From Tokyo With Love

While we were away last week I saw on the news that Tokyo was hit by a typhoon. The trains were knocked out, there were severe floods, and all this was accompanied by very high winds. I was glad, therefore, to have missed suffering through that storm by being in Japan one week later rather than earlier. Little did I know that this would be a mess I'd miss twice.

Somehow, the storm made its way across the Pacific largely intact, hitting the Bay Area coastline Tuesday of this week resulting in, you guessed it, sever flooding and strong winds. (Doubtless it would have stopped the trains too except the USA barely has any of those things worthy of the name any more. It did stop the cars though when they closed Highway 17)

This two day storm dumped some 10 inches of rain where we live and, thanks largely to falling trees, took power out for over a day. Yup, missed the whole shooting match once again by being in Tokyo, much to the chagrin of those left back at home to clean up the mess. Still, at least we had a decent period of notice and I was able to clean up the roof, gutters and gulleys before leaving, which seems to have helped us get through it reasonably intact.

Looks like this will be quite a wet winter. After all, it's only just started and we've had 25% of what we got in the entire season last year hit the ground already ....

Back To It

After what feels like an age but really was just 10 days, I finally made it back home to the Bay Area. And once again it's hot here, something that I got at least somewhat acclimatised to in Orlando where I stopped off to attend a trade show enroute back from Europe.

Flying into the airport there the pilot had to take a very circuitous route in order to make it in under and around a very large storm cell. Thankfully, we landed ahead of the weather but while taxiing to the gate you could see the rain sweeping-in across the airport boundary. Alas, it made it to the plane before we made it to the terminal. The heavens opened and and lightning started to crackle.

Doubtless in a sop to good Floridian labour relations, the airport doesn't allow ground workers out on the apron while lightening is striking the ground within five miles of the airport, so as a consequence of this rule we were stuck within, er, striking distance of the gate for close to an hour while the weather crossed over. The rain was extremely impressive (the news later reported rates in excess of 4" per hour) and there were some very obvious and very large strikes hitting all around us. All aircraft ground movement was shut down as visibilitydropped to almost zero at times under the barrage of rain and wind buffeting the airfield.

When all was said and done, I didn't in fact mind the wait too much as I had plenty of time before my first meeting, and in California we mostly miss out on light shows like the one the whole plane was treated to Monday afternoon. However, I was glad to be safe inside in the dry, and subsequently I was very glad to be heading away from the humidity of Florida on Thursday morning and back to the equally hot-but-much-drier-climes of San Jose.

Wet Weekend In The West

Not much to report. Weekend was a washout but we did pick up close to 3 inches of additional rain which should help us close-in on the typical annual total up here. NWS threatened us with worse than we actually got - winds were strong elsewhere, but not at our house - so things were easier than was the case for the January 4th storm.

Given that I couldn't do anything else, collating what's needed for that annual ritual of tax time here in the USA seemed like a good thing to do. Makes me feel I've accomplished something at least, even if I don't much like the results! Dogs hate it though. They get bored both with bad weather and with me not paying attention because I'm staring at indecipherable bits of paper.

And talking of washouts - or maybe wash-ups? - Ralph Nader's running again. Are the Republicans paying him to do this? They should, because it's good news for them. Last time out he garnered 3% of the vote and was widely credited for putting Bush into the White House because the bulk of those votes were culled from the Democratic candidates.

Will we see the same thing in '08? Probably not. That 3% largely reflected the weak choice of alternate candidates on the left, a situation that surely won't be repeated this year. Oh, and Nader is also on the list of things dogs don't care about. They may have this one spot on.

Winter Draws On

Rainy season is early this year. Despite the fact that we've already had a few small storms passing through the area, roads here are still like skating rinks every time they get wet. And given the way people drive in Silicon Valley - well, California, really - that leads to the inevitable.

Today, Highway 17 through the Santa Cruz mountains was closed northbound for several hours to clean up an accident where a big-rig hit the concrete divider. Fortunately, I was going in the other direction but the back-up apparently went for miles. So far, I've managed to avoid getting caught in the whole sequence of mishaps that the rain has brought, but the odds are not on my side.

Given all that, combined with the forecast for more rain over the next 4 days, heading to Arizona and the high desert really doesn't sound like that bad of an idea after all! Sun, sand and a bit of outdoor exercise will be a nice antidote to the winter-rain blues.