Watching the Weather

With three outdoor activities coming up in the next few weeks, I'm keeping an eye on the weather:

Thursday 7/24: Was a little concerned about the weather for the Guinea Pigs gig at Billings Forge Farmers' Market. But things look OK - partly cloudy, high 70s, 50% humidity, and low chance of rain (0 - 20%)

Saturday 7/26: Om Street / Yoga on LaSalle. Although the weekend forecast reads 86, Few Showers, and 30% Chance of Rain, the hourly forecast shows sunny, 60s, and 0% chance of rain in the morning. Let's call that a "go"

Tuesday 7/29 through Monday 8/4: Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Looks like a mixed bag. Tuesday - Thursday look good (high 70s, sunny or mostly sunny, 0-10% chance of rain) - which are key days for me in terms of setting up campsite, relaxing with friends, getting prep work done in merch trailer land Friday and Saturday show showers and light rain (boo!) although we're looking 7-8 days out so lots of opportunity for changes. Fingers crossed and hopeful!

Community Project

They are plowing the apartment building across the street; with a bit of a community effort.

Our recently plowed parking lot is the holding area / overflow for the apartment complex while they clear the lot. Can't complain, the apartment complex plow dude took care of us after he got the main area of his parking lot opened up and while he waited for the residents to come move cars.

New Britain Plow Update

Still no sign of a city plow, since early this morning when a plow came through just to make a path for emergency vehicles....here's a street by street neighborhood update as of 2:00 pm on Sunday 2/10.

Roosevelt St looking north from Edgewood

Edgewood Ave, looking east from Roosevelt

Kennedy Drive, looking North from Edgewood. Nary a tire tread, but someone with a snow blower cut a walking path

Benson Street, looking north from Edgewood

Fulton Street is driveable (with caution), single lane

Hudson Place, looking east from Fulton. Not plowed, sorry Dattco....

Astor Place, looking east from Fulton. Suspect someone on the (dead-end) street had a plow truck.

Parker Control Systems on Edgewood. Lot is nice and clear, has been since yesterday.

New Britain Neighborhood Update

Here's the present state of the roads in my New Britain neighborhood:

 

Fulton Street has been nominally plowed with a single lane. Someone ran a plow down Edgewood (and backed it up) - limited access and not really what I'd call plowed. Fulton, Kennedy, Roosevelt, and Crescent have not been touched. 

I walked the dog up Edgewood and all the way up Fulton - folks are digging out. While the snow plow owners were pretty quick to get out and clean up, it was pretty amazing to see the shovelers also doing a decent job of digging out. 

No sign of street plow today, nor anyone to clean up our condo lot, although there are signs of life - a pickup did a first pass on the apartment lot across the street.

I suspect today will be a day of waiting - and hoping that those with transportation do not get out and about too early. Already there's a pickup parked on the street (visiting? resident who parked off site and came back?) that was in the way of the lot plow dude, and will obstruct the town plows if they show.  And another dude rolled through in a Pontiac Sunfire (a shitbox in any weather, but particularly unsuited for the snow) and got stuck on Edgewood Ave - five of us out cleaning up pushed him out.

Hurricane Sandy

I know the mess is still happening - and thoughts go out to those on the CT coastline, to the folks in New York City, and those who remain without power.

Sandy was a lot like last year's Irene for me - never lost power then or now, never lost cable / internet. The UPS kicked on a few times due to sags / instability but otherwise, no problems. The upside of living in / near a city.

I have to believe that this is going to help out President Obama. Even though he'll have to suspend his campaign, and turnout in the northeast states (mostly safely in Obama's pocket anyway) will be impacted, he'll have a week of lookign and acting presidential (don't blow it!)

And after an event like this, I would think that the candidate who accepts the concept of global warming and climate change, and who supports the federal role in emergency preparedness, disaster relief, and things like strong building and zoning regulations might have a bit of a leg up.

But we shall see. In the meantime, stay safe everyone!

A Long, Cold, Dark, and Wasted Week

I lost power here in New Britain for most of the past week. Power went out early in the storm (Saturday afternoon, around 4 pm) and returned Friday evening around 5 pm. Here's a brief synopsis.

As soon as power went out, I ran out to find some propane canisters - I've stopped bringing the stove and lantern to my folk fest so I was out - and was able to pick up a couple. I also had (coincidentally) gotten a full tank of gas the day before, which helped a lot in the first few days.

At first, I was fairly well situated. I have a bunch of camping lanterns (LED based, they go forever) and a propane stove. My house is all electric, but the hot water tank held up for a few days. And although the house got cold, I opened up the blinds during the day to solar heat, and had a bed dog. So all in all, not so bad. I was able to make my morning coffee and oatmeal on the propane stove, cooked a few simple meals, and got the rest to go. The yoga studio had power through Tuesday morning, so I grabbed showers on Sunday - Tuesday when I was there to work, practice, or teach. On Sunday, I cleaned out the fridge - tossed a lot, and put the rest on ice / snow in the cooler on the back porch. It kept cold fine all week. And at least I got the fridge cleaned out.

Of course I had my iPhone, and the networks stayed up, so I was able to communicate, commiserate, and see everyone's struggles via Facebook. Definitely a 2011 spin on the "great power outage" - back in the day we'd only have newspaper and radio....

Nights were pretty cold but with an extra blanket and a warm dog, I was fine. And WNPR was my savior - I had no battery powered radio, but I cobbled together an old AM/FM armband thing I used to use when I roller bladed with a battery powered speaker I use for my iPod - and had plenty of radio all week. I'm going to invest in a couple of small battery powered radios when all this is over...

Tuesday morning, the yoga studio lost power. And that evening, something snapped. I realized I was falling behind on work, my main client was getting antsy, so I packed my desktop into my car and took Elo up to MA to visit grandma (who had power and internet). I stayed up there two nights - getting caught up on work, taking a few warm showers, and taking care of a lot of mom's little chores (programming two remotes, installing her casino software on her new computer, flipping her mattress, etc.)

I came back Thursday - my ex Zippy got power back so I assumed I was not far behind, but alas, no. So I set my office back up in the dark, and hunkered down. Thursday night slept at home. Went out to balloon Friday morning (too windy) but we did watch the Farmington fired department roll past in force en route to an apartment fire near Brickyard Road. But when my CL&P "power restore" time came and went (Friday morning, 8:30 am) I decided to punt once again; packing up Elo to stay with Zippy Friday night. I ended up working off my room and board by lopping, chopping, and chainsawing a large tree branch that came down in his yard.

When I got back to the condo Saturday morning, power (and cable) was back, judging from the thermostat timers it was restored Friday night at 5:00 pm. The weekend was busy (balloon chasing, tree cleanup, hiking) so I'm really just getting my life back together now.

West Hartford Yoga remained without power as of yesterday - I teach 2x today so we'll see if there is power this morning. But slowly, life is getting back to normal.

Rapture Redux

My favorite post-rapture quip: "Oh, the rapture happened. It's just that nobody qualified."

But seriously folks, last night's horrific tornado in Joplin, MO, piled atop the Mississippi River flooding and the spate of tornadoes in Alabama and across the south last month have an end-times feel to them, no? But alas, no divine explanation needed. Fairly well predicted side-effects of global warming.

The Big Uneasy

Went to see The Big Uneasy last night at Real Art Ways. It's a documentary by Harry Shearer, about the post-Katrina flooding of New Orleans and the impact of levee / flood control design by the Army Corps of Engineers on that. It's a story of whistle-blowers, Don Quixote-like professors, and "are they really dumb enough to let themselves be on camera spouting this stuff?" representatives of the Army Corps.

Harry Shearer is mining the same sort of ground that Michael Moore has carved out with his documentaries. But Shearer is calmly earnest, and brings none of the bombast, hyperbole, or cinematic stunts to bear that Moore's later works have come to rely on. I'm recalling that scene in Bowling for Columbine where Moore confronts an aging Charleston Heston, kind of left me feeling a bit dirty. There is none of that here. Perhaps Moore's first big work, Roger & Me, brought the same level of personal involvement that Shearer brings as he documents the issues with his hometown.

I really liked the graphic overview (via map) of how the levee failures flooded New Orleans; was the first time I understood both the geography of the city as well as the pernicious nature of the failures (my mainstream media advised understanding was that there was one or two levee failures. And I've never really understood how the Mississippi River - Gulf Outlet canal, or MR-GO, contributed to both the flooding of the city or to the loss of wetlands / habitat.

The "Ask a New Orleanian" segments, hosted by John Goodman, were good, although I would have liked to have seen a bit more depth / diversity (it seems to have been filmed at a single sit-down with five fairly well-off residents, would have liked a few roving crew interview bits)

Mostly, I was left shaking my head, and a little pissed. I've had my own brushes with the Army Corps (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away) and I'd have to agree with one of the comments in the film that the Army Corps have stopped engineering in favor of project management. There does not seem to be a big picture design concept at work here. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

The interview segments with the three protaganists: Ivor van Heerden, director of a hurricane research center at LSU, Robert Bea, a civil engineer at U. Cal Berkeley, and Maria Garzino, an engineer from the Army Corps of Engineers - were the most powerful. All three have paid a heavy toll for simply wanting to get at the truth and butting heads with the federal juggernaut that seems equal parts stupid, bull-headed, and evil.

The Army Corps representatives were conversely pretty frustrating - sprouting the company line, looking at the narrow scope of their particular project or issue, and not really wanting, able, or permitted to step back to see the larger picture.

Great documentary - go see it!

P.S. - Also, the film website's Resources page has some incredible reports and documents supporting the film. Engineering Pron.

WNPR Signal Outage

WNPR has been off the air since yesterday around noon-time, apparently there was storm related damage at or near the transmitter on Meriden Mountain.

In the meantime, I've kind of been enjoying radio silence. I am an admitted NPR addict and I often have WNPR going on multiple radios (office / bedroom / living room) not to mention my car and an occasional podcast. So it's sort of nice to try a more contemplative, silent morning. I suppose I could catch the stream (shades of Colin McEnroe on WTIC during Red Sox games) but my computer speakers are not great and I'm slinging around large files for work this morning. Don't worry, WNPR. I will be back to my old ways as soon as you are back on the air.

In the meantime, just passing this along....

I’ve just received word from WNPR’s engineering department this evening that the power lines to the Meriden transmitter sustained heavy damage this afternoon during the violent storm that passed through the area.

CL & P crews, local tree removal services and tower maintenance personnel are working in concert to restore power – and our signal – as quickly as possible.

As I write, we anticipate the earliest time to get WNPR’s 90.5 signal back on line is late Friday afternoon.

Member support not only delivers the best news and information available, it also ensures that we can restore delivery of WNPR’s service as quickly as possible during times like these.

Thank you for your understanding and your financial support. Tonight in particular, your generosity will be at work throughout the night.

Jack

Jack Callahan
Vice President, Individual Giving
Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network
CPTV | WNPR CPTV4U | cpbn.org
1049 Asylum Avenue
Hartford, CT 06105
jcallahan@cpbn.org
Phone: (860)275-7320
www.cpbn.org

Summertime

The guy who plows the small parking area of my condo planted some stakes in the ground at the edges and corners - so he could see where to plow (and where not) in the snow. These hung around all winter, around the middle of April I pulled them out and piled them up near the trash cans. They've never quite made it out to the garbage.

Today, heading out for an ice coffee, I watched as three young boys (maybe 10 - 12 years old) collected the stakes and headed off down the street. One was on a bike, one had a few gathered in his arms, and the last boy was dragging his armload behind him, no shirt and his baseball cap askew on his head. It was a quintessential summer scene, right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

No idea what they were going to do with the stakes - play weapons? building materials? just something to mess around with? Regardless, this was a treasure trove to these little guys....

Oh, to be 12 years old, on a summer's day, with nothing to do but hang out, collect wood, and walk the fine line between entertaining oneself and getting into trouble.

Off Shore Drilling

Lot's of discussion surrounding President Obama's decision to open up certain areas to off-shore oil exploration. Drill baby, drill, and all that....

My thoughts. In the grand scheme of things, the concerns about off shore drilling are dwarfed by the magnitude of issues surrounding global warming and climate change*. So if President Obama is using off shore drilling as a carrot to pull some republicans on board towards passing some carbon footprint legislation, good for him. Because if we do not get our carbon footprint under control soon, the shorelines won't stay where they are anyway, they will be miles inland. And if the Republicans do not step across the aisle to deal, Obama has justification to just do a climate change bill without bipartisan support, a la health care.

President Obama is, IMHO, a smart, pragmatic leader, a chess player and long term thinker. Sometimes one has to sacrifice a piece to win a bigger piece, or to win the match. I have no doubt that this is a small piece of a bigger plan, and I trust him on it.....

* Do I think that this winter's massive snowstorms in the mid-atlantic, and the recent New England record spring floods, are related to an energized global weather pattern driven by warming. Yes, I do. Get used to it......

Random List of Snowstorm Chores

[ ] Clean yoga room
[ ] Clean bed room
[ ] Take upstairs and put away yoga mats, blocks, straps, boombox
[ ] Put away and organize musical instruments from kirtan
[ ] Do a couple of loads of laundry
[ ] Fold and put away a couple of loads of clean laundry
[ ] Clean bathrooms
[ ] Vacuum room
[ ] Hang up some art / photos
[ ] Get client holiday letters and calendars ready to mail
[ ] Put away random piles in the living room from the old house
[ ] Assemble yoga teacher paperwork for certification

Already got the kitchen cleaned, floor swept and mopped, and the coat closet reorganized.

Rainy Day

It's nice to have the rain, today. It's a contrast to the crystal clear September 11 we had a year ago, and five years before that.

Rain seems more fitting somehow - mourning. Washing away the dust, the pain. Prepping the ground for new growth.

Come rain.

Canvassing

A caller this evening - a community organizer / canvasser from Connecticut Working Families - we signed her list, tossed a few bucks their way. They are sponsoring a slate of candidates for the city council - and are promoting a progressive set of issues around healthcare, sick days, against outsourcing, and for fair wages.

Coldish and rainy night. She gets points for being out, working the block on a night like this....