New Tropical Storm Kyle - Weekend Looks Great!

HURRICANES AND MORE
Well, there are 3 areas of interest in the tropics today. The good news is none of them will be a direct player in our weather.

Tropical Storm Kyle formed on Thursday and is moving northward in the western Atlantic. Model forecasts are tightly clustered sending it toward Maine/Canada. It will probably be a rain maker for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It looks like it will miss Bermuda. The winds are up to 60 mph. So, it might just become a hurricane...but there has been enough wind shear to make its intensification a struggle.

In the southern Gulf of Mexico, there is an area of disturbed weather. This should move over the Yucatan peninsula over the weekend.

There is another area of disturbed weather in the eastern Atlantic...this may not hold together.

Our weather will be very pleasant this weekend...sunshine with lows in the 50s and 60s and highs in the 80s...humidity will be very comfortable. A few rain showers are possible late in the coming week as the winds switch back around to come from the south.

It has been such a break that Mother Nature has not brought us any big downpours since the Sunday after Ike. No doubt this is helping with recovery efforts. Centerpoint reports 81% (1.83 million with power as of 5 am today). For those 19% still waiting, it is very frustrating. Hang in there everyone!!! I am hoping the Pareto principle does not apply here...my feared application being that I fear it will take 80% of total time to finish returning power to the last 20%.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let us not forget those who are struggling to recover and those waiting for power to return. There remains much frustration due to the physical and financial hardship. So, frustration is the word for the day...not much different from the look of its Spanish counterpart, frustación--pronounced, froo-stah-see-own. Hopefully, the frustación will be relieved soon!

Knowing more than one language is well established in the research as an advantage in several major ways. Check out this research:

...use of 2 or more languages endows the language users with special awareness of objective properties of language and enables them to analyze linguistic input more effectively. A series of studies compared unilingual and balanced bilingual...children...These studies show that the bilinguals outperform the unilinguals on a number of cognitive, linguistic, and metalinguistic tasks, even when the differences in intelligence are controlled.

This comes from Mohanty, A.K. (1992). Bilingualism and cognitive development of Kond tribal children: Studies on metalinguistic hypothesis. Pharmacopsychoecologia. Special Issue: Environmental Toxicology an Social Ecology, 5(12), 57-66 from PsycINFO database.

We are continuing to move forward with our Frank & Paco series. Volume 2 to teach Spanish to English speakers is in editing. And, we have recently ordered our English teaching version of Volume 1 for Spanish speakers.

In the meantime, you, your friends and family can purchase our award winning children's DVD, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco Volume 1. It has been recognized as a Top 10 Educational Product for 2008 by Dr. Toy!!! You can order through http://www.frankandpaco.com/, Ventura's Educational Supply, Dolo Publications, Carlex Inc., The Curious Mind Store, amazon.com, bestbuy.com, and barnesandnoble.com. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT EVERYONE!

AND MORE
A very special Happy Birthday to our daughter Sarah, who is turning 7 on Saturday!!! We love you Sarah.

School is out in Fort Bend ISD because of the Fort Bend County Fair. There are lots of special activities for the kids today.

Ms. Mitchell at Baines Middle School is turning lemons into lemonade. She has posted a flyer inviting those without power to bring their dirty laundry for special laundering by the special resources class as part of their life skill work. But before you bring in your weekend's dirty clothes, make sure you check with Ms. Mitchell first. Go to the Fort Bend ISD web site and look up the contact phone number for Baines Middle School. http://www.fortbend.k12.tx.us/

P.S. If you automatically received this post halfway done, it is because Sarah published it while I was answering the door to get an estimate from another fence contractor. Ooops!

Have a great weekend everyone! Be safe!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman