We normally watch Hulu or Netflix in the evenings…been watching Tree with Deep Roots (24 episodes) on Hulu, now Revenge on Netflix—and that means we don’t get the weather warnings. But I’d left my telly on in my room, and heard the beep/buzz. So at next episode break, about 10 min on, I got up and used Tivo to roll back and check what had come on.
Yikes! Major gust front coming our way with 60 MPH winds, large hail, and lightning—so I hied me out to batten down the pond, rescue the bag of fishfood, and get anything loose weighed down.
Just 5 minutes after I got in, the front hit…not with hail, but dust. The air turned surreal red in the streetlights (we’re on a 4 lot block, so we have two in sight) and stuff blowing, garbage cans gone orbital, just real nasty. Some thunder, distant, some lightning. No hail.
This morning we had one garbage can overturned (the compost one, which didn’t open: la!) and one patio chair turned over. But that was it.
Quite, quite a night! I’ve seen downbursts, where a rotation instead of bringing a tornado just dives for the ground, and that’s what this was like: didn’t last long, but the wind was fierce, and it carried half of middle Washington potato fields as dust…our eyes were really stinging this morning!
We’ve gotten those downbursts over here in Western NY state, now and then. One year (in June) we had one that grabbed my porch umbrella in its iron stand, blew it the length of the porch and banged it so hard against the railing that the umbrella pole–solid wood–snapped. We’ve been lucky that we don’t get many of these in the winter, or anything nearly as bad as the big winds you can get in the midwest.
We’d occasionally get 90 mph winds on the flat in Oklahoma: lost an AC motor when straight winds blew the fan backwards, while the motor was running…not to mention the fences flattened (not mine, thank goodness)…it’s what they call ‘small pet warning.’ Tie down all pets under 30 lbs…
If you’re watching more Korean series, you may be interested in learning to read the Korean alphabet. I only realized recently that Korean script is alphabetic – not based on thousands of characters like Chinese.
Learn to read Korean in 15 minutes
Thanks, GreenWyvern. I saved the toon to read again later and try out the self-tests. I absorbed part of that, loved the mnemonics, but too brain-tired at the moment to retain all of it in one go.
Glad nothing got blown away. If I hadn’t gotten a guy to replace three rotten fence posts, our whole (rented)fence would have blown down in the last blow, instead of just one end of it. With all the dust, sounds like you may have had a haboob. We had one year before last, made the national news.
http://grundlepod.blogspot.com/2011/10/ill-have-to-call-you-back-later-buddy-i.html
Glad you are okay. Does all the dust cause any pond problems?
It sure can. We’d just finally had the algae build up to murk, so I’d used Algaefix, much against my preferences. And the pond was crystal clear. Now we get the dust, and it will likely bring algae spores with it. Sigh. But hopefully with our two filters, we will be able to keep up with it for a number of weeks, maybe until the water cools and the rate of algae growth slows.
Silverglass – I’d not been in my current apartment very long when a downburst/wind WHATever came through the nearby municipal airport and cut a swath through the complex. I skipped over the ailing Live Oak and ATE the Elm just outside my (2nd floor) bedroom. I woke up to the freight train noise and just as I was getting to the bathroom the tree broke… at the same level as me. Never want to hear a sound like that again!
3/4 of the (large) tree canopy was down in the greensward between the buildings – it JUST fit. Luckily there was little other damage – and after they removed the carcass I found my door swag lying there. I put it back on the door for a lucky charm.
http://flickr.com/gp/dhawktx/zSL985
Scary!
OT:The Washing Machine Saga
As some of you may recall, I had my right knee replaced on the 9th of July, 2013. In the couple of weeks before the surgery, both my dishwasher and my washing machine started getting things dirty instead of clean. Timing is everything.
A few days after I came home from the nursing home, I called for service on the washing machine, since I had a service agreement on it. The appointment was for the 13th of August. My son was visiting and bought me a nice dishwasher.
When the man came, it was found that the tub, bearing and belt needed replaced. They were ordered, and another appointment for the 23rd.
On the 22nd, I called in to make sure of the appointment. The phone worker told me that I had all of the parts, and needed to do nothing about the appointment. At 3PM on the 23rd, I called in and was asked to reschedule. I insisted that someone come that day, and they agreed to send someone. Nobody came. I called again on the 24th and was informed that not only did I not have all of the parts, but that they were backordered until at least the 15th of October. I was livid. I told them that such a wait was unacceptable. They started a case for replacement, which would be finalized on the 3rd of September, one month after the initial call.
On the 4th of September, I called in for my replacement and was granted a certain amount of money to be used for that purpose but, rather than shopping online, I had to go in to the store to select my replacements. Since I had a consolidated unit, both washer and dryer had to be replaced.
I went to the store, selected my machines, and bought 5 year service agreements on them. They were to be delivered and installed on the 10th.
At 8:15AM on the 10th, the gentlemen came to install my new washer and dryer and take the old unit away. They found that the cold water inlet would not turn off, and told me that the water supply to the house would have to be turned off before they could install the washing machine or take the old unit away. I went and turned the water off. They refused to do it anyway and offered to either take the new machines back to the warehouse or leave them with me. I opted to have them leave them, as they had already unpacked them. They told me that they would be back within a day to install, as soon as a plumber had replaced the inlet tap. I managed to schedule the plumber for afternoon on the 13th.
Meanwhile, having worn the very last set of clean underthings I had in the gleeful anticipation of being able to clean all of it that day, I did all of the undies in the laundry sink with naphtha soap and a scrub board, rinsed it in the Jacuzzi, and put it in the dryer. When the buzzer went off, I opened the door to get the load out of the dryer and the smoke alarums went off. The gentlemen had disconnected the dryer vent, and the room was filled with steam. The clothes needed further drying, so I turned on the vent fan and ran them through again.
At 3:00PM on the 13th, I called and let them know that they could install as soon as they were able. They were not able to schedule me for the 14th, but did schedule me for some time on the 16th. By the morning of the 16th, I had not received my warning phone call, so I called them. The scheduling hub had failed to schedule the appointment, so they gave me a 50USD credit and scheduled me for the 17th.
11:00AM on the17th, different gentlemen came and, on hearing of the first set, let out a sound of disgust. They told me I had every right to be angry. In twenty minutes, they had installed my new machines, taken away the old and I had my first load in. ENDIT!
Filing Intent alas is not an option, but certain folk deserve it. I’d give them a review on Angie’s List.
The problem with that would be identifying which individual(s) in this corporation is/are most at fault. One could not, perhaps, get them all, nor could those one could achieve provide much of a salutary effect on the others.
Ah, Fun With Appliance Repair. It’s always worse when you don’t have the resources to run all over and chase down parts or replacements. Repairs being at the whim of the service department, even though you’ve paid for a service contract, are a large reason why I would rather take care of it myself.
Parents are snowbirds who winter in AZ, but weren’t planning to be there for a couple more months. Last week they got a frantic call from their AZ neighbor, who told them that water was running out from under the garage door and front door. The neighbor kindly found the water cutoff and shut it down, while the parents exeunt with great speed, stage West. It turned out that a supply line for a toilet had given way, and the handyman they had hired to work on the irrigation system had neglected to turn off the water supply when he was done. There was water an inch deep throughout the house, which has wall to wall carpet. Fortunately everything was insured, so the parents arrived to arrange everything with the stream of claims adjusters and inspectors, movers and restorers. You wouldn’t think that AZ in summer could get moldy, but it can. All the furniture needed to be repaired or replaced, and the drywall had to be ripped out because the water seeped up inside everything; we don’t know about the appliances. This was relatively fixable compared to the flooding in CO, but oy!
Knowing insurance companies, they will not come out of this as well off as they were before.
Would this perhaps be Worst Buy? I had a similar “experience” when getting my stove and oven installed. Problems, excuses, delays, etc.
One resolved to buy as seldom as possible, and never again an appliance, from said corporation.
Kenless
Ah.
We got Whirlpool, from Lowes. We hadn’t planned to, but the avocado monsters we got with the house were getting to be scary—a fire hazard, in the basement under a wooden floor. We finally found this pair at a better bargain than we could find at the ‘Ding and Dent’ place, and we’ve been pretty happy. I think it’s really more than we needed, but y’know, we’ve lived long enough to look at things and say, well, gosh all hemlock, thar, thet’s a bit beyond just water ‘n soap… You can’t find a ‘plain’ anything these days, and the whiz-bang extras can find ways to go wrong…So far, so good with ours, but we have a machine that requires high efficiency soap, so that’s a hunt, at times! I’m told if you don’t use it, the thing gunks up. So we track down the soap.
HE soap is available from Amazon, if your local shops don’t carry it. I’d be surprised if they didn’t, since most of the new front loaders require it.
I have the same problem. Serious weather is very rare in Socal, but I want to run the A/C a bit in the morning, to remove humidity, if we have heat and high humidity blown up by a Mexican hurricane. (And those East of the Rockies are thinking, “And what high humidity would that be? 30%? 50%?” Well, it is more comfortable down in the teens or twenties.)
Since I start my day with a quick news and stock market browse, I just made the Weather Channel my home page. A local news source works as well, though my local sources: LA is fifty miles away; SD about 200; and both are right on the coast, which makes a difference.
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/ [add your zip code to the end]
There was a week or so last month when it was nearly 60% inside, which means probably higher outside. (I’m in the NW SF valley, where we’re more likely to get a Santa Ana than a monsoon.) Usually it’s in the low to mid-30% range, which is quite comfortable (unless you’re a tropical plant).
We had something like a downdraft come through once in Pasadena. It was pouring rain, and sometime while that was going on a large branch broke from the evergreen ash on the next lot. (Fortunately it only had driveway underneath.) Roommate got out 6-inch circular saw, and I had pruning shears, and we were trying to cut it down to size, when a guy with a pickup and a chainsaw came by and asked if he could have it for firewood. ‘Sure, it’s not our tree.’
If our big hemlocks ever go, we’re in trouble: we’ll lose the fence and a concrete driveway: it’s probably the reason that, though they’re isolated, they stand firm in wind. We usually get west wind, and that side is anchored by our concrete drive and fence, and they’re only a yard away from quite a heavy lot of curbing and asphalt. But those things are about 40 feet tall, and sway quite alarmingly in a good blow.
When these evergreens go, they tend to rip up a circle of earth and roots about the size of a full-sized sedan.
So we get a little antsy when we have days of soaking rain followed by high winds…
That sounds a lot like the derecho that came through Maryland back in June 2012. It hit us sometime around midnight – I was still awake reading in bed when it came through and the sound of the wind was like nothing I’d ever heard without a hurricane along with it. Too right it’s scary. Oddly enough, we didn’t lose any trees that time, though many folks in the area did and were without power for days. We lost a big pine a few years back and had to replace some steps along the side of the house when the root ball destroyed them. And of course it fell across my neighbor’s driveway!
This has absolutely nothing to do with the weather or cranky appliances. But it is so cool. Makes me think of all those in the Middles Ages who hungered to hear the music of the spheres. Here’s NASA’s gift of the day — and who would EVER have thought they would include something involving plasma back in the 70s! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIAZWb9_si4
Oh, that is great!
Have you seen the one of the whole moon rotating? The side facing us is the one with the maria…lots of maria. None on the other side. You have to wonder what scenario did that…did Earth slingshot a few big ‘uns into a super-hard collision with our moon, or is it the tidal pull that keeps the heat from those collisions active longer? Keep scrolling down to the bottom on this one—the movie is near the end of the article. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/nasa-moons-earthlings-revealing-video-article-1.1458922
This view of the moon is quite impressive.
You probably know that the Chinese see a rabbit shape in the full moon (instead of a face)?
About the evolution of the moon there’s a nice NASA video on the Wikipedia page Origin of the Moon.
The Japanese see a rabbit too, only he is pounding Mochi in their view.