Texas kids trained to swarm

I read the article quoted at the end of this post in this morning's paper. Inexplicably, it elicited a kind of primal emotional response from me, much stronger even than the stories of the Amish school or any of the seemingly endless tide of stories of sociopaths/terrorists victimizing innocents.

I think this story in particular caused a notable emotional reaction in me because it underscores how numerous almost imperceptible shifts in reality have combined over time to the point where people are now beginning to train children in our civil society how to fight a gunman.

Whether the idea that our neighborhoods in the U.S. are more dangerous is real or imagined (aside: I am skeptical), there seems to be a shift in society's acknowledgement of (dare I say, obsession with) the fact that the world is a dangerous place. What I have always found irritating about typical media hype and irrational fear is the implication that innocence equals weakness, which this article does not. Somehow we generally think of an adult, and generally a man, when we think of the stereotype of "hero". So this story hits me from two sides. I feel righteous pride at the thought of innocents pooling their power to overcome evil, even as I balk at the thought of them having to be concerned with such things, which, while frightening, are unlikely to an extreme.

Lion Kill

Neighbors may recall a post in January with pictures of deer and a concern being discussed about the ever tamer deer attracting mountain lions.

Well, last night I got the email below via the neighborhood email loop (you can subscribe here).

So on our way out to dinner (yum) this evening we stopped at the trail head to see what kind of kill it was David had seen. We easily found the carcass of a young doe.

Sure looks like the work of a lion to me. I took a few pictures with my phone. Note the wide shot where you can see Norah standing just off the road through the trees. That's where the carcass is.

------ Forwarded Message

Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:37:16 -0700
Subject: mountain lion kill

Today we found a fresh mountain lion kill about 50 ft off the road across the street from my house at the top of Tanoble Dr. It is right by the trail head for the crest trail. Please be careful if you are hiking in the trails!

David Lewis
Tanoble Dr.

------ End of Forwarded Message

The Pine Fire

Yesterday the huge column of smoke rising to the North West, just beyond the ridges had us curious and concerned, but we weren't able to find any reports about a local incident. As of this morning, InciWeb still has no listing of what the Pasadena Star News is calling the Pine Fire. The Star News has a slide show and video of the fire.

Rain wrap-up

The rain season of July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006 ended with 23.31 inches recorded on the Stonehill News weather station. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to resetting the total on the weather station until today, and we got a millimeter (.04") of rain on Aug 4. So my seasonal reading is off by a millimeter… oh well, 23.35" it is then. This is only the second complete year that I have been accurately logging precipitation, but my neighbor at the top of Stonehill has been keeping records since 1999. Here are the seasonal totals from both stations:

Season    Theirs   Ours
1999-2000  19.76"    --
2000-2001  21.22"    --
2001-2002   8.27"    --
2002-2003  24.47"    --
2003-2004  15.47"    --
2004-2005  62.56"   61.61"
2005-2006  24.06"   23.35"

Unseasonable isolated gusting

This morning we were awoken by Santa Ana-like wind at about 5:40am. We had uncharacteristic gusting up to about 20mph until about 8:45. The wind was hot. I talked to some folks who live in Pasadena this morning, and they reported nothing unusual further down the hill. Other Altadena stations recorded similar gusting, although not as strong. It appears that the Weather Underground servers were down for over an hour starting about 6:30, as all three Altadena sites reporting today ( 1 2 3 ) have a data gap there.

Uplifting day on Loma Alta

Today Loma Alta was closed to through traffic so a crane crew could set up and hoist replacement utility poles to hard-to-reach locations. The large (160 ton) crane was brought in to reach over neighbors' homes and drop two new utility poles into holes which were prepared in advance by SCE.

The first one was on the north side of the Gooseberry catch basin (south of Loma Alta), a couple hundred feet west of the Stonehill intersection. The other was on the west side of the Gooseberry flood channel, just north of Loma Alta. Both were basically in people's back yards, so lifting the 40 foot poles in from above was the only practical way to get them in.

Once each new pole was secured in it's hole next to the old one, the power lines (which run at the top of the poles) were moved over to it. Then the crane was bridled to the old pole, and the crew chainsawed off the top 8 feet or so. Once the top of the old pole was cut loose, the crane hoisted the piece of scrap back up over the rooftops, leaving the shortened old pole in place until the other utility crews can come out and transfer lower telephone and cable lines to the new pole. Then the old poles can finally be removed altogether.

June 3, 2006 hits 103 °F

Well, it's really summer now. We just missed a high 103 up here on the hill today.

Other local stations report similar highs, but KCAALTAD3 on Mount Curve seems to either be having technical difficulties, or knows something we don't know. Also, unfortunately, KCAALTAD5 seems to have gone offline sometime after lunch, but not before they posted the highest high for the day at 103.1 °F

KCAALTAD1 102.4 °F
KCAALTAD2 102.9 °F (Stonehill News)
KCAALTAD3 _94.0 °F (?!)
KCAALTAD5 103.1 °F