Are skies electric?

General Services training finished last week, and to my shock and surprise I passed the final exam on the first try. So now I have two years to forget everything that I allegedly learned before I'll ever put this "knowledge" into practice. Starting on Tuesday this week I've commenced the study (again) of Mandarin, with the next 23 months or so of my life devoted to (re)learning 普通话 (or 國語, as the wife knows it) and mastering simplified characters (I prefer the traditional variety, but China...). This time around I'm working on reshaping my life story so that I don't appear as hopeless as I actually am when it comes to attempting to communicate in my wife and daughter's mother tongue. Gone are those years in Taichung 台中 and Shanghai 上海, not to mention all that time living, traveling and/or working in Japan 日本. From this point on I'm a fresh (though not young) face, eager to become proficient in a language deemed "super hard" by the U.S. government.

加油 me!

But 中文 isn't the reason for writing this post. No, I'm sharing the following videos with the world because things have been somewhat "electric" during the past month here in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. I've had a lifelong fascination with lightning, and lightning storms have been frequent occurrences in this region during this summer. Whenever the sky starts to light up, I can be found on the balcony, camera in hand, much to Shu-E's amusement. Last week, I was woken up by a series of bright flashes just after 0300 hours and stepped outside to take in the majesty of it all. As you can see from this video, some of the lightning strikes were uncomfortably close. The storm ended up knocking out our power for about  3½ hours that early morning: 

One afternoon out on the balcony:

This was taken last night:

As was this video, with the helicopter seeming fleeing the lightning flashes (though in reality they were somewhere far off in the Virginia countryside):

On yet another evening I ventured into a cemetery to film the show:

This last video was taken while standing in the parking lot of a shopping center near our apartment complex. It was an amazing display, yet I seemed to be the only person out there paying any attention (as is usually the case in these situations; I assume saner people prefer to stay indoors during times like these):

In another life I might've been a fulminologist (?), studying mysteries such as blue jets and red sprites. In this reality I at least have memories of scenes such as that time I sat on the edge of the quay at Hirara Port 平良港 on Miyako-jima 宮古島, mesmerized by an absolutely stunning display of lightning far off in the distance over the East China Sea. 

I'd like to end this brief post with a terrible pun using the word "charged" or some variance thereof, but after only three days of Mandarin study, my brain is already tired, and it's a challenge to "spark" joy.

Get it? 

For more lightning videos, check out my YouTube page.