my stomach will never be the same

this is one of the worst things i've ever seen -- at least for someone who's afraid of heights. as for the rest of you -- go on, sit on top of a snowy ledge in the wind.

when would you realize the danger?

this short video about pompeii is curiously intriguing. the disaster seemed to take much longer than i would have thought, especially since experiencing mt st helens (even from far away). and it makes me wonder ... at what point, time-wise, would a person have realized they needed to bail out and run away to escape what was happening. the husband would have figured it out -- he's pretty good about stuff like that. anyhow, if you have a quick 8 minutes, scroll down and watch the vid.

just set it out on the porch

a pot of soil can burst into flames! who knew?!

stormy skies

wow -- this is unreal. i mean, there's just something about a tornado video ... you just can't not watch it. this one isn't too long and it shows, the first i've seen, a number of trucking units being picked up and tossed around. it's just like 'twister,' which i thought was a good flick. the thing that i really thought was weird, though, was seeing all the traffic continuing on the highway less than a mile away (a guess). don't those people know that's dangerous? a sign of the times, maybe, huh?

system alert

a nation-wide test of the emergency broadcasting system will happen this wednesday, november 9 at 11:00 a.m. pacific. do not panic. it is only a test.

there's always a monster

wow! those killings in norway .... what an unbelieveably sad thing. most of them were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them.

and what a monster breivik is. from what little i've read, i've concluded he must be a spoiled, insecure, egocentric, deranged creep. he wanted to get people's attention and warn them about islam. i guess i haven't found the part where it explains how killing a bunch of norwegians helps his cause.

but did you see the most he can be sentenced for is 21 years?! appalling! and yes i read that they can extend it every five years by five years, but good grief. the whole thing just makes you shake your head and wonder 'what in the world'.

finally!

finally an idea of what's going on (from the albuquerque krqe.com station) (a straight line from los alamos to white rock is about 6 miles) ...

be a boy scout!

I don't think i've ever seen an emergency plan quite like this one. i went to http://inciweb.org/incident/2385/ to see what they had to say about the fire. they were reminding everyone of the 3-step process to be ready for emergencies:
1. ready -- clean brush from around your home, get your supplies together in one place, plan your escape route.
2. set -- pack your vehicle with your emergency items, i.e., the six Ps: people, personal computers, pets, pills, papers, and pictures.
3. go -- leave early and follow your plan.

hmmm ... personal computers. nope, i don't recall seeing those in action plans before. by papers i assume they mean passports, birth certificates, social security cards, etc, and by pictures they mean your possessions so you can make claims to the insurance companies. but personal computers? i must be really out of touch. i mean, yes, absolutely, i'd take mine. i guess i'm just surprised it's one of the top six things. like i said, out of touch.

not enough time to make smores

well, there's a wildfire just southwest of the little town MYS lives in. i saw it in the news this a.m. and texted him when i got to work. later he got back to me and said they were watching things and that evacuation at that point was voluntary.

about 2+ hours later he texted back and said they were heading out. the 'voluntary' had just turned 'precautionary mandatory', with the intent of erring on the side of caution rather than ending up running for one's life.

so they're in santa fe waiting to see what the conclusion of the drama will be. let's hope the fire missed them by a wide margin! (he's going to post pictures if he gets a chance -- http://vyncentvega.livejournal.com/)

water...canned veggies...deck of cards...bomb shelter

so many mysteries, so little time....

stuxnet says it all.

say what??

so if a tornado comes through and dismantles your home down to the ground with nothing left except concrete blocks forming an outline of what used to be there, what would you say if fema denied your claim due to insufficient damage? to quote their letter, "Based on your FEMA inspection, we have determined that the disaster has not caused your home to be unsafe to live in."  hmmm, what home?

apparently fema got in trouble from the gao because they gave out too much money after hurricane katrina so they are being so ultra-conservative as to be stupid. now that they've been at both ends of the bell curve though, you'd hope they could find the middle.

take cover!

if you aren't familiar with tornadoes and the damage they can do, take a look at these pictures. i was impressed with #13 -- it just mowed everything down. the rest of them are pretty disheartening. we have been blessed to not experience a tornado.

not very convenient

i have come back from the dead. actually, it was my hard drive that died. and it did not come back.

for those of you who have never experienced a dead hard drive, you cannot appreciate my angst this past month. i lost more than 120 passwords, more than 800 book titles, and more than 1600 music titles. to say nothing of my short stories, e-mail addresses, recipes, pictures, pretty much all of my life for the past 6 or 7 years.

so now i start the painful recontruction of said life. arrggghh..... i am probably going to be fussy for awhile. baby me.

earthquakes and tsunamis and melting ... oh my!

a partial meltdown is underway?? what in the world does that mean for all the rest of us? i've never really bought into the nuclear thing. humans are notorious for screwing up nature and anything else laying around so it's a given that someday at some point someone is going to somehow mess up things nuclear. of course, who counted on it being mother nature? still .... you'd think someone would have thought about that possibility. let's just hope they're able to get things under control before more lives are lost locally or abroad. those people in japan are having a terrible time!