Hot Weather/BP Oil Spill/Music as Language

WEATHER
On Tuesday, cool spot will be in the Pacific Northwest with highs in the 30s and 40s. There could be some severe weather in Wisconsin. Scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible in the areas to the right of the lines with arrow (see figure at right). 90s for highs in the desert southwest and southern plains.

Houston, the mercury soared to 92 on Monday...one degree from the record. An upper low will spin some clouds across northeast Texas, but Houston should not be affected. Look for the weather to stay fairly dry through the middle of the coming week. It will be cool in mornings and very warm in the afternoons. No rain is likely until the middle of the coming week.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do joy or alegría, ah-lay-GREE-ah. There was much alegría in our household this weekend. See why in the And More section.

Learning languages is fun and beneficial to cognitive development. And, children are inately adept at acquiring language. So, don't miss this window of opportunity. Start them out with my award winning DVDs, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco. They are on the shelf (in the education section) at Barnes & Noble stores or you can order them from http://www.frankandpaco.com, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.bn.com, http://www.bestbuy.com, or http://www.ebay.com/. Our ESL (English as a Second Language) version can be found at http://www.frankypaco.com

AND MORE
What a wonderful weekend! Sarah celebrated her First Communion and she was surrounded by family and friends. Sarah has worked hard to prepare and we are very proud of her!

Cousin Sophia was one of Sarah's special visitors over the weekend. And, the girls had so much fun going swimming as the community pools had just opened. I thought the water would be freezing but it was actually tepid.

Friday, the Weather Museum had its annual Golf Classic at Wildcat Golf Course. KSEV went live from Wildcat and they let me sit in on a few conversations. As always, we had a blast. This is the 4th time I've had the privilege of broadcasting with these fellas. They are all super neat and the museum if very grateful to KSEV for going to so much trouble. The tournament benefitted the education programs provided by the museum.

Are you wanting to know as much as possible about the BP Oil Spill. Well, this might be the link for you:
http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/
The EPA has set up the site to help people not only obtain information but also to request information.

Is music a language? I have heard a couple people say this recently. So, I decided to do some investigating. There is no doubt that learning music is very beneficial to the function and development of the brain (a fact well documented in teh research literature). Here is a link to an interesting article that came up on the web. I think it might be someone's research paper:
http://graham.main.nc.us/~bhammel/MUSIC/muslang.html

I personally don't think of it as a language because it can not give certain kinds of information--like "don't forget your doctor's appointment is tomorrow). But, I will say that music can affect my moods. It can be used to manipulate--case in point movie music like that found in Jaws--would the movie have been as memorable without it? Just some food for thought.

Have a terrific Tuesday everyone!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman