I heard about the Sumatran earthquake/tsunami in the morning and decided to tune in CNN to see what was happening. It was a bit surreal. There was a natural disaster that started about 6PM yesterday, our time; thousands of people are dead, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands are directly affected by it. An entire region of the globe is affected and CNN is giving the Midwest airport travel snafu more coverage. We feel so sorry for the little girl who can’t get to Disney World. (Well, that will teach them to use a cheap airline that can’t even stress test its computer systems.)
I also noticed that the American media didn’t seem to be on top of the issue. The only online news resource I found that was updating the news through the day was Reuters. The others didn’t mention it or just noted that something had happened. While Reuters had the death toll over 10,000, CNN was still reporting 4,000. Of course, it is a holiday weekend so no one may be working. We’ll see what they say tomorrow. It looked pretty horrific, what images I have seen.
I see that other people have problems with WeatherBug and that it may be more insidious than I first thought. See what these people say. PC Hell: How to Remove WeatherBug
As an accident of having to install AOL IM on my PC at work, I ended up with the WeatherBug installed as well. I find it to be a nice little addition to my tool bar, showing the local temperature and alerting me if the forecast changes. So when I uninstalled the AIM, I decided to leave the WeatherBug.
Unfortunately, when the WeatherBug opens a window at bootup, it seems to corrupt my PC and prevents the other applications from running. So I decided it had to go. As I started to remove the software, WB kept shouting “Ohhhhh! Noooooo! Mr. Billlll!” and it asked me if I really wanted to go through with this. Soft-hearted chump that I am, I relented and agreed to keep the WeatherBug, as long as it didn’t open a window at boot-up. It can just maintain a presence on the toolbar and we’ll all be happy. Or will we? I shall see next week if I have to reboot the PC several times a day. (That was the nice thing about upgrading to the XP OS. I have only had to reboot maybe once a week. ) But, if the WeatherBug doesn’t crash your PC, it is a nice little toy to have.
I found several weather stations that are nearby . Between these sites you may get a feel for our weather. The main reason I can’t point to one and say “our weather is like theirs” is because we are about 1.5 km from the mountains, to the west, and all these sites are 4-8 km from the mountains and varying distances from the Palmer Divide, all of which affect our local weather. (Palmer Divide is about 9 km North of us)
So, for your consideration,
AR549, about 7 km to the NE, (5 km to PD) C2088, about 7 km E, I think on the hill behind King Soopers (8 km to PD) KAFF, the AFA Airport, about 12 km to the SE, (17 km to PD)
Be sure to check out that Palmer Divide link (above) That guy put some work into his pages. (Elaine thinks my referring to the Palmer Divide link (above) is too obscure since I have several other links also noted above, so I am including the link here.)
If you want to know what the weather is like at our house, try this link: HWAS20Data, even though they are a few miles south of us. The Airfield is 12 km SE; the stadium is about 7 km SE. I don’t know where the rest of them are. I suspect that most are on the south end of the Academy; North Ridge and Lewis Palmer might be on the North side. I wonder if Aardvark is Jack’s Valley. If it is, that’s only a quarter mile away.
The academy has a lot of gliders, parachutists and small planes in the air all over the base, so they need weather info from a number of sources, especially since the mountains will twist the air at one end of the academy and the other end will never notice. (Watch out for wind sheers!)
Why bother with the $250,000 cap on donations. Just imagine the inauguration stand with its banners : “President Bush; brought to you by Exxon”, “Bush: sponsored by the House of Saud”, “4 more years, from your friends at Citibank”. After the ceremony they can put the banners on the fence around the White House. Add a bit of color to a dull city. And they won’t get in trouble with the ‘truth in advertising’ laws; or any other laws, for a while.
