Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

Some of my family over in Florida occasionally ask "so why do you get the big storms in Mississippi, and why don't we get them quite so much here?"  Well, I'll tell you:

See that hot stripe that starts at the western tip of Cuba and ends, oh, I don't know, about a mile from my front door?  See that nice buffer of relatively cooler water sitting like a protective bubble all around Cape San Blas?  Well, that's pretty much the whole answer.
Season starts Wednesday.  Meh, the insurance is paid and the plans are laid.  Gonna go put on some Buffett and get ready for a bike ride along the beach.

Buncha more FL pics

All from the bike, here're the picks of the pics.  I'll leave'em small, but you can click to get the big versions.
Oyster boats in St. George Sound:

From the top of the SGI bridge:

More oyster boats off the bridge:

The SGI light:

Carabelle, seen from the East End:

Dog Island, across East Pass.  Check out the batch of baitfish roughing up the water on the left!

'till next time, happy (bike) trails.

#7

On Dr. Beach's list of top 10 beaches.

Here's me there last Wednesday:

That's Dog Island in the background so I was waaay out on the east end of St. George.  Google Maps indicates a total of 54.4 miles for the day, but I have no idea.  Between having no cyclometer whatsoever on the bike and having to port the bike over the last half-mile or so of sand to get all the way to the point, that sounds like a pretty reasonable value to me.

What a beautiful day.

Intervals, Week ?

A friend is getting ready for a big time trial, and is doing four minute intervals.  Ugh.  So I kept up, ran the timer, and watched out for cars.  I really should know better, but it's good mental stress-free training and the weather's nice, so what the hell.


ps: why aren't labels working now?  Tried to tag it with "bikes" to no effect.  *sigh* blogger.com, you get what you pay for with it.

High Muddy Water

Drove into New Orleans on Saturday afternoon to visit the Darling Daughter now that the semester's ended, but planning a side-trip to go look at the high water on the Mississippi first hand.  On the way in, at about 2:50 p.m. the Emergency Alert System broke in on the radio... and paused... and paused... and pause... and I was starting to get a little weirded out because the weather was really nice and so why else would the EAS system break into the regular programming and I'd just Netflixed in and watched Panic in Year Zero over several whiskies the night before... and paused... then finally, finally the announcement came: the Morganza Spillway would be opening in ten minutes.  *whew*
Anyway, the trip went fine.  Got the Darling Daughter's dresser delivered, made it to art supply store well before closing, then went to the Quarter to look over the river.  And damn, but was it high.  Not scary high, but within four feet of the top of the levee.  Lots of tourists and locals were there just staring numbly at the river, looking at the swirling water, muttering stuff like "never seen it that high, but close a couple of times," taking pictures, and just... staring.
Anyway, don't expect any Katrina-level drama.  The Times-Picayune reports that local mississippi river water levels [are] expected to hold steady.  But it was pretty cool to stare out over.

All of the Dirt Rag & Bicycle Times Covers

Can be found right here.  Some nice art buried in the pile, it's worth digging for.

Seen this problem before.

Why the new guy can't code.  Linked from there, the infamous FizzBuzz test.
Yep.

21 Greatest Ever Space Photos

Here.  And they're worth a few minutes of your time.

Intervals, Week 5: time to call it a day

After going all-out last Thursday, I've got an upper respiratory wheeze-and-crud that's not bad, but not letting go either.  That, plus a couple of days of key meetings at work... So I just rode today, and am back to regular riding.


I'll post one more on the topic after I get over this cough and can see how things improve on the mountain bike.