Saturday, October 15, 2005

sun - it really is sunshine!

It rained here for eight days and eight nights straight. But today, at long soggy last, a break in the rain. Sunshine—that’s sunshine I see!

The grand total for the eight-day storm’s worth of rain here is 9.6 inches.

Now it’s windy, really windy, and the lights are flickering once in a while. If it gets worse, we’ll call CL&P again to have them fix the loose connection. They were supposed to during the last windstorm, which occurred right before the deluge, but they didn’t.

We had out usual assortment of old-house leaks, and Stanley spent a good amount of time bailing out the cellar, but we emerged relatively unscathed from the downpours. We live at the top of Sunset Hill, so I wasn’t worried about floods. There is a lot of flooding in other areas of Connecticut, and it will probably take a few days before things are back to normal and there can be some total damage assessment. I don’t think any houses floated down any rivers, but a lot of houses were flooded.

What’s really strange is this rainstorm occurred almost 50 years to the day as the storm of 1955 where the torrential rains caused flooding that tore up a good many towns in Connecticut. There is a very interesting article in the Norwalk Advocate today about what the flood of 1955 did to Norwalk—which, truth be told, never really recovered. And the Norwalk River has been so straight-jacketed that it wasn’t even mentioned this week as a potential problem.

Seems like the planet is becoming a much more dangerous place to live.

Tomorrow, maybe it will be dry enough to finish planting my irises and our new rosebush and, maybe, we can put some more grass seed down. It’s too wet today.

We were supposed to go to Natick this weekend to watch Ben play football, but his game was bumped by the high school’s make-up game. So we will go next weekend instead. Next Friday, we are going to the other side of the state—maybe by then the leaves will have finally turned and it will be a pretty drive.

Damn, it’s clouding up again.

posted by lee on 10/15/05 at 07:32 PM

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Sunday, October 09, 2005

connecticut blogs in the new york times

Hey! WestportNow.com was featured yet again by the New York Times, along with several other Connecticut blogs (not this one, boo hoo). The article appears in the Connecticut section and is titled Dear Blog: It’s Another Day in Connecticut (by Barbara Gordon). I think this article is in the still-free section.

Here is the section about WestportNow.com:

Westportnow.com has become the gold standard in Connecticut for blogs that focus on news and information. It is run by Gordon Joseloff, a journalist who worked for United Press International and CBS, and who said in an interview that he lives off his real estate holdings in Fairfield County because blogs make little to no money.

The blog makes liberal use of photographs of breaking news in Westport. There are images of downed wires, road construction, storm damage and car accidents like one in Westport last summer involving the singer and actress Eartha Kitt and her two toy poodles.

Within a few hours of that crash, photographs showing Ms. Kitt on the ground surrounded by emergency workers, her Range Rover on its roof and her toy poodles held on a leash by her daughter, were posted not on an Associated Press Web site or the local television news, but on Westportnow.com. Employees for The New York Post saw the posting, acquired the pictures and published them in the next day’s editions.

To get that kind of image, Mr. Joseloff has cultivated the good graces of stay-at-home mothers, retirees, students, aspiring photographers and anybody else with a camera and a willingness to take rudimentary instruction in shooting pictures.

Mr. Joseloff has come to know what writing a successful blog feels like. But he is also running as the Democratic candidate for first selectman of Westport, and Westporters have let him know they are concerned about the future of the blog if he wins.

Mr. Joseloff related a conversation he had with a Westportnow reader recently.

“Gordon, any bozo can run Westport,” the reader said to him. “But only you can do Westportnow.”

There are also a lot of links to other CT blogs that I wasn’t aware of, particularly a collection of CT blog feed put together and maintained by Tom Fausel, who lives in Harwinton (which is in Litchfield County, near Torrington—a gorgeous area in the state). This blog of blogs is www.ctweblogs.com (you have to use the www to get there). Oh cool, so many places to explore ...

posted by lee on 10/09/05 at 04:10 AM

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my botswana obsession - rainy-day fun

copyright National Geographic: zebrasOddly compelling webcam, the wildcam on National Geographic that focuses on Pete’s Pond in Botswana.

There’s something just so fascinating about watching this webcam—maybe it’s that I’m looking at live photos of animals on the other side of the world. I’ve seen zebras and elephants, jackals, herons, chacma baboons, hyenas, impalas, and other creatures I haven’t figured out yet—and I’ve only been checking it for a couple of days. Oh, and there’s an audio feed most of the time as well. Ginger barks and growls at the baboons. I keep hoping I’ll see a leopard.

It’s the dry season in Botswanna—I think the monsoons begin in November, when the wildcam won’t be available, I guess because it’ll be so wet. There is a lot of information about the wildlife in this section as well as a blog written by members of the research team and staff at this wildlife preserve.

It’s rained more than 3.5 inches here the past two days, most of it today. That’s why I’ve been looking at this webcam rather than planting tulips and irises. Lots of rain! Thus ends our drought. I wish I had time to plant more grass seeds before the rains started, but oh well. This is what’s left of tropical storm Tammy, the weatherperson says. The trees here are about ten days behind schedule because it’s been so warm. With this front moving through, I think summer is really over. But autumn is my favorite season, so that doesn’t bother me very much.

posted by lee on 10/09/05 at 03:51 AM

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Saturday, October 01, 2005

what constitutes a “rebound?”

Saw this headline today on Bloomberg:

Bush’s Approval Rating Rebounds on Response to Rita, Newsweek Poll Finds

Which surprised me, because I didn’t see much about how wonderful Bushie’s adminstration was about responding to Rita. So I read the article and found that Bloomberg’s editors, or headline writers, calls a 2% increase in approval rating a rebound. From 38% approval to 40%.

Two percent is a rebound?

Ya think Bloomberg might be a little biased?

posted by lee on 10/01/05 at 08:16 PM

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killer intersection claims two more (vehicles)

Beautiful Saturday afternoon. Am sitting in the office, catching up on email, when BLAM! The sickening sound of metal against metal at 2:55 pm. I look outside—a little SUV smacked into a pickup truck at the intersection of Strawberry Hill Avenue and Tierney Street. Smoke billowing from the hood of the SUV. Looked like the truck was trying to make a turn onto SHA and didn’t clear the SUV which was going at the usual SHA clip of about 45 mph (in a 25 mph zone).

Firetruck came. Then an ambulance. I watched for about 15 minutes and never saw the cops arrive. As is typical here in Fairfield County, people refused to stop to let the ambulance maneuver into position—they were too important, I guess, to worry about someone who may be dying for lack of treatment. Looks like the woman driver of the SUV was banged up pretty good, but she was walking around. I think it was the truck driver trying to direct traffic. Doesn’t look like anyone was seriously injured or dead—this time.

I still cannot for the life of me fathom why the city or the state or whoever is responsible for this street refuses to put even a stop sign here. This intersection needs, badly, a traffic light. One was approved in 1998, but one homeowner at that intersection pitched a bitch so it was never installed. Traffic, since then, has gotten much, much worse. I am sure the mayor, Alex Knopp, who promised to help fix the traffic problem here in Norwalk but has done absolutely nothing to help, won’t do a frelling thing until a kid is killed while trying to walk home from school (there are still a few walkers).

posted by lee on 10/01/05 at 07:57 PM

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slipped away for a while

We decided to take a break and catch a matinee today. Oh good, it starts at 4:30, we can catch that one easily because it’s at the theater about a mile away. Quick save of the stuff we’re working on, take the dog out for a pee, turn on Animal Planet for her to watch as she mopes, fill the cat’s food bowl, and we’re off. (Things are never completely simple.)

I forget how or why it came up, but Stanley mentioned that he wants to go see Dr. Lomnitz, his cardiologist, soon. Oh god oh god now what? And why is he telling me this now, when it’s too late to call the office and schedule an appointment?

Stanley said this week he’s started having this weird missed heartbeat, one that he can feel, when he’s not exerting himself. Like a thunk, he said. Which is one of the things we were told to watch out for after his surgery. “Call your doctor,” boldface, underlined. Ok, we’ll put in a call to his regular doctor when we get home—even if Dr. Horn isn’t around, there will be someone on call who can tell us if this is urgent or not-so-urgent.

imageMeanwhile, we made it in time to see A History of Violence. I didn’t know what to expect—some of Cronenberg’s stuff I really like (Spider), some of it doesn’t work at all (eXistenZ). History of Violence, I think, is superb. I’d heard a bit about the plot, saw that it is getting decent reviews. (Cronenberg kept a video blog—for what’s it’s worth.)

More "slipped away for a while"

posted by lee on 10/01/05 at 03:59 AM

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