Not all of the words I feature here are ones I come across when reading. This one struck me when I was at the gym, watching the Weather Channel. Which is actually one of the more interesting shows on cable these days.
A virga (plural virgae), also known as a “dry storm,” is a streak or shaft of rain that evaporates before it hits the ground. As I read up a bit about virgae I found it necessary to understand the concept of a “precipitation shaft”: a highly localized precipitation event. It’s not a whole front of rain then but a sort of column, which ties into the Latin root of virga: a rod, staff, sprig, or twig.
This is not a word I can imagine myself using, ever. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a virga, so I’d have to employ the word as a metaphor. Looking it up online, however, I did come across this amazing picture of a virga in the sunset over the Russian city of Saratov. That in itself seemed worth a post. (You can click on the pic to make it bigger.)
Alex Good 
What kind of workout do you do at the gym?
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Mostly machines like the elliptical or the bike. I have some free weights at home so I don’t need to do that.
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does that make you a gym rat then? Do you wear one of those tshirts that shows the Ahnold as a rat?
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WT heck is an Ahnold??
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Ah-nold Schwarzenegger.
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Duh. And eye roll. 😁
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Arnold Schwartzenegger (because I can never spell his last name 🙂 )
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So you spell his 1st name wrong to match up? 🤣
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Quote #5:
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🤣
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That is how he pronounced his first name when he was still learning English…
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Ahhhhh 🤣
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See, we can learn stuff even on Alex’s blog ;-D
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Every day’s a school day at AAA’s gaff!
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I thought every day was Bad Movie Day? Hahahahahaa…
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Possibly that too 😁
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This is a classy gaff!
Whatever that means.
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Classy means stylish and sophisticated 🙄 like you have a library basement and bookmarks. That kind of thing.
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Har-har!
Will have to post pics of my basement soon!
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Is it done?
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Pretty much. Just needs a bit of furniture.
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Cool! Yep, photos soon!
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When I was younger I’d call myself a gym rat. Now I’m just fighting off decline. I sure don’t lift to build muscle anymore.
I don’t have any cool t-shirts like that. I just wear the ones from Wal-Mart that you buy in a pack of four for $10 or whatever.
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Amazing photo of the phenomenon. It would be hard to use ‘virga’ in a conversation but I reckon I could get ‘dry storm’ on the go.
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Yeah, that has a sort of poetry to it.
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The weatherman’s locked-room mystery: It rained here in this very spot and yet old man Haversham’s body is dry as a bone!
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So that’s what happened to him!
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