Bill Read is the new NHC Director

[Ed Mahmoud]

I guess Miami is an ok place, especially considering the proximity to two schools with met programs.


But the Kennedy Space Center should be somewhere that gets better weather than the ECFL.

If the idea is over water launches, South Texas, between CRP and BRO would seem a natural, with the old KSC as a possible emergency landing pad. A lot less rain and clouds.


BTW, in Texas, unlike Florida, man is the top of the food chain.



OK, back to on topic.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Hopefully Mr. Read will have a quiet year his first full year. And, IIRC, Stacy Stewart should be back from Iraq before the heart of the season.

[Frank2]

Hurakan,

Thanks for the photos of the past Directors - by the way, I forgot to mention Grady Norton (Miami WBO MIC from 1940-1954) and Gordon Dunn (NHC's first Director, from 1965-1967). After all these years, I still confuse their names - even through the 1980's, Mr. Dunn still used to stop by at least once a week to look at a satellite photo or two, and get a Coke from our machine (he once joked that it was the only way to have one without his family getting after him about the caffine)...

A very nice man, as I came to know him in his later years - I found this fine web site, created by his grandson:

http://everglades.fiu.edu/warmth/photographer.htm

According to County records, Mr. Dunn passed away in 1994...

Here's another article, this time about Grady Norton - I was amazed to find out that Milburn Stone (who played Doc in Gunsmoke) played the part of Mr. Norton in the 1955 program, "Man Behind the Badge":

http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/post ... ady-Norton

At times like these, when I feel my life isn't what I'd hoped it would be, I have to give thanks that God introduced me to many, many fine people such as these, and, it's then that I realize how blessed I've been...

The one poster mentioned about South Florida and it's geographical isolation at the end of the peninsula, and, it's crime problems of today, well, true about the geography, and, sadly, true again about the crime of today, but, early residents like Mr. Dunn and Mr. Norton loved the natural environment down here with a great love, and, again, I'm greatful that some of this love passed onto to folks like myself, having known many of these genteel early residents...

I certainly miss the many that I met or knew (including Marjorie Stoneman Douglas), and, I also miss their love for the natural Florida - many come here today, as my late Dad would say, "to make cement", but, many back then came because it was the quiet, isolated, genteel subtropical environment that I remember as a young teen...

Sorry to get off-topic, but, glad to share this with all here...

[wxman57]

snip...

BTW, in Texas, unlike Florida, man is the top of the food chain.

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/8484/image003ip0.jpg

OK, back to on topic.

Actually, that's a Texas alligator, killed near Bay City.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/wcgator.asp

[Ed Mahmoud]

snip...

BTW, in Texas, unlike Florida, man is the top of the food chain.

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/8484/image003ip0.jpg

OK, back to on topic.

Actually, that's a Texas alligator, killed near Bay City.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/wcgator.asp

The year I was stationed in Orlando something like 3 different women were eaten in area lakes.

[psyclone]

Ed, there are 7 states without a state income tax. Texas is one, Florida is another.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Ed, there are 7 states without a state income tax. Texas is one, Florida is another.

Oh, ok. Other than the prospect of sudden death in the jaws of an alligator, I guess Florida isn't so bad.

[artist]

Ed, as a TX transplanted to the se coast of Florida, you know not of which you speak.
We have seen 2 alligator in 8 years and they were in a preserve.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Ed, as a TX transplanted to the se coast of Florida, you know not of which you speak.
We have seen 2 alligator in 8 years and they were in a preserve.

I'm told what I thought was a floating log in a lake on the old NTC Orlando, 32813, was an alligator.


I never went swimming in that lake...

[Aquawind]

Sounds like Mr Read will do a fine job.

[ncweatherwizard]

Funny how out of the loop I can be sometimes. I sat next to Bill Read on the plane back to Miami from the AMS Conference in NOLA and chatted a little. Had no idea until that plane ride that he was the new NHC director. Seems like a good guy; I feel like he'll do a great job.

Scott