Tag: Climate

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DAMN! I hoped to not need the heat…

For at least another week or two. I was drawing runes on the floors asking Odin for another month without needing it. 

But alas, when I woke this morning, the house was in the low 50’s. That is too dang cold!  So I broke down and kicked the heater on.

I don’t like being super coldDSC0174, but I like even less the high cost of Natural Gas and don’t want to pay another outrageous bill like January and February of this year. This coming winter, my place is likely to be much colder than in years past.

With the other half’s harps out of the house I can keep it cooler because I’m not risking damage to the harps or having strings break due to the temperature.

My guitars, on the other hand, are going to be sharp as hell! So I’ll need to retune them frequently until the temp stabilizes.

I guess this means that Autumn is really here.

On the one hand perhaps the risk of fire danger is lower, on the other hand, It may feel like, the endless winter from Narnia. 

No matter, it’s a milestone. Another season passing. The first Autumn in many years that I’ll be alone. Later today, I’ll dig out my seasonal jackets. 

Life goes on. I need to get out and socialize a bit more, even if it means dealing with what passes for human beings these days.

I also need to observe humans interacting if I’m going to write stories containing humans. I’ve been thinking that perhaps a Jane Goodall approach might be appropriate. I’ll venture out into the wilds of Palm Springs, and begin observations without interacting until they don’t see me as a potential rival or threat.

I suppose I also need to check the Autumn “ToDo” list. There are a few things that need to be done before it gets to the point that I’ll need winter gloves when I’m outside. That’s a month or two away, but it seems unusually cold for this time of year. Oh perhaps it’s normally cold, and we’ve been experiencing warmer than “normal” fall weather for the past few years. 

Either way, it doesn’t change that there’s stuff I need to get done.

I’ve agreed to take a neighbor to a medical appointment on Wednesday. Perhaps while I’m waiting on him, I’ll head out to a local hardware store for supplies that I’ll need to winterize the house. I’m not going to get any painting done this year thanks to the flood control guys. Sand, dust, and debris blowing into wet paint just doesn’t look right.

It’s okay, if it’s a rough winter as predicted, I’d probably have to paint again come Spring, especially if I sell the house.

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It’s a clean new morning!

A certain someone woke me as soon as he figured out the rain had stopped.

I have to admire the way the dog resets every day. He makes me smile more than most other things, so I’ll keep him around for now.

For those of you still below the grey cloud cover, here’s a sample of what you have to look forward to, later today.

The morning smells clean and fresh. The dog is beside himself exploring the yard. He’s already pushing for a walk, which he’ll get after I’ve had at least one cup of coffee…

I’m not sure if the trash folks are coming up today or not. I don’t know how crazy things are beyond what I can see.

I never lost power, or was inconvenienced in the least by the storm. I got to stay inside most of the day enjoying a movie or two, the dog cuddled up beside me with the sound of rain on the roof and the wash behind the house roaring away.

It looks like there’s some kind of inspection crew down at the bridge, I can see the lights but not what they’re doing. I guess I need a decent pair of binoculars at the very least.

I’ve been waiting for a pair that were all “techie” range finder, night vision, predator weapon interface. You know, loaded with SciFi shit like you see in the movies. You’d think by now someone would have put something like that together! 😁

I wanted to see if the smiley face would work. Don’t expect me to start communicating in modern hieroglyphics but I wanted to test it as an option.

It doesn’t look like there’s a lot to clean up immediately around the house. I’ll wander out in a bit to do an inspection just to make sure. I don’t believe there’s any damage either so I don’t have to deal with insurance claims or FEMA.

As you may have noticed I’ve posted some video in the past day or two. Yesterday it was because I was bored, and a video shot on my phone was not to my liking. I set about cleaning it up and learned more about editing video. I’ll never be a pro at it but it’s interesting to dabble with.

The reason I shot the video in the first place was to send to my neighbor who is helping out a sick loved one in Palm Springs and was curious about his house and the neighborhood. I suspect that he’s dealing with a number of messes out there which are more severe than what happened here.

Once I’d exhausted my patience with video stuff, I spent the rest of the day answering inquiries from family on the East Coast who had watched too much CNN. From the way they were talking I imagined CNN was saying that the end of days was here and it was starting in California?

Anyway after quieting their concerns and reminding them all that an 8000 Ft mountain stood between me and the storm, they lapsed back to normal anxiety levels. I’m so confident about my mountain I dare a CAT 5 hurricane to hit it directly!

Bring it! Mother Nature.

Seriously, most storms that come in from the South are gutted on the peaks of the mountains. I live in their shadow, the upside is those storms I don’t usually worry about too much, the down side is that in winter it’s dark at my house by 3pm.

The only storms I really worry about are those swirling storms that come in from the North. Those are usually bitterly cold and batter the town for days on end.

Those of you who were impacted by the storm, I hope you fared at least as well as I did. Remember things are still gooey in some places. So pay attention and don’t take any chances with mud or innocent puddles across the roads.

Have a good day

I just found out that part of my little town is cut off due to some roads and bridges being washed out. This doesn’t affect me per se because I don’t need to go anywhere today or probably tomorrow. When I secured the place due to the unknowns of the storm, I secured to stay in place for days… Even a week or two if necessary.

I find that having laid in supplies, having a plan, and not having to go anywhere tends to make me a whole lot calmer about this sort of thing.

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Well California really has it all!

In addition to fires, earthquakes, blizzards, mudslides, Santa Ana winds, the occasional tornado, and floods.

California can boast a hurricane warning, fleeting as it was. The hurricane warning has devolved into a tropical storm warning and will likely lead to mudslides and flooding.

I’m not sure how fires would stand up to this amount of rain but we could still get a few tornadoes out of this too.

My family in Florida is laughing their butts off. They were snickering about how the news was portraying this Hurricane. They saw it was a Category 4 and thought perhaps there was some danger so they called or texted to ask.

I pointed out that this was not the first hurricane I’d seen, it’s not even the first I’ve seen in California.

Most of the hurricanes roll up the Gulf of California, or they come from the Pacific, cross the Baja peninsula and die in Mexico’s desert region. Their remnants then make their way north into AZ, NM, or TX.

The rare hurricane that reaches the top of the Gulf of California degrades rapidly from hurricane, to tropical storm, to just a lot of rain as it makes its way across the desert and dumps a lot of moisture across southern California. Sometimes the rain gets to NV, AZ and UT.

In other words, it’s no big deal.

This Storm formerly known as Hurricane Hillary. Is unusual because it didn’t roll into the gulf of California. Instead it’s heading up the Pacific side of Baja.

It doesn’t matter too much though. The Pacific starts cooling down pretty rapidly as you go North.

Hurricanes typically like warm water and get their energy from it. That’s why most of the hurricanes on the East coast tend to form near the equator and then swing north through the Caribbean. Warm shallow seas provide a lot of energy. Or so I’ve been told by friends who know a lot more about weather than I do.

With all this information in my head and looking to the South, there is an 8000 Ft. Mountain between me and the storm. I figured Hillary would fall apart into a tropical storm by the time it got to San Diego and we’d just get a lot of rain.

As of this morning that appears to be holding true. I’ll have to wait and see this evening if the predicted wind will kick up. The rain might also present a bit of a problem but honestly I think I’m in pretty good shape.

The wash is thus far handling the water.

It’s just wait and see.

There’s supposed to be more rain tomorrow. Then Sunshine for the rest of the week.

Seems like today is a good day to watch a movie or read a good book.

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Okay, I’ve Gotta laugh…

The dog is “Mr Fabulous” after his grooming.

The majority of the excess fur he wouldn’t let me brush is gone. I didn’t have him shaved or anything but I did have a lot of the heavier fur clippered off so he looks a lot better and cleaner. He also seems happy about it.

That’s all good. This morning I see in the long range weather report that an actual hurricane has formed off Mexico and the storm track makes it look like Southern California is going to take a direct hit.

This means that within a few days… The dog will of necessity, be a muddy mess. (I haven’t been able to teach him to use people toilets.) Kiss that grooming money goodbye! LOL

A hurricane? Really? I’m conflicted… A CAT 3 or 4 storm might wash a lot of the ills of the cities away but then we’ll have to hear about it for weeks on end.

We’ll also have to hear from the climate change people how this is further proof that we need to destroy ourselves on the altar of reducing carbon emissions.

I ask this question. “We’ve been reducing pollution and carbon emissions for decades and the storms have gotten harsher in that period of time, so maybe we shouldn’t be reducing our carbon emissions?”

I know that logic is so full of holes I could drive several presidential motorcades through them. But I can’t help using the same flawed logic as a lot of the climate change nuts whenever there is an odd weather pattern.

You can’t point to a particular storm or weather event and say “Climate Change”, you have to back your focus out to trends over decades. When you do, you’ll notice that weather is overall a bit less harsh or destructive, but that you still have strong storms that are outliers.

I’ve lived in Southern California long enough to recall other hurricane systems hitting the area. I recall storm systems that lasted weeks as hurricanes rode up the gulf of California. Several of them entered the gulf as CAT2 or 3 then rapidly lost their punch, but the rain the hurricane carried with it was funneled right into San Diego and Los Angeles, then ran up the Central Valley bringing water to the farms we depend on for food.

Sure, a few ill thought out homes fell off cliffsides… whatever!

I have no more sympathy for people In those homes than I do for people in KY & TN who park their trailers next to a river that floods every year. It’s fairly predictable what’s likely to happen so the problem isn’t the storm, or whatever, it’s humans having no common sense!

This storm could present a problem for my neighborhood depending on how much rain we get. The San Bernardino Flood Control District has done a lot of “Work” uphill from us. Part of their “improvement” has been to change the angle of a dirt road they use. Now instead of the mud and debris from a heavy rain running into the wash that runs next to the dirt road as it should, all the mud and debris runs into the road in front of our houses and in some cases into our yards.

If the storm brings a lot of heavy rain suddenly, it could be a problem. I’ll be out there taking pictures because ALL of us on this street are trying to get the county to take responsibility for their screwups. I’m not holding my breath, the layer upon layer of bureaucratic protection on the part of the county is impressive. Photographic or video evidence is useful in driving the point home.

The other half forbade me from talking to the county. I took offense at the way they tried to defend themselves. They kept saying they were following the direction of X, Y, or Z department. When you followed up with any of those departments they claimed their orders came from higher up. None of them however could point to an origination department for the order. Apparently the decision to screw over a bunch of folks appeared on a computer one day and nobody knows how or why.

Needless to say this kind of thing really pisses me off. Someone has to have originated the command to the flood control district and authorized the expenditure. When you look for that person all you find are the authorizations to pay for ongoing work.

I told the country people exactly what I thought…

The county really doesn’t like being told that NAZIS at the Nuremberg trials consistently claimed, “I was only following orders.” Apparently county officials take offense at being compared to NAZIS. I can’t imagine why…

However, from then on the other half wouldn’t even take me to county public hearings. I suppose I was too volatile? Mercurial? Outright Hostile?

I probably should lay in some supplies. Charge the portable stuff and the like just in case, the idiots at Edison can’t keep the power on.

That storm is a CAT 4, moving slowly north. I doubt it will hit California as a CAT 4 because the Pacific cools off pretty fast as you head north. Hurricanes typically need warm water to maintain their strength. I think we’re going to see a lot of wind and rain maybe some thunder and lighting.

If I seem caviler about it, remember that I’ve got a range of fairly high mountains between me and the coast. It’s likely when the storm hits this area, it will expend a lot of energy on the other side of the mountain.

I wonder how LA and San Diego will handle the homeless. The tents will probably be alright, but the cardboard boxes will get soggy and moldy pretty quick. It’ll be interesting to see how LA Mayor Karen Bass deals with the situation or indeed if there’s any plan at all.

In any case, I hope you all have a great weekend and if you’re in Southern California you might want to make sure you’ve got some provisions close at hand if you need them.

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Gentle Rain…

Last night soft rain began falling just as I was heading to bed. I love the sound of gentle rainfall and often use the sound of rain on the HomePods in the bedroom to fall asleep.

Last night the fake track wasn’t necessary, Mother Nature provided a natural soundtrack all night long.

Although about 1 or 2 am, the natural soundtrack was interrupted by a bunch of noise from jackass central where Crazy Pants and the other transient trash live.

I suppose that as much of a pain in the ass as it is. I’m going to have to start making noise complaints.

My hesitation about that is if I’m not going to be living here for much longer do I really care? Another consideration is if I start a “war” with those idiots, it could impact my ability to sell my house because if their behavior gets worse, it could scare off potential buyers. Fortunately the eye sore that it their property is mostly concealed by trees and other structures that don’t look like cover photos for “Homeless Beautiful, Your definitive guide to shitty living”

I love that the police are always so concerned about Crazy Pant’s rights, but when asked what about the other neighbors rights they shake their heads. Technically it’s not fair to place the police in that metaphorical vise. It’s not their job to decide. Since Crazy Pants and everyone else in the neighborhood have equal rights, it’s for a judge to determine where the line is.

Eventually the noise died down at Crazy Pants place. I can only hope that they drugged themselves into a stupor or death. I know there’s no such luck on the latter so I’ll take comfort in the former. Once their annoyance quieted, the rain was back. The sound seemed a little louder, as if the intensity of the storm increased.

Perhaps Nature was just trying to drown out the shenanigans so the neighborhood could sleep soundly.

On thing of note about the noise was that the dog didn’t budge from his spot on the bed. When the noise started, he looked up, groaned, and went back to sleep. That’s a comment on the frequency of the disruptions coming from Crazy Pants place. Even the dog is disinterested. He’s a classy dog & they’re trashy primates.

It’s cool and overcast this morning. There’s a slight chance of more rain but I doubt it will happen. I’m thankful for the break in temperature and the quiet of the morning.

I won’t have to water the trees and there may have been enough rain to rinse the dust off the solar panels. That’s one of the things the brochures don’t tell you. Those panels on the roof have to be rinsed from time to time, dust and pollen have a measurable effect on the panel efficiency.

I’m sure there are additional chores that I need to do around here. With watering and rinsing off the list, I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and enjoy the morning a while longer.

Besides, the weather station here in the living room says we could have some thunderstorms. I’d like that, but I’d also be content with more gentle rain.