Category Archives: Texana

Up she rises

Posted on August 18, 2007 | Comments Off on Up she rises

Lake Travis is getting an unfortunate boost from heavy Hill Country rains (12 inches in 24 hours along the Pedernales River which feeds the lake) generated by the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin. The LCRA is forecasting the lake to rise to 690 feet msl by Monday–and higher if we get more rain by then–which is about four feet too high for the dock extension to shore at Anderson Mill Marina. Six ninety is one foot below the height that the Army Corps of Engineers allows flood gates to be opened on Mansfield Dam to quickly lower the lake. Once again, lake levels are taking the family sloop out of our reach. At least we got the rerigging done. Too bad we can’t use it. What a year!

UPDATE  This morning, they revised the peak rise to just 688 feet msl by Sunday afternoon, still two feet too high for the docks at the marina. Also three feet below where they’d open flood gates, though they are running the hydrogeneration gates which lets some water out. So the 688 will linger awhile. Then, we’ll see if Hurricane Dean sends us a lot more rain to raise it still higher.

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Posted in Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Erin was a pussycat

Posted on August 17, 2007 | Comments Off on Erin was a pussycat

Dean looks like another story. Hopefully, it will hit Mexico. Terrible to hope someone else gets the grief, but there it is. Down at Port A we watched the precursor storms of Erin gather strength on Monday and Tuesday, and weathered the Weather Channel’s exaggerations, wishing all the while we had a laptop so we could be checking the Web for the detail the talking heads seldom got around to. Long on coiffed beauty and emotion and short on everything else. But when Erin arrived Thursday morning, we got about five inches of rain which mostly was gathered up by the sand. A little ponding on the roads. Nothing special. The waves were steeper–if still short–than usual, and the backwash was a little frightening, such that neither Mr. B. nor the teenage boogie boarders ventured too far into the surf. It was actually sunny by noon on Thursday, a few hours after Erin had swept ashore and fallen apart. Back here in Austin, the rancho got almost an inch of new rain from Erin’s northward careering remnants. Dean, well, it’s been Biblical in the Caribbean, so stay tuned.

UPDATE  Well, Erin was a pussycat on the coast, but not in West Texas where it caused floods that killed and is doing the same thing now in Oklahoma, of all places. Almost a week later!

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Posted in South of the Border, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Off to Port A

Posted on August 12, 2007 | Comments Off on Off to Port A

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.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, South of the Border, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Southwest Airlines

Posted on August 8, 2007 | Comments Off on Southwest Airlines

I hate flying, but when I have to fly I always try to book Southwest. It’s partly nostalgia. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, they were the "national airline of Texas" and their Boeing 737s were full of friendly Texans flying around the state. Now that they’ve expanded across the country, the passengers are no longer so friendly, as they are a mix from everywhere, including places where people are used to snarling at each other. But I still like Southwest’s "no crash" policy. They’ve never had one. And the free peanuts and soda. Other airlines, American for instance, the terrorists’ favorite, make you buy them.

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Posted in Texana

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Beggars and bums

Posted on August 8, 2007 | Comments Off on Beggars and bums

We’re back in Austin, where every street corner features a black or white panhandler with a sign declaring him/herself to be "homeless," something notably absent in southern Indiana where we went last weekend for a family funeral. It wasn’t something I really noticed, the absence of these beggars up there along the Ohio River, until we landed in Austin last night and I went outside the baggage claim area for a cigarette. I was immediately hit up by a young man, who wanted a cigarette. I only had the one, the others being in my bag, and I told him so, and he became very indignant, as if I was somehow compromising his "right" to mooch successfully. But he went away. Not a minute later, a young woman came up and asked for one, too. At least she wasn’t indignant, just disappointed. Austin attracts these people like a magnet. Most of them are well-dressed and able-bodied. Just lazy, apparently. I suppose it’s the warm weather, or else the general liberal tendency to indulge them. They aren’t as evident in the state’s more conservative cities.

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Posted in Texana

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Encounter

Posted on July 31, 2007 | Comments Off on Encounter

argiope.jpg

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.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Texana

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Houston at risk

Posted on July 31, 2007 | Comments Off on Houston at risk

While many Texans have less than total admiration for Houston and environs, especially the nightmarish traffic and general sprawl, none would be pleased to see the place get struck by terrorists, either by Al Q, an offshoot or a group of freelance jihadis. But that’s just what a recent issue of Homeland Security Today said could happen in the attack even official Washington believes is overdue. So let’s hope the city, county, and the directors of the ship channel and the petrochemical infrastructure are thinking creatively about protecting their soft as well as their hard targets.

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Posted in Texana, The War

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