Visit the kelpforest....

A little confused about the weather. My little weather channel app has been giving wind warnings since yesterday, and I think I even heard a red flag warning on the radio. On the way home last night the radio told of downed power lines, delays at LAX because of debris on the runways, and power outages up in LA. This morning their talking about school closures and water conservation because pumps are down and depending on emergency generators.

There is no wind here. Neither was there at John's workplace last night, which is in Santa Ana Canyon and usually subject to very high winds during Santa Ana conditions; however, some of his customers coming in from the east said it was really blowing in Riverside. We're only 40 miles to the south of LA -usually if it's windy, it's windy everywhere. Kinda strange...

I just put fresh batteries in our little clock/weather station and the barometer indicator is completely flat - no change in pressure at all.

Update: 10:15 - Some slight air movement moving the tree leaves outside the window, with signs of getting stronger, but it's still mostly overcast and hazy.

( Ah, this explains it... )

Umm, Happy Solstice? It's kind of hard to tell it's the first day of summer here - the June Gloom has been pretty fierce. It may have been sunny for a few hours by the time I leave work, but often by the time I get home to HB, the marine layer is starting to form up again. On the second leg of my flight home from Spokane the week before last, I was sitting next to a couple who were recent transplants to Seattle from Sacramento. They asked if I was coming or going; when I said I was heading home to Orange County, the girl sighed and said "Ah, you live in the SUN!" They were en route to visit his brother who lived in Irvine. If they really wanted sun I hope they weren't too disappointed, although Irvine is few miles inland and it probably clears up sooner.

Side note: she apparently was a Starbucks employee who had seemed to have totally bought into the company propaganda; she spent several minutes asking me whether I liked them, which baked goods were my favorites (apparently, they only sell maple oat nut scones in California - and quite frankly, while I like my strong coffee, I'm not so much of a connoisseur that I can tell one variety from another). She had me read a printout, apparently from the company's annual report, of all the goals reached, or newly set. They seemed to be making progress on most of them except for electricity use, which they were supposed have cut down on 25% by 2010. It's only been about 1.5%. Maybe they should start grinding their beans with a crank.

Hoo boy, I am going to get wet walking out to the car when I leave. Bad day to wear Crocs.

On the way in this morning, it looked there was more snow on the mountains than from the last big, cold storm to blow through. Figures this comes after the Equinox. And runsamuck's plastic garage for his bike out back - the roof ripped right up the middle. I thought maybe it could be replaced, because the frame is pretty heavy duty and he's got it bolted to the cement pad - keep it from blowing away in the Santa Anas - but he says no. Maybe we can just use a tarp. The damn thing just shredded too. It wasn't that old.

Everything is breaking down lately. While dad was in the hospital, the dishwasher stopped bothering to get anything clean, so for the last two months it's been a giant dish rack. The washing machine is not wanting to spin any more, and this last week the dryer gets clothes warm and damp, but not dry. The oven still works but only in convection mode, and the door is wonky - you have to pull the self-cleaning lever halfway on before the fan will run and the oven stay hot.

Never rains but it pours?

The June Gloom is being rather ferocious this year, here by the coast of the Southern California Bight. Usually it ends right about the 4th of July - this summer, not only did the 4th only barely clear up in the middle of the day, but lately has been heavy and cool enough to be drizzly, and sometimes never clears - usually it's light enough it burns off by 10am at the latest. We did get a few days of high pressure last week, and temps in the hundreds inland - Beth came in from Riverside to go the beach and cool off last Thursday - but after some chubasco-type weather (as a fisherman at the docks referred to it, saying it felt like Mexico) Thursday evening/Friday morning it's now back to The Gloom.

( chubasco weather... )

Well, I would have written something about the torrential rain yesterday, but Wil Wheaton did it much better than I could...

moves by just like a paper boat

We didn't really venture out much yesterday as it was really pouring all day; more a day for watching that Inuyasha movie in the box we hadn't gotten around to yet, making frozen cookie dough cookies, and putting away the last of the ornaments we hadn't yet. However, Sunday afternoon Angus and I did walk out to the end of the pier in the drizzle, had a snack at Ruby's, and came back. We cheated a bit then, by driving half-way down and parking. We discovered a mural we hadn't seen before around the corner from Perq's, and discovered the antique shop in the old Helme/Worthy Buiding was still open, so we had to check that out as well. I pointed out a 40's-50's era tea set to Angus, if ever his dad needs an idea for gift-giving, ha-ha, and he asked me several times why someone would want to buy some very old Coke bottles - still with original Coke, which must be really stale by now - or another Coke bottle with its neck stretched and twisted, probably from a carnival. He seemed dubious that people would ever want to buy such things.

The day before we had walked all the way down there from home and back. Some very big surf was coming in and swells were breaking past the restrooms and bait shop, much further out than usual. I practiced shooting the surfers for a few minutes, slightly envying the woman with a much bigger telephoto lens; then Angus tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out the pigeons getting a drink from the faucet at the fish cleaning station. Large-lens lady started taking pictures of them too.

So it seems Angus is becoming my walking buddy; the other two will go as well, most of the time, but he's the one who most often bugs me about it, which is a good thing. He no longer holds my hand like he did when he was little, but often takes my elbow as we're walking. It could be he might decide soon that's not something middle school-age boys do (Gareth, almost two years younger decided that a couple of years ago already), but for now it's sweet. Maybe in twenty years or so, it'll be the other way around.

So, first rain we've had in awhile, and of course I had to go run errands at lunchtime, no stamps and something had to be mailed today. There was a small patch of blue for a short while just now, but it's being rapidly subsumed by rolling shades of dark gray, then almost gray-orange - the clouds above must be catching the setting sun. Tappity-tappity on the window.Actually more of an insistent rapping now...

I've been helping my NOAA compadre organize a meeting for kicking of a sampling design project to be done by a contractor. We're having it at our office as it's central to everything and I'm trying to think of anything else needed - room, check; phone conference line, check (luckliy, the Feds have one they can organize almost anytime - we only have two, and they're almost always booked up all day); reserving equipment, to do; hotel list for participants, check; anything else for agenda, hmmm, suggesting restaurants for a social hour afterward...not sure I'll be able to participate in that one as I won't be travelling, and can't get reimbursed for it.

Should be interesting. And now, a dock report I'm behind on, fish receipts to edit and otoliths to start...

Yeeks. I saw a very odd looking cloud out my office window so I took a picture of it (I'll add it here once I download my camera). There's been a fire (the Morris fire) since a couple of days ago in the San Gabriel Mountains above Azusa, but this was a bit farther west. Turns out it's the Station Fire, above La Cañada Flintridge, that started yesterday afternoon. There's also a fire in Rancho Palos Verdes that started overnight; this is a bit more atypical as RPV is pretty well surrounded by city - it's the big hilly penninsula on the south end of Santa Monica Bay, and just west of the harbor where I spent most of the morning yesterday, with a lot of affluent neighborhoods and golf courses. However, it's 70% contained already. Plus another one out near Hemet.

It's getting so a red-flag warning means an almost instant wildfire. When I went to the fire blog I usually check, earlier in the week, there hadn't been an update since the 19th and it's usually updated several times a day, depending on fire activity - the guy must have been on vacation. Seems to be back this morning, though. In any case, it all makes for terrible air quality, so I've been after runsamuck to stay indoors as much as possible - although the Air Quality Mgt. District map says it's only moderate, except in Banning (Hemet fire?).

We had a two or three weeks there where you would have thought we were back in April or May - the June gloom came back and sometimes it never cleared up the entire day, around 20 degrees below normal in places. On Tuesday,that abruptly changed, although seems like it seldom gets as hot as yesterday without there being Santa Ana conditions. Let's hope those stay away. *Looks out window* Hmm, may have spoke too soon - yesterday the wind was still coming from the ocean, but it looks as if it's changed direction.

Flew up to Spokane WA for three days of meetings. Another sundog, this time from above.

Sundog
Location -? (somewhere between John Wayne Airport and SeaTac)
Canon EOS 1000D
11 June 2009

( ...And flung my eager craft through footless halls of air...  )

The flight up had no less than six small passegers under two, who all set each other off crying during takeoff. While I can tune a lot of that out, being a parent, six was rather a lot as once. Luckily, most of them settled pretty quickly, except for one little girl who wailed intermittently as her parents took turns handing her off. While jockeying for position with the other passenger for the second leg of the trip from Seattle to Spokane, I noticed the young man next to me had a Jack's Surfboards shopping bag (a store on Main St. near me), so I asked if he was coming or going from SoCA. Turned out he and his dad were going back home to their small town nearly on the Canada/Idaho border. They'd gone down to go to Dismalland (JWA flights always seem to have families with that as a destination), and we chatted a bit about beaches and traffic (he was shocked it was so bad), and whether I'd been to Idaho (twice; the meeting last September, and a number of years before, when Beth and I drove up there to visit and go camping with her father's family). He also related that the little girl who cried the most on the flight had been on their flight down as well, and never stopped that time. He told me he never wants to leave his town, and I don't blame him a bit. I think the entire state of Idaho has less of a population than my local area; from that trip with Beth, I remember seeing three- and four-digit license plates.

I was out of camera battery for the flight to Spokane (and if you ever peruse my Flickr photostream I'm sure you're grateful for that!), and the sun was setting anyway, but it looked like there was still quite a lot of snow in the Cascades. After I checked in I realized I must have left my DFG jacket on one of the planes, and my black go-to-meeting shoes no longer seemed to be in my suitcase - and I know I shoved them in there because I almost forgot them. We were about to leave for the airport and I had to run back inside and grab them.

Stimpson J. was being unusually sociable this afternoon, so I took a bunch of closeups; this was runsamuck's favorite (Stimp's always been his baby). I like this one.

Stimpy cat
Huntington Beach Ca
Canon EOS 1000D
10 June 2009

( ...and sundog... )

Wow, thunder! I don't think I've ever heard that while I'm still at work...

Edit: ScienceDude blogs about it... Yeah, I still read him even though he snubbed me on FB... *shrug*