John Burridge: storm

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Friday, October 14, 2016

Storm Prep

The big news locally is that the first of several storm systems blew in last night (Thursday, Oct 13). There was between a quarter and a half an inch of rain. The house and the cats got through the night without any mishaps (aside from the garage screen door swinging into something, I think). One of my friends lost electricity... I'm not sure where in town he lives, so I don't know how widespread the outage was. The streets weren't too bad, maybe some extra leaves and occasional spots of small twigs. Mark went for a quick walk this (Friday, Oct 14) morning, and said he say Orion. As I'm typing this, it's partially cloudy, with the morning sun painting the eastern clouds yellow-orange.

That didn't prevent thunder and lightning later Friday afternoon. I think our lights flickered once.

An even larger system is blowing in Saturday. People are stocking up on basics, and I need to go into the store and get things like eggs and cat food (and bacon). The weather-folks keep invoking the Columbus Day Storm of 1964. If I remember some story research I did correctly, fifty years ago a huge system swept in, and the air pressure differential set up a kind of funnel effect that had damaging winds blowing through the entire valley. This (Friday) morning, NOAA reported some places (I'm guessing the Astoria Tilamook area) on the Oregon coast saw winds of 100 mph Thursday night. And two water-spouts turned into tornadoes on the coast.

Looking at the NOAA site earlier Saturday morning (Oct 15) it looks like Florence weather is hitting Corvallis, and Newport weather is sweeping over to Salem. I think that means Eugene is getting North Bend weather. It's hard to tell from the radar images, because they're based out of Portland, but it looks like Portland is getting hammered by the gulf stream. I suppose if the storms' paths shift south, Eugene will get higher winds and more rain than we have been so far.

Working Out: 25 minutes on the elliptical for about 240 calories. Jumped onto the rowing machine for five minutes and 50 calories. 3X13X60lb pec-flies. 3X12X80lb lat pull-downs. 3X8 oblique curls on some funny machine, followed by inclined sit-ups and back-curls, mostly to loosen up my lower lumbar. 3X13 hanging curls. Mark was appreciative later on.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Journal: November Storm

Word Count: Um... I've been doing a lot of editing lately. Actually, I've been fighting a stuffy nose and cold, so make that some editing. Thursday morning I typed maybe 300 new words of on a fairy tale. I realized that I'd had a two-dimentional princess, and I need to figure out more of her personality and agency. I've received a critique on a short ghost story from the Wordos and I need to address some of the confusion caused by the piece (surprise, John confused the readers). I've also just submitted two pieces of flash to the table (one's a romance... although I suppose both could be) and we'll see what sorts of critiques get generated.

Working-Out: I did my usual routine Monday. Wednesday, I felt tired and skipped the gym. I will need to do some free weight work at home this afternoon.

This last weekend was a long no-school weekend, so routines were out of whack Friday, Monday and Tuesday. We did go on a mushroom hike near Oakridge, at the Larisen Creek Trailhead. It was fun, and I stupidly didn't check the batteries in my camera, so no pictures this time around.

There's some from the same trail last year here:

Friday -- I think I might have had a fever last night. Despite lots of blankets, I was really cold when I first went to bed, but at some point in the night I was burning up. I dreamt I was making tea at my folks' house when it was too late in the afternoon to be making a huge mug of tea, so I was kind of being furtive about it.

Word Count: I'm guessing another 300 words. Probably less. The tone is fairy-tale, and I have to keep in mind that it can easly fall into narrative summary. I am trying to make the dialog sound like it's from the 70's mini-series "Elizabeth R", and I should probably watch it again to refresh my memory. The princess's name in the story had been Philomel, which I borrowed from the madrigal, "Though Philomela Lost Her Love," but then I did a little research and the Greek story of Philomel is a little rough (with rapine and tongue removal) so I settled for renaming her Selene.

Tonight I've agreed to play the harp and read a short story. I'm hoping I don't take a 1 PM nap and wake up nex tweek. At least I don't feel as congested and stupid as I did yesterday.

The first really big winter storm hit this week. We didn't get any snow, although a wintery mix was forecast. We did get about an inch of rain, which, combined with the leaves, clogged the storm grates, so driving to work Thursday was extra entertaining: lots of of deep puddles to whoosh through and lots of people you'd think this was their first time driving in rain.

Smokey changes his mind pretty quickly when he wants to go outside.