Batten the hatches

Today's our last day of medium decent weather before the arrival of our first significant storm of Winter 2010-11.  One way we determine if the approaching Pacific system is "for real" is to look at the wind and wave forecasts embedded in the coastal gale warnings.  At the peak of the storm, models prognosticate 38 foot waves with 45 knot winds.  Such predictions carry this ominous disclaimer: "INDIVIDUAL WAVES MAY BE MORE THAN TWICE THE SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT."  Looking at the jetstream and the water vapor maps has brought to mind a snippet from a 1966 Monkees hit:

"Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind."


Perhaps a little later this morning we will post a longer, more technical analysis of this impending storm over on the Geek Weather blog.  Luckily, we still have most of today to continue to "batten the hatches."  Yesterday went really well.  Our part of the porch project is 100% done.  The yard's been mowed, the garage door painted and sealed, hoses drained and rolled and lots more nit-picky stuff done.  Today will give us a chance to completely clear the decks.  From the look of the Pacific patterns taking shape, we could be in store for one storm after another for quite some time.


Although we worked all day, we did get a real nice break.  We met Matt Q. for lunch at the fish taco joint on 1st Street.  Matt, as you recall, was my boss at RSVP for almost 2.5 years.  His departure was one of the reasons we started this blog back on 01/01/10.  We might have had a few differences when he was "Da Bahs (That's Georgia-speak for "boss") but we both enjoy his company and are glad we can still be buddies.  Lunch with Matt was a real welcome diversion from our daily routine of late.  (And, by the way, those fish tacos are still as good as they ever were!)

The Goatherder posted up on his blog about a Thursday meeting at a local winery.  It's quite interesting reading.  What's even more interesting is the "fried hard drive" part of his blog post title.
The Spudboater lost her hard drive, too.  Then last night, Jana came over with her son, Oliver, and told me she lost her hard drive, too.  The October Harvest Full Moon sure has been hard on drives!  We're danged glad this full moon is history.  It's been a toughie in a lot of regards.

Speaking of the moon and astronomical stuff, DF & LBR Kelli W. will be getting married June 11. 2010.  She posted a comment yesterday that The Shooting Star Inn was mentioned in National Geographic's write up about Flagstaff being an "Adventure Town."  Kelli is excited because the Inn is the site of her wedding next spring.  A couple of weeks ago we spent quite a bit of time studying every page of the Inn's website.   If you are at all interested in staying at an eclectic B&B where you can study the moon and stars, this place is for you.  Click here to check out the astro portion of their website.  Congrats, Kelli, you couldn't have picked a better place for your ceremony!

Today's The Day for our annual Boy Scout Food Drive.  It begins at precisely 9 am.  That means just about as soon as I finish this blog post, I'm gonna dive into the pantry and cull out at least 50 cans of food to donate this morning.  This year, I suspect it will be much closer to 100 cans.  We're overdue for some Pantry Management.  The annual food drive is our one chance to rejuvenate our extensive food storage downstairs.  (Note added an hour later:  We mustered up 10 bags with roughly 8-10 cans per bag--easily more than 50 cans but probably less than 100.  The guy who runs the local Food Bank is one of my heroes--Buck Horton's his name--he's easily THE most energetic volunteer I have ever met.  He's probably approaching 15,000 volunteer hours.  He makes the Energizer Bunny look like a couch potato!

And finally, (Cue rolled eyes and groans) we're reading yet another golf book.  We finished a second golf book called "Golf Freek" earlier this week.  Now we're reading a real classic of the genre entitled, "Alice Cooper, Golf Monster."  Believe it or not, the Alice Cooper book is highly entertaining.  We picked it up last night and only had to put it down when our poor eyes said "no more."  We read 100 pages last night and hope to finish the book today.  I doubt that anyone reading this trivia would ever remotely be interested in Alice Cooper's golf addiction but I hafta ta tell ya, This Book ROX!

Cheers, jp