From Sammy Cahn ("Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow") to Irving Berlin ("White Christmas"), Jews wrote most of the most popular Christmas songs, the ones the sullen proprietor of Lake Wobegone apparently finds so annoying. Get over it, Keillor.
Mr. B.'s big item for his and Mrs. Charm's secular Christmas celebration was Guitar Hero. When he's older he may find the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns more enlightening. Fortunately there'll be more available than the usual anti-American, anti-war movies that Hollyweird churns out:
Video "game makers aren't afraid to put players in situations where U.S. soldiers are unambiguously the good guys, while the combatants – often Muslims – are the bad guys."
Via Instapundit.
Re our secular Christmas at the rancho: This celebration of parties, presents and poinsettias has more to do with Saturnalia than Christianity. It is far older than the religious version. (Some nineteenth century Protestants found it so unnerving that they took to assuring their fellows that while they did mark the Nativity they did "not worship the tree.")
Christians still confuse the two, some of them whacking the secular version as ungodly. Well, to each his own. Mrs. C. would be lost without her favorite time of the year. And while he long ago graduated from Santa to understanding who the real gift-givers are, Mr. B. likewise would be bereft without packages to unwrap and goodies to consume. Good thing they needn't be.
Link via Power Line.
Merry Christmas, y'all, and to all a good night.
On the last night of Chanukah, a miracle occurred! I discovered a really cool hip-hop Chanukah song written by the senior senator from Utah. Who also writes love songs. And this is also one of them. Hey!
Mainly, it's the price. But there's also the problem of reading them on Shabbat. No loop-holes. Whereas there's no problem there with books. Donald Sensing's analysis here is timely for me, considering my own previous consideration. I've just about decided to ask for a new digital camera, instead. I've been borrowing Mrs. Charm's ever since I managed to destroy my old one.
So far, most of my shopping has been (as usual) online: at Amazon and Kodak Easy-Share. With a side trip to X-treme Geek. My one bricks-n-mortar buy was a unique toy at our local hardware store. Last up is Harry & David for my diabetic veteran friends, one of whom (Mr. Boy's godfather) also is allergic to nuts or he'd be getting a traditional Texas fruit cake from Corsicana.
Are there really all that many reasonably-priced, reasonably-desirable books available for download? And is it easy on the eyes, or like trying to read a standard, flickering video-display monitor?
But, then, the forecast for it says "mainly before noon" with total accumulation of less than half an inch. The temperature, however, is hovering in the upper 30s, possibly too warm for snow. Except that the forecast calls for it to drop below freezing by 6 p.m. with a hard freeze overnight.
Austin-Travis County EMS, meanwhile, reported an hour ago that the aerial flyovers on U.S. 183 near I-35 have icey conditions and there've been several collisions in the vicinity. We're watching it because Mrs. C. plans to head for Houston in a few hours for the weekend.
Weather historians would say it's unlikely that tomorrow's forecast 2-4 inches of snow can possibly come true. It's been five years since we had any snow at all and that was barely enough to make a snowball.
But, then, after twelve years of global cooling and an extended solar minimum, the trend is headed that way. Our winters have been coming earlier and a very cold Canadian air mass is scheduled to push through this afternoon.
Just checked the latest weather service update, however, and they're already pooh-poohing the previously anticipated amount of snow. A low cloud deck is pushing eastward and the atmosphere is drying such that "as of right now the trend is down for accumulating snows on Friday." Looks like flurries are most likely. Whew.
UPDATE: Revised forecast at 1 p.m. has snow accumulation of less than half an inch. More like it.
Winter has arrived, says meteorologist Bob Rose of the Lower Colorado River Authority. About a month early. Cold and raining this week, at least through Wednesday. Then highs only in the 50s. Even some snow forecast but not expected to be cold enough for it to stick. Nothing like the above sat photo of 2004's record snowfall across South Texas. That dark spot on the upper left edge of the snow line is Lake Travis. I could do without a repeat early winter, the same thing that happened to us last year. But since global temps haven't been warming for twelve years now (contrary to the delusional convictions of so-called climate "scientists" and other warm-mongering politicians) I suppose we have to expect it.
Through an older cousin, Mrs. Charm has been learning about her paternal ancestry. An aunt already was pulling together the maternal side with a few interesting revelations but no scandals so far. Today Mrs. C. discovered her paternal great great uncle, Richard Jenkins Davis, an elder in the early Mormon church.
Born in Wales, he helped recruit some of the thousands of Welsh converts who emigrated to Utah in the 1850s. He returned to Wales in the 1870s to recruit scores more. So far so good. He even has a nice journal with daily entries to read. Then we found that, by the time he died in 1892, he had accumulated four wives. At the same time. Understandably, some of them didn't get along, so they didn't all live together. Still...
I enjoyed this 1992 scifi novel of physicist Charles Sheffield's, though it seemed unnecessarily complicated in the beginning. A little more action before establishing the seven main characters would have prevented me from putting it down so often. Sheffield died of brain cancer in 2002, which resonates because a good friend of Mrs. Charm's is struggling with it. Seems to have it licked for the moment, though the odds of that lasting are very low.
I bring up Sheffield to point out how easy it is to fall into these stories of ordinary life in the solar system, as if we had gotten off the engineering dime and were actually living in/on Luna, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt. A lot of Cold As Ice occurs on (actually, under the surface of) Ganymede, which recalls Heinlein's impossible young adult novel, Farmer In The Sky, which Mr. B. and I started as a bedtime story but never finished.
We had the space probe pictures and details of Jupiter's radiation to consult, as Heinlein did not. Also life on (under, actually) Europa, which seems plausible, despite Sheffield's scientific realism of the dangers of Jovian radiation. I hope all this verisimilitude means humanity really will do these things and not just wallow forever in political corruption and the threat of war. But a posed result of the latter is limned chillingly in Cold As Ice as one of the spurs for continued colonization.
So far, anyhow, sez the LCRA's Bob Rose. Hope this doesn't mean another early winter, like last year:
"The National Weather Service has issued an [overnight] Freeze Warning for Kimble and Sutton Counties [west of Fredericksburg] where the temperature is expected to fall to the upper 20s. A Frost Advisory has been issued for Mason, San Saba and McCulloch Counties where the temperature will fall to the low to middle 30s."
Only mid-forties expected at the rancho. But that will be cool enough. Near seventy daytime, cooling for Halloween. The goblins will be wearing coats.
UPDATE: Nov. 18-19: It's back in the low 40s at the rancho tonight, after dipping into the 30s last night. Result of the latest cold front to pass through. This time of year they are sporadic. Quickly warms back up, though. Please G-d, give us a normal winter for a change, when it doesn't really stay cold for more than a day or two until January, and then only for about six weeks. Hope, hope.
A melodious little essay by a father mostly riding with his driving son across the west to Navy flight training at Pensacola, where my nephew also flew:
"Rested then, and once again on our way, a salt tang in the air, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama giving us back some sense of forward movement after a day hurling ourselves repeatedly against Texas."
Ah, yes, that repeated hurling against the broad width of the Lone Star and its several sharp points. One does that daily, just living here, even in the rolling green hills around home.
It informed the operation of many of today's computer games. Did it need a story? Nah. It was fine the way it was. Fourteen years later I still remember trying to jump over those chasms at the end of one episode to avoid the water below while the monsters shoot fireballs at me. And all via the keyboard. Not a single mouse click. Quake was better. Halo is better still. So is Half-Life. But only because of DOOM. And their stories are beside the point.
Steady showers this morning on a forecast wet day and night through tomorrow. Glad to get the rain, as always, but it will push the pool problems diagnosis by the maintenance guys out until Friday morning at the earliest. Although it will be middle of next week before we can get the replacement parts for the impeller, anyhow. If the impeller is the problem, as rare reader JD thinks, and it now looks to us like it is.
This time we're noticing that only three of the pop-up water movers in the in-floor cleaning system are popping up and squirting water. It became obvious when the usual fall supply of acorns and leaves began lingering in mid-pool instead of being swept across the bottom toward the drains in the deep end where we could easily scoop them up. Also the green algae have been returning.
This site suggests we check the pressure first, then the filtration system, and last the pop-ups themselves. The pressure is the same it's always been. So the issue may be in this rather complicated-looking apparatus. Meanwhile, I got one of the pop-ups out of the floor and discovered that its rubber seal was weakening, to the point where the black color smeared off on my fingers. I need to get the rest out to check them.
And, wouldn't you know it, once again, there's a hurricane off the Baja threatening big rains here by the end of the week.
Mr. Boy has recently discovered the telephone and how much fun it is to call a friend or get a call from him and talk for hours. For hours when I forget that's what he's doing. But even though this sounds amusing, and I must admit has a certain juvenile appeal, I have so far not allowed him to record the outgoing message. Then again, he hasn't asked to do it. But forewarned, as they say, is forearmed.
Mr. B. and I leave early tomorrow morning for the annual fall Cub Scout camping trip. This time we're staying at Enchanted Rock state park, the big pink granite dome north of Fredericksburg where Texas Ranger Jack Hays fought off a Comanche war party about 1844.
The boys will be hiking to the top at noon. Not sure I'm going to make it to the top this time, but have done it many times before. Fortunately the mail today brought my review copy of Mike Cox's new book, so I can read until they come down.
We've been advised to bring lots of bug spray, as all the recent rain in the Hill Country out there has vastly increased the mosquito population. Forecast highs in the seventies, lows in the fifties, however, should make long pants and long sleeves comfortable, as well as protective.
So nice of Tropical Storm Olaf to fade into a tropical depression, sending far less moisture up here from the Baja Peninsula over the weekend. Because after a few hours of chemical ministrations the green algae has been banished and the rancho pool is sparkling blue again. The water is too cold to swim, of course, but that's why pool owners are called pool fools. Of course the forecast is for more rain through the end of the week, but if the algae returns it won't be Olaf's fault.
We happy band of pool fools have seen the water turn hazy green again since the last rainstorm a few days ago. Mrs. Charm says we must spend the weekend mixing chemicals and scrubbing the walls and vaccuuming the bottom to get the water back to its normal sparkling blue.
Alas, the weekend forecast calls for more storms, in a Pacific tap as it's called, of moisture streaming up here from the remains of TS Olaf, predicted to go ashore on the Baja tomorrow night. So we may just have to start all over again on Monday. Pool fools, indeed.
Radio says we've had almost three inches since it began with the passage of a cold front overnight. Indeed, Mr. B. and I saw it running in the neighborhood gutters and ponding in the yards as I drove him to school this morning. Forecast shows more to come. We sure need it, and it'll lower the temp nicely on this, the first day of fall. Was starting to get hot again.
Mr. B.'s fourth grade teacher wants empty 2-liter soda bottles for a classroom ecology study. Being a classroom parent, I didn't stop at one Coke Zero bottle for Mr. B. but have plunged on to get more. The only hassle is the label. Most of it can be cut off, but it always leaves some where the glue is.
The glue comes off easy enough with WD-40, something I discovered years ago trying to get dried glue off fiberglass. But the label residue itself, ugh, what a pain. Scrape, scrape. Mrs. Charm suggested immersing the bottle in hot, soapy water. I even left it soaking overnight. Didn't work.
This fellow managed it with slightly-cooled boiling water poured into the bottle. I may have to try it, though it sounds like a great way to ruin, or at least deform, the bottle's thin plastic. If there's a surefire trick here, I have yet to find it. Anybody have any suggestions?
UPDATE: Have noticed several visits from folks seeking info on this subject. Therefore will add that I wound up doing in the neighborhood of twelve bottles and this process works best: cut off the label and spray the label residue with WD-40. Let it soak a while and then use a razor blade in a holder to scrape it off. Corner of the blade works best. Once the label is off, spray more on the glue, wait a bit and then wipe it off. Wash and dry the bottle to get the WD-40 off.
I figured when Mr. B. starts on algebra, either in late middle school or early high school, that my ability to help him with his homework would be at an end. I never understood it and have happily ignored it ever since.
Then Mrs Charm and I got into a mild dispute the other night trying to correct his math homework on decimals. We realized that neither of us was entirely comfortable with fourth grade math, nevermind the harder versions to come.
One of Mr. B.'s best buddies is back from his annual family trip to see the in-laws his grandparents in India. So we'll thank the Hindu remover of obstacles and hope we can have a little bit of that rub off on us.
It's not on the local or national forecasts yet, but Accuweather's Joe Bastardi is predicting moisture coming into Texas this week from Jimena, the major hurricane (sustained winds of 145 mph!) the NHC is predicting to whack Baja California tomorrow night:
"The low level center may never fully come up, and peel away, but abundant mid and upper level moisture should come a calling."
Thanks, Joe, we'll take it! This sort of thing has happened before, but it's been a while.
UPDATE: By late Monday, Joe is still sticking to his forecast for us, but it's not explained. Meanwhile, Accuweather's Frank Strait sort of disagrees, saying we have only a slight chance of some storms by Friday. Deep South Texas he notes is already getting storms from Jimena, but, as for us in Central Texas, we'll just have to wait and see.
Mr. B.'s homework assignment spiral notebook has a spot on the first page for his parents' phone numbers. He dutifully wrote in Mrs. Charm's office phone. For Dad he put the home landline number and wrote under it: "Never answers the phone, so don't bother."
Smart kid. Wish the sales callers would get the message, but they continue to call and I continue to ignore them. We've debated getting rid of the landline but are keeping it for the older relatives who don't have cell phones.
He had one this morning, at the Dell Children's Hospital, in search of something that might, or might not, be wrong. They put him under anesthetic so he could hold still inside the hole of the big donut for thirty minutes to an hour. He came out of it okay, just groggy and dehydrated. They gave him a popsicle and let him sleep a while. At home he lay on the couch and watched cartoons all afternoon.
The worst part, for us, was waiting in the outpatient-surgery waiting room. There were several other couples, presumably waiting out something more serious than an MRI. One couple I remember especially. The woman looked stunned. The man looked angry, which I took to be anger at fate. Another man was crying. He had his head down by his knees, trying to hide the fact. The woman was stroking his back. Tough morning. Tougher for them. We got off easy. This time.
People I know hereabouts avoid the U.S. Post Office at all costs. Here's why:
"It's like you have left fast-moving Manhattan and zapped yourself into the Deep South in 1934. Picture a drowsy moment in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' A clerk who has finished with one customer takes a good long pause to settle herself, exchange pleasantries with friends, arrange her workspace and so forth before she lights up the little box and asks for the next customer. If you arrive at her window before she has turned on this light, she will curtly send you away. Don't crowd her! You're just the customer."
That's a description of a post office in NYC but it's a perfect fit for our neighborhood p.o., except we have stamp machines. Imagine that, we're ahead of NYC. Ours, however, is scheduled to close.
Six years ago Mrs. Charm, Mr. Boy and I bought the rancho from a couple who were moving away from Texas. She was a homemaker. He was an airline pilot who had flown U-2 spy planes before he retired from the Air Force. I won't mention names, they'd probably not like me to.
I've read about the U-2 so I have some idea of what it is like to work in full pressure suit at seventy thousand feet--more than twice as high as jetliners cruise. But, until now, I'd never seen the curvature of the earth from a U-2's cockpit, out there on the edge of the black. Magnificent view really.
Via Flightblogger.
My self-published book of short stories, available for free in pdf in the upper part of the sidebar on the blog's main page, or for a mere eleven bucks in paperbook at the link above it, has a new fan. Lucky for me, he even posted an appreciation on his own blog. Thank you.
Off to Port Aransas today through Wednesday, where the National Weather Service forecasts highs in the eighties and twenty percent chance of showers through the period. Sure hope they're right.
What a nice break it would be from the triple digits here. On the other hand, the humidity is above ninety percent which will push the heat index above one hundred. Port A cam aimed at part of the beach will tell the tale.
UPDATE: The humidity was high, but it felt cool nevertheless, especially at night. Didn't rain once. We got the rain coming home on the 12th, just outside of Austin.
This eight-minute clip shows the main reason I trashcan AARP fliers when they come in the mail. It's not really about seniors. It's about whatever the execs and their lobbyists want to do with the dues money. And they proved it Tuesday in Dallas.
UPDATE: About sixty thousand others also have gotten the message and stopped paying their dues. Or are switching. Competition is good.
Mr. Boy's spirit animal, this stuffed elephant, recently had her first bath in nine years. Followed by a tumble dry. It was Mrs. Charm's idea. Get rid of her familiar smell, the thinking went, and Mr. B. would be less inclined to carry her about and sleep with her. Not that we mind that, especially, but he still sucks his fingers, despite our best efforts to stop it, and her comfortin presence seems to play a role in it. Anyhow, it didn't work. The precocious pachyderm, Miss El, remains immortal. And the rising fourth grader's finger sucking, alas, continues.
This time of year, lots of inland Texans are thinking of the coast and the surf and the Gulf breezes. Course the latter come to us when there's a good low-pressure area off to our west-northwest, sometimes bringing us the only summer rain we get. Anyhow, when we go we stay at the condo. Never have stayed at the little Tarpon Inn, at PortA, with its cavalry-barracks architecture, but lion tamer Clyde Beatty did, and cake-mix magnate Duncan Hines, etc., way back when. FDR caught a tarpon offshore, as many still do, but he slept somewhere else.
This works a bit better than the Turk's Cap shot below. It's busier but at least you can see the rain drops on the leaves. The toy tugboat in the background used to be a tub toy. Since relegated to the Back Forty.
A little fuzzy, this quickie snap of our surprise and very welcome morning rain shower. Figured the rain would show up best on this native Turk's Cap "bush" which attracts hummingbirds. This older shot of the plant is somewhat better. I'm glad I don't have to make a living as a photographer.
It wasn't a brownout for the rancho, just a cutout this afternoon that came back on in less than a minute. Took an hour more time for some people, maybe. Crashed the main computer, of course, in the midst of Mr. B. playing, as he said, "an important duel" in Wizard 101. So he was upset to tears.
This Austin Energy release is from July 18, so it doesn't speak to what happened today. It doesn't even say why the "small piece of equipment" at a nearby electrical substation caught on fire to cause 17,000 customers to lose power. But it's not surprising, given the heat wave (now 23 days above a hundred degrees for July) and the whole town running a/c to the max, not to mention more of everything else electrical because it's not very inviting to go outside. I suppose the brownouts will be here soon enough.
UPDATE: Mrs Charm says it seems to have half-busted the microwave. Again. Still cooks, but the fan doesn't come on anymore. Durn thing is only little more than a year old. Fortunately we know better than to try and get it repaired.
All our triple digit days means the big lake in the Highlands chain is dropping 1.5 to 2 feet a week now, according to the LCRA:
1) 614.18' set in August of 1951
2) 615.02' set in November of 1963
3) 636.58' set in October of 1984
4) 640.08' set on July 13, 2009 639.53 set on July 17, 2009 (and falling)
5) 640.24' set in October of 2000
But, as you can see, there's still a long ways to go before it's hitting real record territory. Some slight fauna and flora relief is in sight for the weekend, but probably nothing meaningful for the lake.
Via KVUE's Mark Murray.
The lake she is sinking like a stone, two feet lower than at the link there which was a week ago. I mean fifty-one percent of capacity? Whoa. On the other hand, we've been here before, just three years ago, in fact, and it's not yet as low as it was in 2000. The important thing to remember about Texas, folks, is that, for us, drought is normal.
Rain, rain, glorious rain. Boy did it pour this morning. For a good ten minutes, overwhelming the gutters as always, raising anew the question of why we have gutters at all. Water even ponded in the Back Forty. It kept our high temp for the day at no more than 88 degrees. Whoo-hoo.
Mrs. Charm said she had left the "rain magnets" out, meaning the cushions on the aluminum chairs on the patio, and that must be what did it. Uh, actually it was a weak cold front. But, whatever. We'll take it--especially considering that some people missed it altogether.
I probably ought to file this under Obituaries as it must have been taken before the road was widened a decade or so ago. Once upon a time, say, back in the late 70s, this was a fairly typical scene around Austin--uncluttered, pristine, and pleasant. The rest of the photos here, while certainly interesting, are more up-to-date and representative. Alas.
Well, a reasonable chance for some tomorrow night, anyhow, which will feel good after today's hundred degree heat (it's 100 in the city at the moment). But the real chances, according to the federal Climate Prediction Center begin in October and last through April of next year. Thanks to the anticipated return of El Nino, they're forecasting precip to be above normal for that period. After two years of dry, that would be sweet.
Via KVUE's Mark Murray.
If the Air Force isn't telling the truth and the GPS system does go down, it would mean chaos for the aviation industry. Me, I could always go back to map and compass. I taught both as a counselor in Boy Scouts many moons ago. But I'll keep my fingers crossed that the sat system isn't really in jeopardy.
Cause we like our TomTom. We use the Jane voice, which is British. You have to remember to update the memory every so often. But even when the route she suggests is more circuitous than we like, she picks up on where we're going and adjusts her guidance. Lots easier than when Mrs. Charm navigates.
Via The Fat Guy.
Mrs. Charm needed to move some bags of mulch and potting soil around to the back forty and didn't want to bother me, apparently, so she went and got the wheel barrow out of the tool shed. She noticed it was a little hard to push but only when she got to the driveway did she notice that its tire was flat.
Now this is one of those fat tires that could, possibly, support half of a Piper Cub. We thought about using Mr. B.'s basketball pump to inflate it, but no, it has a real tire valve. So she thought why not take it off the barrow and take it up to the gas station to inflate it? Could not get the bolts off the barrow that keep the tire on it. She suggested putting the barrow in the CRV, but it wouldn't fit. She suggested putting the seat down so it would fit, but that's where I drew the line. I carried the bags.
Then I put the barrow back in the shed. What else? I need a torque wrench to get those bolts off. But I don't want to buy one. Maybe a little WD-40 and more elbow grease? Why did I ever buy such a complicated wheel barrow? I was moving sand to build Mr. B. a sandbox back in '03. Which reminds me, I need to dismantle the sandbox one of these years. It's only a haven for ant colonies, now.
Came back from Mr. B.'s basketball game this afternoon to find that Mrs. Charm had scurried off to the pool store to find a solution to a sudden algae bloom. The water had (has) turned so green you couldn't/can't see the bottom. Consequence of five recent days of temps in the nineties, we guess.
We are told that, with the requisite chemicals, running the pool pump for forty-eight hours, and cleaning the filter (gawd) we should be able to get the color back to a nice lime, if not quite blue for a while yet. Course, when the lime shows up, it will be time to brush the walls and vaccuum the interior once more. Fact it was all done back on Monday cuts no ice, apparently. Welcome to the pool maintenance club.
I'm glad to see that Mr. B., who is nine, has passed the age when it is against Texas law to leave him home alone, while I run a brief errand or two. Or leave him in the car while I go into a store, so long as the outside temp is not in triple digits. He dislikes shopping as much as most males of any age and sometimes puts up a fuss if he is expected to go along.
Mrs. Charm looked aghast when I told her, but she'll come around. He already plays on his scooter on the sidewalk out front without us worrying. It's even part of a trend, this independence. Not quite what it was when I was a child and would get scolded for staying inside too long. Some kids Mr. B.'s age even walk to school (which is only half a dozen blocks away), but he's not quite ready for that. I was eleven before we lived close enough to school for me to do it.
Via Instapundit.
Any holiday that celebrates a French defeat (for which we must, in part, remember Gen. Ulysses Grant) can't be bad--even if our alleged intellectual president uses it to demonstrate his abysmal grasp of the Spanish language. If he was W., we'd never hear the end of it, and the Hispanic caucus would be demanding an apology. Not now, of course. That sort of media hurrah is reserved for Republicans.
It's always hard to tell with the Hill Country Fruit Council's guide to finding peaches, whether the "closed for season" remarks for some growers are for this year or refer to last year and just haven't been updated yet. But the April 7 freeze appears to have zapped more than a few of them, including the Marburger Orchard in Fredericksburg. They say "No Peaches" straight out on their site. So I expect we will see a slimmer supply at the H.E.B. than usual this year. Alas.
My year and my color of Karmann Ghia, though mine had a tan convertible top. First it was stove in on the passenger side by a distracted retiree in Palm Beach, FL, then the same door was rammed once more by a youngish driver in Austin. In between, the car hauled a trailer loaded with, mainly, books across the Alleghaney Mountains with the truckers (on the CB) making bets on when the engine would explode. It didn't, which gives the lie to the second (ad) video at the second link above. But, add to all that a crumpled nose from the bumper of a backing-up pickup, and I finally got rid of it in 1980. Miss it yet.
Mr. B.'s grandma, a rare reader who joined us at the rancho for Easter weekend, asked me if I was reading the book "everyone is reading" (meaning conservatives like us) i.e. Mark Levin's Liberty And Tyranny. I haven't yet, and probably won't, until and unless I see that it is actually changing anything. Which I doubt it could.
I've read too many similar political polemics already. In this case I have to think it's like that science book of physicist Stephen Hawking's, A Brief History of Time. Millions of people climbed on its bangwagon to get a copy, but how many actually read it, or understood it? Much less did anything about it? Different horses, of course, and maybe the Tea Party movement will elevate Levin's work to practice. The TP has lately become a Left Wing media target of ridicule, which is a start of sorts.
Via Instapundit.
Mr. B. is getting almost too old to help Mrs. Charm dye eggs anymore. But he nevertheless rallied to their old effort yesterday. Expect he will still enjoy the jelly beans and other candy today. Eschewing potential diabetes, I will stick to eating the eggs--throughout the coming week.
Went to H.E.B. yesterday morning for free blood pressure and blood glucose tests. BP of 110 over 87 73 was no surprise. But the BG of 91 was. A happy achievement. My annual physical, a month ago, had it pegged at 126, the threshold of diabetes. The difference was a month of largely eschewing sweets, excessive fats and carbs, and walking a mile almost every morning.
I can eat the old favs, just not every day, and not very much when I do. And the exercise, which I largely avoided in youth, has become mandatory. All potentially depressing, if not for a conscious effort to introduce more variety into meals and activity than I ever thought about doing when young. Old habits turn potentially deadly as one's meter reading climbs. Old dogs can't learn new tricks? On the contrary. Them as can't might as well get back in bed and turn their face to the wall. It's over.
UPDATE: I heard the title from a friend. I didn't know, until recently, that it was a paraphrase of one of SciFi author Larry Niven's "Niven's Laws." Just wanted to set the record straight.
We thought the smoke in the air yesterday was the usual spring influx from the Chiapan farmers of southern Mexico burning the scrub off their fields to prepare for planting.
But it was actually coming from the northwest, above Fort Worth, where the drought-induced wildfires have burned-out a couple of small towns. Since some one hundred ninety-nine counties are affected so far, the governor has called for help from the national guard and FEMA. More wildfires appear to be burning around the Fort Hood area which is closer to the rancho but still a comfortable distance. Forecast rain tonight and tomorrow will help, if it shows up.
This on-purpose power outage in California is ominous. Mainly for how easy it was to create. We had an outage last night at the rancho. No idea why. Just another reminder of how fragile the infrastructure really is.
We got lucky in yesterday afternoon's thunderstorm. We got at least half an inch that will further green up the lawn and trees at the rancho--and sprout some more yellow and pink wildflowers in the bar ditches, among the sparse bluebonnets. Mr. B. and I read right through it. Missed the hail entirely, said to be of the three-inch variety nearby, smashing vehicle windows at one car dealership. Everything was still wet from overnight rains when Mrs. Charm and I took our morning walk thirty minutes ago. Some big storms--green, yellow and red on the weather service radar--are pounding Uvalde at this hour. But they're headed for San Antonio, not Austin.
I'm not surprised Japan won the World Baseball Classic or that Seattle Mariners' right fielder Ichiro Suzuki helped them do it, 5-3 in ten innings. I encountered their play against Cuba while visiting an old Army buddy in Virginia last week and felt they would win and they did. Then I figured they would beat South Korea, and they did, and then Mr. B. and I watched them beat Team USA, with the Yankees' Derek Jeter, et al. So I'm not surprised the Japanese beat South Korea again in the finale and took home all the marbles. Really a great team, and Ichiro is especially impressive. Seattle is very lucky to have him.
These are the days of spring in Central Texas, and one only wishes they would last all year. With what little rain we've had so far, alas, the ditches along the highways aren't filling with the usual red, yellow and pink flowers, and bluebonnets have hardly made an appearance and probably won't be abundant in any case. And the scorching days are coming. You can feel them when the early evening hours are still hovering around seventy-five degrees, before the natural dip back into the low sixties.
You buy a house because it has a pool and you think, yeah, that's cool. And then you discover you were a fool because the electric bill is double the usual amount (to run the recirculating pool pump umpty-ump hours a day, most of the year, to keep the water from going scummy in the summer or freezing in the underground pipes in the winter) and the pump and various other components wear out and break down--usually when least expected and at the same time that too many other things are competing for the available cash.
Alan Sullivan's comment (long since deleted, alas) on Hunter sailboats makes me laugh:
"Their boats are very curvaceous. They were designed to titillate heterosexual men, who constitute an overwhelming majority of yacht buyers. Specifically, they appeal to the type of man who picks a babe for a wife, without wondering how she’ll perform over the long haul."
Of course, he was talking about the Hunter 41, whereas my puddleduck was much smaller, just 22 feet, and it was a Catalina, so it was solidly-built rather than curvaceous. A better boat all around, I think. And you would, too, if you owned one.
Flew into a bright, sunny Austin early this evening after nine days of mostly overcast and rain in D.C. and, in the last three days, at Quicksburg in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. But it was a good trip. In D.C. we even enjoyed riding the Metro, which is basically idiot-proof and therefore easy to use. The indigenous population was mostly friendly or else minded their own business. Not Texas-friendly, of course, but you can't have everything.
We saw, ahem, the National Museum of Natural History, the Air & Space Museum, the National Museum of American History and the National Gallery of Art. The first and last were our favorites, although Air & Space was pretty good. The American History one was surprisingly dull. Trying too hard to be PC, I suppose. We also did the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, the Vietnam and Korean war memorials, and the National Zoo. Walked and walked and walked. Got our feet soaked in the puddles. Most of the crowds, like us, were from the South, where the public school Spring Break is in March. More later.
We're leaving the rancho this afternoon to fly to D.C. for a week of family reunion before the family there moves to Tyler and we're no longer able to save money on a hotel. Weren't able to get into the Spring Break mob converging on the Capitol and the White House. But we have plenty else to see and do, including visiting Mr. B.'s paternal grandfather's grave in Arlington and, hopefully, catch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
We're under a flood advisory from the Austin-San Antonio office of the National Weather Service :
"AT 644 AM CDT MODERATE TO HEAVY RAINS WERE FALLING AT RATES
APPROACHING AN INCH AN HOUR. RAINFALL FROM YESTERDAY AND OVERNIGHT
HAS BEGUN TO SATURATE THE SOIL AND AREA CREEKS ARE RESPONDING.
PERIODS OF HEAVY RAINFALL THIS MORNING WILL RESULT IN MORE RUNOFF."
LCRA Hydrologic gauges around Austin show almost two inches of rain at many spots in the past forty-eight hours. (Three to four inches seems to be the norm out in the hills.) And more rain is forecast through Saturday. Remains to be seen if this is the big one. But our droughts almost always end with floods.
MORE: We're unlikely, however, to get anywhere near the fifteen to eighteen inches we'd need to permanently end the drought, according to KVUE meteorologist Mark Murray. It will help green things up for spring.
Add the tarantula to the rancho's indigenous species. Mrs. Charm saw a black one last night on the patio with a body about four inches long. It had just walked up out of the flower bed. She reached for a dust pan to smack it with but the attached broom fell down and the tarantula reacted to the noise by scurrying back into the bed.
So we looked them up on the Web and she was consoled to learn that they are rarely harmful to people and not aggressive--unless you're a mouse, a lizard or a small bird. They're even sold as exotic pets. In six years we'd never seen one in the back forty. Although the pool guy did report fishing a dead one out a few months ago, probably looking for a drink in the drought and apparently done in by the chlorine. I'll have to be more careful pulling weeds in the future. I was already on the alert for snakes coming out in the spring warmth.
The months-long drought combined with a downed power line due to today's strong wind started a forest fire in Bastrop County just east of Austin. Ten homes have been destroyed so far, with another two hundred threatened. No rain at all in the forecast, but the wind is expected to subside by tomorrow night.
UPDATE: At least twenty-three homes and nine businesses taken by the fire through the Bastrop pines so far. More wind forecast tomorrow. SUNDAY: Wind is light and the fire seems to be mostly under control.
Just think, nine more years and I won't have to get up early... Meanwhile, he opened his first present: a new batting helmet for his spring season with the Grasshoppers. Maybe it can break his hitting slump. More tonight when Mrs. Charm makes cowboy hamburgers, etc.
I get these things every five years, thanks to colon cancer running in my family via primary relatives, so I know they're worthwhile. They don't hurt, thanks to the drugs you get. The worst thing about them is the awful preparation fluid you have to swallow by the gallon. Tastes like motor oil.
But I really must demur when some bloggers, including the vaunted Instapundit, say they are foolproof at discovering colon cancer. My father had them for years and they didn't save him. Maybe it depends on the skill of the doc. That would figure. That's why they're called medical "practices."
Rain is good. We're supposed to be getting more of it this afternoon and into tonight. But there's also a watch out for tornadoes that could be popping out of the severe thunderstorms. Not good. Fortunately it's mostly northeast of us.
Via the Seablogger.
UPDATE: The thunderstorms swept through about 10 p.m., leaving behind about a half an inch of rain and some pea-size hail. Fortunately the storms, with wind gusts to sixty mph, were moving pretty fast so were gone in about fifteen minutes. Looks like Oklahoma got the tornadoes.
Wind's really picking up at the rancho, gusting to twenty-five thirty-five out of the southeast whence normally cometh our rain-making Gulf moisture. Indeed, the forecast is for thunderstorms overnight. LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose thinks we may get some real rain over the next three days, possibly the most we've had since mid-November.
In fact, Rose, noticing that the southern Jet Stream is becoming more active (and thus capable of guiding Pacific storm fronts our way), is thinking something I was wondering about the other day: that the 2008 drought might just finally get busted later this month into March. If so, it would be by a flood, of course. Floods are the way droughts break hereabouts. But we'll take it.
UPDATE: By 9 a.m. Monday, according to LCRA's hydrologic system of rain gauges, one-half to three-quarters of an inch of rain seems to be the norm over the area since midnight. Nice to see water ponding in the gutters again.
I always seem to get these ideas when it's past or too early in the season for them. But later this year when the oaks at the rancho once more plague us with piles of acorns, I'm going to collect and boil them. Then mash them up with some white flour and make the bread. It's said to have been an early colonial staple.
Reading, recently, of the Post Office's plan to cut deliveries to five days a week, I was reminded of what they did to us in the old neighborhood before we bought the rancho out here in the hills. They decided one day that we had the wrong address and so they changed it. But without telling us or anyone else. So no one knew to use the new address and, while we wondered at the lack of mail, we fell behind in our bills, including the utility bills.
The city utilities subsequently refused to use the new address, and a flurry of fruitless visits to the Post Office ensued. The P.O. finally relented, and changed back to the old address, making us wonder why they had been so absurd as to change it in the first place. We never found out. We suspected it had something to do with all the catalogs we received unrequested, which the delivery person (a woman) was tired of hauling.
Yet, all the while, UPS and FedEx cheerfully delivered our packages to us at the old address, never knowing what the Post Office had done and was refusing to undo. That's private enterprise vs. government. I'm glad I'm too old to have to worry overmuch about the Dem's coming national health care. If I should live long enough for it to fully ensnare me, with its inevitable absurd rationing and possibly fatal delays, I'll start using the VA. At least I'll enjoy the camaraderie of other veterans who are well-schooled in government absurdities.
Personally, I couldn't care less who wins the Super Bowl. But Mr. B., for whom all things sports are important, is rooting for Arizona. So, by all means, fight fiercely Arizona. You probably have the best-looking cheerleaders, anyhow.
UPDATE: Didn't matter, apparently. Steelers won. Mr. B. forgot to watch, maybe that was it. I didn't care to.
Alas, Rancho Roly Poly is just a few miles south of U.S. Rep. John Carter's 31st District. It would be so cool to be represented by the author of the Rangel Rule, which won't pass but if it did, we'd all get to cheat on our taxes like New York Dem Charlie Rangel (not to mention Barry's appointees Tom Daschle and Tim Geithner). Nice try, John. Keep up the meaningful work.
Via Doug Ross @ Journal.
UPDATE: Then Carter tried the direct approach, asking the House to vote on forcing Rangel to step down from his, wait for it, tax-writing committee. Got that? He writes taxes for us. He just doesn't pay them.
Here in Central Texas, anyhow. Severe to moderate. Yesterday's drizzle, meanwhile, preceded a deep cold front. We're back in the icebox.
Scott at The Fat Guy, apparently already suffering from the noise and traffic of San Antonio, although he just recently moved there from Dallas, has taken up a casual comment I made about considering moving to Mason County. He likes winding, dark, two-lane roads, fly-fishing, hunting, and plenty of open spaces and few neighbors. The links he found and the comments he's drawn so far make me wish I could move tomorrow. That's the great thing about these Internets. You can go back to the country and still make a living, if you need to. But, until Mr. B. finishes school (about nine more years) and Mrs. Charm retires, it will probably not be possible for me.
It was inevitable and it has come to pass. Mr. B. has become enamored with Wizard 101, an online computer game. It was developed, as it happens, by folks in Austin and Dallas. It even has recommendations from Austin school district teachers, as well as good reviews. Seems safer than the average first-person shooter and, in fact, isn't violent at all. Just the thing, apparently, for a third grader. We shall see how it goes.
The daily's good sportswriters, Kirk Bohls, Cedric Golden, Suzanne Halliburton and Alan Trubow are the icing on the cake after a satisfying Texas win. Even when the Longhorns lose, KB, CG, SH, and AT are there to explain why. Around the rancho, they complement the good game announcing/commentary of KVET-FM ("The Genuine Austin Original") and their Longhorn Radio Network. Thanks, guys, we wouldn't enjoy it half as much without you.
It's back, the annual winter malady whose culprit pollen isn't really cedar and doesn't really cause a fever. It's complicated. It's about junipers called mountain cedar, and when the stuff gets up your nose you just feel feverish. Mostly my eyes and the roof of my mouth itch, and of course my nose runs. Runs where? Not far enough. It's a Central Texas curse that simply must be endured until we get enough rain to clear the pollen out of the air. And in our continuing drought that will be a problem. Have to use the Neti pot. Bleh.
Mr. Boy certainly got Viacom's message on Time-Warner's threat to remove SpongeBob and some of Mr. B.'s other favorites from TW's cable (our primary local provider). We do appreciate his little lesson in cutthroat capitalism and also the temporary agreement forestalling the Sponge's demise. But he and we wonder why Viacom really needs an extra four dollars per cable customer from TW to keep providing the Sponge and his pals? Must be all that debt Viacom is carrying. But TW has its share.
Still scouting around for appropriate links for likely end of the year sentiments.
I hope the IDF can end the Gaza deal with minimal casualties of its own. I'm sure our spineless leaders--who nevertheless provide IAF bombs--will force them to quit soon, as they always do.
Mr. Boy claims he wants to stay up until midnight, but he probably won't make it. He had a sleepover last night at a pal's place out in the western hills, events which usually mean little actual sleep. Fortunately he hasn't heard about this yet, so we're safe for another year, anyhow.
I'm hustling to finish a Civil War historical novel in time for Amazon's Feb. 2 fiction contest. That will be it for me and make-believe. My next literary attempt will be some non-fiction Texana.
Mrs. Charm and I will spend a quiet evening and then enjoy her day off tomorrow, although forecast is for chilly. At the least we'll get going on airline reservations for a planned D.C. trip in March.
UPDATE: My novel made the first cut to the top twenty percent. Then it went down in flames on the second cut to five percent. Oh, well. Bragging rights, at least, in the impending hunt for an agent.
Alan Sullivan's Xmas leftovers are singing to him from his refrigerator: Come eat us! Now! I know the sound, sort of. For me it's the trilling of the sweets drowning out the basso of the meat and potatoes. But, alas, I must return to my pre-holiday diet if I am to continue avoiding a dance with the Big D of diabetes.
What I need is a primer on how to use Skype & one of those teensy Bluetooth earsets with a netbook in place of a cell phone. I keep hearing there's a way. Free calls! I just don't know how to jigger it.
No I don't mean Barry's Hopenchange campaign babble, which he will drop like a hot enchilada when it suits him. I mean the good old American urge to hope. For instance, that the recent economic diddle, however apparently catastrophic, won't necessarily lead to something truly awful in 2009 and beyond.
Like the Depressionistas fear it will. A commenter at the Seablogger also cites a new, despairing Spengler essay that I read but must frankly admit that I really don't understand. So I'll go on being optimistic. And with some good company. As Wretchard says in a similar context, we all have the right to worry, but no one is right to despair. The bears are out in force these days, true enough, but, hey, it just might surprise us all and actually get better.
Merry Christmas, y'all.
Well, I made it past another solstice, without feeling the need for an Anglo-Saxon costume drama. Just a quiet day, despite the frigid aftermath of another overnight Blue Norther. Finishing Iron Sunrise, another good Charles Stross SF novel, and thinking of the seasonal carols of my youth, Adeste Fideles and Hark The Herald Angels Sing. Then I did the annual reading of his Maccabees book to Mr. Boy before we lit the first Hanukkah candle. For the next few days we will be singing Santa and Reindeer songs for his and Mrs. Charm's secular celebration of Christmas.
I've been considering this for a while now and I've finally decided to give Mr. Boy's mom an anonymouse name of her own, instead of just referring to her as his mom, etc., which sounds sort of like I'm a stepdad, which is not the case. I will even give her a separate category of her own, so I can do posts on her doings, now and then. I did steal the name from the same nice blog where I filched the map of the "soler system," but there it's Mr. Charm, so, their being of different genders, I doubt we'll get them mixed up. In this blogosphere, we all learn from each other. More or less.
Leaves, leaves, everywhere. They blanket the rancho's front lawn and the back forty. They swirl in the pool. I stare at them and wonder how much longer I can get away with ignoring them before the grass dies and the skimmers clog up. I much prefer them as poetry.
Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.
Whispering neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the separate knees.
Dead in hundreds at the back
Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.
Starving through the leafless wood
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.
Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.
W.H. Auden 1936
I know I'll have to rake them sooner or later. I decide to make it later. Of course.
November ended very dry, putting Austin in the exceptional drought category, i.e. the worst possible. We're surrounded by an extreme drought area (the red on the map) with no end in sight. Our driest year since 1956. Odd combination: no rain and an early winter of chilly days andfrigid nights. Yech.
Boy, you can almost hear the Islamic and South American oil ticks sweat. Gotta find a new source of payment for their bomb vests and naval exercises with the Soviets, er, Russians. Not to mention the Russians, themselves. Heh.
It's good news, of course, for our side. Oil is down about seventy percent since July. I filled up the rancho-mobile yesterday for under twenty bucks. At one dollar seventy-nine a gallon, it was easy.
Finally getting around to replacing the Nikon Coolpix S10 VR I had that got run over by a truck back in August. I had set it down on the top of the car while getting some bags in and forgot it was there. Halfway down the highway at seventy-plus I saw something black sail into the air behind us and realized immediately that it was the Nikon in its case.
I turned around and went back to it and ran out in the road to retrieve what turned out to be the cushioned case alone. The camera had somehow come out and smacked into the asphalt. I located it and started to dash out for it just as a semi approached. My prayer didn't work. The truck's front wheel ran over it. Not enough left for a souvenir. So far I like this Canon model the best. It's got some of the same features, has a viewfinder for use in bright sunlight, looks like it will fit in the old case, and it is a lot cheaper. In case it winds up getting run over someday.
Via Instapundit.
Another chill night at the rancho, which brought out a duet between a Hoot Owl and a Screech Owl, high in the maples of the upper forty a while ago. The cry of the hooty sounds like his name. The cry of the Screech is more bizarre--rather like the repeated whinney of a horse.
Sunday morning's low was only about forty at the rancho, but the airport recorded two degrees below freezing. After a blistering summer, I was looking forward to a mild fall. Instead... Was only thirty-one in the back forty by first light today. Brrrr. All part of what the LCRA's Bob Rose says looks like an early winter. The good part is his forecast of normal fall rain, though we haven't seen it yet.
ONE GOOD THING: LCRA has updated their Hydromet Web site to make the maps easier to read.
"Doesn't this look like the most fun day ever?" -- Squidward.
Posting will be minimal, if any, for a while. My DSL modem is on the fritz. AT&T has promised to come Monday and check the line, if not necessarily replace the modem. The thing's warranty is out, and it seems to be the major difficulty, so I hope they replace it.
If not, I may consider switching ISPs, though that would be a major hassle and AT&T has provided good service up to now. We think a thunderstorm a couple of weeks ago, which knocked out the landline service (which contains the DSL connection) may have been the culprit here. The techs said the line was the victim of a power surge. We were thinking about having the landline disconnected anyhow. We use the cell phones most of the time.
ADDENDUM: Yes, we were disappointed by last night's Texas loss to Texas Tech. But Tech, a longtime in-state rival, played a great game and deserves to be No. 1, even if the BCS computers don't agree. The Horns also beat themselves, with too many dropped passes (and one almost-interception), costly penalties, an OL that couldn't stop Tech's D, etc. Hope Texas stays in the top five. They'll be back.
Family room's new porcelain ceramic tile, paid for by sale of the family sloop. A fair trade, we think.
Best analysis I've seen so far, and there are more than a few out there. Be sure to vote, especially if you're voting for Mac and Sarah. The drumbeat "news" about Barry's juggernaut lead is highly suspect, as per usual in the Dems-media symbiosis. Including longtime Dem pollster Zogby International, to mention just one. Followed by this utterly contradtictory AP poll.
Could be the "news" audience is finally catching on. How else to explain this?
Closer to home, the rancho is in a precinct that, in recent years, has been solidly Democrat--unsurprising in Austin's blue anomaly in a very red state. Yet I have noticed this month quite a number of McCain-Palin lawn signs--a few of them already detached (accidentally?) from their supports. Something is up, and the national polls and the local "news" are not reflecting it.
Via Instapundit.
Tonight will be our fourth campout in the woods with Mr. B.'s cub scout den. This time we'll only be a few miles from the rancho. It's forecast to be in the high seventies during the day but drop into the upper forties overnight.
I'm bringing two radios, just in case, in order to listen to the Longhorns game. I expect them to beat Missouri, but I want to be sure to hear them do it. Watching it would be nice, but I never bought one of those portable televisions. No, that isn't true. We had one on the family sloop years ago, but it was stolen. Anyway, where we're going is in a valley between two hills, so the teevee reception might be poor. If necessary, I'll hike up the shortest hill to listen to the game. But it probably won't be.
UPDATE: It was fun sitting in a camp chair, watching Orion climb the sky and listening to the Longhorns as they thrashed Missouri, 56-31. Next up, Oklahoma State, should be a bit tougher.
The money I got for the family sloop last month yesterday paid for new adobe-colored, porcelain ceramic tile for the rancho's family room. It looks good. Photo to come. Coincidentally, minutes after we got all the furniture back in place, Colby, the sloop's new owner and neophyte sailor called to chat about his latest experiences.
He's been trying to sail with just the main hoisted, easing into learning the art, and was curious why he didn't seem to be making any headway on a recent gusty day. He was trying to beat, or sail upwind, at least as close as he could get to the direction of the wind, but he seemed almost to be going backward. I told him he needed to hoist the jib to beat. Running and reaching work fine with just the main. To beat he needs the "slot" that the jib creates between it and the mainsail, which keeps the boat in balance and the bow pointed as high into the wind as it will go. At least he finally got the Mercury outboard going. Its fuel lines seemed to be clogged from disuse. Now it runs fine.
The mosquitoes, however, are hanging on, even in the mid-day. I planted a new Bourbon, the Souvenir de Malmaison, shortly after noon today, and wound up with four mosquito bites for my trouble. Hey, it's already October, and the nights are in the upper fifties. So where's the fall we usually get around this time? You know, the one where the yellowjackets and mosquitoes give it up for another year? At least we don't have any kudzu.
His movies seem dated to me now. Like me, I suppose. We've used his salad dressing for years. The jokes on the labels were some of the first that Mr. B. could read, and he insists on buying more whenever we shop for groceries. I also liked his wife. Didn't everyone?
MORE: I used to write obits, but I would never have attempted a movie star. This one is good.
UPDATE: Glad I missed this aspect of him, however: "President Jimmy Carter appointed him as his delegate to nuclear disarmament talks at the United Nations...In 1995, Newman bought a controlling interest in The Nation, a liberal political journal, and even began writing for it occasionally....Newman is also on the board of Cease Fire, a gun control group funded by prominent celebrities...."
I didn't watch much of it live. I have seen several clips, and I followed some of the live-blogging, and read the conclusions of others--some of whom thought that, while Barry may not have won, he didn't lose, either. Mr. B.'s mom, whose job it is to watch such things, thought it was a tie. She thought Mac won on content but Barry won on style. Style. Like an Olympic gymnast. Sigh. In some of the clips I saw, he was clearly irritated. I thought it was Mac who was supposed to have the temper?
All in all, I don't think any of these "debates," are very meaningful, since the participants seldom say anything imaginative. Just their stump speech points. Nor do I think they have much impact on the elections. On the Big Media and the soundbite collections, sure, but how many people do they persuade? I think Biden and Palin will be more fun to watch and I won't miss that one.
Tom, OCS buddy and rare reader who cannot make the TypeKey comment system work, reminds me that I have not written much about sailing this year. The reason is I haven't been doing much of it since April, for various reasons, mostly involving rancho chores, family travel and driving Mr. B. around to baseball, summer camp and, now, basketball and Cub Scouts.
In fact, the family sloop has been for sale for a few weeks and last Sunday I picked up two interested buyers. Am waiting on a local fellow to get his money together (he has to sell some stock, and this is not a good time for that, obviously), while the other one, from northeast Texas, says he is ready to buy it if the local one doesn't. If Mr. B. enjoyed going sailing, I would have kept it, but, alas, he doesn't. On one of our few outings, he pointed at a passing stinkpot (motorboat) and said: "Why don't we buy one of those, Dad?" Sigh.
UPDATE: The sloop is sold. Feel a little bit sorry already, but that's relieved by the young, local buyer's enthusiasm and excitement. It's in good hands--younger and more energetic ones, too.
Twenty minutes away from starting the prep for my sixth colonoscopy in twenty-five years. The actual procedure isn't particularly uncomfortable. It's the prep that's the killer. The Ducolax tablets are easy, but the ten ounces of Magnesium Citrate is yechy. And the three-plus liters of NuLytely to be drunk in eight-ounce portions every fifteen minutes is unspeakable. I picked the orange flavoring this time. But the flavoring is pretty irrelevant. It still tastes like motor oil. Further affiant sayeth not. Until this turkey is over tomorrow morning.
UPDATE: All went smoothly, though it took me about nine hours after the procedure to fully awaken from the sedation. That is, I awoke, immediately afterward, but stayed drowsy and slept a lot. Turned out well, the doc said. Nothing immediately concerning. Two small, extracted polyps remain to be examined.
Mom's friends who live in Kingwood, on the northeast side of Houston, didn't choose to evacuate before Hurricane Ike arrived. But, now, they're thinking about moving to Austin temporarily, if they can find a motel. Many of them already are full with other evacuees. We may wind up taking them for a few days.
Like blogger Melissa Clouthier, a chiropractor who lives in the Woodlands, on the northwest side of the city, they're tired of the squalor. The power is out, so there're no lights, no air-conditioning, no water, and no refrigeration. The phones don't work, and cell phone service is spotty. Their neighborhood grocery is open but they have to use what they buy pretty quickly or it will spoil. Even their employers are without power and therefore shut down. It's like a return to the 19th century, without the ice deliveries.
This could be my last post for a while, if the power goes out tonight or early tomorrow, as it may. The wind is picking up. No rain yet. But we have an upgrade in the weather forecast and there is an abundance of trees around power lines in Austin.
Weather service is now looking at 50 percent chance of thunderstorms tonight and wind gusts to 45 mph. Then, early Saturday, 100 percent change of rain, heavy at times, with gusts to 50 mph. Still looks like a normal fall thunderstorm, even with the wind gusts, so long as they're not sustained for long periods. Fortunately for us, Ike's core is forecast to stay well to our east. If you want to follow events in Houston and Galveston, where the worst is certain to occur, go to KHOU television for their video reports as long as they have at least generator power to stay on the web. Also this Houston area blogger, and this one. Both have local blog rolls for more. And Houston Chronicle's blog.
Lots of folks at the grocery this morning buying up bottled water, batteries and canned goods, in anticipation of possible lengthy power outages if Ike's core comes close to Austin after crossing the coast early Saturday. Mom, visiting friends in Maryland, is scheduled to come back Saturday but now may have to wait until Sunday, if Austin's airport is closed. Texas Longhorns home game Saturday with Arkansas has already been postponed.
Local forecast sounded dire yesterday: Not just torrential rain all-day and all-night Saturday, but sustained winds of 50 to 70 mph. Meaning trees downed and flying limbs and other debris. Today's forecast is milder, with winds only gusting to 45 mph and less rain. Evacuees from the coast still may be sorry they came. All depends on how close the core comes to us. Fifty miles east would be good. Ten miles west would be a true disaster. Meanwhile Ike is already bigger than Katrina in '05. It's pussyfooting through a patch of cool water in mid-Gulf this morning, but is expected to strengthen. Lots of uncertainy yet, but Houston looks now to bare the brunt of the winds and rain, and the storm surge is expected to be a killer on the coast, sweeping miles inland. Possibly overtopping Galveston's seventeen-foot seawall.
Looks like Fay will not be joining us at Port Aransas, although some big waves from her intensity as she sweeps through Florida just might. It happened with Ivan in 2006. In any case we're outta here until Thursday. Off to see the likes of Ruby Begonia, the Presidio La Bahia, and other familiar but still amazing attractions, along the trail to Port A, which is on Mustang Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Adios.
UPDATE: Returned sunburned but happy on the 21st. Drove down in the rain, and it rained off and on for a few days. But there were some afternoons when the sun came out, so the gang had a good one. Mr. B. even got to try boogie boarding, similar to surf boarding, which he pronounced strenuous but fun.
It's been cloudy all day. The drought-breaking rain we've been promised has yet to appear, thougn the temperature is a relatively-cool 89F at this hour. LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose says we're scheduled for a good chance of light-to-heavy rain through the end of next week, and he adds that there is "much uncertainty" in the ultimate path of Tropical Storm Fay. She's now predicted to turn north and strike the west coast of Florida, but just might decide to head west, instead. That would be a bummer as we are leaving the rancho on Monday for our annual jaunt to the beach at Port Aransas before Mr. B.'s school resumes on Aug. 25. Even her hitting Florida might raise some big waves that sweep across the Gulf of Mexico and pound the beach where we're going. It's happened before.
This looks and sounds like a heckuva book. I did a feature story years ago on a Tupperware sales "party" in West Palm Beach. I had heard about them for a while, even knew some of the mechanics involved in the sales program, but had never seen the products. I was amazed to discover that they were "just" various sizes of colorful plastic bowls with tight lids. I think about that sometimes now when I put some of our own collection in the dishwasher.
It annoys me, sometimes, dragging the extension cord around behind the mower, and trying not to trip or run over it. It does look mighty Green, and should easily qualify for the EPA's proposed new Global Warming rules on every emission.
As long as the lawnmower inspector doesn't complain that the source of the electricity is the city's power plants which are run mainly by fossil fuels. In their case, a lot of natural gas, supplemented by a little nuclear and a little wind. I suppose I should worry what will happen to the landscaping guys I pay to do the front yard. They use plain old gas mowers trailing black smoke exhaust. The restrictions could make them significantly raise their charges, ultimately putting me out dragging the extension cord of the electric mower in the front yard as well.
From the Rancho Roly Poly Recipe File:
1 13.5 oz can pineapple chunks, drained
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup mini marshmellows
1 can (11 oz) mandarin oranges
1 cup sour cream
Mix pineapple & oranges, coconut, marshmellows, sour cream. Chill, at least 3 hours.
Yum
Inspiration by Miriam's Ideas.
Got ourselves a wireless router and plugged it in and so Mom was wandering the Web, in between some last-minute office work, in the kitchen last night. Only problem now is to arbitrate Mr. B.'s desire to use his Nintendo DS gameplayer's Wi-Fi ability. Have to see how that works and where it will take him before turning him loose with it.
This is the retina--the light-sensitive tissue on the back wall of my right eyeball--in a digital photo taken by an optometrist Monday in my complete eye exam for new glasses. He said the point where the optic nerve comes in (the white area) has a bit of normal degeneration (for a sixty-four year old) on one side, but the blood vessels are clear, and the dark spot on the left of the retina is only a normal amount of macular granularity. The left retina was the same. Hence, with no disease discovered, my insurance wouldn't cover the test and I paid the whole sixty-eight dollar fee. But the good news was that my eyesight seems to be good to go for a while longer.
Whew. That's a relief. I was taken in by this idea from a YouTube clip some high school chums were passing around. Then I passed it on in conversation on our trip last week to California. I've since emailed the correction to those folks, and will post the link here to the refutation (and explanation) by the American Chemical Society's Chemical & Engineering News for anyone else who has also been taken in by the trick video.
Once again, the TSA has flagged my name on a flight to California tomorrow, as we leave the rancho for a week to visit relatives. That means I can't print out a boarding pass tonight, but must go to the ticket counter tomorrow and present my driver's license so they can verify that my address is not the same as the person they're after. The weird part is this doesn't come up every time I fly. It did back in the fall of '06, for a flight to the East Coast, but not earlier this year for a trip to Mississippi. Maybe it's the coasts the TSA is worried about. For this guy who shares my name. Or it's just an old list of names that keeps recycling through the system. Bureaucrats.
Ten days of a hundred degrees and four of ninety-nine so far this month. The front forty at the rancho is turning brown, despite our best efforts to water it after midnight--which is illegal now that Austin is on mandatory water rationing for things like lawns. Meaning you can water two days a week only. Trying to balance whether the five hundred dollar fine for watering other days would be cheaper than buying new sod and starting over. Probably not.
After getting everyone off to school and work, respectively, I tied on my tennies and set off on a mile-walk, as part of a new resolve to lose some suspiciously-reforming around-the-waist weight, and clear the old brain pan for future effort at whatever might come along. I listened to the twittering birdies, and felt the cool morning breeze at the start of what promises to be a scorcher of a day, with an unseasonable high in the upper 90s, before I turned on the MP3 player for a fresh round of Dixie Chicken, etc. Not like some people I could mention who only get up early to stoke up the charcoal smoker to spend all day smoking some artery-clogging brisket. But they're young and I'm not.
April may the cruelest month, but May definitely is the wettest, at least in Central Texas. Think of Austin at the center of the circle and you have the radar situation last night a little after eleven. This morning the rancho had received almost an inch in twenty-four hours. But Tow, near Lake Buchanan, had had almost four inches. No rising lakes yet, and none forecast. I like the rain. It keeps the nights cool. The only bad part is that it makes the grass in the upper forty grow faster.
UPDATE: Some others weren't so lucky, mainly south, north and east of us. We missed it all.
It's May, so the day white lilies must be in bloom at the rancho. And, sure enough, here they come.
Mr. B. held the fort while I went to the grocery at the crack of nine a.m. for flowers, frozen pancakes, fruit and orange juice. We'd all come in late last night from his Little League team's last-game-of-the-season pool party (they lost the game 5-3, but Mr. B. got a good hit, even if he was thrown out at first), then Mom and I stayed up later reading. All made up by 9:30, Mr. B. presented everything for breakfast-in-bed, but Mom chose to come to the table instead. Then he handed over his card with promise coupons, such as cleaning his room without complaint. A revolutionary idea, right there. One of these years, he can drive to the grocery and get it all done himself. I await the day. ;-)
Replace it. Especially if it's a GE.They don't cost much because the parts are cheap. Ours broke down after five years. It was arcing, like a miniature lightning storm inside. So I called a repairman. First mistake. He came in twenty-four hours. I was impressed. I shouldn't have been. He replaced the magnetron that makes the microwaves, and charged $180. Said to wait twenty-four hours for the white enamel he sprayed over the burn spot where the microwaves come in to dry. We did. But it didn't work. Called him back. Took four days this time. He discovered the plug to the new magnetron wasn't seated. No charge. Worked fine for three days. Friday morning it started arcing again. Burned another spot where the old burn spot was. So it's off to Lowe's today to order a new one. But it won't be a GE.
UPDATE: It's a Sharp, more powerful than the old one and cheaper than the repair bill. Working OK. GE, I see, is having financial problems and may be getting out of kitchen appliances.
We had a power surge at the rancho the other day, from an electrical transformer on a nearby power pole that inexplicably burst into flames. The upshot was no harm to our computers, but our microwave started arcing when we used it. The GE tech who came to fix it said it would be cheaper to buy another one, but I figured since the fix-it price was about the same, why not forgo the hassle of getting rid of the old one and going out to buy a new one.
So he took it apart to replace the microwave generator, and I saw that it was stamped "magnetron." Which reminded me that it was a descendent of World War II's great secret: the cavity magnetron. It was a British invention that, with some American tweaking, became radar to help bombers find German and Japanese targets through clouds, track enemy planes and help pilots land safely in snowstorms. Not to mention later being used to track storms and tornadoes for all of us. And now we also use it to heat frozen food and coffee and cook fish, broccoli, potatoes and oatmeal. Pretty amazing.
This native climber, renamed after the Civil War, is blooming these days where it covers the south fence at the rancho. Its sweet fragrance was especially heavy today after last night's gutter-swamping rain. More rain is expected tonight and tomorrow.
The first Iris of spring at the rancho. Dated, sure, by a few months now. But a nice memory.
Mr. B.'s second grade teacher sends home a sheet every week wherein he is supposed to log his daily reading of AR (Advanced Reader) books--at least twenty minutes a day. In fact, he reads an average of an hour each day, and by the end of each week has close to four hundred minutes of total reading. So far he prefers fantasy stories. The Pendragon series is his latest favorite. Also Magyk, the first of a trilogy plus. Products, I suppose, of our previous bedtime reading of Harry Potter, Narnia and Lord of the Rings. Despite his own reading, he still likes to be read to, especially at bedtime--fortunately for Mom and Dad, who would miss it more than he might. Someday, I know, the bedtime stories will end. But not too soon, we hope. I have sent off for Tom Sawyer, Detective, now that Huckleberry Finn is drawing to a close.
Got to finish the edging this morning, after yesterday's first mowing of the back forty. Then wait a week or ten days and do it all over again. I waited longer this year to start. Well, twelve days longer. I'm back on the treadmill. The bane of home ownership.
For the feds it was 12.72 percent. For state and local, via real estate and estimated sales taxes, it was almost 10 percent. That's roughly what some others pay in state income taxes, which pols here like to crow that we don't have. But they do find ways to make up for it. Sadly, we will not be getting a federal refund this year. But all-in-all, I think we're getting off light.
This is one of the oldest synagogues in Mississippi, dedicated in 1905 in my father's hometown of Lexington, in the hills on the edge of the Delta. There were never more than eighty in the congregation, and the rabbis always drove in from Vicksburg or elsewhere. But, like the ark, symbolized by the handles (or horns) up there on the sanctuary's roofline, the believers have remained steadfast. There's talk now--as the Jewish population has dwindled--of moving the building to Ole Miss, but I wonder if that wouldn't be a mistake. Could be there's still some draw left in the place, and the population will rise again.
It's embarrassing not to remember the name of a spring flower, but it's too pretty not to use. Any ideas?
Mr. B. was livid. He saw fresh, red and blue eggshell on the patio this morning and he was just positive that somebody had crushed the last cascarones before he could get to them. He only got to do ONE, he insisted. Probably two, I muttered, having noted Easter morning that only two were missing from the carton. Okay, he said, two. And smiled. Now he remembered. What he was looking at was the aftermath of the cascarone battle he'd had with his buddy Cyrus Sunday afternoon. A bit behind in my housekeeping, as usual.
The thunderstorm we'd been awaiting since Monday finally crashed in yesterday afternoon just as I was getting ready to leave to go pick up Mr. B. from school. A real frog strangler. All I had was Mom's puny little umbrella, so I got soaked. But before I left I was standing in the living room watching the rain cascade off the roof. It was like being behind a waterfall. The rain was overwhelming the roof gutters which reminded me why most people in Central Texas, at least, never put gutters on their houses until fairly recently. Nowadays the Yellow Pages is full of gutter seller ads, and practically everybody seems to have them. But they really are pretty useless. Oh, it sometimes rains lightly around here and the gutters effectively channel the water so it doesn't splash on your head as you go in and out the door. But, more often, when we get a rain it's a big one, and the gutters simply can't handle all that water all at once.
The Seablogger, whose income has long been derived from his stock market investments, urges the rest of us, whose current income may be derived from 401K retirement accounts, not to panic this week as Wall Street goes wacko. "Keep calm, don’t throw good money after bad, or vice versa."
I suppose it was inevitable. Neglect to buy your grandmother's 100-year-old house in Mississippi and someone else will turn it into a business--or, in this case, a government-funded rehab center for the emotionally-disturbed. Hence the added railing on the front porch and the wheelchair access ramp there on the left. But since my late father, who was said to have been born in the front bedroom on the left-hand side, didn't see any need to keep it, I couldn't decide why I should. Sentiment inevitably collides with money, I suppose, especially when the sentimental aren't rich to begin with.
Heading out to Mississippi via Southwest Airlines late this morning to visit relatives during part of Mr. B.'s spring break from elementary school. As I have no glittering stable of substitute writers, like Instapundit and other blogging stars, there will be no posts until we get back on Thursday. Have a pleasant week, y'all.
First time I've missed the switch to Daylight Savings Time in some time. I just noticed the kitchen clock was an hour ahead of my wristwatch. Asked. Found out. Oops. Fixed the watch. My grandfather called it "Roosevelt Time" because FDR imposed it during World War II. But it had actually been first imposed by the government in the summer of 1918, during World War I.
Mr. Boy is seriously in the dog house after leaving some crayons in the pockets of his blue jeans. We caught all but one, a blue one, which went harmlessly through the wash cycle but then coated the inside of the dryer. It got on some of the clothes, mostly his, but we spent several hours trying to get it off the drum. Searched a little to find solutions when it was obvious elbow grease wasn't enough. Finally found this advice from Crayola, to use WD-40, followed by dish soap and water. Left the dryer open all night to dissipate the WD-40 smell, so the fumes don't catch fire when the gas dryer runs. We still have a ways to go, however. Two days before our spring break trip, naturally, when the dryer is needed. We had him do some of the scrubbing, but, of course, he isn't strong enough to make it more than symbolic.
A little more spring at the rancho, to combat this chilly day with the nighttime temp plunging into the low forties. Or, I guess, you could call it flowers with power pole. Not the best composition. Still, red buds are cool. You just have to move fast to catch the flowering. Pretty soon they're just all green.
Okay, that's enough on Barry. Even I am getting tired of writing his name. Besides, I have my domestic tranquility to think of, and I am already being accused of too much cynicism in the face of Barry's niceness. And his hope. Did I mention his hope? Mr. Hope, to be polite about it.
Dad's idea of a cowboy birthday theme thwarted, Mr. B. went off with Mom to Party Pig yesterday and picked a G.I. Joe one. We have an M-1 Abrams tank pinata, plastic soldier favors and plastic camoflaged combat helmets for this afternoon's four invitees. There's even an inflatable M-16. I was amazed, but she said he's been trying to do this since he was three. Confessed she had always steered him to something else because, well, this is Austin and she was worried the other Moms might not like it. Decided to be bold this time, now that he and his chums are eight. Told the tale of one political extremist in our old neighborhood who let her kids consume sugar packets at a restaurant but went slightly mad, (yelling "No chemicals!") when one of them tried to eat a packet of Sweet 'N Low. Will have to watch out for offended parents today. Already practicing my "boys will be boys" routine.
Now here's a shocker. I went to H.E.B. this morning to order Mr. B.'s birthday cake for Sunday. Chocolate cake. Check. Chocolate icing. Check. Last year we did Harry Potter, the year before it was Spiderman, and before that Bob the Builder. So, this year, how about a plastic cowboy and horse or two on top? No cowboys. No cowboys? No cowboys. This is the oldest and largest grocery chain in Texas, found only in Texas (and Mexico), for that matter, and it has no cowboys for a kid's birthday cake? No cowboys. Sheesh.
UPDATE: Cowboy figures with lassos also are in short supply in local toy stores. Found plenty with six-guns, but then I ran across a shelf of Papo's handpainted knights and decided to go for two more. Mr. B. already has several and enjoys them. All mine were one color. I'm envious of these.
Doing a bit of housecleaning, I discovered a dead link at one of our earliest postings concerning the origin of the rancho's name of Roly Poly. Therein was linked a wonderful drawing of the humble terrestrial crustacean which the artist apparently has removed from the Web. So I thought to find a new link and discovered a few interesting facts about the roly poly (perhaps best known by its unromantic name of pillbug), including that they breathe through modified gills, come in a bewildering two hundred species, and not only look like miniature armadillos, but their scientific name actually recalls the armadillo: Armadillidium vulgare. Though I see nothing exactly vulgar about them, unless you tend to the squeamish. Otherwise, a perfectly Texan critter.
I suppose it was inevitable, the Web being what the Web is. But I had clean forgotten the possibility of Skype attracting spam. Until a few moments ago when Sex Bomb attempted to insert her? its? self into my Skype address book. Offered the opportunity to do so, I declined. I hope that's enough. Time will tell. It always does.
We're converts, here at the rancho, to Skype, the Internet phone service that works with video cameras so you and your interlocutor can see each other as you talk. My cousin Jerry in Dallas, a ham radio operator since the 1930s, got me onto it, and I talked my out-of-state sisters into it. So the four of us have now had conversations and video visits weekends since the middle of January from one end of the country to the other. The camera and a headset (or a microphone) are all you have to pay for. Skype is a free download, and so are the calls, if you have broadband, of course. The video's a little jerky sometimes, but it's still more fun than a phone call--and cheaper. Jerry talks to his son in England all the time. Maybe I can interest Snoopy the Goon in it. It would be fun to talk to Israel.
KVUE's pollen count for cedar/juniper is way low, just 100 grains per cubic meter of air. So why am I as stuffed up as I was when the count was in the thousands? Maybe the rancho needs a good cleaning.
He's one of my favorite members of the family tree, a founder of Phoenix, AZ, though he called it Swilling's Mill. He was the brother of my maternal Texas grandfather's maternal grandmother. Or, in other words, my great, great uncle. Quite a character. Reared in Georgia, he was a Mexican War and Civil War veteran who's said to have changed sides from Rebel to Union when it was in his interest to do so. That's the butt of a pistol in his right hand, the barrel resting on his shoulder. He's reputed to have killed many a man, as they used to say. But he also made use of some old Indian canals and founded an irrigation company to make the desert bloom. He married, had children, and died in federal custody, accused of robbing a stagecoach, though his admirers believe it was all a mistake.
I was sitting on the patio under the outside light, smoking and reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" when a raccoon shuffled up to me out of the darkness. I was amazed. He appeared to be the size of a small German shepard. A really big raccoon, in other words, though wearing the usual black mask. But he looked friendly enough. Hungry, perhaps. "Good evening, Mr. Raccoon," I said. I almost expected him to say something polite in response, maybe ask for the time or some leftovers. I would have directed him to the garbage can on the other end of the rancho. Instead, he stopped in his tracks, retreated slowly into the darkness and scurried away. Adios, Mr. Raccoon.
Says here, via KVUE, that it's medium, but it feels like a lot less, at least around the rancho. Yesterday when I ventured out to pick up Mr. B. from school I came back with a snootfull, itching eyes and plenty of sneezing. Today, nothing. Usually, all the high wind we've been having the last few days, stirs more pollen into the air. But, this time, it seems to have blown what was there away, which probably means the season is almost over. Which is fine with me.
UPDATE: Down even more Saturday morning. No more Prisoner of Zenda routine for me.
Little revolution underway this morning in the music industry. We're trying to sort through our technology here at the rancho to decide what it all means to us. For instance, we had not upgraded our CD player. Now we're glad, as CDs apparently will not be made in the same quantity as before. Mom has an MP3 player in her car, but Dad doesn't. But Mom has an iPod, and Apple is trying to hold out, whereas Dad has an iRiver, which presumably will not. Confusing to us. More to musicians, I'm sure.
UPDATE: Well, it would be free, for the "price" of suffering through a little advertising, but the purveyor apparently is still trying to convince the music companies. But if they can't sell CDs, and they admit they can't in the quantity they need to, and the young will turn to independents before paying for MP3s, then something has to give sooner or later. Meanwhile, we'll put our CD upgrade on indefinite hold.
The rains Friday cleared a lot of the cedar pollen out of the air (despite today's moderate reading via KVUE above), and the rains forecast for this week, starting Monday, should complete the process. I'm still sneezing occasionally, possibly from pollen drawn into the rancho's heating system. Normal enough. Another week should do it. Then it's adios cedar fever for another year. Good riddance.
I go out only when I have to, such as when picking up Mr. B. from school in the afternoon, but otherwise... KVUE's pollen counter Illona Torok explains:
"Another day, another huge jump in the Cedar pollen. Close to 5000 grains were counted today. A weak cold front will kick up the winds today, further increasing levels for Friday..."
Sure be glad when this is over. Good thing I have a Neti pot to clear my nose and sinuses.
Looks like I can go out to the lake tomorrow and check on the family sloop. KVUE, the only news outfit in town that makes its own allergy readings, found cedar pollen in decline today, rated low. Even without a rain shower to clear the air. My eyes have been itching for a week now, nose stuffed and sneezes coming and going--sure signs of cedar fever. So I was trying to stay home and inside. Be nice to get out.
UPDATE I didn't make it because my nose is still running and my eyes still hurt from the pollen in the air. The pollen counters must have missed a few million grains in the annual juniper mating ritual. Patrician Sharp says the malaise is supposed to be over in a week, but, as usual, mine is hanging on. Nature's hazing ritual for Texans, indeed.
It's sixty-two degrees outside el rancho, the warmest night in weeks, and this is just the beginning, according to the folks at the National Weather Service. Courtesy of a northwesterly flow of good Gulf moisture which has the humidity in the seventies. Tomorrow, the temperature is supposed to be in the mid-seventies and broaching eighty degrees by Sunday afternoon. Even a cold front due through Monday night isn't expected to cool things off much. Of course, Alan-the-Seablogger doesn't expect it will last long. But a week to ten days of it will be a nice change.
Been an eclectic day around the rancho. Mr. B. and I enjoyed Oklahoma State's defeat of Indiana, followed by watching his latest Laurel & Hardy flick, "Flying Deuces." New Year's eves are restful when you're too old and your son is too young for parties. He read a new picture book on gladiators while I read the latest Dortmunder burglary escapade, "Watch Your Back." And, while thinking of an OCS classmate's ongoing return to Viet Nam this week, I found myself contemplating the tours offered by this San Antonio outfit that specializes in old battlefields in northern and southern I Corps. One of these days...
Took an hour last night to free RoboPanda from his box. (Deep voice intoning: "Day Four, RoboPanda Held Hostage.") Only one paper cut. Then I discovered Grammaw brought along a RoboReptile which will also need freeing this morning. We are long on robots. Neither of these fire missiles, as far as I know, nor make facsimile (or any other kind) of love. But RoboPanda has a perky voice and even tells you how to lower his/her volume ("Rub my tummy, then stroke either of my legs.") Mom is behind this one. She has more faith in toy technology than Dad. But, so far, RP is a big hit. Maybe this robo stuff really won't be abandoned before Thursday. We shall see.
Here at the rancho, we believe in splitting the difference, so Mr. B. will be getting both computer games and books. Merry Christmas, rare readers, and to all a good night!
Rats. Mr. B. and I were just at Lowe's to pick up a replacement flapper for the one that's leaking in the toilet in the guest bathroom, causing it to run and run. Now I discover we're to have a freeze tonight and a deeper one tomorrow night. Don't think I have enough covers for the outdoor faucets. Could have bought more at Lowe's. Come to think of it, they had several big boxes of them arrayed up and down the center aisle near the registers. I wondered about it. Now I know why. Will have to use a towel for one or two faucets, I guess. Curiously enough, there's also a possible brush fire warning from all the wind today. But, having little brush around the rancho, I believe we can just let that one go.
UPDATE: The freezes went okay, but I couldn't get the toilet's inflow shut off to fix the flapper. Something tells me something worse is going on. I called a plumber and await his ministrations.
MORE: He came, he tinkered, he resolved the problem with a new fill valve, wall shutoff and water hose. Said the flapper was okay all along. Problems that start out small have a way of becoming larger at the rancho. Sigh.
Next year I'll get something new, but for the second year in a row, I think this will do for Veterans Day--the seal/decal of my old OCS class and the various places we served in Vietnam. Also this, which takes me back to the American Revolution, on my mother's side, to Thomas Farrar, a lieutenant colonel in the South Carolina "line" of the Continental Army, and Claudius Pegues, Jr., a captain in the South Carolina militia. I suspect our military service goes back much farther, but I don't know anything about it. And, while we're at it, let's not forget the wannabees, who are sure to be strutting around today in their phony uniforms. No sweat. Let them play, if it makes them feel any better.
Strong cold front out of northwestern Canada is due through here tonight, after a week of cool mornings getting us ready to change seasons. Bit early for a freeze, but the LCRA's Bob Rose and other meteorologists say there'll be a light one tonight in hills west of the Rancho--while today's forecast high of 87 degrees will plunge 25 degrees to just 63 by tomorrow afternoon.
One ornamental plant that's doing very well at the rancho this fall, where leaf-raking continues.
On a really overcast Tuesday, Mr. Frog's colors stand out brighter than usual under the flash. I was trying to get a Turk's Cap cherry as nice as the one Pam Penick has, but it's just too dark, I guess. So I gave up and shot Mr. Frog, instead. Anyway, enjoy her garden. Ours is not doing as well this fall, though she surely took her pictures on a sunnier day.
Thanks to winds and rain, the giant web that stretched two hundred yards at Lake Tawakoni in northeast Texas back in August is only six percent of its previous size, but scientists are still interested in studying the apparent social effort of thousands of spiders--principally long-jawed orb weavers--which are normally canabalistic rather than cooperative. We can only hope they're not evolving in some unpleasant new way. But, just in case, I plan to start being nicer to the ones I see around the rancho.
I got a CT heart scan this morning at Austin's Heart Hospital, a simple, non-invasive test whose results should be back sometime next week. My g.p. had recommended it when my cholesterol jumped back up recently and I'm still a smoker. Nevertheless, there's no known history of heart disease in my family, so I'll be curious to see how it comes out. In doing some searching on the value of CT scans, I found this interesting interview with one of the champions of the test.
UPDATE: It turned out to be a 1, i.e. low risk. Meaning minimal plaque in the arteries around the heart. But the g.p. said I still might have it in my neck or elsewhere, and he is advising me to start taking Zocor, a cholesterol-reducing drug, because of my age and the smoking. I'm thinking about it.
I think I've discovered the secret of how to get Mr. Boy out of bed and ready for school in the morning: talk about breakfast. Do you want oatmeal or waffles, I ask innocently, knowing that he wants both. Does he want juice? He rolls over and starts to rub his eyes, a sure sign he's waking up. When I can get him to state his preference as to what to start with, I can see the gears in his mind that are connected to his stomach have started churning in sync. Sure enough, I go off to make (usually) the oatmeal and by the time I get the bowl on the table, he's up and dressed and making up his bed. Food. That's the ticket.
A sweet new year to our Jewish friends everyone.
Going to take Mr. Boy to the scout headquarters after school this afternoon to pick up his new duds for Wolf year: scarf, slides, patch, handbook and maybe a cap. I didn't take him last year, which might have been a mistake. I figure his innate consumer will be thrilled at all the stuff to buy as he works his way up to Boy Scouts and beyond. Of course they tell parents they don't have to buy all the stuff, and we didn't buy the trousers or shorts. He wears his own. But some of it, like the shirt, patches, scarf and handbook are hard to do without. After that, we'll stop by the Jewish Community Center and register him for the rookie (ages 6-7) co-ed fall basketball league. He's not so sure about the co-ed part, but he likes the idea of competition. I explained to him that almost all Texas colleges have womens' basketball teams, but, in typical age seven mode, he was skeptical. He'll learn.
I was pleased to see there are no registered sex offenders living within twenty blocks of the rancho. And now that I've seen the pictures of some of the ones beyond that point--all sexual abusers of children--I'll know who to watch for. Try Vision 20/20's system for yourself. Just enter your street, city, state and zipcode at the first link. The system is in beta. May not be the last word, of course.
Via Techcrunch.com
I awoke earlier than usual this morning, after several vivid dreams. The usual silly stuff, such as walking across town to class (!?), then realizing I forgot to wear shoes. For some reason, vivid dreaming seems to make me feel more rested than when I don't dream. I seem not to need as much sleep, as I do seem to need when I don't dream. Sleep researchers, however, don't agree. Although they say REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep correlates with deep sleep which is the most restful, and REM often correlates with dreams, you can have REM without dreams. Science is still trying to figure out what part of the brain produces dreams, and why. What dreams mean, if anything, is still in the realm of superstition, however. Commerce, meanwhile, purports to offer pills to encourage dreams, though they seem to be no more useful than the ones that claim to enlarge a certain male organ
It's supposed to be an arcane and scary subject, pruning roses, but I find it rather easy. You prune around Valentine's and again around Labor Day and reap the benefits of a flush of blossoms a month or two later. This year I decided to start a few days before Labor Day weekend since it's been so wet and not all that hot a summer. Rose Magazine's pruning guide was a help, giving me the courage to whack the hybrid tea Mr. Lincoln back by almost half. The electric meter reader will thank me, even if Mr. L. decides to pout and refuse to bloom. The antique roses were easier. I always cut them back by a third. Both types bloom on new growth. The only time you really don't want to prune is close to winter or summer's dog days, when the new growth would either freeze or get burned. Something tells me it's going to be a glorious fall, rose wise.
Mr. B. goes back to imitating a budding scholar, and I go back to imitating a leisurely retired person. While he's trying to pay attention, and stay out of trouble, I'm going sailing.
Photo swiped from Miss Cellania
UPDATE: The crush at pickup this afternoon was amazing. More adults than children. I came a half hour early to be sure I could finding parking. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. It'll thin out by next week. Did last year. Mr. B. didn't notice. He was bragging about getting more Xs, good behavior marks, than anyone else. Started good last year, too. Hope it lasts through spring.
Miss Ellie, Mr. Boy's more-or-less constant companion since he was four months old, is worn and tattered and her once-yellow color is now greenish gray. So much so that the "spirit animal," a stuffed elephant I sometimes call the precocious pachyderm has lately been coming apart in strategic areas. This morning I answered the cry for help and sewed part of her tail back on, the part by which she is carried about, in fact. I got a grateful hug for my efforts, though I kept thinkling while I was doing it that my maternal grandmother would not have awarded me any prizes for the thread-and-needle work. It was a little sloppy. Mr. B. didn't notice, of course. He wanted strength, not finesse. Miss El was the gift of his maternal aunt, who was killed earlier this month in a motocycle accident.
Mr. Boy struggled to get up this morning, despite being within ten minutes of the time he will have to leave for school each day next week. The summer vacation lazies are still clinging, and we're still working on the "early to bed" part of the old Ben Franklin admonition. The "early to rise" part is coming on like a runaway NASACAR, but he has to work at being a "morning lark." This afternoon, we'll be up at the school checking out the lists to see who his new teacher and classmates are. Mom hopes we lose some of his first grade cronies who helped lead him astray a time or two last year. That would be good, but I'd opt for a little continuity.
The road to the docks was covered by rising water yesterday at Anderson Mill Marina. I had to turn around on the steep hill descending to the road, in order to retreat. I noticed half a dozen cars and trucks parked on the hill, as if their owners had come early to taken their boats out before the water came up. They would be be in for a surprise, I thought, when they came back and found the water had risen to block their retreat. But I see now that it didn't. In fact, it has fallen a little, by this morning, to 686.43 feet msl. Mr. B. and I might be able to sail, after all, in this last week before school resumes-- if Hurricane Dean stays well south of Texas. So far it looks like it will.
The American Automobile Association, a service agency Mr. B's mom has long insisted on belonging to, isn't just about maps and emergency road help anymore. It also rents cars, sells used ones and offers travelers checks and foreign currency exchange. But my favorite extra is one I discovered this morning when I called them to come honor our membership and jump start the dead battery I discovered in the CRV when we got back from Port A last night. I figured if the battery wouldn't start, they'd obligingly tow the Honda to a place that could sell me a new one. Instead, when they discovered the battery was truly dead, they offered me a service they'd just begun: selling me a new battery on the spot, and then installing it. Whole problem solved in about thirty minutes, instead of most of the morning. Now that's a service that makes me glad I carry a AAA card.
Leaving tomorrow on our annual trek to the beach at Port Aransas, so no posts until we return on Friday. Only glitch might be the storm brewing in the western Caribbean, which Accuweather's Joe Bastardi, among other meteorologists, forsees sweeping into the Gulf of Mexico later in the week, possibly as a tropical storm. Maybe Dean unless an Atlantic one gets the name first. But he sees the chances of landfall as better for Mexico than the Texas coast. More tropical storm/hurricane argument here on what has been a quiet season so far. We will keep our fingers crossed that Bastardi's right. Not like in 2004 when Ivan, crashing into western Florida and Alabama, sent huge waves across the Gulf to hit and close the beaches at Port A. I remember one almost washed away a family from West Texas who had incautiously spread out their blanket on the sand. They were awash in an instant and struggled up a dune with what remained of their stuff to escape the water.
UPDATE It looks like the name Dean may go to another storm, first, making the Gulf one (if there is a Gulf one) Erin. Unless Dean goes into the Gulf first. Which might not occur before we are back in Central Texas, which would be good. We shall see.
Hard to miss this "little" beauty. Not so little, actually, at almost two inches long in the body. I encountered it, a black and yellow "garden spider" (Argiope Aurantia), this morning cleaning up a trumpet vine that had long ago overtaken several Nandina bushes along the wooden fence on the upper forty. All the rain we've had this summer finally weighed the vine down so much that it collapsed onto the deck around the pool. So I had to cut it way back, and in the process discovered this cutie, sometimes called a "writer spider" in Texas. Although they are said to be harmless, I maintained a respectful distance. For more on it, go here.
Mr. B. and I bought a pre-owned vehicle yesterday, a 3-year-old silver Honda CRV with sun/moon roof and fulltime four-wheel drive. He rode along on the test excursion, searching the backseat area for damage (finding none) and using his keen, non-cigarette-damaged sense of smell to ferret out anything untoward. He didn't smell anything bad, except what he pronounced a little mildew from all the rain we've been having. He liked it back there. More room, he thought, than in the old Jeep Cherokee, although that's unlikely since the CRV is shorter and narrower. Nevertheless. His reward? A can of Big Red soda pop. He thought it was worth it. Also liked the tinted windows, which will let him play his Leapster in the back seat without interference from the sun.
This morning I plan to head south to a Honda dealership to check out their stock of used (pre-owned, as they say nowadays) Honda CRVs. I've finally gotten a grip and decided to get one of these mini, four cylinder SUVs to replace the Jeep Cherokee. Don't like the new ones, however, for reasons other than price. They look like minivans. I'm hunting for a 2006 or earlier, the ones with the spare tire mounted on the rear door. All I've found so far is black ones. Nothing more ludicrous than a black vehicle in Texas, even with sun-reflecting tinted windows. Even dark blue and burgandy are pretty dreadful in the summer. A normal summer. But even they are better than the one I found at one dealer yesterday. It was silver, and looked good and the price was right. So I got in to try out the seating and almost gagged. Essence of dog. Large dog, by the smell. Tobacco smell is bad enough. But I find dog smell infinitely worse.
Area creeks and streams aren't the only things running fast and high these days. So's the upper forty at the rancho, in the sense that the ground is thoroughly saturated. So when it rains hard for an hour or two like it did yesterday morning (bringing our rain total for the week to six inches) and is expected to do again today, it runs off quickly. In fact, it turns into a waterfall on the stone steps leading down to the house, gradually pooling on the patio, rising and threatening to come inside. What we need is a few days of sun for the ground to dry out. We may get it by Monday. But first we have to make it through the weekend.
Texas climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon says the state is almost drought free for the first time in a decade. How wet is it? Well, nobody's talking about the dog days of summer, anymore, now that Austin, alone, has set records for cool temperatures in all of July. More like, the season of the seal.
It isn't easy, mowing a wet St. Augustine lawn. Especially with an electric mower. I keep thinking I'm going to electrocute myself. Got through the lower forty without doing so. Now for the upper forty. Wet grass clips all over my shoes and the lower legs of my jeans. Had to take them off before coming inside. At least I don't have Bosco to worry about. Have to get it done. Only light, intermittant showers today. Much more rain forecast the rest of the week and the grass was already high. I long for a truly hot Texas summer. And dry, dry, dry.
Keep it simple, stupid was a concept I first encountered in Army basic training. Later it was reinforced in officer candidate school. Never has it seemed so necessary, or so elusive, than in shopping for a new/used car. I've discarded the Toyota Corolla as too small for me, being over six feet tall, to get out of easily. Which is a pity, because it had just the right amount of economy for my needs--basically ferrying Mr. Boy around and grocery shopping with an occasional trip out to Lake Travis and back. The Toyota Matrix appeals but the reviews I've read talk about its blind spots to the side and rear. Pre-2007 versions of the Nissan Sentra seem similarly discardable for the size problem, though the 2007 one is much roomier. Also pricier. But even though I know I don't need one, SUVs still appeal. The Toyota Highlander, Honda CRV, even the Jeep Liberty, despite it's legendary bouncy ride. I feel like a Death Eater has zapped me with Petrificus Totalus. All I can do is stare.
The insurance company has retired my old Jeep Cherokee Laredo, after I rearended a Chevy last week climbing winding RR (Ranch Road) 2222 in a blinding rainstorm. The latest storm in our crazy year of rain. I wasn't hurt, or the people in the Chevy. But the insurors declared the Jeep a total loss, although it isn't obviously so. It being fifteen years old, however, the repair estimate was a higher percentage of the market value than allowed. I think I'll go for a Toyota or a Honda this time. But giving up the Jeep is hard. We brought Mr. B. home in it, a few days after he was born in 2000. He's used to it, we're used to it. It's like losing a member of the family.
Mr. Boy's first attempt at solo wrapping. A present (a G.I. Joe set) for a friend from basketball camp, whose birthday party is Saturday. Not bad, actually, for a 7-year-old. Not a ginormous amount of extra cellophane tape. Not too far off, in fact, from what I do at 63. Nevermind, girls. It's a boy thing.
I thought I was fed up with all the damn mosquitoes this wettest of recent Texas years has spawned. Then I began to think the physiological chirping crickets of my tinnitus were tuning up for barbershop harmonies. Until my old bud at KVUE, Shelton Green, wrote this piece on the latest "benefit" of all the rain: the real crickets are back, several months early. Just what we needed. What a weird year.
I thought this column about dads being less handy around the house these days was just a good way for the writer to fill his weekly allotment of space while looking pleasingly self-deprecating to his readers. Until I read the comments. Amazes me that some men would decline to install a light fixture or a ceiling fan, though I can understand one guy's remark that interior painting is best left to the pros. I have done it, but the result was not so pleasing. I've also paid to have the privacy fence lengthened. But it's also a good idea for Mr. Boy to see me doing chores like unclogging a sink or toilet, or installing the aforementioned light or ceiling fan. If nothing else, he's learned a few new cuss words. But he also gets to see that tackling this stuff is not demeaning, but actually a good skill to have. Although when faced with the weekly lawnmowing in the summer's heat--I just finished half of it, and am putting off the rest for a few hours--it's awfully tempting to pay to have someone else do it. I'm looking forward to the day when he's old enough to put him to it, as my father did me long ago.
I'm no fan of air travel, despite growing up as an Air Force brat watching the blinking lights on the wingtip of a C-54 Skymaster, going somewhere or the other at night. In fact, I have a phobia about MD-80s, the spindle-shaped jets with the narrow wings, a T-tail, and engines attached to the rear of the fuselage. Whenever I see one passing over the rancho, I remember the one that crashed in the Pacific not so long ago. So when I saw one heading west this afternoon, I Googled the crash: Alaska Airlines, Flight 261, Jan. 31, 2000, it was. The horizontal stabilizer on the T-tail became stuck and the plane was uncontrollable. It finally flipped upside down at about 24,000 feet and dove into the ocean off Los Angeles at 700 mph. All 88 aboard died, of course. Turned out to be a little maintenance problem: a lack of sufficient lubication. Nothing like that has happened since. But I'm convinced. You won't catch me on an MD-80.
This favorite of the Texas native ornamental shrubs can be found all over Austin. Buy a house and it comes free with your yard. Or you could spend every spring finding the fuzzy leaves and pulling them up. But then you'd miss the funny, red flowers some 19th century settler apparently thought looked like a fez. Hummingbirds and butterflies love them.
That's weather-speak for thunderstorms, with rain, which is what we're expecting today through Thursday. Heavy at times. A recent one was a gusher, but without thunder, and it stopped after a few minutes. Lots more on the radar, little green blobs everywhere, with a few yellow and red ones mixed in, all flowing northwest. The weather service in New Braunfels says tonight through noon tomorrow the blobs will coalesce and the rain could be heavy. By then the jetstream will have settled in east of here, to interact with the damn low pressure trough that seems to have been here forever. At least we missed our June layer of Saharan dust. Some years it's ash from the Chiapan farmers of southern Mexico burning their fields before the planting. But the dust from the African desert is more regular, June to August. Washed out of the air so far.
Mr. Boy recently confided to me his life goal. It's always satisfying when your 7-year-old trusts you enough to reveal his tender plans. He's going to be a rock star. He's not sure which instrument to play, but is leaning towards the guitar. His second choice is to be a spy. The kind that brings criminals to justice, he said. At his age, it seems very simple. All you have to do is choose.
With big storms moving in from the north, and some places out near the lakes picking up 3 inches or more, according to the LCRA's automated guages, it seems timely to repeat the weather service slogan for low-water crossers, and to pass along this great site's complete approach to Texas floods. For the rare reader who might benefit. I realize this isn't radio, but it's tempting to treat it that way sometimes. It's not hard to get excited. We live in the most flash-flood prone part of North America.
Showers off and on this morning, as the storms roll north, and a swallowtail butterfly comes to call.
Got the gas aboard this morning for tomorrow's early trip to Yacht Harbor Marina, even if the forecast is for a 70 percent chance of thunderstorms. I think the forecast is overly broad, as the area most at risk is east of I-35, not Lake Travis in the hills west of Austin. So, it's worth a gamble. If there's lightning in the sky, I'll call the marina and cancel. If not, I'll motor the 2-3 miles to their dock and tie up. Then... multiple problems. Get the jib off the forestay, and the mainsail out of the mast, detach the topping lift, lazy jacks and boom vang. Then unhitch the boom. If it's not pouring by then, the rerigging might get done. If it is, and the rigger wants to put it off, I can always take a cab back to my car and go home.
UPDATE Well, I find that LCRA is forecasting only 40 percent for Monday, and they run the lakes.
Mr. Boy and his mom came home today from her latest family reunion in Western Maryland. I had to relinquish the computer for a few hours so he could play his Harry Potter game after a week without. Mom started pulling weeds in the front flower bed that were encroaching on her cilantro. I'd been concentrating on the backyard while they were gone, when not blogging, working on the boat or editing a book of family stuff I'm doing for Mr. B. He was delighted to be home, went around kissing things, from his stuffed animals to the refrigerator where his artwork hangs. Blew kisses to the backyard where it is still wet because it is still raining off and on. He'll go back to summer day camp in the morning.
Hasn't stopped raining for long since Friday, and this morning's downpour was forecast as only a 20 percent chance. I guess we got all 20 percent--almost half an inch, which we can add to the other half inch of the weekend. As you can see the Texas flag is very adaptable. I suppose this was made in China, like so many other American consumer goods these days. I didn't look.
Not a rose, but a hibiscus, also known as Althaea. These blooms at the rancho are on a tallish shrub. It flowers earlier than the photo date indicates, and is still blooming away and will all summer and into the fall.
LCRA says the weekend's rain is expected to end tonight, but Lake Travis is still taking in runoff from storms in the watershed, including one area that got almost six inches overnight, and the lake is expected to be about 683 feet above mean sea level by next weekend. That would be about 18 inches above where it is now, which might put the rest of the parking lot at Anderson Mill marina underwater. With the sloop's rerigging scheduled for Monday, the 25th, I'll have to hope the water isn't full of debris and boating banned by then. It should take me about thirty minutes to motor to Yacht Harbor Marina for the work, unless there's logs and other big stuff to dodge.
It was in the inviting 70s this afternoon so I went out and continued working on the sloop. Decided to stick with the old cabin lights, aged-looking as they are, until they quit, before using the new ones. Hooked up the new gel battery with the trickle-charge from the solar panel on the top of the boom there, but left the new charger installation to another time. The tuned-up Suzuki 4 started on the second pull. Next is the dreaded cleaning and painting of the teak, seen here in all its decrepitude. But if overnight rains don't cause flooding, I believe I'll motor out into the channel tomorrow. See if I can shed some of the marine life I can see on the rudder, and can't see but can assume is on the keel and the bottom of the hull. Want to hold off sailing until the rerigging is done on the 25th.
The sunken car in Tulsa might not look so strange around here by Monday. The weather service is calling for likely rain, possibly heavy, tonight, Saturday and Sunday. Looks like our wet spring isn't over yet. We have had some big floods in June. Are we about to repeat? Just spotty green amoebas on the radar so far. Can't last. They've been wrong before, but not this wrong. Bob Rose has more.
All the rain we've had this year has made for a pretty garden. Even as the heat draws on, it's still vibrant.
Mr. Boy concluded his first week of day camp at the J this afternoon, still as enthusiastic as he was after the first day. I ask about it, of course, but I just get snips and bits of the experience, usually on the way home. Today, in addition to swimming and crafts and tug-of-war, they had a camping/nature segment in which "we learned skills to survive in the woods." Such as? "Rope," he said. "Definitely."
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel emails that we can expect scattered showers this afternoon from a cold front making its way southeast across Texas. Thought I saw a surprising amount of dark clouds over Lake Travis this morning when I was out there working on the sloop. Got the cabin cleaned out, finally, and all cushions vacuumed and the surfaces wiped down with Lysol. Next I want to paint the interior teak, before starting work on the teak bin boards and doghouse trim. Next big problem to solve is getting the outboard overhauled. The one place that works on Suzukis is swamped with work. Meanwhile I've a re-rigging planned for the 18th at Yacht Harbor marina, a few miles away, but can't get there easily without a motor. Not in a hurry, anyway. I could sail back, after the rigging's completed, but still got to get there.
More clusters of severe thunderstorms moving in from the northwest, just like last evening. Bob Rose says we might as well enjoy the thunder and lightning, as these cells may be the last we see or a while:
"This may be the beginning of our typical summer weather pattern. If today's long-range solutions are correct, today's storm activity could be the last of the spring-like storms our region will see this month."
This, compared with this from last December, shows how our south central part of Texas (and the rest of the state) has come out of a big drought in the past six months. In the last two hours, we added another inch or so of rain as some big storms swept through from the northwest. Lowered the temperature about 20 degrees, into the upper 60s. Some urban and small stream flooding, and enough lightning to leave about 7,000 people without power. We weren't affected. Mr. B. got a little excited by a few close lightning strikes, however. Lot of hail reported. Probably see the damage from that tomorrow.
Caught making lists this afternoon of things yet to do on the sloop before it's presentable and usable again. The memory fades without lists. Proceeding at a stately pace of an hour or so a day, squeezed in between parenting and other things, I have progressed. After more than a year of no use, the boat was (and is yet) pretty dirty, but it's improving. Finally got the hull and the deck clean of dirt, mold and mildew, and yesterday took on the forepeak, vacuuming the cushions and the surfaces and wiping everything. I got out two baseball-sized mud dauber's nests. The smell of bleach finally got to me, despite the open hatches. About then two humongously oversized (for a lake) cabin cruisers chugged by at slow speed. They set up more wake going slow, and I was rolling around in the cramped forepeak like a fish in a can. Finally finished, fought off the nausea, and brought the cushions back in from their airing in the cockpit. Then went home. Think I got dehydrated in the 90 degree heat. Memo: next time, tomorrow, bring more water.
Lower Colorado River Authority graph shows how far and how fast Lake Travis has risen since last Tuesday, thanks to the weekend storms in the watershed. The lake is now forecast to hit 684 feet above mean sea level by Thursday, without any more rain. That would be a rise of 11 feet. I didn't bother to visit the marina this morning, figuring the parking lot would be under water. Certainly is now. Ah, well, I have other chores including a backyard to mow when the wet grass dries out by tomorrow.
The neighbor across the back fence at the rancho has a towering magnolia whose big white blossoms we get to share even as the big pointed, oval leaves litter our yard from time to time.
"Magnolias are among the most ancient groups of flowering plants and have long been cultivated by mankind. Some specimens growing in the precincts of Chinese temples are estimated to be up to 800 years old."
I planted one once in South Austin. It was ten feet high and sprightly the last time I looked. I'm surprised to hear wild magnolias are facing extinctions in the forests of the world, including north America.
The family sloop, a 1985 Catalina 22, looks better in this photo than it did up close, at the time, as it was covered with grey mold spots after a year without use on Lake Travis. During the drought the docks were moved to where they were inaccessible most of the time. Now it's back and almost four weeks since the photo was taken, the exterior is three-quarters clean. Elbow grease and Sof Scrub is all it takes. Still have to finish the cockpit and clean out the cabin, but it's coming along. The admiral wants to sell it and I had planned to, while it was inaccessible, but of course nobody wanted to buy it then. But after 22 years of sailing it, it's hard to part. Has to be cleaned and the outboard overhauled to sell it, anyway. If I can lure Mr. B. onto it a couple of times once school is out on May 24, I may have the winningest reason to keep it. Racing is something I've never cared to do, but he might find it exciting.
The rancho's one and only hybrid rose is the deep red, cabbage-like Mr. Lincoln. This is the way it looked before the cloud cover moved in a week ago. Saw the sun for a few minutes this afternoon, but more clouds moved in. Supposed to be cloudy all week. Yech.
One of the prettier wildflowers of Texas, becoming rather commonly planted in flowerbeds these days. Birds, or maybe cowboys (some say it's called the Cowboy Rose), have scattered its seeds, so that it can be found throughout North Dakota and Utah down to Texas.
LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose says they could be a comin' before sundown and into the dark:
"Large hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes will all be possible late today. In addition to the severe storms, moderate to heavy rain is forecast which will increase the potential for flash flooding."
The rancho's hatches are all battened.
UPDATE Bob updates his forecast, noting a tornado watch until 11 p.m. and a flash flood watch overnight for these slow-moving storms coming northeast out of Mexico. Average rainfall anticipated 2 to 3 inches with isolated totals near 4 inches. The lakes they will rise again. Radar's not very impressive at 7:44 p.m. Hope it stays that way.
Ever notice how the headlines on stories from Iraq are always about how many more Americans have died? Never about how many more "insurgents," or (fat chance) "terrorists," have bought it in contact with American GI's on patrol or otherwise in battle. Why, you'd almost think the headline writers were working for the enemy. Naw. More likely, for Harry Reid.
Garbage wars, part 3: Ever since the city of Austin broke our garbage can lid with their automated truck three weeks ago, we've been waiting for them to come and replace the big plastic can. Called three times in the past three weeks and gotten nothing but promises--always, oddly, promised within 24 hours. Nothing's happened yet. Now we're playing with real garbage, which they did not pick up at all last week. Yesterday they promised to come get it today. Haven't shown up yet. By 7:48 p.m. it was clear they weren't coming. Again.
To mow or not to mow: Supposed to rain big this afternoon and tonight. So should I hustle and get the backyard mowed this morning, knowing that all that rain will make the grass grow quicker than usual and I'll be back mowing again by the weekend? Or let it go until after the rain? I'm letting it go. No surprise there, right?
Back to normal. The Site Meter went through the roof yesterday with collateral hits from The Fat Guy, who got the real Instalanch--i.e. thousands of uniques from one post picked up by Instapundit putting down Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. I got about a hundred of the uniques who used Scott's recent link to RoboCow, such that the total for the day here topped out at 162, about twice normal in recent months. But it's over. About ten minutes ago I notice the difference between today and yesterday on the meter: yesterday it was about 60 at this time. Today, it's 12.
Rainy day at the rancho: a nice, slow soaking rain we can surely use, even if it does make the grass grow faster.
Some of ya'll up nawth still have snow. But down here spring has returned after a cold weekend, and, after all the rain of recent weeks, the grass was getting tall. Was until I finished mowing it a few minutes ago. I noticed the deep (well, sometimes) red Louis Philippe roses are in bloom, and the Winecup, a dark red wildflower. I always try to put off the first mowing as long as possible because, as a neighbor once told me, grass grows (counter-intuitively) when you mow it. Seems to work that way.
It took this Bourbon antique rose of ours almost four years to get established, and this is the reward: the start of its spring blooms with more to come. Since it's a repeat, after its springtime flush is done, it should bloom sporadically the rest of the year, until another big bloom in the fall.
Nice shower in progress, aiding the grass already greening from the previous heavy rain. The catkins littering the patio, sidewalk, and pool deck, however, will get soaked and leach brown stain everywhere. Also may knock some of the petals off the heavily-blooming pink Old Blush. Always a downside. The blooms wouldn't be in such profusion without the rain, but the rain hinders the blooms. Oxalis, or Wood Sorrel, a cool weather perennial, is nicely rioting in dark pink. And the misnamed Pink Evening Primrose (it blooms all day) is abundant under the Zephirine Drouhin which is well budded but not quite ready to bloom. So we're pretty in pink and green, and awaiting the white and red roses to come.
As the big storms move into the Austin area, meteorologists are already talking about them denting the drought, maybe even bringing a big boost to the Highland Lakes, particularly Lake Travis which rose about 7 feet after the previous big storms, about two weeks ago. Some parts of the hills around Fredericksburg have already had well over 3 inches of rain, and it's all headed our way. Flash flooding, for sure, of creeks and streams, with the watch for that extending to midnight. No sign yet of the Guadalupe or San Marcos rivers rising, however.
UPDATE Minor lowland flooding at 10 p.m., with Lake Travis expected to rise 2 to 3 feet (not enough, unfortunately), rain ending after midnight. Sunny 85 Tuesday with rain again Thursday and Friday.
Tonight's forecast storms--brought to us by a low pressure system moving in from the west and colliding with an atmosphere laden with moisture from the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico--could be memorable, according to Bob Rose. He was predicting on Friday 2 to 4 inches across the Hill Country, and that was still in other forecasts last night and this morning. The only problem is the ground is still wet from recent rains, so creeks and streams could rise rapidly enough for some flash flooding.
The worst thing about spring in Texas, other than the second raking to get up all the live oak leaves that didn't fall in the fall, is when the trees tassel. The tassels are really pollinating catkins, long dangles which appear before the new leaves do. Then they turn brown and fall in such numbers that they clog the pool and stain the white concrete deck around it brown, and generally make a huge mess. It seems to be almost over, where it counts, above the pool and the deck. So it's almost time to get out the power washer and try to restore the pool company brochure look to the area.
Wind from the southeast at about 15 mph is bringing in lots of moisture in clouds off the Gulf of Mexico, while a low pressure system out west is sucking in Pacific moisture and clouds from off the Baja Penninsula. Clouds just flowing across the rancho tonight, from the southeast, and it's still 70 degrees. Not much rain expected, tho, until the low moves east on Saturday and Sunday, and then as it will only skirt us, just a moderate inch or so. Would be nice to have several inches, but it isn't to be, apparently. Following Bob Rose's forecast on Tuesday rather nicely.
Still a little dizzy from 6.5 hours on the road to get home from Fort Davis, but it was worth it. Time flies at 90 mph, which you can do on I-10 from about 20 miles east of Junction all the way to Balmorhea. The speed limit is 80 mph but, of course, no one drives the speed limit in Texas or anywhere else. Burns a lot of gas, though. It's mostly flat land so not many curves to force you to slow down. We were surprised at the big windmills lining the ridges on the north side of the highway from about Ozona to Fort Stockton. Big three-bladed electricity generators, turning briskly last Monday in a stiff breeze, which continued, Lubbock-like, most of the time we were in the Davis Mountains, but finally settled down Wednesday night. So coming back the big windmills were turning more leisurely. More on the trip later.
We are off in the morning to Fort Davis, about a 6-hour drive, via the scenic, Hill Country route and on to Interstate 10 and farther west into the desert. Will visit the old home of the 9th and 10th Cavalry--including the famous black Buffalo Soldiers--when they were hunting Apaches and Commanches, with side trips to Alpine and Marfa. Two of our after dark side trips will be to McDonald Observatory and their visitor center with its nightly telescope tours of the solar system and beyond. Forecast so far is for two clear nights to see the panoply of stars overhead even without a telescope. Hope you have a pleasant week and stay tuned for an update long about Thursday night.
Just about 50 hours away now from the beginning of our Spring Break, private road movie to far West Texas. In which Mr. Boy, Mom and the geezer will pile into a rental sedan and hit the rodeo for Fort Stockton and beyond. Well, Fort Davis, actually, which is well beyond FS, but no longer on I-10. Rather well off the beaten track. Or so it was the last time I visited, in the late 90s. Even West Texas changes. So who knows what it looks like now? Weather forecast looks good: mild days and chilly nights. Mr. B. is going to get his first taste of "...the stars at night are big and bright..."
One of the joys of the Live Oak trees of Central Texas is that they stay leafy green all winter. Then, come late February-early March, in other words the end of our winter, all those green leaves turn brown and fall on the ground. So we get to rake and vacuum leaves twice a year, at a minimum. That's what I did this morning, finishing up in time to shower and go pick Mr. B. up from school. Of course, being the beginning of our spring, the other trees are starting to tassel. So we'll have that mess to clean up soon enough.
I do believe another Ducher (white) and a Souvenir de la Malmaison (pale pink) will do it for fresh antique roses this spring. Souvenir is a Bourbon and they generally aren't disease-resistent enough to thrive at the Rancho, but Souvenir was doing fine before the deer ate it. Besides it's one of the few roses named in my great great grandmother's 1850s pocket diary as one she used to form an arbor near the house. The other Bourbon, a reddish-pink climber called Zephirine Drouhin, survived the deer, and looks ready to go gang busters by late March. The Ducher is a China, the hardiest of all we've found. Add a few perrenials, a Blackfoot daisy or a Barbadoes Cherry, and we're good to go. Nandina frames them. Blue jasmine added for highlights. Local pictures when available.
Mr. Boy and I attended a Cub Scout graduation ceremony tonight where six Webelos cubs moved on to Boy Scouts. It was a simple ceremony with few words and lots of applause from parents and friends and the other cubs. Mr. B. was most impressed with the handmade arrows the graduates were presented with, called arrows of light. Then he got his snack, a cookie and a brownie, and decided not to stay and play with his pals. He preferred to go home and spend the evening with Mom who's been working late too many nights recently.
The ice hasn't all melted and much of it may still be around by morning, but Mr. B. goes back to school tomorrow, two hours later than normal, while getting out at the regular time. He's not acting too awfully sad. All this hibernation--with Mom working from home all day--had gotten pretty boring by this afternoon.
The power is still holding at the rancho, as the temperature nudges above freezing and the icicles hanging from the eaves and trees slowly begin to melt and drip steadily. We're lucky, I know. Some have it much worse:
"At the First Baptist Church in McAlester, Okla., where most of the city's 18,000 residents have lacked power for four days, residents huddled under blankets and in front of space heaters."
Chris White, a friend who lives way east of here, near Washington-on-the-Brazos, still is bird watching a big egret down at his frozen pond, but wondering where the roadrunner and the deer have gotten to. About the only movement around the rancho are kids using pieces of cardboard to slide down the nearby hill, and Mr. Boy using his baseball bat to knock ice off the naked branches of the Red Bud in the backyard. Meanwhile, meteorologist Bob Rose expects some melting today will refreeze tonight before a slow warmup begins Thursday and Friday.
Bob Rose, meteorologist for the Lower Colorado River Authority, is making Mr. Boy happy. Bob is forecasting another day off from school with more rain, sleet and snow for the rancho and environs:
"The wintry precipitation is showing no signs of letting up in the near term, with more freezing rain, sleet and snow expected into Wednesday. Precipitation does look like it will taper off Thursday morning. For the most part, temperatures will remain at or below freezing into Thursday morning,"
Then, another cold front on Friday and more rain into the weekend. Unfortunately, there's not been enough rain yet to raise Lake Travis much, just under two feet in the past 48 hours. There is, however, one live oak whose ice-laden branches are embracing the roof, and another more menacing one embracing the power line connection in the backyard. So it's iffy how much longer we'll be on the air. The good thing is this is our winter, a week or two at the most. Eat your heart out.
