A frosty start heading out for our Carribean cruise

But we're in Florida now and will be boarding ship tomorrow. I'll try and post again before we sail (steam? diesel?) out of range.

The Trouble With Autofocus

Since my parents live in New Orleans I've been watching hurricane Gustav and looking in from time to time on a couple webcams there. On one in the french quarter the last update was around a quarter to 6PM Monday, so I'm guessing it lost power or its connection to the server around then. The other is still active, but the camera evidently does not have its autofocus turned off because it's focused on the water drops on the window it's looking out of. Here are a couple shots from today.

Local Wind Damage

We were relaxing in the local non-Starbucks coffee shop early this afternoon after a walk around town on this windy day, when a fire truck and a couple police cars went by and stopped just on the next block. We didn't see any smoke and just assumed someone had a kitchen fire or smelled gas or something. After we finished our coffee we went out to discover what the fuss was about.

The roof of one of the buildings had half blown off, and there were broken bricks on the ground. The police were blocking off access with tape when we arrived. I got some pictures. This was the best view of the roof damage. It was blowing up from time to time. I tried to get video, but never got it more than just sitting there wobbling a bit.

The building is, perhaps ironically, the Cafe New Orleans. I suppose it might end up with a blue tarp roof until repairs can be made. I asked a policeman what was upstairs, since sometimes people live above the businesses. He said it was a club. Another officer quipped that it was a sun room now.

First Sign Of Spring

I was taking a few pictures in the yard today and spotted this beginning to grow alongside our driveway. I don't care what that groundhog says about his shadow, I say the first signs of spring are already upon us.

So Friggin' Hot!

I'm eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby. The car thermometer said 103° when we left to drop off a package, and 106° when we got back. I allow myself one of these a month, and, dang it, this is the day for it. I also got a Snapple raspberry iced tea to go with it.

A Brief "Stuck-In-A" Episode

While we've been waiting out the storm the fire department paid a little visit. We met them in the lobby of Secret Headquarters (we're on the 1st floor of a building with other tenants) and were asked if we had called about people being stuck in the elevator. We told them we weren't aware of it but if there were it was likely them who called. They tried the elevator button and it was in fact stuck. After trying a few keys they got the door open. The car was stuck between the 2nd & 3rd floors, mostly on the 2nd. There were two people in it who said they were okay. (Other than being stuck in the elevator.)

I showed them the stairs and they headed up but the 2nd floor door was locked to the stairwell. I called the property manager and he said he was forty minutes away but on his way with the key. The firemen decided they couldn't wait that long - they were getting other calls. I called the manager again and let a fireman talk to him. They got his permission to do whatever they had to to open the door. In the end, they managed to get it open without breaking it. I let them use the phone again to tell the manager that the people were out and the elevator was still stuck, and off they went to their next call.

All in all it was more exciting to live through than to read about, I suppose, particularly for the people who were stuck.

Along the way I took this pic of the open elevator shaft. The orange thing is a wedge the firemen stuck in the door to keep it open.

Meanwhile, the storm is passing. Looks like another five minutes or so, so I better post this and shut down.

Later!

And Another Storm

No pic this time.

We're at Secret Headquarters this time. We were getting ready to go - I was beginning my shut down routine - when we started hearing rumbles outside. I looked up just in time to see the door blow open. I checked the radar and there's a line coming through, from the northeast oddly. Most storms come through here from the west if there's a line of them.

Anyway, lots of thunder right now as the big blob of radar-red approaches. We're waiting it out, but the lights have flickered out once already. Good thing we have battery backups on all the computers and the DSL modem & router. I'm keeping the flashlight at the ready.

The heavy rain's just hitting now. Hopefully this won't take too long. From the looks of its speed on the radar I'm expecting a half-hour to 45 minutes.

Battery is flicking on and off now. Better post this now.

See y'all later!

Storm

There's a thunderstorm passing by. I shut down my PC when it started hailing. (I'm blogging from my phone.) The pic is of lightning lighting up the sky as seen through our skylight. Took three tries.

Roll With It Baby

It's been a while since I highlighted the new entries in my list of links, so there's a lot of them here...

Gapminder World
A very interesting interactive animated chart and map of various metrics of countries around the world. Choose any of sixteen different indicators to assign to the X & Y axes and the dot size. Or view the dots in their geographical locations and pick a single indicator for their size. Watch it all animated and see how the values have changed over a period of years since 1960. (Some dots disappear when data is not available.) Fascinating.

RealClimate - Responses to common contrarian arguments (against climate change & its human factors)
I've been seeing a lot of the same arguments against a human factor in global warming. Mostly they seem to originate from the same house-organ/astroturf sources funded by a few corporations. Here's the reality, from people who have actually done the real science.

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
Another in the bad/pseudoscience debunking genre. This time a Scientific American article that addresses the sometimes convoluted, sometimes simply willfully obtuse arguments put forth in favor of creationism/ID.

IMDB - old style (The new layout SUCKS. Switch all IMDB links to this URL and spread the word!)
IMDB has changed their layout. Their research indicates that most visitors concentrate on the main portion of the screen and largely ignore the links to additional information in the left hand sidebar. Accordingly, they have moved much of what had been in the center section to the left hand sidebar. (Boggle!) IMHO, they should have simply changed the visual styling to emphasize the connection between the main section of the screen and the sidebar. While it lasts, use this link instead of their main URL to get the old style IMDB. If enough people do this, maybe they'll catch a clue.

PR Watch - See who's behind the message.
A useful site that explores and exposes the real source of many messages & ideas you hear passed around on a variety of subjects. Is it the truth, or is it PR? That's the question this site asks and answers.

John's Secret Store at printfection.com
John's Other Secret Store at printfection.com
As you may have noticed (I've mentioned it here enough) I've been designing and selling shirts & gifts at cafepress.com. Recently I learned of this other similar site - printfection.com - with its own selection of goods. They allow "shop owners" to set up categories & subcategories in their free shops (cafepress charges) so I've begun putting up some of my favorites & best sellers to take advantage of their different selection of colors & styles. I've heard their print quality is good too. I have two shops there. The "other" one is the one I won't be showing my parents. ("Bad" words make conservatives cry.) I find that while they seem to have greater potential than cafepress in control of size & position & such, they lack certain controls that would allow easier editing and mass changes.
NOTE: I've recently learned of a "wrinkle" in both sites' printing process for dark shirts that is forcing me to make alterations to many of my designs. If you plan to order one of my darker shirts pleas contact me first here and I'll let you know if the one you want is safe to order yet. Otherwise, you might get a white border around the design.

That's it for now. Hopefully I won't let the roll grow so much before the next update. Happy surfing!

A Lesson In Handling An Ice Storm

Well, I learned a little lesson this week: when there's an ice storm, shovel your walk ASAP.

I'm sure many of you heard about the snow and ice storm that passed through the eastern US. (It was the same system that sent a tornado through New Orleans.) Where we are we pretty much got ice, sleet, and freezing rain. A little over an inch of it. Pretty stuff, but a pain in the ass to deal with.

Tuesday night the storm hit us. We had worked late and got home to find the front walked lightly glazed with ice. I sprinkled a little salt for traction and we went inside for the night. I stayed up late that night, listening to the ice ticking against the skylights, and against the front window once the wind kicked up. Fascinating stuff for a guy from New Orleans. I watched as it piled up on the deck rails - our standard means of measuring snow and ice accumulation from inside our warm home. It was quite impressive, with all the ice granules and the icicles hanging down.

The next morning I started shoveling the walk. It was heavily crusted with grainy ice and the bottom layer was pretty solid because of the salting I had done the night before. I got the step mostly done when the shovel broke. It's a plastic scooped snow shovel with a metal edge riveted on. It cracked where the wood handle attaches, which means it's now good only for pushing loose snow and ice chunks, but is not rigid enough to hack at the solid stuff. We resorted to salting again fro traction and going on in to work. Wearing LL Bean "duck" boots our heels crunched into the ice pretty good and gave us enough traction to get by.


By the time we got back, late again, the ice was frozen solid enough, if still granular, to support us without breaking. That meant we we free to slide across it if we didn't step right, so out came the salt again. We had brought the shop shovel home, but I was tired so I didn't do any shoveling. It was too cold anyway.

This morning I went out to the shed and got the spade, figuring that would make short work of breaking up the ice so it could be easily scooped away. No such luck. The ice had solidified somewhat, but was still grainy and in the shady places where it hadn't melted so much tended to not come up in chunks. Eventually I worked out a technique of chopping straight down into it about an inch or so from the edge. If I chopped clean through to the concrete the ice would usually break off in chunks. Finally I finished, put a little salt down on the more stubborn parts, and back to work we went. Man, my toes were cold.

It would have been much easier had I shoveled it all that first morning.

Lava & Ice

We finally had some snow this past weekend, followed by sleet which froze on top the snow. The next day we found the ice sheet on the bed of red lava rocks had holes in it around the higher rocks. I thought the juxtaposition of lava and ice was interesting, so I snapped a picture and off we went to the Secret Headquarters. Will post another winter pic later.