My-Cast®

(The green is rain.)

Yesterday (Sunday, April 25, 2010) I decided to fiddle my My-Cast® computer weather-radar.
My-Cast was recommended to me long ago by a co-worker at the mighty Mezz.
It's a web-site that can display weather-radars around locations you set up.
I set up locations nationwide, but the two nearby were “home” and “the mighty Mezz.”
I set it up after riding my motorcycle to work in clear weather.
But soon after I got there, a monstrous thunderstorm deluged the area, a front with a squall-line passing.
It was so gusty I was afraid my motorcycle was gonna blow over, but it didn't.
If I'd had any idea that squall was coming I wouldn't have ridden.
My-Cast would have showed me.
So every morning before riding my motorcycle to work, I'd fire up my My-Cast.
My-Cast also renders forecasts.
I also started firing up my My-Cast before mowing lawn.
Mowing lawn takes an hour or more, enough time for a squall to move in.
I also have an application on my cellphone, “VZ Navigator.”
It's a GPS navigation system, although I never use it.
It also can render the exact coordinates, latitude and longitude, of where it is, e.g. home.
I could be more precise with my original My-Cast “home” location, which was slopped.
So I stood with my cellphone in front of the Messenger to get its exact coordinates.
That was better than “the mighty Mezz” in the middle of Canandaigua Lake.
Of course, my doing so was rather silly.
My My-Cast weather-radar displays an area 170 miles wide (see picture).
I can do 90 miles wide, but don't because it's jaggy.
As such it displayed both “home” and “the mighty Mezz” — The mighty Mezz was about 15 miles from home.
I decided weather-radar at “the mighty Mezz” was no longer pertinent since retirement, but nearby Baker Park was.
We often take our dog to Baker Park.
So I unholstered my cellphone in the Baker Park parking-lot to get the exact coordinates, which are latitude 42 degrees/53 minutes/35.8 seconds, longitude 77 degrees/17 minutes/56.5 seconds.
I then dumped “the mighty Mezz,” and added “Canandaigua."
Which I later renamed “Baker Park,” and fiddled to the exact coordinates.

• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away, and at the north end of a NY Finger Lake, “Canandaigua Lake.”)
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester, about 15 miles from Canandaigua.
• “Baker Park” is a fairly large city park in Canandaigua. It's nearly all fenced with chain-link, so is fairly safe for a hunter-dog who likes to run away.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.) —She has learned the joy of hunting.