So, Who's It Going To Be?

The fundraiser from 21st Century Democrats awakened me at the ungodly hour of 10 a.m., and asked, among other things, "Who do you think Obama's VP choice will be?"

I said, after all was said and done, that it would be Bill Richardson.

She thought that was interesting, and that she had been leaning towards Edwards until the latest media fuss. And, of course, as she mentioned, we have the latest Joe Biden boomlet to deal with.

I think the VP will be someone who can be pulled out of their current job without doing the Democrats massive damage, which is why it won't be the fellows from Virginia, Jim Webb and Ted Kaine, who barely won their offices and must remain in power long enough to flip that Red State, Blue.

It won't be Edwards (sad, that).

It won't be Hillary Clinton (please).

I wish it was Wesley Clark. He's good! But does he have enough allies in the Democratic power structure?

Will it be has-been types, similar in stature to Dick Cheney: Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Sam Nunn or Joe Biden? Or Indiana's Evan Bayh? They might be enthusiasm dampers (although they bring experience to the ticket).

Or is it someone else? Kathleen Sebelius maybe?

Or is it the guy who made his bones in the Clinton Administration and who has been frantically signalling for weeks that he is tanned, rested, and ready: namely, the aforementioned Bill Richardson?

We'll see shortly....

Spinning Away At Cape Canaveral

And so Fay just spins away at Cape Canaveral, drifting ever so slightly to the north, and bit by bit, losing strength. That is a good thing! The lack of movement is bothersome, but at least it didn't head east where it could gain strength.

NOGAPS suggests a northward movement along the coast, finally coming inland around Daytona Beach and lingering in the Suwannee River basin tomorrow evening before finally heading into Georgia/Alabama.

GFS still forecasts the storm will pick up strength, cross Florida, park tomorrow evening around Cedar Key (where its rain bands will be close enough to Tampa to cause rain there), before heading west and raking the Gulf Coast before coming ashore in Alabama.

NOGAPS consistently projects less rainfall than GFS.

I'm still leaning towards the NOGAPS solution (NOGAPS performed less well than GFS regarding the Florida crossing, but it seems to be outperforming GFS now).

Inscrutable Fay

Fay is still inscrutable. The eye is on the east coast, and will probably move just off of the coast. Strengthening may happen tomorrow, but will be limited if a large portion of the storm remains on land. The important thing is to keep the storm moving north, and not east.

The forecasts haven't budged much: NOGAPS still suggests northward movement and weakening, and GFS suggests strengthening offshore and a new threat later in the week to the NE Florida coast.

Oh-Oh! Leonard's Grandstanding Again!

I rarely watch Cable TV, but I caught a glance of CNN today, and wouldn't you know it, Leonard's on national TV!

Colorful Sacramento personality (and gubernatorial and mayoral candidate) Leonard Padilla has got himself involved with the high-profile disappearance of Caylee Anthony:

Padilla arrived Sunday with his cowboy-hat-sporting, bounty hunter uncle Leonard Padilla to bail Anthony out of jail — and, rumor has it, shoot a TV show.

"My only interest ... is to get that child back," Leonard Padilla told FOX News on Monday.

His interest might also be a reality program called "Bounty Hunters" that he stars in on the National Geographic Channel. There have been rumblings that the elder Padilla has gotten involved in Anthony's case to have material for the small screen.

Anthony is charged with child neglect and lying to authorities about her daughter's disappearance on or around June 16.

The Pleasant North Shores of Lake Okeechobee

Currently the eye of Fay is at the north shore of Lake Okeechobee. It's beginning to head straight north.

NOGAPS suggests it will move parallel to the eastern shore of Florida, maybe just along the coast, steadily weakening, and eventually moving into Georgia.

GFS suggests the eye will move offshore (though not as far as it suggested last night), strengthen, come back ashore, and cross the state to strike Tampa on Friday before moving into the Gulf.

I'm thinking NOGAPS is correct, because generally it's a little better with the timing of the mid-latitude circulation than GFS is, as a general rule, and now that Fay is as far north as Florida, the mid-latitude circulation will determine its destiny.

So, we'll see.

Sympathy For The Mayor

Mt. Isa is way, way out there, and the gender imbalance is real. He shouldn't have to toe anyone's idea of political correctness:

The mayor of an Australian outback mining town has come under fire for urging unattractive women to move in, assuring them they will find a man because there is a shortage of women.

John Moloney, mayor of Mount Isa in northwestern Queensland, told a newspaper his town was a place for "ugly ducklings to flourish into beautiful swans" and called on the "beauty-disadvantaged" to flock there.

In the face of outrage over his remarks, Moloney stood by his comments, saying he did not mean to cause offence but wanted to highlight the gender imbalance in the remote town of some 25,000 people.

"Well I said beauty disadvantaged," he told national radio. "Now beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty can be a good set of teeth, beauty is nice wavy hair. Beauty can be blue eyes or green eyes.

"There is such a thing as disposition, temperament, manners, general attractiveness, attitude and demeanour, all those things tend to make a person attractive."

Mount Isa city councillor Gary Asmus said that while there was a shortage of women, Moloney's comments were an insult to the town's menfolk.

The mayor was "returning us to the Dark Ages and making the guys that live in this town seem like sex-hungry starved men that will pounce upon the first girl that they see walking down the street," he said.

Anne Morris, who has lived in Mount Isa for 50 years, told the radio she had not come across anyone who she would call ugly.

"The people that are coming into town now are coming here to work and find a house and live and bring up their families, but with these sort of comments ... I'd say 'humph, fancy going up to that place'," she said.

"Just The Facts, Ma'am"

Like Cervantes' Don Quixote, this Canadian woman clearly believes "facts are the enemy of truth":

An 18-year-old woman from Guelph, Ont., is facing charges after she allegedly stripped naked on a highway, ran into a cow pasture and threw mud and feces at police officers.

The alleged incident occurred after police responded to a car crash on Highway 21 west of Owen Sound, Ont., on Sunday.

An officer tried to help an injured woman who exited the car, but police say she began acting irrationally.

Police say the woman smeared blood on the officer and then burned herself when she mounted a motorcycle belonging to someone who had also stopped to help.

The woman then allegedly took off her clothes and shoes and ran into a nearby cow pasture, where she spit at pursuing officers and flung mud and feces at them before being restrained.

One officer suffered minor scratches and abrasions.

An investigation showed the woman's vehicle had been involved in two separate fail to remain collisions earlier that day.

Heading NNE

Fay looks like it's going to start crossing Florida, in a line stretching from Ft. Myers to Daytona Beach. At some point, Fay's eastward movement will stall, and the storm will turn in a westerly direction.

The NOGAPS model has the storm stall while it is still over land. On the other hand, the GFS model carries the storm back over the Atlantic before it's eastward movement stalls. If the storm stalls over the warm waters of the Atlantic, that will be very bad, because the storm is likely to strengthen. On the other hand, if it stalls over land, it won't strengthen, and will lose energy.

It is still possible Tampa won't get it by the storm, or at least not hit badly. It's going to be close, though.

Diablo Canyon Off-Line

I helped prepare a permit for these guys. I wonder if they tried to set fire to it?:

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP) - Authorities are investigating a fire at a California nuclear plant that forced a reactor to be shut down.

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant spokeswoman Sharon Gavin said Monday that there was no danger of a radiation leak after a fire the day before. The blaze was in a non-nuclear part of the plant.

Gavin says one of two reactors was shut down as part of standard safety procedures. She doesn't know when it will be restarted.

Geologic Changes In Your Lifetime

Jerry pointed this out last week - it's pretty interesting, actually. As it turns out, rock arches are a temporary state of affairs:

Wall Arch, located along the popular Devils Garden Trail at Arches National Park collapsed sometime during the night of August 4, 2008. Rock has continued to fall from the arms of the remaining portion of the arch necessitating the closure of the Devils Garden Trail just beyond Landscape Arch.

Yup, There's A Conspiracy There For Sure

Genius from the future, Newt Gingrich:

GINGRICH: Well, I got a very funny e-mail from a retired military officer in Tampa who pointed out that most tire inflation is done at service stations and you pay for it. And it’s actually a higher profit margin than selling gasoline. So Sen. Obama was urging you to go out and enrich Big Oil by inflating your tires instead of buying gas.

Ninth Anniversary Of The End Of Human Civilization

The Daily Rotten commemorates August 18, 1999:

A giant black rainbow encircles the Earth, sucking all oxygen from the atmosphere. The air returns shortly thereafter, but only after millions die from asphyxiation. On the bright side, the survivors go on to build a utopian civilization. It all happens precisely as predicted in the 1950s by Criswell, the TV psychic immortalized in the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Somehow I don't remember this sequence of events, but I do remember reading one of Criswell's books, and being struck at how poorly he seemed to do compared with psychic Jeanne Dixon.

Of course, she wasn't that good either, but she seemed less prone to flights of fancy.

They should tried their hands at predicting the paths of hurricanes. Now that will separate the pretenders from the merely lucky!

Fay Makes A Break For It

Fay's making a break for it.

The storm's blowing through the Keys right now, and seemingly headed straight up the coast for Tampa.

Let's hope it just hits Tampa once.

Wolf Wants To Play



Mama Grizzly isn't too happy about it, but the cubs are up for some action!

Not Symmetric

Dwight writes:

HI Marc - Here is something on Fay that I found on the Weather Channel. Any thoughts?

The Weather Channel discussion (written by Stu Ostro) is interesting:

Within the past few hours, though (I'm posting this around 2:30 am EDT Monday), the most robust convective flareup the storm has had in a long time has sprouted, and it's spinning like a top as evidenced both by rapid scan infrared satellite imagery (in which images are taken every few minutes and looped) and the Key West radar.

At first it appeared as if this was one of two seemingly innocuous spins aloft, one on the west side of the center and one on the east. However, this eastern one has persisted, and it'll have to be monitored very closely given that it's not out of the question that the surface center relocates under the convection given how broad and weak the circulation was earlier.

My response:

Hi Dwight:

That discussion on the Weather Channel is very informative, and pertinent. Hurricanes are usually pretty axisymmetric, but tropical storms like Fay can have the center of circulation displaced considerably from the center of convection, creating an unsightly sloppy appearance, but making the storm susceptible to darting, unpredictable changes in direction, as the center of circulation will suddenly snap back to where the center of convection is.

I'm afraid that is what's happening right now with Fay. It's almost as if the storm is trying to hop over Cuba. All of a sudden, the storm looks like it is choosing some of the eastern paths I had hoped it would skip.

Currently, the NOGAPS model shows that the center of circulation will remain just off the western coast of Florida, and the center of convection will remain well on-shore. Then the storm moves south to north, raking the entire state with heavy rain.

If anything, the GFS model forecast is even more alarming. It carries the storm NNE across South Florida, hitting the Miami area quite hard, and perhaps clipping Tampa. Then the storm crosses back into the Atlantic near Jacksonville, strengthens, then comes westwards, crosses the Florida peninsula, clips Tampa a second time, before heading westward across the northern Gulf of Mexico, stopping, turning right, and plowing into the Mobile, AL area.

As much as dislike the GFS model, for this storm, it seems to have a better track record so far.

So, we will have to see. If Fay dallies too long, you might have to delay a return to Florida a second time.

DMTC YPT's First Summer Workshop - "Pinocchio"

Pinnochio (Gemma Vanover) and Geppetto (Will Forkin).

Coachman (Jasmin Mould).

Left: Pinnochio (Gemma Vanover) and The Blue Fairy (Nancy Kimball).

Left: Pinnochio (Gemma Vanover), Angelina (Yasmin Kochesfahani), and Antonio (Jasmin Mould).

Left: "Finale"

Left and Below: Candlewick (Kelly Ragsdale), Pinnochio (Gemma Vanover), and Gino (Brian Stewart).



Left and Below: "The Land Of The Toys" reprise.



Left: Signore Volpone, The Fox (Camila Ortiz) and Signore Gatto, The Cat (Kelly Ragsdale).

Wonder Who Those Guys Are?

Idling with the traffic on 19th Street at the light-rail crossing, I watched a fellow on bicycle roll up to the crossing arm, take out a bottle of spray cleanser from the bicycle's basket, and meticulously remove graffiti someone else had scribbled on the crossing arm.

Driving past the parking garage at 14th & I Streets, I glanced into the entrance and saw a fellow practicing his trumpet.

Nightmarish Possibility

The newest GFS run suggests a possibility that is disturbing. First, Hurricane Fay hits Tampa from the SSW, then crosses over the Florida peninsula to the Atlantic near Jacksonville. The storm then stalls, gains strength over the warm water, and starts moving west, crossing BACK over the Florida peninsula, hitting Tampa a second time, then heads west over the Gulf of Mexico to cause even more mayhem elsewhere.

If getting hit once is a problem, then getting hit twice is a real problem. I fervently hope this scenario is not the one that evolves.

Tampa Squeaker

The National Hurricane Center is shifting their forecasts a bit to the west, following the NOGAPS model lead. So now, NOGAPS calls for the storm to just barely miss Tampa, pass on by, and then shift NW and make landfall around Mobile, AL.

The FNMOC Web Site has yet to present the latest GFS model forecast, but checking on another Web Site for that, I note GFS has the storm nearly miss Tampa, but then jog NE and come into the Suwannee River area, and clip Tampa along the way.

The NOGAPS NW shift hinges on how rapidly a high-pressure system develops in the Illinois-Indiana area. Since the high pressure system doesn't even exist yet, it's hard to say too much about it. The GFS model has a slower-developing high than the NOGAPS model does, which is why GFS brings the storm into Florida rather than Alabama.

In any event, Tampa will be so close to the storm you'll be able to look out the window and watch the porpoises fly by. (so to speak)

Strength is hard to call - Class 1, most likely, but Class 2 can't be ruled out.

Cattlemens' Maze

Left: Cindy Gumpy (right), and her party.


Hmmm. More secret rooms here than I understood. I wonder how many other rooms there are here? Maybe there are some Vikings stashed in a secret corner over here, or Lumberjacks over there.

Went to Cindy Gumpy's 30th anniversary party of working with AT&T. One of her posse said "I started working at AT&T until something else turned up. Thirty years later, here we are!" (Funny how life works that way).

Talked to Missy (in the background here) and Megan on the phone (she likes married life in Jackson, TN). I get so confused: I thought Megan was in AL (Funny how life works that way).