hmm

Busy busy with school lately, but here's some things I might have forgotten to mention...
Finished that BMX cruiser (24" wheels) a while ago and have been riding it to school and back. It's a short little bike which is taking some getting used to. It's also geared a bit too hard. It's a 41x14. It's a pretty hard gear to push most of the time. I can't even spin out when I sprint down a hill. I'm going to gear it down to about 32X14. That might be a bit low, but it'll be easier since I'm used to a really low gear (from the trials bike).
Speaking of bikes, haven't had any time at all to ride lately. Pretty bummed about that, but we've still been walking in the mornings and on weekends. Sam's doing well, as is Zephyr. I'll try to take some more pictures this weekend or something.
Exciting weather on the way. Not exciting as in dangerous tornadoes or anything though. Cold front on the way, which will bring thunderstorms, and cold temperatures! It's supposed to get down to 48 tonight! I can't ever remember looking forward to Winter so much. It's late September, and it's still in the 90's. Ah well. I guess I'll get a quick dose of winter when we're in Maine in early December. Followed by gorgeous weather in the Bahamas. Long time till then though.
Subaru has a slow leak in the right rear tire. These tires only have about 10k on them, so I don't know what's up. I imagine there's a nail or something stuck somewhere. For now, I have to pump it up every week or so, since it goes almost flat. Takes a while with a bike pump... I suppose I should have that taken care of before the nail or whatever falls out and it goes flat real quick.
That also reminds me... Mom, I finally got health insurance. You can thank Kristen for that. Wound up getting it through the school, since I don't think I'm eligible for short-term insurance anymore.
So how's everyone doing? Haven't heard from anyone in a while...

"I'll get you my pretty!"

"...and your little dog too!"
So, Hurrican Rita spawned several tornadoes across Mississippi. Aparently, one went right across campus. Significant damage to several buildings (Union, Cafeteria, etc.) and lots of trees down. Where we live, about a mile away, we had no idea. The sirens went off all day, but all we got was breeze and rain. Went out this morning and looked at the damage. Made a crude map of the path it took...

Speaking of dogs though, I guess we've decided to keep Sam (the yellow lab). No one has claimed him yet, and only one person offered to adopt him, but we couldn't let him go... Anywho, we just spent a lot of money getting him all up to date on shots and stuff. So, he better continue to be a really good dog.
Also, recently the snapping turtles seem to be wandering upstream from southfarm. Spotted a pair of them in the usual ditch near the tennis courts. Pulled one of them out by the tail... must have weighed 15 pounds. Pretty big, common snapper (not an alligator snapper).
And hey, speaking of big things that snap... at WalMart, there are two HUGE lobsters in their tank. Seriously, I'd bet they're at least 15 pounds each. Their abdomen (head to start of tail) was as long as my forearm. Their claws are bigger than my hand by quite a bit! At $12.12/lb, those are some expensive lobsters. It reminded me of Larry the Lobster at the DMR aquarium. I think I should start another "Free Larry" campaign like dad did...

Holy nice looking trials bikes, Batman!

Wow, all sorts of new trials bikes hitting the market. Trials continues to grow. I continue to ride my outdated Brisa and make no improvments in my riding... Check these out though, they're very nice looking... All from the same parent company, Echo (from China).
Anyone trying to find a christmas present for me???
GU Typhoon 26"

GU Typhoon 20"

Czar Ivan 26"

Adamant A1 26" in Gold

Adamant A1 26" in ninja mode

And my favorite color scheme...

Here she comes...

Weakened to a Cat 4 (as was Katrina), but still pretty huge.

another hurricane update

000WTNT33 KNHC 221735TCPAT3BULLETINHURRICANE RITA INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 20ANWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL1 PM CDT THU SEP 22 2005 ...RITA WEAKENS A LITTLE FURTHER...REMAINS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUSHURRICANE... A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FROM PORT O'CONNOR TEXAS TO MORGANCITY LOUISIANA. A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONSARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TOCOMPLETION.

Hopefully people are getting the warning this time...

Color Change

Decided to change the color a bit. I like green...

comments...

In order to keep from getting spam as comments, I turned on a word verification thingy. So, if you want to leave a comment, you'll have to type some weird format letters... Just a head's up.

Watch out Texas!

Hurricane Rita upgraded to a Cat5 this morning... Headed for Texas Coast... Uh oh.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
"000WTNT33 KNHC 221138TCPAT3BULLETINHURRICANE RITA INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 19ANWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL7 AM CDT THU SEP 22 2005...POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE RITA OVER THE CENTRAL GULFOF MEXICO...SLIGHT WEAKENING IS ANTICIPATED TODAY. A HURRICANE WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE GULF OF MEXICO COASTFROM PORT MANSFIELD TEXAS TO INTRACOASTAL CITY LOUISIANA. AHURRICANE WARNING WILL LIKELY BE REQUIRED FOR PORTIONS OF THEHURRICANE WATCH AREA LATER TODAY."

Christopher Walken For President

http://www.walken2008.com/index.html
It actually sounds like he's serious... He could just scare the terrorists away with that creepy look of his.

Talk Like A Pirate Day.

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

Wanna know why me Roger be so Jolly? Arrrr....

Puppy dog number two... for now...

So, took our normal walk with the puppy on Saturday (like we do every day). On the way back, we come across a dog crossing the road a ways ahead. We didn't want him to be wandering in the road, so we called him over to us. Turns out he had no tags, was ridiculously skinny (ribs and backbone clearly visible), and there was no owner in sight. We hung around the area for quite a while hoping his owner would show up, but none did. We were near the tennis courts and I found a tennis ball. I threw it for him, but he just sat there. Then I told him to go get it, and he sprinted after it, and brought it back and laid it at my feet. Aparently, he's been trained to retrieve.
Anyway, he's a yellow lab. Pretty young by the looks of his teeth. He's very muscular (though might look so because he's so skinny). Not neutered, yet. We took him home and fed him and all that stuff. For now, we're calling him Sam. He and Zephyr are having a blast together, playing non stop. We went out to a catfish pond on SouthFarm on Sunday, and he sure did have fun swimming around in that.
So, we'll be taking care of him for a while. The Shelter is full at the moment, so we may be taking care of him for a while. We'll put an ad in the paper as soon as one of us gets a chance...
Here's a few pics I took of him last night...


Warp speed puppies...

Big dummy.

Cutie-pa-tootie.

Mortal Combat.

Horrible.

Bay St. Louis, MS - That used to be a bridge...
Finally found some imagery of the Gulf Coast damage. It's unbelievable. Very sad.
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM
Thousands of images, arranged by location...

well said...

turtles and minnows and a gecko, oh my!

(The softies in a bowl while I clean the tank)

Dang. Stopped by "the ditch" this morning just to see how the turtles were doing, and I caught two more softies. So now I'm up to six of them. I'm going to have to put most of them back pretty soon, since 6 turtles (even little ones) in a 10-gallon aquarium is a bit crowded. Anywho, I'm walking up the stairs of the geology building, and something scurrying around catches my eye. I figured it was a roach or something, but it was the wrong color. I look down, and it's a tiny gecko! What the heck is a gecko doing in the geology building?! So scooped it up too. Not sure what I'm going to do with the little bugger just yet (he's <1" long). Maybe I should have been a herpatologist.
Kristen is doing well so far with classes, though we still haven't had a FULL week, since labs got cancelled last week due to hurricane, and we had Tuesday off. We have Monday off as well (for Labor Day). I'm sure she'll be able to do it, but I sure hope she doesn't get even crazier... :)
Still don't know where I'll be doing my thesis, though it seems down to Guam somewhere or Bahamas somewhere. I'd rather do Guam, so Kristen could come along and take classes at the University of Guam. Either way, it looks like I'll have another grad student working with me, since Mylroie doesn't like to send people off exploring uncharted caves alone. I wonder why...
I'll keep you all posted.
How are all of you that read this?

New Orleans...

Wow.

New Orleans is doomed.

Looking at some pictures on the internet today of the damage around New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf coast... Man, it's very bad. No wonder everyone kept calling to make sure we were alright. It's really unfortunate for everyone down there that lost people and posessions. Hopefully, people will learn from this, and evacuate when they're told to. Hopefully, New Orleans will be abandoned and the river will be allowed to run its course. I know New Orleans is a hugely important city (5th largest port in the world) and historical, but the place is doomed. Subsidence of the delta is going to continue and get worse. As with all things geologic, it's only a matter of time before the whole place is inundated. If the Mississippi river hadn't been engineered and leveed for so long, it would have switched it's main channel to the Atchafalaya to the west. But, that would have been bad for New Orleans. Well, look at it now. It'd probably be cheaper to rebuild the whole place somewhere else. Nature will win in the end, and it looks like she just had a major victory. I can't imagine parts of the city being under 20 feet of water. That's just ridiculous. Regardless of the history and prosperity of the city, it's time to give up on it... There wouldn't have been this catastrophic flooding in the first place if the city wasn't built on the FLOOD plains of the Mississippi. Levees won't protect it forever. Anyway, it's tragic what happened, but I sincerely hope the people will build elsewhere next time, though I know that's not going to happen. Instead, they'll spend billions building and beefing up the levees, probably build some storm sea walls like in Texas, then get destroyed in the next 50 years by another hurricane or flood... Sigh.