About

Cloudman23 in his beloved Blue Ridge

E-Mail = ProfToney@gmail.com

Cloudman23 (Tonie Ansel Toney) is a retired college/university professor with 41 years of teaching experience (37 of those – full-time).  Until recently he has been teaching for (and learning from) senior citizens by presenting Chautauqua-type seminars at a community college near his North-Central Florida home. His subjects are geology, meteorology, physical oceanography, and environmental sciences.  He learned some of his meteorology while in the United States Air Force, some as a result of many years of proximity to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, but most of it in the classroom both as a student and in the process of teaching the subject.  His special interests in his fields are cloud dynamics, glacial geomorphology, and the interaction of atmosphere and hydrosphere.

His teaching has been interrupted by a high degree of uncertainty with regard to his availability; health issues with certain of his elder family members are involved.  He may return to the classroom in the future though at this juncture it appears that it will likely be the “distant” future.  In the meantime, he will try to address at least some of his teaching/learning efforts in this web-log – as time permits.

He has also recently opened a page he calls “Revelations, Reflections, and Rants.”  Count on added content but at a relatively slow pace.  He has discovered that isolation from frequent face to face human interaction is sometimes preferred but being a social animal he also needs an outlet for communication outside of his areas of expertise.  This could be interesting and probably revealing.

His hobbies are landscaping at home, hiking in mountains all over North America, reading, and small craft sailing.  He hopes to revive his involvement in target archery soon.

He is married and has 4 adult children.

This web-log was started on August 24, 2008, the 16th anniversary of category 5 hurricane, Andrew.  Cloudman23 lived in Homestead then and his home was a total loss from the storm.  He and his family stayed in the community and had the house rebuilt.  They left in 2005 for a more serene part of the state.  He often says that he escaped “syphilization” while he still had one remaining, albeit thin, thread of sanity.  He is now experiencing the happiest time of his life.  This happiness has little to do with material things though having a comfortable cabin in the North Carolina Blue Ridge mountains sure helps.

The initial intent of this web-log was to report weather to neighbors, family, friends, and both former and current students.  He is not a weather forecaster.  Most “bloggers” who provide forecasts are not trained as forecasters.  So long as they report the forecasts of the professionals they are probably performing a valuable service.  What turns Cloudman23 off are the ones who claim that it is “their” forecast.  We hear this claim on television often when in fact the information is almost always initially made available by the National Weather Service.  So, he is careful to make it clear when he is expressing a personal opinion; in most cases he simply sticks to what the “experts” are saying and gives credit where credit is due.

As previously stated, he envisions this site becoming an outlet for his need to teach and learn.  In time, the categories in this web-log will become more abundant and it will eventually become more diversified.  In this project, Cloudman23 faces a steep learning curve.  Comments, including constructive criticism, are welcome.  For those who do wish to provide him the pleasure of a comment, he feels it is reasonable to request the courtesy of your name and E-mail address.

To go to Cloudman23’s weblog

please click on the “blog” tab

near the top of this page.