Sometimes, it seems we can't win for losing. Last week, we upset a member of the canine contingent of our windsurfing community. Apparently, he took exception to our cat themed forum post. This week, it's someone else. We really need it to blow around here. Nerves are getting frayed and tempers on a short fuse.

Wow. Somebody is having a bad hairball day. First, we heard that "Bored Sailing" joke back when people stood in line for Microsoft products and Apple bled money and only made beige boxes (we still have one around somewhere).

Secondly, curse? Seriously, how exactly does a curse work? What aspect of Quantum or String Theory manifests itself as a curse? Now that the Large Hadron Collider found evidence of the Higgs Boson, will it go looking for the source of all curses? Or, do little pixies and elves sprinkle magic dust in the air so that the laws of thermodynamics no longer apply to Georgia? (Skip that last part, apparently some in Georgia feel that science doesn't necessarily apply here.)

Let's look at some empirical data since you cast your evil cat spell on us. Here's a record of wind over the last few days. It looks real, well, maybe not so windy.

It was windy a couple of times. I'm sure the anemometer is broken. That would explain the 0 readings.

Well, it's warm here. Periods of light wind happen here. That's not unusual. As it cools off the next several days, it should get breezy again. Here, let's look at the forecast out a few days.

See, that's not so bad. Yeah, there are lots of 2's and 3's but I see a couple of 6's in there, too. Lots and lots of wind.

Umm... that's, uh, interesting. I'm sure that's a coincidence. Right? Right? There's no curse. Get the NWS on the line, there's something seriously @#$%ed about their wind models.

One of the most stark and grim sites that confront climbers as they attempt to summit Everest are the remains of those who didn't survive on the mountain. Their corpses sit as eternal reminders of the frailty of life, having succumbed to the cold, oxygen deprivation and injury. At those altitudes, anything that prevents you from quickly descending sentences you to an almost certain death. That same altitude and isolation also means that it's almost impossible to retrieve the bodies of these doomed climbers. So, the dead sit and watch every year as new climbers attempt to summit without suffering their fate.

Like Mt. Everest, Van Pugh Park has its own corpse; a corpse of someone who tried to dared nature and lost. The story is hazy and has many variations. But, they all tell of someone, a windsurfer, who didn't believe in the Curse of the Kitty. He thought that if he waited, waited long enough, the wind would blow. What eventually happened, we don't know other than to say, it never blew again in his lifetime.

His bones sit as a reminder to value each and every windy day. And, to never, never, ever annoy a cat.

Marcel looks while David averts his eyes from the grim site of the windsurfer who will wait for wind for eternity. There's his gear, too. As a memorial, local windsurfers leave it rigged and ready for him to use.
Photo: Slogger

Atlanta native Cat Power from her new release.