Category: Miscellaneous babble

And then there were two. There is Bonnie, which I don’t expect to have much impact here except for making it a rainy end of the week. The 11 AM 10-Aug-04 NHC discussion says

A SECOND AND STRONGER SHORTWAVE TROUGH IS FORECAST TO MOVE INTO THE
WESTERN AND CENTRAL GULF OF MEXICO. THE INCREASING SOUTHWESTERLY
FLOW AHEAD OF THAT TROUGH SHOULD ACT TO ACCELERATE BONNIE TO THE
NORTHEAST WITH LANDFALL OCCURRING IN THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE IN 48-60
HOURS. THE OFFICIAL FORECAST TRACK IS JUST AN EXTENSION OF THE
PREVIOUS TRACK THROUGH 36 HOURS…AND THEN FASTER AND TO THE RIGHT
AFTER THAT. A 96-HOUR POSITION WAS ADDED FOR CONTINUITY SINCE THE
BONNIE CIRCULATION MAY BECOME A SIGNIFICANT EXTRATROPICAL LOW CLOSE
TO THE U.S. EAST COAST AFTER 72 HOURS.

And then there’s Charley (I keep wanting to say Clyde). This might end up being a double whammy for those eastern Gulf coast states, particularly Florida.
Definitely time to make sure the hurricane kit is up-to-date.

Ok, after a bit of a scheduling snafu with carpet installation, we finally moved into the new apartment on Sunday. Movers came by Sunday morning and carted everything over. As one of the movers put it, we scored high for being well organized, but lost them all because of all the boxes of books.
The kitchen is largely unpacked, most of the books are shelved again. Just need to finish unpacking dishes, clothes and do masses of laundry. Also need to do some grocery shopping. Our fridge is complete bare except for an unusually high number of condiments. You’d think all we ate were hamburgers and hot dogs with all the bottles of ketchup, mustard and relish we have.
It’s nice having the extra space. We turned the second bedroom into an office, which gets all the bookshelves and the computer out of the living room. Makes it look much less cluttered. On the downside, there is a heck of a lot of carpet that needs to be vacuumed.

Today the moving process starts. Won’t be moving as much stuff as I had planned since the carpet is supposed to be getting replaced first thing tomorrow morning. But I figure I should be able to get kitchen/bathroom/closet type stuff moved over reasonably easily.
This is going to be interesting because the movers are also supposed to be coming in first thing tomorrow morning. By the time I found out about the carpet, the moving company had closed for the day so I had to settle for leaving a message seeing if the moving could be rescheduled for the afternoon. Hopefully I’ll hear back from them tomorrow morning, but with my luck there will be no rescheduling until Monday which will be too late. Well, maybe the carpet guy can be worked around.

Ok, busy trying to get the place packed up so I can move it all to the new apartment on the other side of the building. Not worrying about getting everything boxed up because I’m only going to have to take it out of them after moving it practically next door. Still, I’ve got about 15 or 20 boxes cluttering up the living room and that’s only the bookshelves!
Most of the stuff will come off the shelves, closets or cabinets and go right back into them in the new place. The wife wants to box every single item up, but I’m resisiting. Besides, she’s going to be too busy studying to help much anyway.
Yes, we have entirely too much Stuff. Some of it we need to keep, some of it I’m sure we can get rid of and never miss it. The problem is deciding what’s what. Inevitably I’ll pick up something that should go into the crap pile, have a look and then it ends up in the keep pile.
Reminds me of a kid’s book I used to read. Something about a little boy who is supposed to clean up his room, so he gets two boxes, labels one KEEP and the other THROW AWAY. Things get put into the KEEP box, other Things get put into the THROW AWAY box. Then he starts going through the Things in the THROW AWAY box and decides it should really be in the KEEP box (because you never really know when a thingamabob or a doodad will come in handy). And then eventually everything ends up in the KEEP box. What I liked most about the book was the processes the boy went through to decide whether or not to keep the Thing.
Great book. I wish I could remember what it was called.

Gee, I wasn’t expecting that next one to come quite so soon, but there it is, Tropical Depression 2 forming in the mid-Atlantic. According to the NHC’s first discussion,

THE DEPRESSION IS MOVING WESTWARD OR 280 DEGREES AT 18 KNOTS…
STEERED BY THE WINDS SOUTH OF THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE. HOWEVER…
LARGE SCALE MODELS FORECAST A LARGE TROUGH OVER THE EASTERN COAST
OF THE UNITED STATES. THIS TROUGH WILL ERODE THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE
FORCING THE CYCLONE TO TURN MORE TO NORTHWEST AND NORTH DURING THE
LAST PORTION OF THE FORECAST.

Oh sweet, NHC does RSS feeds now!