hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Un cuarto de balboa
I've run across some non-U.S. coins on occasion, generally when Canadian pennies show up in change. But how this quarter balboa from Panama ended up at the laundromat I don't know. At any rate, I thought it was an interesting-looking item worthy of posting.

Quarter Balboa So I'm scheduled to work a 12-hour shift today due to Ernesto, but Ernesto is looking like something of a washout. We're still supposed to get some rain out of it, but it's looking as though maybe the forecasters predicted a bit too much out of this one. And that's fine with me, I'd rather see these systems more or less fall apart than wreak havoc.

I do have to wonder what something like this does to the media's credibility, however. (You can stop laughing now.) We tend to blow these things up, and then if they fall apart it looks as if we were crying wolf. It's an interesting quandary, telling people what's going on and that they should be prepared while at the same time not giving them the impression we're all going to die.

You may have heard of Hurricane John because it's close to the western coast of Mexico--and there's now a Tropical Storm Kristy just to the west of it. But one storm that has been almost completely ignored is Typhoon Ioke, a Pacific system so powerful that the military completely evacuated Wake Island. They expect it to be submerged, and anything not made of concrete to be blown and/or washed away. The satellite images in both cases are pretty amazing. It looks like Ioke is big enough to cover Papua New Guinea, though it's not expected to affect any large landmass. And the John/Kristy pairing is something else, too.

posted at 11:40 am | permalink | 0 comments

Monday, August 28, 2006

If I may be permitted a chiasmus
It's high time we stop personifying objects and objectifying people.

Take hurricanes, for example. It is not at all unusual to hear a news anchor, reporter, or meteorologist refer to a tropical system as a "he" or "she." I know the National Hurricane Center assigns male and female names, but a tropical storm is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, not a being capable of independent thought or action. To assign to such a storm all the characteristics of a super villain although no doubt sensational is thus seemingly irrational. But what do I know, I'm just a producer.

posted at 12:12 am | permalink | 1 comment

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Egg, onion, and a sprinkling of shredded cheddar
Not the most productive day of my life, but I at least got caught up on much of my personal and philatelic e-mail. There's a bit more of that to do along with several letters waiting on replies.

I made a quick trip to the grocery store earlier today to top off my storm food stock (i.e., water and canned veggies). I keep a fair bit of stuff on hand year round so all I have to do is pick up a few items when there's the potential for something to go down. And with Ernesto's forecast track still bouncing around, I'd rather err on the side of caution even though the worst-case scenario for this part of the state is looking more like a category 1 hurricane or tropical storm if we're affected.

My Sabbath was pretty good. Mr. S gave a sermon on preventing (spiritual) poisons from getting into one's life. Had lunch with five of the others, after which we sat around and talked. After that Devon and I headed back here to the apartment, played a little music and talked and so forth. I declined the invitation to drive down to St. Augustine to see Talladega Nights again, as I was not impressed the first time around. Besides, I'm several hundred dollars over budget for the month due primarily to paying for car repairs. It's that difficult act of balancing social and financial. It seems like I've been doing much more on the social side lately, and I like it.

posted at 5:29 pm | permalink | 1 comment

Okay, so maybe I was wrong
From the latest forecast track it looks like Ernesto could be a weather event for this area after all. Here we go....

posted at 11:09 am | permalink | 0 comments

Friday, August 25, 2006

And another one bites the dust
Not a bad day, all in all. It did remain gray for the better part of the day--the sidewalk in front of the apartment even had about an inch of standing water on it at one point. That was okay, though, I was mostly concerned with indoor stuff like paying bills, prepping another Web site stamp trade, and so on and so forth.

Got the bathroom cleaned today, something I didn't get around to last Friday due to work. Wiped down the inside of the microwave where it appeared perhaps a pinto bean or something along those lines exploded at some point. Wouldn't mind getting some more work done Sunday, either in terms of cleaning or of adding stuff to Philosateleia.

The National Hurricane Center is currently tracking Tropical Storm Ernesto. It'll be interesting to see what this one does. The long range forecasts are still in disagreement to some extent, but if that thing heads into the Gulf...I can certainly see my travel plans disrupted not by weather but by work. Perhaps. At any rate, that's still several days away.

posted at 11:14 pm | permalink | 1 comment

I love a rainy night
Which may sound silly considering it's currently morning, but I woke up to the sound of rain. What a delightful treat! It has rained around here the past couple of afternoons, too, and although I don't think it's supposed to pour all day I won't mind if it does.

I'm glad to be at the end of the work week. Now we need to pay some bills, so it's time for a word from our sponsors....

posted at 9:38 am | permalink | 1 comment

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Kevin's Housetop in the Wilderness: 2006
If you're one of my more frequent visitors, you'll notice the ol' Housetop has undergone some changes. Some are cosmetic, others deal with functionality.

Probably the biggest change is that you can now comment on my journal entries, plus read what other folks have had to say about them. I'd like to give props to the developers of Blosxom and Pollxn for making this possible, and more importantly for making it possible for free!

I've also reworked the galleries in the photos section. Those galleries should now play nice with Firefox and other browsers so long as they don't mangle JavaScript too badly. Yes, you can still use Internet Explorer to peruse the pictures, too.

Finally, some of the more random content from the previous version of the Housetop is gone. Vanished. It is now ex-content; it has ceased to be. Well, actually I have backup copies of it, but it seemed to make sense to streamline things a bit.

That just about sums it up. Comments are welcome!

posted at 12:56 pm | permalink | 1 comment