weather

People in LA really freak out when it rains. I haven’t seen any real rain here yet, although it’s drizzled once or twice. A few nights ago we got <sarcasm>almost one half-inch</sarcasm> of rain and you would’ve thought it was the Great Flood. There were over 400 auto accidents on one stretch of the 405 during the hour or so that there was wetness in the air. It is pretty grey and ugly out there today. Here’s a really cool radar loop image from the area. ‘Sposeta rain again tonight. Snow in the mountains.

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One of the little differences between California and Florida is the weather.
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Today we are under a “Severe Wind” warning. What the heck does that mean? In Florida we were always under “Thunderstorm” warnings or “Tornado” warnings” or “Torrential Freakin’ Downpour” warnings. I don’t really know what to do to prepare for “Severe Wind”. I wore a hat.
Here’s a list of interesting characters that have been within five feet of me in the last two weeks:

• Bruce Willis
• Paula Abdul
• Seal
• Bob Dylan
• and the girl who plays Ava Savalot on the 1-800-Collect commercials (I can never remember her name …)

It’s times like this … when I’m sitting here and the world outside goes from bright and sunny to dark as night in an instant … when a terrible torrential Tampa tunderstorm erupts out of nowhere … when the lightning smacks so close that the sound and the fury are simultaneous … when I can actually see the raw power of Mother Nature … it’s times like this that I think I should buy a back-up power supply for Bud.

Today it has rained. Rain. Lots of rain. Biblical rain. Tampa, Fl? Very wet. Just thought you’d like to know. I slept. Lots of sleep. Biblical sleep. David V. Gagne? Very well rested.

Insert torrential downpour here.

I was just in the middle of reading about TheBrad’s journey through ADSL Hell when the thunder began a-rollin’. Hard core thunder. Thunder such that you would be hard-pressed to determine if what you were hearing was thunder or someone trying to recreate the running of the bulls at Pamplona in your attic. Thunder so loud that you could possibly be hearing impaired from its volume. Oh, yeah. Tampa is gonna be a fun place to be.

I guess I really should say something about the fact that last night it rained the most and the hardest and the craziest and the lightningest that is has here in at least two years. It was an amazing downpour. It was biblical. Did I mention that the block of condos behind mine - like 20 feet behind mine - was struck by a wayward bolt from the clouds, burst into flames, and burned like a volcano for several hours?

Sylvia and I went to Itchetuknee Springs today. I’m not sure if that’s how you spell it. I’ll check the brochure later. We both got fricaseed in the blazing Florida sun. It was a very slow, leisurely 3 1/2 hour inner-tube ride down the perpetually 72-degrees-F Itchetuknee River. Afterwards we went to Karen’s Sandwiche Shoppe and ate chicken tenders and french fries. We had fun.

Buying a house is just about the most stressful thing I’ve ever done! This is crazy amazin’ insane. I am pulling my hair out and sweating buckets. It doesn’t help that the A/C is broken in my office so it’s 100 degrees in here. I have never really dealt with hundreds of thousands of dollars before …