place is no more. Cruel nature hath unleashed her fulsome gales, spiriting away formerly-tethered signage. Let us pause for a moment of silence with regard to this sign. It is so important to me, after all, that I honestly don’t remember what the sign read when it existed, but now it exists as a hole, a hole in my soul.
You can also see parts shewn from the trees. My place has a lot of trees nearby, so you’ll see some hot tree carnage, too dangerous for TV!
Oh, by the way, there are also some offices there for rent, if you’re interested. Well, okay, it’s for lease, but eh, there’s not that big of a difference as far as I’m concerned. And we’d be neighbors! Wouldn’t that be just swell?
I went along a bit further, wanting to see exactly what kind of tree damage occurred, and I found a bit of it. In the picture to your left, which you’ll probably see a bit below this because I can’t write enough text to keep up with the pictures, you can see a Bigfoot-quality blurry shot of a debranchified tree. That tree certainly has seen better days, but its buddy won’t be seeing many more, unfortunately, as it completely collapsed.
Incidentally, trees weren’t the only thing to face the Wrath of Wind. Back at my parents’ house, the neighbors were watching shingles get blown off of their roofs. Fortunately, my parents had their roof replaced not too long before, so everything was down solid. In addition to shingles, there were also some uprooted stop signs and other fun things like that. Sadly, I did not take a picture of the stop sign, as I was driving home at the time. It did, however, give me the inspiration to go out shooting.
I should note here that above, I said that there are two flagpoles. The other flagpole is safe and sound. I credit this to the fact that there was an American flag on top of it, rather than just an OSU flag. The American flag, not wanting to touch the ground, willed the pole to remain upright through the gustiest of wind blasts. It had nothing to do with the trees or buildings nearby acting as windbreaks, no-siree.
Adolescent trees were not spared in the rampage either. This little buddy on the left was yanked clean out of the ground. Nearby are a couple of branches from larger trees, as well as rocks. The rocks did not move. Rocks are presumably too sturdy to move, being the dwarves of the natural world. They probably wear funny helmets when nobody’s looking.
Speaking of sturdy creatures, ol’ Mortise the Safety Tortoise made it through without a problem. It was probably a bit touch-and-go, but the aerodynamic shell and impressive weight kept it down and earthbound. You can see ephemeral twigs blowing by the stolid countenance of that wisest of beshell-ed creatures.
Sadly, the pool area looked like a party gone horribly wrong. Either that or a party gone horribly right. The only thing missing is empty martini glasses and a fellow with a lampshade over his head. My preference would be that the fellow with the lampshade over his head be stuck, upside down, in the pool, but that’s just because I’m a sadistic jerk.
Right around this point, it was starting to get dark, so I had to have the flash on for most of my shots. When I left it off—to be polite to the people sitting outside and watching, perhaps wondering what kind of nutball goes out and takes pictures of trees and tipped-over outdoor furniture—I ended up with poor-quality photos. Unfortunately, having the flash on hurts the photo quality (it’s too sharp, in my opinion) and plays funny tricks on me, mainly because I’m a mediocre photographer with a good camera but only a vague sense of how properly to use it.
Also of note, Eddie the Eagle made it through without a problem. He can get back to doing whatever it is that he does, like posing, eating smaller animals, and training kids on the proper way of using firearms (Eddie Sayz: don’t hold it gangsta-style, fool; you’ll never hit anyone that way!).
After looking around at that stuff, I figured I would come back, do a once-over in the other direction, and call it a day, given that my animal statue friends were still in tip-top shape. As part of my return, I happened to notice a sign on the ground. At first, I thought it was the sign that got blown out of the holder above, but it was too big and went in the wrong direction, given the way the wind was blowing. Instead, I wanted to piece together what it was, so I used all of my detective skills.
By “detective skills,” I mean that I took a picture of it, wondered what it was, and then decided to take pictures of other stuff. I did notice the blue in the sign and figured that this was an important clue.
Across the street from me is a strip mall with a Blockbuster, Kroger’s, an abandoned hardware store, and some other stuff that I don’t much care about. In the parking lot, going to the Blockbuster, a street light happened to be knocked over. It’s not tree death porn, but street light death porn is possibly as alluring, if only for its potential of danger for people stupid enough to electrocute themselves. Fortunately, I can readily say that I did _not_ electrocute myself on that particular street light…this time…
I then noticed something in the street: something…familiar… Why, it’s another piece of that sign! At this point, I was deep in thought, wondering what possibly could have been the origin of these fragments. I figured the answer would hit me, but I needed just a little bit more of a clue. Fortunately, as I got ready to cross the street to see if there were any interesting bits of debris and to check out the street light, I found something else, something that would help me solve this case once and for all.
Of course! It’s Granger, as in Granger-causality! I wasn’t sure why Granger would be advertising in central Ohio, but I do live pretty close to OSU campus (in fact, I take my Saturday walk in an OSU-owned park and walk by some of the buildings), so it does seem like a reasonable guess.
I suppose, though, there could have been other guesses, though maybe not as plausible as Granger. As it turns out, I finally decided that it was probably an old Kroger sign. But how could I possibly know?
After solving the Mystery of the Purloined and Subsequently Demolished Sign, I noticed that the traffic lights were out. This did not bode well for me, particularly as that meant that the power had gone out. On the plus side, it showed the capacity for spontaneous coordination as people found a way to maintain an orderly process through town despite the fact that the road next to my compound is shaped more like an X than a + and people go every which way along it. 
So I’ve got to give folks credit for that. Incidentally, though, I wouldn’t want to get rid of traffic lights altogether. Although I didn’t witness any wrecks and few people messed up (at least as far as I was aware), it was pretty slow for me and I don’t even drive through Columbus during peak hours, so I’d hate to see how it was at about 9 AM or 5 PM.
After crossing the street once more and going back to the compound, I snapped a few more shots in the “woods.” By “woods,” I mean “area closed off by trees with a little creek and with a couple picnic tables nearby for people to sit outside on nice days and do whatever it is those outdoors-people do while I sit inside and plot.”
I should note that as I was doing this, it became progressively darker, which leads into what is probably my favorite shot from the whole series. In this picture, I knew that I had to use the flash, as I was getting blurry pictures otherwise (what with the relatively long exposure time necessary). On the other hand, I didn’t yet realize that I needed the night mode to be on, so when I snapped this shot, the flash caught the sign but completely missed the trees behind it, giving the image a spooky black-and-white feel despite actually being a color photo. I kind of wish that the middle text were blurred out a bit, leaving only “WARNING” and touches of green, red, and rust, but you can’t have everything, I suppose. I am happy to note, however, that even though it was not raining, I did not touch the water.
But really, I was in the “woods” to get more tree carnage action, and it did not disappoint me. This tree clearly did not heed the warnings and became one with potential sewage-enhanced water. Obviously, this proves that trees can’t read. Either that or they don’t follow directions very well.
And to end my little expedition, I took a gander back at where I was parking this morning, only to find that I was _really_ glad that I went to my parents’ house that morning, as a light had fallen exactly where I was parked.
So what are the lessons learned here? I shall enumerate them in bullet form so we can all put it together:
- Trees are nothing in the face of mighty winds.
- American flags easily add a few hundred effective pounds to any flagpole. No wonder British artillery couldn’t stop it in Baltimore.
- Kroger is significantly more popular in central Ohio than Clive Granger, even with me. I prefer to shop at Meijer, though, so this just shows how little I like Granger-causality (or rather, the abuse thereof).
- I am an incredibly lucky guy. Given that I’ve probably evaded death or serious injury a couple dozen times by now, picking that day to head back home and pay my parents a visit ranks fairly low in terms of “stuff that kept me out of a really bad situation.” Nevertheless, I am very appreciative, while at the same time feeling kind of sorry for the poor fellow who took my spot.
- I’m not all that good at padding these image dumps with relevant text.
