Douglas E. Berry

We live in a noisy place. About 100' from the CalTrain tracks, close by Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), and we're close enough to Moffett Federal Airfield to get occasional low passes when the C-130s of the 129th Rescue Wing practice touch-and-go landings. (I love those days, ahh.. the sound of those engines..)

But today was something very different. I was sitting here, net-surfing when what sounded and felt like a heavy freight train began rumbling. Way too early for a freight, and it quickly got way too loud for a train. Plus, it was coming from above. Ran outside and saw at least eight police helicopters at about 600' AGL flying in formation. Today was the memorial service for two slain Santa Cruz police officers. Due to overwhelming interest, the service was moved over the hill to the Shark Tank, and thousands were expected. Kiri had called me to ask about traffic, as she had heard that the service was just about to let out. Guess this was the final tribute.

The guy who shot the officers was later killed by police. I hope they threw his worthless carcass to the Great Whites that live off the coast.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=273409

Seriously. Insane. Over the Rainbow. A few Goose-steps short of a march. She has long since passed being amusing and entered scary.

Just had a small earthquake. Nothing solid from the USGS yet, but it looks like the preliminary data shows it somewhere on the Calvaras Fault east of San Jose, and somewhere between 3.0-3.9 on the Richter scale.

Nothing major, just a couple of bumps and a slight swaying motion.

Edit: Early magnitude is 4.1, with a depth of 7.1km deep The quake was widely felt. Those are still early numbers, and subject to change.

Here's the estimated epicenter

Torture.

Laura Jernegan: Girl on a Whaleship

The journal kept by a young girl during her nearly three years at sea aboard her father's whaling ship. But that's not all. Due to the efforts of another, later child of the family who went on to be a historian, there is tons of accounts, photos, and other information on this site. I've just spent the last two hours reading it, utterly enthralled.

Meet The Texas Republican Party. And this doesn't even begin to cover their hateful anti-gay statements. Remember, this is their actual platform.

We're starting to sell my old RPG stuff on eBay

Starting with some classic Traveller stuff from FASA.

Very necessary, but still very hard to do.

http://www.reformation.org/

This guy is nuts.

Have fun.

Current weather radar for our area. We live pretty much halfway between the cross of the radar station and the dot showing San Jose.

Rain sets a record for the date in S.F.

The long dry spell of summer and fall ended with a vengeance today as record-breaking rain and lashing winds tromped into Northern California, sending cars smashing into each other, flooding roads and downing power lines all over the region.

A fatal head-on collision involving three cars shut Highway 1 at Devil's Slide near Pacifica in both directions at about 9 a.m., and it took nearly three hours to reopen the road, said Officer Shawn Chase of the California Highway Patrol.

By midafternoon, there had been more than 200 serious accidents on Bay Area roads, according to the CHP and local police agencies.

To say the commute resembled molasses would be kind. Drives everywhere took nearly twice as long as normal, as people crept along on asphalt made slick by the accumulated water and motor oil that built up over the summer.

"Any time we have a big storm that comes in like this, we'll have these kinds of incidents. That's just the way it is," said Chase, who spent the day dashing from crash to crash. "The oil left from the summer comes up in the roadway, people don't slow down, and all you need is one person sliding into another and you get a chain reaction."

People who slogged along the roads to get to San Francisco International Airport found their flights delayed by as much as three hours because of the weather.

The National Weather Service posted a rare storm warning, predicting possible hurricane winds for San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun bays and for the western part of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The danger to boaters was so severe the U.S. Coast Guard advised mariners to keep their boats tied up at dock until Wednesday.

Winds between 50 to 65 mph are expected, and gusts of up to 75 mph are possible this afternoon, said forecaster Diana Henderson. Sustained winds of 74 mph are considered hurricane-force.

The wind predictions also caused the CHP to advise motorists to take extra care on all Bay Area bridges.

Rainfall totals, fed by the remnants of a Japanese typhoon, were impressive. The 2.18 inches that San Francisco received by 3 p.m. obliterated the previous mark for an Oct. 13 - 1.8 inches, set in 1962. It's also about 10 percent of what the city normally receives during an entire year.

"This rain is just sort of a blanket over everybody, and a fire hose in some places," Henderson said. "And we've got quite a bit more rain to come today."

The high-water mark by mid-afternoon was set in Ben Lomond in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which had received 8.2 inches. Elsewhere, 5.27 inches had fallen in San Rafael, 2.58 in Concord, 3.42 at the Oakland Museum and 1.74 in San Jose.