Cuppacafe

So, I know that weather-geeks like Walt (probably) spent much of the weekend glued to the weather channel watching Southern CT get slammed by a wicked-serious storm on Saturday. (My in-laws drove all the way up the East Coast from Florida with it.) Well, Having spent much of the day indoors (hoping that I wouldn't ship water in my basement again), I missed quite a bit of it, but for reasons that pas understanding, we had to go out last night (after much of the high winds were over), but as we drove two towns over (in the dark), we did get to experience some of the aftermath of the event.

Well, we had to detour around a few fallen trees a few times to get where we were going (and then a few more times before we got back — at one point even calling in a 911 call to report a downed tree that had taken down a power line which was arcing and had started a small fire).

When we finally got home (to discover a dry basement), all was well (except that we had no land-line, internet, or cable; requiring me to fall asleep in front of a DVD, before getting up and going to bed). This morning I did venture out again to discover a few more fallen trees (this time in my own neighborhood). These trees included:

One in my back yard (that fell into the woods behind my house, thus causing no real damage or mess).

A second that had fallen across the street and was precariously leaning on the high-tension wire.

And a third that had fallen across a street leading to my house.

There were more, (much more), this is just what I was able to snap from my house.

Isn't the weather fun?

The Perfessor

Yea, it is snowing here in New England, again. This is a shot of my parent's house from the street (after my brother, Ron, cleared the driveway, steps & sidewalk, then built a snowman).

The Perfessor

Has this ever happened to you (have you ever done this to someone else)?

There is a terrific snowstorm (a "Snowmageddon" if you will) and you spend an hour or so digging your car out of the snowbank into which it was plowed. Do you "own" that spot? well that was the very question asked by some lawyers.

"If you dig your car out from its frozen tomb, do you then own that parking spot until the sun melts open the rest of the curbside space?"

This is the very question asked this past week when our nation's capital became a Snowtropolis:

In the D.C.-area where I'm located, everything -- politics; the suckitude of the Redskins, Wizards and Nationals; you name it -- has taken a back seat to the record three feet of snow that the Snowpocalypse of 2010 has inflicted upon our city this week. As such, an article on Tuesday in The Washington Post did a great job of highlighting perhaps the most contentious issue of the week:

Quite a few years ago, the guy who owned my house before me (Sal) had such an incident happen to him. He dug out a spot from the end his driveway, backed out his car and left. When he came back, he discovered that a neighbor had pulled into his spot (right in the driveway), to take his spot. When asked the guy to leave,th guy refused, so Sal simply parked behind the fellow, effectively trapping him in the snow. When the other fellow asked that Sal move his car, Sal refused. forcing the guy to dig his way out in a path that went across Sal's yard.

Personally I think it was a great solution.

The Perfessor

This just in! The East Coast is buried in snow for the first (or second) time since winter last year! Al Gore is obviously wrong about Global Warming.

(Oh yeah, it is also starting to get dark, so that means someone extinguished the sun also, right?)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Unusually Large Snowstorm
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Don't ya just love the media's need to scare the crap out of us on a 214-hour news cycle, just to get us to watch their show?

The Perfessor

Yes boys and girls, it is Groundhog’s Day. Time for us to turn our weather forcasting over to an over-sized rodent (no, not your local weatherman, a real rodent!) Which is what we all do when we look to Punxsutawney Phil.

Well, as it turns out, the little rodent saw his shadow! You can just imagine how very, very unhappy I am right about now.

You wanna know what I like best about Groundhogs right about now?

They taste just like chicken!

The Perfessor

I know that Walt wants to talk about this (and he probably will at some point), but both he and I came across this bombshell and well, I wanted to get it out there. Apparently, (and if I’m understanding this correctly) everything we’ve learned about climate change and global warming (and what Al Gore has been telling us), is wrong. The way we learned about it, is due to someone apparently hacked a scientific server and discovered all these incriminating emails.

In the last few hours, thousands of emails have been leaked to internet forums detailing a massive conspiracy to fudge climate change results to make the results look more influenced by carbon emissions and cover-up any inconsistencies that may lead to alternative theories regarding climate control. Given the high controversy of this subject, it’s important to understand the potential for deception, and any evidence from either side must be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the controversy is causing quite a storm.

The documents, from the Climate Research Institute at East Anglia University are being scrutinized now, and seem on first inspection to be authentic. The 62 MB file was first uploaded to internet forum site, “The Air Vent” early yesterday. Many of the emails detail the disdain researchers have for those uncooperative scientists who are attempting to discredit thousands of hours worth of expensive research done by those involved in the controversy. Some names mentioned are Phil Jones, and Michael Mann who coined the “hockey stick” diagram.

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s,” so one email goes, “to hide the decline.” Clearly we see here that if these emails are indeed authentic, then this is quite possibly one of the greatest conspiracies to surface from the scientific community since the Alternating Current Wars. And according to “Investigate” magazine, operating from Australia, Dr. Phil Jones has verified their authenticity. Dr. Jones’ analysis holds with it much weight, and many are now giving a second look to what would otherwise have merely been a “well crafted hoax.” Now as the controversy continues, many climatic science sites are taking the emails very seriously.

This is a very long (9:58) video in regards to this scientific hack and what the potential fallout.

‘Nuff Said!

The Perfessor

My house is on a hill, far from the shore, and well above the water table. Unfortunately, there is a drain in the floor in my basement. Precisely why it is there is something of a mystery to me. Apparently, the drain leads to a pipe that is the overflow from my washing machine. The water from the washing machine dumps into the pipe then empties into what is called a French Well. About three or four years ago the well must have collapsed in on itself. Not usually a problem — except when it rains; a lot.

When it rains, the water backs up the drain pipe and into my basement. this happened three years ago and I got some 3-4 inches of water in my basement. Two years ago it happened again. Last year I was ahead of the curve and had a sump pump set up and was able to circumvent the flood.

It has been raining quite a bit for quite some time now.

I looked into the drain pipe and well, the water is about an inch or so below the rim. I am not very happy. I was planning on going to work today for one of my clients (after I finished my work for another client), but well, now I’m not so sure. I’m afraid if I leave the water will rise once again to flood conditions, so, I guess I’m going to hang around and man the sump pump.

More as it happens.

The Perfessor

So you say that it snowed at your place this weekend? Well, it snowed here too. How much? Just ask the Spidey antenna-topper that sits high atop my car...

And now, for the close-up!

The Perfessor

NOAA has taken some overhead shots of the Texas coastline after Hurricane Ike, and they're located here
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/ike/IKE0000.HTM
taken Sept 14, 2008

Here's the reason nobody will be driving onto Bolivar from the mainland any time soon.

--

I'll expect any vehicle traffic will have to come from the ferry from now on.

More images soon.

Here's an overhead from the Freeport Jetty

And the supersized version

-- For a series of pics I may refer to later, here's a collection from ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/US/popup?id=5794800

Hundreds of stories are coming out of Hurricane Ike, and there's no way I could ever even begin to report on them all, but here's one I came across this morning. Bolivar Peninsula runs from the tip of the Ferry Landing on the west to where it connects to the mainland near Rollover Pass (a cut is made for sea water to come into the bay there, called a fish pass). Two communities, Crystal Beach and Gilchrest are there. Everything there makes the island of Galveston look like the Taj Majal. But whatever is there is gone now.

Here's a story of one guy that stayed.
From Chron.com
Bolivar resident stayed in his home during Hurricane Ike
By MEG LOUCKS and DALE LEZON

CenterPoint Energy spokesman Floyd LeBlanc said that while its crews are working throughout its service area, the company is getting customers back online fastest on the western side in places like Sealy, Katy and Fort Bend County.

"The center of our area was hit pretty hard, the southern and eastern side was hit extremely hard, which includes structures being knocked down," LeBlanc said today.

In some cases utility tree trimmers are having to cut their way through downed trees on streets just to get to the poles, he said.

LeBlanc said about 7,000 linemen and utility tree trimmers are coming from elsewhere in Texas and from at least nine other states as far away as California, Maryland and Virginia.
-- Tropical Weather Blog from The Houston Chronicle

It was only 18 hours for us. I feel blessed. I've always maintained that Western Harris county is far safer in terms of weather than any other location in this county of some 4.5 million people. The power came back on for us yesterday evening, in the middle of wondering how far west the power really did come back on. Casa Cuppacafe Grande isn't that far from a power substation, and not too far away from a new hospital, so we guessed that hospital would have a connection to the grid soon enough, and perhaps some areas around it, #1Casey and I went out yesterday out to Brookshire, west of Katy, to check on the oil lease one of my clients control. Sure enough, Brookshire had power, and the truck stop out there was doing a very brisk business.

Since then, we ate some grilled sausages and had all of our kids come and go, some going to another relative with power (that later last night lost that power again!) and some staying.

We have four dogs here, and a backyard in need of cleanup from boards with nails in them. I've got fencing and will be putting that up now.

But we have power.

It gives me a chance to see what happened in Galveston. It looks like they're going to have a second evacuation of Galveston, getting people out now that wouldn't get out before.

Ya'll keep thinking good thoughts for those who are not faring so well this week. And psychically tell people to stay off the roads so the supplies can get to where they need to go.

Well, I’m sure that (if) whenever Walt gets his power back he’ll post (excessively) about how traumatic the (zombie attacks, General Ike arriving, and Q razing their neighborhood) hurricane was, but in the mean time I thought that I
6post a little bit that I know (for more specific and curent updates, I refer you all to Walt’s (sophomoric rantings) Twittering to our collective right.

According to a news story I just read on AOL News, Texas is mounting a massive rescue effort after Ike has passed through.

HOUSTON (Sept. 13) - Rescuers in boats, helicopters and high-water trucks set out across the flood-stricken Texas coast Saturday in a monumental effort to reach tens of thousands of people who stubbornly ignored warnings of "certain death" and tried to ride out Hurricane Ike.

(via AOL)

I haven’t spoken to Walt directly, but we have texted each other a couple of times earlier today (Saturday). He is also posting responses on his last blog entry “The calm before the storm”. He is doing this — at least for the short term — as (according to Walt) it is simply easier for him to post in this fashion than to create a new blog entry (he is too busy drinking — Oh wait! That’s me!).

If you want more on what is current, I suggest you go to that AOL story link I used above. You will also see several hundred dramatic photos (like the one that appears at the top of this post) included in that story.

More as it happens

The Perfessor

Here at Casa Cuppacafe Grande in the middle of the Katy Prarie, it's just 8:30PM Central, and a world away from the Gulf Coast being ravaged by Hurricane Ike at the moment. It's blustery here, and promises to get far worse as the night progresses. Stepson #1 and family are hunkering down in place about six miles north, stepdaughter (#2) is in her 2nd floor apt about four miles north of there. Stepdaughter #1 is here with her mangy cat; boyfriend of stepdaughter #1 fled for Baton Rouge to care for some invalid grandmother... if that was some excuse.

We're all watching the news feeds, just like some of you may be. Listening to the tales of people already stranded by the high water a full half day before the storm got truly awful. Many were rescued. Some were not; they remain in perilous circumstances, and I feel sorry for them. They were slow or stupid. Life can be cruel sometimes.

But meanwhile, we're here, and I'll post ever hour or so, or perhaps tweet (Look At The Sidebar!) to let you know I still have power. Stepson#1 already had his power flash, but it's back on again.

AT&T have advised folks to use texting instead of voice calls. Already my phone internet is down.

But before my cable internet goes out, I'll show you a picture I took tonight. I saw on the TV that we were having a good sunset (interesting how your TV can tell you to look outside to see something, but there ya go!) so stepdaughter#1 went out to take a peek... And called me out. I ran back inside, grabbed the camera, and...

Nice, yes?

Well, I'm going to try to lay down and sleep so I can be awake for the bumps and bruising I'll expect we'll all go through during the overnight.

As Walt has been stating, Ike is on the way, well, in the wake of the zombie attack that occurred in Katy, the other day, I went back and checked the Walt-cam and found the attached image.

I, mean, seriously, who knew.

The Perfessor