LIttle Baby Car

I was over in Camarillo yesterday and saw this cute little baby car. It's a tiny bit bigger than a motorcycle (and some states require a motorcycle license plate instead of a car plate). It was just so damned cute! One seat only and not much room in the passenger area for anything else. I went to the company website today and found out that it has about 6 cubic feet of storage (somewhere) for carrying stuff other than your body.

I never did see the owner to ask questions but I peered in, took a picture of the dashboard and about died laughing.  Check out the speedometer.  Yes, the big white numbers are miles-per-hour.  The company website says it has a top speed of 76 mph.  That, my friends, is the average speed (when there's no traffic jams) on California Freeways regardless of the posted limits.

These sell for about 25 grand.  Uh, I could buy almost two Toyota Corolla's for that price.  Of course, according to the latest news, you just can't stop the Corolla...... maybe I'd buy two Kia Rio's and pocket the 3 grand difference.  But, as I said before, this was just so damned cute and such an attention getter - every passerby was stopping to look at it.

Wild and Crazy Weather

What a wild and crazy weather week. We'd heard the dire warnings last week about the impending doom of multiple storms throughout the week causing floods, mudslides, earthquakes, poverty, pestilence, despair and all sorts of mean nasty things...... except firestorms. Yep, no firestorm warnings for this week, finally. Officially, we have changed seasons: Firestorm Season is over, temporarily, and Mudslide season takes front row.

We did have multiple storms all week. Pretty much a major all-day storm hit us every day. The worst were Thursday and Friday. Lots of rain, thunderstorms, hail and a tornado just a few miles from our house. We got somewhere between 4-7" of rain total for the week which was less than expected. That's a good thing as all the major wildfires burned vegetation from the hills making them extremely prone to mudslides. The outcome for the week was good. Just a few Tornadoes, rain and minor mudslides. The rain was much needed as Southern Cowlifornia is still in a major drought. And, we didn't have to water the lawn or outdoor flower beds. Also appearing for the first time in almost a year is the color Green. For nine months or more, the hills and mountains have been 256 shades of brown from lack of water. Now, Green is sweeping the areas and making it look like Ohio. Far out! Yesterday, Saturday's sky was the clearest it's been in a week. And it was a cold start at 34 degrees. Yikes, we even had frost!

Here's a picture of our dark red garage roof. Sparkly diamonds instead of red shingles. I had an errand to run just after dawn and I was hoping to get a great winter picture of Topa Topa, the local mountain that is over 6000' high. In the winter, when we have a 'cold' rain at sea level, it snows in the mountains and today would be the first day the sky would be clear enough to see the upper half of Topa Topa. Sadly, we had 'warm' rains everyday except for Friday's very cold rainfall and there just wasn't much snow. I did take the following picture at a stop light getting off the freeway. If the snow was more dramatic, I would have gone to a better location for a photo shoot but it just wasn't worth photographing. Anyway, we had a beautiful Saturday and ditto for today (Sunday). Gonna rain again next week thanks to the El Nino weather pattern that has finally set up. Keep dry and warm, Weedhopper. If you double click on the Topa Topa picture, you'll get a bigger view. Then, use your web browser's 'back' button to return here.

Mudslide Season

Well, the Jet Stream finally picked up it's typical El Nino pattern. It's right overhead and roaring 180 mph. Starting last Sunday, we've had a storm-a-day come through and dump about an inch of rain each. We got one more to go, tomorrow. It's supposed to be the strongest of them all. Another one to three inches of rain for us, eight for the foothills and I don't know how many feet for snow for the elevations above 3500 feet. There's been concern of mudslides where last fall's wildfires burned pretty much everything for 400 square miles just north of LA. When a wildfire roars through, it chemically changes the soil in a way that just seals it. When it rains a lot on this bare ground, almost 100% of it runs off, downhill. Pretty soon, lots of mud, water and rocks are roaring down the hills. Then, boulders join in, knocking down trees and, well, you get the picture. Never live at the top or the bottom of a hill in Cowlifornia. Anyway, there has been major preparations everywhere for this series of storms including concrete K-Rails, sandbags, diversion walls, cleaned out storm drains. The media has already dubbed their coverage "Stormwatch 2010!". They always do that kind of thing, don't they? Giving some goofy media label to an event. When I moved here 10 years ago, the first sprinkles of the season demanded TV reporters everywhere, umbrellas open, talking live, promoting, "Stormwatch 2000"...... With one more storm to go, most of Southern Cowlifornia has survived. There was a waterspout off Huntington Beach that came ashore and did some minor damage yesterday, a waterspout off Manhattan Beach (next to where Cuz'n Ric lived) and a white-out in the Grapevine (Interstate 5 going from LA to the Central Valley) causing the Interstate to be closed for hours in both directions. Thunderstorms here. That's a rarity. I think we've had about 3 or 4 thunderstorms in the last 10 years. Lots of your normal run-of-the-mill idiots who drive like it was 70 degrees and sunny. I see 'em a few miles down the freeway, upside down in the guardrail. By today, almost all of the drivers were using common sense, driving safely. Of course, it was pouring down rain and nobody could drive faster than 40 mph even if they wanted to. We need the rain in Southern Cowlifornia badly and it's very welcome. Just remember, don't live on the top or bottom of a hill out here.
Here's a picture I took at the beach late this afternoon. Today's storm had just passed and the waves were about 8-10 feet at the biggest. I added contrast to the raw photo which made the jetty rocks look fake - their not. (Yesterdays storm had 20 foot waves and damaged the pier. It's closed for repairs right now). This picture is 'shrunk' by the blog to fit this page so if you want a nice biggie to scroll around and catch all the crashing and smashing, lemme know and I'll e-mail it to you.

Pressure Cooker

There's a local website called, "Freecycle" where you offer things for free or ask for a specific item for free. Keeps stuff out of the landfill. We've given and gotten using Freecycle. Today, I saw the following post:

" Wanted: Camarillo, Pressure Cooker ".





I immediatley thought of Charlene reading this and thinking, "You need a pressure cooker? For Free? Here! Take this NS30 Course for me!"................

Exchange of E-Mails on a Saturday Morning

Pat:
Isn't coffee on Saturday morning just the best cup of the week?
Of course, I'm retired so everyday is Saturday....

Me:
I have a Kuerig Coffee Maker. Today, I'm drinking "Emeril's Big Easy
Extra Bold" coffee, made by the cupful at precisely 192 degrees. Every Cup is a Saturday!

Pat:
Touche!

Pat:
Mine is leftover from yesterday afternoon. I zapped it for one minute. Are you gagging yet?

Me:
Oh, My God! Gag me with a spoon! Tho Up! Yesterday's coffee, even the finest, stored in a thermal carafe', refrigerated, tastes just like the 'shavings' box of a pencil sharpener......always.

Me:
I don't usually make a habit of eating the shavings of the pencil sharpener box....but if I did, that's what the nuked old coffee would taste like....

Then, out of the blue comes Charlene, who has been buried in studies all week. She had breezed through the kitchen and then the living room and returned to her study hall (the bedroom) and sent the following e-mail:
I was going to say I'm having English Breakfast Tea at precisely 192 degrees, but I went out to the living room and forgot why I was there. Is it Saturday???

New Years Eve/New Years Day

Charlene had to work a 12 hour shift on New Years Eve day, seven in the morning 'till seven in the evening. By the time she got home, she was beat up, to say the least. I decided that for New Years Eve, we'd have a fire in our 'fire pit' bowl. Got some of those 'bun length' Oscar Meyer beef dogs, gobs of buns, Coney Sauce (kind of foreign in California), chopped onions and shredded cheese. Out here I guess they call them Chili Cheese Dogs but the Victors of the Rose Bowl this year call them Coney Island Dogs or just "Coney's". We even had Jalapeno Hot Peppers for the brave souls. Yea, we all tried the peppers on one dog and went running for the milk - ouch, hot, burn- gimmie some milk, quick! Shopped Target for only the finest bundled firewood. Nic and Trav had their friend, Ryland, spending the night, the three of them gaming, iPod-ing and chugging Dr. Pepper. As expected, Charlene came home beat up and took a hot shower, removing all traces of hospital germs and frustrations. Then, into her 'sock monkey' jammies to continue the evening. It was in the very low 50's outside (cold for us, tee shirt/shorts weather in Ohio) so the fire felt good.





I must say that we really did pig out on the coneys. There's just something about a campfire and cooking 'dogs' that makes such a wonderfully festive party atmosphere. Hard to believe that we went through the entire bundle of firewood but it was worth it. Lots of 'dogs', lots of talk and reminiscing



We all celebrated the New Year/Decade at Midnight. Of course, they all had to wake me several times in the last few minutes before the Giant Ball lowered and announced the end of a very weird decade.

New Year's day was fun. I took all our patio furniture and scrubbed the stains and dirt with bleach and Scotchbrite pads while Charlene took the ornaments and lights from the tree. Throughout the process, I was checking on the Penn State game (Yea! A Big Ten team wins a bowl game!). I took the tree out and Charlene and I cleaned up the mess of needles, put the furniture back in place and she revamped her 'nursing college' bookcase that was overloaded with textbooks. Then........then........ it was Rose Bowl time. Living in the PAC-10 territory, I take a lot of ribbing when Ohio State loses to USC and goes on to lose a bowl game. After USC beat Ohio State early in the season, Ohio State got better with each game while USC got worse. The Rose Bowl this year was a great game - especially the outcome. The 'Ducks' were famous this season for coming from behind and winning the game so I kept thinking, "It ain't over 'till it's over". Hey, WE KICKED ASS, didn't we! I now have bragging rights throughout Ventura County. I think that on Monday, I'll wear my Ohio State sweatshirt all day at work. I won't be sweating bad mouths this time - just sweating as the temps will be in the 70's.
Bitter cold in the Eastern US, nice and warm out here, especially with a warm fuzzy win at the Rose Bowl. A very good New Year's start!

By the way, throughout my blog, if you click on a photo, you'll see the same photo but in a bigger size - hit your browser's 'back' button to return to the blog.