{"id":30613,"date":"2018-06-28T22:25:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T22:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30613"},"modified":"2018-06-28T22:25:15","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T22:25:15","slug":"what-was-i-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30613","title":{"rendered":"What was I thinking?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/slideshow-color-windmill.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-30614\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/slideshow-color-windmill-300x106.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"106\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/slideshow-color-windmill-300x106.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/slideshow-color-windmill-768x271.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/slideshow-color-windmill-1024x361.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/slideshow-color-windmill.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>AMARILLO, Texas<\/strong> &#8212; I must have been off my rocker, had rocks in my noggin, gone around the bend when I had all those positive thoughts about the Texas Panhandle wind.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-three years of life on the Caprock have schooled me about the wind. It&#8217;s far more of an annoyance than a blessing.<\/p>\n<p>We have returned to the Panhandle for a brief visit. And, oh yes, the wind greeted us &#8212; with a vengeance.<\/p>\n<p>There once was a time when I could rationalize the benefit of the wind. Such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It keeps the bugs away.<\/li>\n<li>It cleans the air.<\/li>\n<li>It helps reduce the stifling humidity.<\/li>\n<li>It provides a relentless, endless source of clean energy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s about it. But I would trot those &#8220;benefits&#8221; out when someone would gripe about the wind. I now join the gripers. The whiners&#8217; chorus has gained a member, although I remain a huge proponent of wind power as an alternative energy source.<\/p>\n<p>I also understand the <em>threat<\/em> the wind presents, particularly during the summer months.<\/p>\n<p>The wind exacerbates fire dangers manyfold. It dries out the grassland that has been moisturized by rain or snow. The grass grows, it adds fuel that can ignite easily.<\/p>\n<p>You know how the rest of it goes.<\/p>\n<p>Our new home near Dallas presents some other annoyances, such as the humidity that one doesn&#8217;t normally find way up yonder on the Caprock, which sits roughly 3,600 feet above sea level.<\/p>\n<p>But &#8230; I look at it this way: My family and I spent nearly 11 years on the Texas Gulf Coast, in the Golden Triangle. We didn&#8217;t exactly enjoy the stifling summers there; we merely adjusted to it.<\/p>\n<p>My memories of that period are still vivid. So I won&#8217;t let the relative humidity of the Metroplex get me down.<\/p>\n<p>I also remember the Panhandle wind. Those memories are even <em>more<\/em> vivid. I no longer enjoy what I used to pass off as a flying bug deterrent.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AMARILLO, Texas &#8212; I must have been off my rocker, had rocks in my noggin, gone around the bend when I had all those positive thoughts about the Texas Panhandle wind. Twenty-three years of life on the Caprock have schooled me about the wind. It&#8217;s far more of an annoyance than a blessing. We have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30613\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What was I thinking?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[5492,1936,2022,4668,5272],"class_list":["post-30613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-news","category-local-news","tag-caprock","tag-golden-triangle","tag-gulf-coast","tag-texas-panhandle","tag-wind-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30615,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30613\/revisions\/30615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}