Because of a forecast of nasty weather, the Thursday pétanque event was canceled. I went to EBRG instead. That takes a gallon of gas.
Scheduled was a presentation at the Audubon group about Nightjars and Common Poorwills: https://ebird.org/species/compoo
… and similar birds. Spend 5 minutes on the linked-to page and you will have a better experience than at the meeting.
As usual the audio-visual hookup didn’t work. This time “because he used a Mac and the Hal Holmes system was Microsoft“. In a dozen tries, I have never attended one of these when it did work.
The presenter — a man about 65 — was told to use a microphone which he held everywhere except in front of his vocal apparatus. The voice and loudness might have worked for a child sitting in his lap. The room, big enough for at least 60 people, had about 30. I was in the middle. Had he stood close to the front row and talked straight at us, we could have heard him. Instead, he wondered around, frequently looking at the screen. I estimate I caught about 50% of his words.
The AV-system could only show images of text and a couple of photos. When they tried to show a video, the whole thing went blank. They made no progress in the next 5 minutes. Over the next 5 minutes or so, people left one or two at a time. I was the 5th.
The text was about half-a-page in small print and poorly formatted. He used it as speaking notes — while looking at it and away from the audience. This was a complete disaster. We trained college students about how to do these things because it was assumed they would take jobs that required them to do such presentations. The technology changes but the basic skills do not.
The mentioned nasty weather did materialize — all east of me, although I could hear thunder. Acquaintances in the Quincy area are getting the entire mix of rain, wind, and lightning.
The area had full sun and 90 degree temperature. That heated the ground, produced rising air, with moisture coming up from the Pacific Ocean across eastern Oregon. The combination produced the atmospheric activity. It was predicted well in advance. The high Friday is expected to be 30 degrees cooler.
{posted late Thursday evening}
Keeping Track