More Wingsuit Video

The best sport on Earth!

I like how the fellow cringed a bit when passing just a few feet from the cliff face. How could you not?

Sounds Bad In Pleasant Valley, South Of Reno

Volatile!

The Kids Of Death Valley Are Screwed

Damned state budget troubles:

It is 6:54 a.m. Marlee, a 14-year-old with raven hair and red nail polish, climbs aboard. She is one of nine students who spend more than two hours riding this bus 120 miles every school day to and from the Furnace Creek area to their school in Shoshone.

The long distance and light passenger load make this bus ride exorbitantly expensive. The Death Valley Unified School District spends about $3,500 a year for each of its 60 students on home-to-school transportation — compared with about $26 per student in more densely populated districts, according to data compiled by the California School Boards Assn.

So when Gov. Jerry Brown announced that lagging state revenue would require eliminating all school transportation funding for the rest of this fiscal year, it hit this tiny school district harder than just about any other in California. Death Valley Supt. Jim Copeland calls the cut, which took effect Jan. 1, "catastrophic."

For students like Marlee, the issue goes way beyond dollars and cents. The bus is her lifeline from the desolation of the desert to a wider world of teachers and friends, school sports and art projects and academic stimulation.

"School is the highlight of my life, and we can't get to school without the buses," Marlee said after a recent morning ride.

Bailey Resists The Imperatives Of Weather

I worried that oh-so-stubborn Bailey The Bunny would have trouble once the weather turned bad, and I'm afraid that's coming to pass. Bailey's rarely seen rain - it's been quite dry since June, when he took up residence - and he tries to outsmart rain by taking shelter under trees and bushes. Trouble is, rain accumulates, and Bailey doesn't understand that concept. Bailey has access to the garage where it's dry, but he wants to maintain his normal daily rhythm by being out in the yard all night long and he doesn't want to pay any heed to the wetness.

We're going to get a soaking this evening, so I may need to take action.

Moving At Light Speed Through A Universe Of Moral Relativity

Let's face it: Sarah Palin is hot. So whatever she says regarding sexual mores must be hot too.

And what she seems to be saying is don't look at the train wreck over there:

Speaking to Republican radio host Sean Hannity on Thursday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) claimed that her favored candidate for president, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, somehow stands to benefit by his second wife claiming that he asked her for an “open marriage.”

“They, thinking that by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview that’s old news — and it does feature a disgruntled ex, claiming that it would destroy his campaign — all it does, Sean, is incentivize conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction, because it’s played so selectively by media, that their target, in this case Newt, he’s now going to soar even more,” Palin said.

“Because we know the game now, and we just won’t put up with it. So, good call, media. Way to go to covertly hype this, even Gingrich opponents. For being so brilliant, they sure are dumb.”

Palin, who often takes it upon herself to try and correct what she calls the “lamestream media,” said that ABC’s interview was “old,” when in fact it is the first interview ever conducted with Marianne Gingrich, who divorced the former House speaker in 1999 shortly after Gingrich and his fellow Republicans put to rest their years-long crusade against President Bill Clinton’s sexual infidelities.

Trying To Puzzle Out The Mystery Snow

Jerry tries to puzzle out a strange-looking forecast map for northern Indiana:

This is kind of a strange one -- there isn't anything on the surface chart that can explain the forecast for heavy snow in our area. (The area of snow is smack in the middle of a high-pressure system.) The 500mb chart does show a trough, but it's almost imperceptible.

The only thing that I can see that tells me anything is the 700-mb chart, which shows a relatively strong trough, accompanied by a detached slug of high relative humidity. Just looks weird to me.

It almost looks as if the Indiana snow (warm front?) is associated with the Georgia T-storms (cold front?) Like a mid-latitude short wave passing eastwards from the northern Rockies has caught up with a slower-moving southern system, and the two systems are beginning to work in concert. There is a surface low just east of the southern Rockies, in the vicinity of the Oklahoma Panhandle. But it is odd that the system washes out with height.

That surface low may be a warm-core kind of low. It originated on the ITCZ between Hawaii and the mainland more than a week ago and has been drifting northeastwards ever since. As I recall, when that surface low first started off, it was so strong that the NOGAPS forecast suggested it could be near tropical-storm strength. By now, it's highly-modified, but it still exists and it's still affecting the weather.

The Freeway Blogger Strikes Again!

I got a note from the Freeway Blogger:

Hey there Sacramento-area blogger, thought I'd share some of my work with you on your freeways. Hell of a lot of fun... yours, scarlet p.

That looks like a lot of fun! I will repost.

I’m a native of Albuquerque, NM, where oddball signs and murals are relatively-common, and I’ve often been disappointed at the staidness of Sacramento, CA. We need to loosen a few screws here, I fear.

Not long ago, I was chatting with a lawyer regarding corporate personhood and he made an interesting point (which I would need to follow up on to be sure of) that a degree of corporate personhood is welcome. Lawsuits against corporations used to be impossible until corporate personhood was granted to them. The question may be whether corporations have free speech rights to go along with their corporate personhood. That seems to be where the train runs off the rails. But I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know the history and can’t speak authoritatively on the matter.



The Freeway Blogger replies:

I biked from LA to Albuquerque twice last year (although once was with a car assist from Baker to Flagstaff) and frankly can hardly wait to do it again.

I've been at this signposting gig for a Long Time now (thanks Bush!) just waiting for folks to catch on. Originally I figured it wouldn't take more than fifty or a hundred signs, each seen by a few tens of thousands of people, before people would realize how obvious a means of protest it was. Still waiting on that part. I'd have given up long ago except 1) somebody needs to do it and 2) it's a Hell of a Lot of Fun. And by that I mean just about every aspect of the process

As far as the messages go, however, I don't have a lot of room for nuance. I have to keep it short, which is a lot tougher when dealing with issues like corporate personhood and economic disparity. It was a hell of a lot easier when I was just bitching about Bush.

Nice chatting with you. I'll give you a heads-up next time I'm decorating your freeways. -scarlet p. (not my real name)

The sounds like a lot of fun!

I remember as a teenager being stranded for a long while in the VW Campmobile with the rest of my family by a flat tire on the Surprise Overpass between Flagstaff and Winslow. At the time the episode filled us with dread, but I always thought the area would be lovely if experienced in a different, more-prepared way, like by bicycle.

Thank you, and the best of luck on your future exploits! I’ll keep an eye out for your work!

Marc

Cody Craven Wins A 2011 BWW Award

Cody Craven is an amazing talent and it's more than just the Davis folks who recognize it!:

This year's awards broke traffic records and we couldn't be more excited to announce the 2011 BroadwayWorld San Francisco Award winners!

Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Local)
Cody Craven - Hairspray - Summer Repertory Theatre

A year ago someone uploaded to YouTube a video of Cody singing "Barrett's Song" from "Titanic The Musical".

Soap Opera Parable For The Day

This is odd - not quite my cup of tea - but it has its own appeal. Something soothing on the eve of the South Carolina primary.

Two of the Emperor's men overcome political differences and let love triumph.

Gay. In Spanish. In the Future.

Very Light Precipitation So Far Today In Sacramento

But at least the Pacific Northwest (particularly Oregon) is getting slammed.

Rick Perry Blues

Shared by Jacob on Facebook.

Well, Here Goes....

YCC Application.

Jon Stewart And Colbert Not Coordinating On The Super PAC

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

When Danger Reared Its Ugly Head, Brave Schettino Turned And Fled

Amazing:

[Schettino] should have stayed to the end. That is what Commodore (Edward J.) Smith did on the Titanic. Smith died, and I think “just as well that he did” because he would have been disgraced for life as the collision was completely his fault in every sense. I recall as well the captain of the Andrea Doria (Piero Calamai, an Italian) in 1956. He lived, but he was the last one off his ship as it sank. That is the way of the captain.

This captain should have stayed and helped save passengers. When a ship lists like that and goes out of vertical, the doorways and other interior structures are twisted. This is well known and it will trap people in their cabins. So his duty ultimately would have included searching for trapped survivors himself. But he must also maintain the discipline of the bridge, and send assessment parties out. His main job is to stay at his command post and direct all this activity. There would have been a better lifeboat evacuation if the captain had been at his post and in command. We would not have seen such hysterical images of people thrown into panic and having to pilot their own lifeboats. The captain did not even announce “Abandon ship!” – because he was not there! Just appalling.

...Legally an evacuation drill is required within 24 hours after sailing. ... But lifeboat drills are not very useful by and large. The people sit in a giant theater and hear a talk and then go outside on deck and perhaps stand around in a life jacket. That is a far cry from a pitch-black panicked evacuation surrounded by dark seas. And this would have been the biggest evacuation of a cruise ship in history. There were 4,000 people trying to get off.

You cannot fault the people for panicking. None of us knows how we would react in such a moment of bedlam. And because there are not many true sailors and seamen on board these ships nowadays, the crew members were trying to get away too.

...But it will have repercussions far beyond the numbers dead. It will live on in infamy, and for these reasons: Utter command stupidity, horrendous behavior on the part of the captain, sloppy evacuation, and the vessel settling there and becoming an in-your-face icon of what can go wrong. And, the problem of transient crews with little experience in emergencies. They are simply not steeped in the lore and traditions of the sea – how can they be?

The Chinese Continue On Their Demented Path

Evil on the march:

BEIJING — The Chinese State Council has removed a crucial roadblock to building one of the nation’s most contentious hydroelectric dams, dealing a decisive defeat to environmentalists critical of the project — and showcasing the clout of one of the most powerful and ambitious politicians in China.

In a little-noticed ruling made public on Dec. 14, the council approved changes to shrink the boundaries of a Yangtze River preserve that is home to many of the river’s rare and endangered fish species. The decision is likely to clear the way for construction of the Xiaonanhai Dam, a $3.8 billion project that environmental experts say will flood much of the preserve and probably wipe out many species.

“This is almost the last reserve for the whole river basin, especially after the construction of Three Gorges,” the world’s largest hydroelectric project, said Qiaoyu Guo, Yangtze River project manager for the Nature Conservancy in Beijing. “There will be very dramatic damage to these kinds of species.”

The decision is a big victory for Bo Xilai, the Communist Party secretary of Chongqing, the central Chinese megalopolis where the dam will be built. Plans for the dam, one of Mr. Bo’s pet projects, were suspended by the central government in 2009 under pressure from environmental critics.

...“The conservation zone is the last stretch of free-flowing water body on the Yangtze that is absolutely essential for the reproduction of many rare fishes,” Li Bo, the head of the group Friends of Nature, said in an interview. “Once the border of the conservation zone is moved, those fish would not have enough space to reproduce.”

David Brooks Wonders Where The Liberals Are - I Say "Here I Am!"

David Brooks doesn't talk to enough people, it seems. Liberals are everywhere!

Still, Brooks does have a point that liberals don't have much faith in government as a solution these days. I think the British writer Godfrey Hodgson pointed out two reasons in his book from the 70's, "America In Our Time: From World War II To Nixon."

As I recall Hodgson's argument, part of the doubt is watching just how deep into the thicket of regulations you have to get to single out the factors that cause the troubles people have to deal with. The thicket of air pollution regulations (using an example that I'm somewhat familiar with) is frighteningly complex, all in order to deal with smoke in an measured way. And that's just smoke. You don't have to be a conservative to wonder if the complexity of the effort is worth the cost.

Second, some of the most vexing problems people have to deal with seem inherent in human beings, and seem to defy governmental solutions. An excellent example is drug abuse. How to stop it? What programs work? The most-effective solutions so far seem to rely on religious or spiritual engagement, but that fails far too often too.

Still, government can do some things (like Social Security) quite well, and that's where the support of us liberals is very important. And we liberals are here, if Brooks would just ask around. Some of the people who describe themselves as conservatives are actually liberals:

Why aren’t there more liberals in America?

It’s not because liberalism lacks cultural power. Many polls suggest that a majority of college professors and national journalists vote Democratic. The movie, TV, music and publishing industries are dominated by liberals.

It’s not because recent events have disproved the liberal worldview. On the contrary, we’re still recovering from a financial crisis caused, in large measure, by Wall Street excess. Corporate profits are zooming while worker salaries are flat.

It’s not because liberalism’s opponents are going from strength to strength. The Republican Party is unpopular and sometimes embarrassing.

Given the circumstances, this should be a golden age of liberalism. Yet the percentage of Americans who call themselves liberals is either flat or in decline. There are now two conservatives in this country for every liberal. Over the past 40 years, liberalism has been astonishingly incapable at expanding its market share.

The most important explanation is what you might call the Instrument Problem. Americans may agree with liberal diagnoses, but they don’t trust the instrument the Democrats use to solve problems. They don’t trust the federal government.

Interesting Essay Regarding William Tecumseh Sherman

The scourge of sentimental thinking:

Though born in Ohio, Sherman had spent much of his life among Southerners. In 1836 he entered West Point, where the emphasis on hierarchy and obedience would prepare Sherman well to move later among aristocratic Southerners. Upon graduation in 1840, Sherman spent the next six years at postings across the Deep South, in Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It was especially while in Charleston that Sherman got to know the South’s aristocracy, attending parties and going on deer hunts along the Cooper River.

...Blinded by his implacable racism, Sherman could see no worthwhile moral or legal debate to be had over slavery. History had forced this institution on the South, Sherman thought, and its continued prosperity depended on embracing it. “Theoretical notions of humanity and religion,” he flatly declared, “cannot shake the commercial fact that their labor is of great value and cannot be dispensed with.”

...Still, slavery did trouble Sherman in one way: He grew increasingly worried that the political fight over it would threaten the stability of the Union. However, while he occasionally singled out Southerners for overreacting to antislavery sentiment — once writing that they “pretend to think that the northern people have nothing to do but steal niggers and preach sedition” — Sherman overall displayed a clear sympathy for their side in the growing schism.

...On the other hand, Sherman was always consistent when it came to the most fundamental disagreement between himself and his Southern friends and colleagues. He resigned his superintendency in January 1861 when it was clear Louisiana would follow the cotton states out of the Union. Sherman would help Southern whites “protect themselves against negroes and abolitionists,” but he refused to accept disunion under any circumstances.

...Sherman would also hold rage in his heart at what he considered Confederate treason, and he came to embrace a war strategy to make the South pay for its disloyalty. “My aim,” according to his memoirs, “was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.” This Sherman, the scourge of the South, is well-established in Civil War history.

...Sherman’s relationship with the South makes him one of the most paradoxical and polarizing figures of the Civil War. He understood, and to a great extent embraced, the beliefs and values that led the South to secede. Yet of all Union generals he was the most viscerally opposed to the rebellion, causing him, as the war went on, to become the Confederacy’s sympathetic, vengeful enemy.

PG&E's Bonus System

Almost missed this amazing article:

Under the system PG&E had in place until 2008, managers would receive incentive bonuses if they met several performance standards, said Steven Segale, one of the three employees whose complaints prompted the internal company audit. One standard was based on the number of leaks a supervisor's crew found per mile on a gas pipeline inspection - the fewer the leaks, the bigger the bonus, Segale said.

...Segale said managers had regularly pressured employees to downgrade leaks from the most serious, Grade 1, which have to be repaired immediately, to a lower-priority Grade 2 that could allow them to remain unrepaired for up to 18 months. He said everyone knew supervisors got incentive in the form of annual bonuses.

"They would say, 'You're killing me!' " said Segale, 52, of Fairfax, a gas-welding crew foreman and weld inspector for the company. "Or, 'My superintendent is going to take a piece out of my ass if I go over budget. Can't you make this a Grade 2 and not a Grade 1?' "

...Another whistle-blower, gas crew foreman Michael Scafani, said he had long complained to management in the North Bay that customers were finding most of the leaks instead of PG&E.

"Leaks are my issue," said Scafani, a 35-year veteran with the company. "I fix them. I see the close proximity to houses, where the gas has accumulated. I'm really amazed that more houses haven't blown up."

An Innocent In Guantanamo

And the innumerable mistakes of the U.S. Government has made by creating this lawless hellhole:

I left Algeria in 1990 to work abroad. In 1997 my family and I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of my employer, the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. I served in the Sarajevo office as director of humanitarian aid for children who had lost relatives to violence during the Balkan conflicts. In 1998, I became a Bosnian citizen. We had a good life, but all of that changed after 9/11.

When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily — but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never — for a second — considered this.

The fact that the United States had made a mistake was clear from the beginning. Bosnia’s highest court investigated the American claim, found that there was no evidence against me and ordered my release. But instead, the moment I was released American agents seized me and the five others. We were tied up like animals and flown to Guantánamo, the American naval base in Cuba. I arrived on Jan. 20, 2002.

...I went on a hunger strike for two years because no one would tell me why I was being imprisoned. Twice each day my captors would shove a tube up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach so they could pour food into me. It was excruciating, but I was innocent and so I kept up my protest.

In 2008, my demand for a fair legal process went all the way to America’s highest court. In a decision that bears my name, the Supreme Court declared that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

...Five months later, Judge Richard J. Leon, of the Federal District Court in Washington, reviewed all of the reasons offered to justify my imprisonment, including secret information I never saw or heard. The government abandoned its claim of an embassy bomb plot just before the judge could hear it. After the hearing, he ordered the government to free me and four other men who had been arrested in Bosnia.

...Today, I live in Provence with my wife and children. France has given us a home, and a new start. ... I do not like to think of Guantánamo. The memories are filled with pain. But I share my story because 171 men remain there. Among them is Belkacem Bensayah, who was seized in Bosnia and sent to Guantánamo with me.

Mitt Romney - Acting Out The Trauma

Interesting psycho-historical angle:

I say there is almost nothing as traumatic for a politician than losing an election. Here's what might be even worse: You are an aspiring office-holder, a young and handsome and ambitious man on the rise, and your father loses an election. Dad is your hero, and then the world's goat; you start rethinking your vision of how the world works.

...I'm here to write about another loser and son: George and Mitt Romney – both almost-certain Republican presidential nominees. Pollster Lou Harris said late in 1966 that George Romney, then governor of Michigan, "stands a better chance of winning the White House than any Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower." Then, just over a year later, he was humiliated with a suddenness and intensity unprecedented in modern American political history.... His son was 19 years old. What makes Mitt – né Willard – Romney, run? Much, I think, can be understood via that specific trauma.

[George Romney's] calling card was his shocking authenticity; his courage in sticking to his positions without fear or favor was extraordinary.

...Then, most famously, there was the Vietnam War. He supported it after returning from a trip there in 1965. Then, courageously, after a second trip in 1967, he began to criticize it. On September 4, 1967, a TV interviewer asked, "Isn't your position a bit inconsistent with what it was, and what do you propose we do now?"

The line everyone remembers from his response: "When I came back from Vietnam in 1965, I just had the greatest brainwashing anybody can get when you go over to Vietnam." But he continued with a devastating, prophetic, and one-thousand-percent-correct assessment: that staying in Vietnam would be a disaster. The public, and certainly the pundits, weren't ready to hear it. All they heard was the word "brainwashing" – not in the colloquial sense in which Romney obviously intended it, but as something literal.

...His opponent, meanwhile, running what you might call a robotic campaign, just bullshitted about Vietnam, hinting he had a secret plan to end it. The truth was a dull weapon to take into a knife fight with Richard Nixon – who kicked Romney's ass with 79 percent of the vote. When people call his son the "Rombot," think about that: Mitt learned at an impressionable age that in politics, authenticity kills.

Our Awesome Congress People

Our representatives!:



To avoid a government shutdown at the end of 2011, Republicans succeeded in their campaign to cut the federal Pell Grant program by effectively kicking up to 100,000 low-income students off the rolls.

Last week, Arkansas constituent Kelly Eubanks, a college student who has two jobs and two children, confronted her Congressman, Rep. Steve Womack (R), at a town hall meeting over his attack on the program she now relies on. But instead of any explanation, Womack lashed out at Eubanks, telling her to pay her own way by “joining the military” like he did. After refusing to answer her question, he finally just asked her to “be quiet and listen.” Blue Arkansas reports:

According to Kelly and a handful of other witnesses, Womack happily retorted that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to pay for education (he’s doing this in a college town mind you) and then quickly added that he paid for his education by joining the military, apparently suggesting that the mom of two do the same and totally oblivious I guess to the fact that it was, in fact, the federal government that paid for his education then. Well Womack tried to skirt the rest of Ms. Eubanks question and she proceeded to try and get him to address the discrepancy she pointed out. Well at this point, according to Kelly and several other people that were in the room, Womack blew a gasket.

...The irony here, as Campus Progress’ Emily Wood notes, is that Womack actually attended college on taxpayer money by joining the National Guard. But instead of acknowledging that fact, he dodged the issue and had the mike taken away from Eubanks. Eubanks attended the town hall with the hopes of understanding Womack’s view. “I thought maybe meeting him and asking him why he’d vote to hurt students but protect Big Oil interests, face to face, would get me a real answer,” she told the Arkansas Times. “I really thought maybe he could explain it somehow. I did not think he was a heartless or arrogant person going in to this, but I definitely do now.”

The GOP Blood Lust On Full Display

All the reasons we {heart} the GOP so much!

As Joan Walsh says:

The night climaxed with the South Carolina crowd giving Newt Gingrich a standing ovation for smacking down Fox’s leading black contributor, Juan Williams, for his impertinent questions about race.

...Gingrich couldn’t believe his luck. With a gleam in his eye, he thrashed Williams, and Steve Kornacki believes he may have given his candidacy one last shot with his savvy thumping of Fox’s leading black commentator. It hurt to watch. If Newt gets the nomination – he won’t, but a Democrat can dream – he’ll have to thank Williams at the GOP convention in Tampa, even before he thanks Callista.

...The former NPR analyst referenced Gingrich’s belittling comments about poor kids lacking role models with a work ethic, and the NAACP “demanding” food stamps not jobs, and asked, “Can’t you see that this is viewed at a minimum as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to African Americans?”

“No,” Gingrich said petulantly, with a slight pause. “I don’t see that.” The crowd screamed with glee. Gingrich went on to bash unionized janitors in public schools, and I realized that his student-janitor comments represent a right-wing political trifecta, bashing anti-business regulations like child labor laws, public sector unions and lazy “urban” kids. Oh, and he also got to attack elites this time around, insisting his janitor plans drew liberal disapproval because “only the elites despise earning money.”

But Williams didn’t back away. “The suggestion you made was about a lack of work ethic,” he told Gingrich. “It sounds as if you are seeking to belittle people.” The crowd booed Williams lustily, and Gingrich got a special twinkle in his eye. He looked at Williams like he was a soon-to-be ex-wife.

“First of all, Juan” – and there was a slight cheer when the former speaker called the Pulitzer Prize winner “Juan” – “the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history. I know among the politically correct you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.

Leek Mush

I spent a lot of time on my feet this weekend - theater PLUS ballet - so when I headed home Saturday night I wanted something special to eat. What I wanted was French Onion soup, but I knew I had none. Instead, I had an idea.

The vegetable boxes I've been getting delivered from the Capay Valley by Farm Fresh To You every two weeks often feature surprise vegetables, but they also feature a surfeit of vegetables that don't always have an instantaneous appeal to the palate. Like leeks. Lots of leeks. A surfeit of leeks in the Capay Valley.

A leek is kind of like a gigantic green onion on steroids. Why not make a soup out of the leeks spilling out of the refrigerator?

So, some ramen noodles, with a bit of flavoring, a bit of boiled egg, and lots of sliced leeks.

But not enough water, so instead of leek soup it became leek mush.

Apart from the overwhelming flavor of leek, the mush was very bland, and nothing at all like French Onion soup.

Some day I ought to learn how to cook....

Finished Leaf-Raking

In most winters, finishing the process of weekend leaf-raking usually has to compete with weekend rain. You never get a chance for all the leaves to fall and clean them all up before the rain starts falling.

Until this year. Nice how the rain has waited and all!

Joe The Plumber helped finish up the process this weekend. He had installed a barrier about seven years ago in a cornice of the roof that keeps squirrels out of the attic.

In October, I noticed squirrels in the attic again, which meant the miserable little mammals had penetrated the barrier. So, I needed a new chicken-wire barrier and Joe installed it (plus sweeping leaves from the roof). And he is actually living under a roof again rather than living in his van, so his life is steadily-improving after a rough two months.

So, leaf-raking is about 95% complete, before the rain really starts falling. Bizarre!

A Series Of Waves

Forecasts seem to show the upcoming period coming in a series of waves:

• Wednesday evening, coastal rain in NW California. No rain here, but weather will be blustery;
• Thursday noon - Friday noon: first wave;
• Saturday midnight - Sunday midnight: basically a day of heavy rain;
• Monday midnight - Tuesday morning: lighter rain;
• with more rain after that too!

A Single Earplug

Spent a lot of time at DMTC this weekend, tending the lobby for the most part. The exciting part was the show, of course, but the lobby needs tending too.

On Saturday, I was House Manager for the first time. Usher Carrie C. R. saved me from any troubles. Smooth sailing.

Afterwards, it was time to retrieve lost junk under the seats in the theater. Sometimes you find interesting things in the dark spaces where the hair settles and the dust bunnies breed.

On Sunday, I found a single earplug. Not quite sure what to make of it.