Summer Flood '07, Climate, and the LCRA

We've been dealing with drought or near-drought conditions in Central Texas for a number of years. No more: we've had ten inches above the average yearly precipitation to date, and now we've been dealing with some severe flooding. Insert your own "when it rains it pours" joke here.

Global warming concerns aside, this kind of fluctuation has been par for the course in this part of the world - we're basically a semi-arid region that goes through long dry spells punctuated by deluges. This is one of the reasons why the Hill Country has the kind of vegetation it has, and why planting all those water-sucking plants from the Eastern coastal regions is such a bad idea here.

It's also the reason why we have six of the most beautiful lakes I've seen anywhere on Earth - because we created them for flood control! Lakes Buchanan, Inks, LBJ, Travis, Austin, and Marble Falls were all created after the Lower Colorado River Authority was created in 1934 to help control flooding and to provide drinking water in between. It also had the side effect of immeasurably enriching the local area's ecology, and creating a very lively recreational sports and tourism industry. Check it out here.

Unfortunately, even the most aggressive flood control measures fail. The lakes are up to beyond full, and the literal floodgates are open. There have been a number of people in Marble Falls, a wonderful little town just outside of Austin, that have been inundated - over nineteen inches of rain have fallen in the area, with more expected tonight.

Odds and Ends

The past week has been intense from a work perspective - I'm currently trying to learn four weeks of material in a week. A great way to show your superior self-training skills, even if it drives you insane in the process...

Dreams of Landscaped Paradise

One of the wonderful things about owning a house is thinking of all the projects you can finally do. Tear down a wall? Have at it. Create a scale replica of Machu Picchu in your backyard? Go to work!

Unfortunately, thinking and doing are two very different things. Due to some allowances and insurance money when I moved in two years back, I was able to get some Pergo floors in and did some minor work in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the realities of living settled in and most of my grand projects have come, so far, to naught. I was all set to try to redo the kitchen, but when I was getting multithousand dollar totals for what I wanted to do - even at IKEA! - I decided I had to postpone until later.

One of the projects that I never seemed to get any focus on is landscaping. I've been very shocked and disappointed with the general attitude that seems rampant in the landscaping..uh, field? HA! - in Austin. There are more than a few highly professional firms that specialize in all kinds of high-end projects; mention a standard subdivision plot and a budget of less than $10,000 up front and you suddenly feel daggers through the phone. Due to the Treecalypse I tried arranging something with Home Depot, who just recently started advertising landscaping services...I plan on writing a whole blog entry about that nightmare of an experience. Suffice it to say that they were completely untrustworthy in keeping promised appointments, and that Lowe's is getting more of my money than they otherwise would have. (Alas, they do not offer landscaping.)

SO, I've decided to landscape as much as a DIY project as I can. I must admit it's a little daunting; some of the things I'd like to do are ambitious (i.e. building walls). I got a couple of books on stonework and on landscaping, again from Lowes (Home Depot delendo est!) and they actually make it sound like I could DO a lot of this. I've even found what I think could be the perfect tree to replace my poor ill-fated Bradford pear - the Loblolly Pine. It grows fast, does great in a lot of soils, is native to Texas, and has that stately, yet wild/rustic look that I absolutely love.

SPURS WIN!

As God intended. ;)

Being Alive is Pretty Cool...

...but sometimes we forget about that. There's so much daily grind, and ritual, and routine in modern life - it's so easy to forget about the sheer miracle of living. There have been a couple of events over the past weeks that gave me a huge new appreciation for sheer joy of being alive, being healthy, and being able to appreciate both.

I've been looking around and seeing some things I could be doing better - mainly in trying to expand my personal life and interests a bit, and trying to revive a couple of dormant interests of mine. I'd love to be able to have a huge honking life outside of work, which I often don't seem to have. Don't get me wrong, for the most part I like my job - that's something that a lot of folks can't say...but still, I think I need more than just talking about software during the day and talking about software to others during the night. :) We'll see.

Sopranos Schadenfreude

"Doooooon't Stop"

I love it.
Of course, I could be formulaic and say that if you never followed the Sopranos, or couldn't catch the final episode "Made in America", you shouldn't read this. But then again, the pure evil genius of the ending makes it a non sequitur. What happens to Tony and his family? Will his daughter ever learn how to parallel park? We don't know. We won't know. MWHAHAHAHA!

For me, the Sopranos was a phenomenon that I always followed at a distance - never really saw a complete episode, but followed some of the major plot lines and twists on the various TV/movie sites. (Austin, TX plug - aintitcoolnews.com, run by the venerable Harry Knowles.) I was very interested in the finale, but more from a fan reaction standpoint. "Reaction" doesn't seem an appropriate word; "rip in space-time" might be more appropriate. Personally, I love anything where the reaction is half joy and half loathing; check out any fan bulletin board and that's exactly what you'll see. I think David Chase was called every insult in English by the time the credits rolled; within an hour, the fans had gone to Japanese and Klingon to vent their feelings. Every other post, though, was equally orgasmic - "Geeeeeeenius", etc. I'd say that the show's staff made their bones with this one.

WIIITIS!

No, my preciouses, that's not "Wa-three-tis", but Wee-eye-tis - a New Terrible Syndrome afflicting our population. Apparently, this video game system has gotten enough people off their asses for them to realize how out of shape they are. I find the irony incredibly ironic. (HA!)

Not only does one of my best friends have one of these, but the BF got one yesterday. I have a feeling I'm going to be avoiding a ton of wild Wii Sports swings.

Treecalypse

Ahh, the perfect ending to the perfect day...I went to lunch with a friend around noon; when we came back at 1, the sky was piled high with what I thought was good weather cloud. Unfortunately, as happens in Texas, some sudden and severe storms developed and hit us here in the north part of town. The shot above is during a lull in the rain.

The other shot is what happened to my 20 year old Bradford pear tree in my front yard. Very disappointing, but I should have been more prepared for it; Bradfords are notorious for being susceptible to wind damage, and this one had already had a major branch torn off before I moved in. I think there's little chance of saving the tree; luckily, I'd planned on having landscaping people here next week - it looks like there will be a slightly bigger range of choices than I first planned.

Jefferson Indicted - Finally

Excellent. People who know me know I lean Democratic. They also know that I can have a short fuse about certain issues...one of the shortest fuses involves government corruption. Most people have no idea what havoc and despair a corrupt government can wreak on societies - fly to Haiti, or Zimbabwe sometime if you think that's an overstatement. And even if it's just one Congressional representative, then somewhere thousands of American citizens have not only not been represented, but have had their right perverted to serve the means of an unworthy individual. My sympathy for those people is a little tainted, unfortunately, because they voted the bum back into office - and on a very slippery campaign which painted the opponent as a far-left loonie not in touch with the values of the constituency. Tell me - was the $90,000 found in the freezer during a police search more in line with those values?

Changing the World...One Bulb at a Time

This is an excellent site. I've used CFLs for three years, and when I bought my house made sure that anything I could replace with 'em I did.

Vacation = Work With Room Service

This article is very very sad, because it's totally me. I went to freaking Hawaii in 2004 for the first time - sand, tropical paradise, Kilauea!! - and I brought my laptop. I was literally getting messages from coworkers on IM telling me to disconnect and go enjoy a vacation.

I think I've mellowed slightly since then, but I still sometimes have that urge to take some kind of IT appliance with me on vacations. Hi, my name is Jonathan, and I'm a work addict. (sigh)

The TB Follies

So why am I making a blog entry at 1:36 AM? 'Cause I'm more than a little pissed about ol' TB Andrew and his Transcontinental Tuberculosis Tour. Reading the lastest stories on it make Stephen King's "The Stand" seem eerily too close for comfort.

I hardly know the mind of Mr. Speaker, and can't purport to know what he thought in Rome right after he was informed that he had not just a bug, but a Bad Bug. Current reports state that he feared he could die if he stayed in Italy; after doing a little checking on the state of medicine there, he may have had a point. Hell, even after being flown to what's probably the best place on the planet to get treatment, he might pull through this only after having part of his lung removed. And while I abhor his decision to expose hundreds of people to a potentially terminal illness, I do understand his motivations - survival is a primal instinct, and it's astonishing what other ethical considerations can fly out the window in such times. So altruism =0, survival instinct=1.

Luckily, we have people who are supposed to weigh the greater good for the nation and the welfare of the American public. We have people trained to guard against threats entering our nation. We have a dedicated staff of individuals whose sworn duty is to safeguard the "homeland"...oh, my bad! I'm thinking of that hypothetical alternate reality where the government can do the One! Damn! Thing! it still has adequate funding for - national border security. Unfortunately, some highly trained and sensitive government employee took a look at his computer screen - which was giving him such tidbits as "highly dangerous", "approach with caution", and "don protective gear" - let me say that again, "don protective gear" - and decided to give him a pass, 'cause DAMN if the boy didn't just look healthy as all get out! DELICIOUS. Hear that, all of Those Who Seek To Do Us Harm (R)? Remember, lots of skin product and good grooming before you hit a border checkpoint - looks SELL. Who needs a pesky computer warning that a guy has an infection that could kill 70 percent of the people who get it when you can plainly see that the guy has a knockout tan?

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I've decided to hit the mountain hideout a little earlier than expected. I might have enough food for two or three more people, but you'll have to draw straws. We can come down when it's all over and raid the supermarkets, just like in "28 Days Later". (banging head on keyboard)