Changes

I've had 27 responses to my survey regarding the location of the chat window on the Hood River Weather site. Thanks everybody for your input, it was very much appreciated.

58% wanted it to stay exactly where it was. The rest, all over the field.

My conclusion? The current location of the chat window is definitely a distraction and a tripping point for those not interested in chat. And, as the weather gets more boring, the discussions will probably move further away from weather, which is fine with me, but maybe not so much for others.

So here's the changes coming up. Since I'm all about options, the main entry site (weather.htm) will NOT have the chat window, but a link to it. I'll also provide an identical site with the chat window in the current position. The chat window has its own site, which is here. Myself, I have mostly moved to that separate site for chat, since it isn't affected by the auto-refresh of the main weather site.

In other words, the Hood River Weather site will be an opt-in site regarding chat, rather than an opt-out.

These changes will occur in the next 48 hours. Once done, bookmark the site you prefer, and I'll see you there one way or another.

Whew

Thank goodness THAT'S over. I don't know how many more Presidential elections I can take. They're way too polarizing, and way too superficial for my liking.

The final Hood River Weather site poll was Obama 60%, McCain 32%. Nationally, the results were Obama 53%, McCain 46%. In Oregon, Obama 54%, McCain 42%. I don't have the results for Hood River County yet.

Meanwhile, the weather continues on its random walk into late Fall/Winter with lots of rain, some snow in the mountains, and tree leaves falling rapidly all over everything. It's almost as if... as if the Universe somehow goes on its way with very little concern about the political and economic concerns of humans on this tiny rock 93 million miles from an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy in a Universe full of so much more than we can possibly imagine.

Poll? What Poll?

Sometime yesterday morning the weekly poll on the Hood River Weather site disappeared. Just up and vanished. And it was getting interesting, with Jeff Merkley slightly ahead of Gordon Smith in the Oregon senatorial race, which pretty much reflects the results of other polls.

To create the weekly poll, I've been using a paid poll hosting service. It's pretty inexpensive, and up until now has been quite reliable. Hopefully this is just a short term problem. If the hosting service doesn't re-surface in the next few days, I'll start using a free service (PollDaddy), which is a lot more versatile anyway. It allows multiple choices, comments, and conditional branching, all of which makes for a better polling experience. I haven't switched yet because I still have some months left on the paid service, but this might force the issue earlier.

10/12/08 12:50 Update: Nevermind. The poll is back, 30 minutes after I posted the above rant. Now I just have to come up with a new poll topic...

Busy garden day today... planting garlic, mowing the lawn, harvesting and roasting peppers and pumpkin seeds:

Record Rain?

Maybe, maybe not. The previous record rainfall on any October 4th was 0.42 inches (1939).
We received 0.56 inches at our weather station yesterday. At the official Hood River AGRIMET station, the provisional rainfall data shows 0.41 inches. So take your pick (along with all the other weather stations around here).

In any event, it was a good soaking, and lawns that were allowed to go dormant over the summer should be perking up dramatically. Now the trick will be to catch an afternoon when the lawns are dry enough to mow. Especially if you've just fertilized the lawn, like me. It's always something.

This water year is starting off impressively. So far, 5 days into it, we've received 1.10 inches of rain, 0.89 inches above normal.

Speaking of possible records, we can add another record low arctic sea ice to the rapidly growing list of things that just don't seem to be heading in a good direction whatsoever. For mankind, that is. I suspect that the Earth (and especially the Universe) could really care less one way or another. Stay tuned...

This week's Hood River Weather poll wonders whether you will vote for Smith or Merkley for Oregon senator. If nothing else, that race has provided some entertaining negative ads.

Babitz For Mayor

In an era where governmental fiscal responsibility is pretty much an oxymoron, there are some refreshing exceptions. Those exceptions exist largely because state and local laws require balanced budgets. But, as California's annual budgetary contortions demonstrate, there are plenty of ways to hide a deficit. "Kick the can down the road" politics at its best. Or worst.

Realistically, there's not a lot I can do to change global, federal or state fiscal irresponsibility, but I can act locally. And this year's City of Hood River mayoral race provides just such an opportunity.

City Councilman Arthur Babitz has thrown his hat into the mayor's race. After reading the position statements on his blog, he's got my vote. It's refreshing to have a candidate who has a specific, well thought out, and responsible fiscal plan, rather than the usual vague platitudes.

The Hood River Weather site's weekly poll asks how you will vote in this mayoral race. And if you aren't registered to vote in the real world yet, you have until Oct 14th in Oregon.

Now it's outside in the real world to enjoy this fantastic early Fall heat wave!

Nice

The pattern continues. Another wonderful weather weekend; 74 degrees today. Great day to be outside. Cooler weather to come this week. If this has to be a cold Spring, at least the warm spells have been on weekends.

This week's poll wonders if you are registered to vote, and if you are, what party you are registered with. Due to the closeness of the Democratic race, the Oregon primary is shaping up to be nationally relevant. Not that it hasn't been, but usually the race is determined by now.

Just A Taste

Of Spring: Warm, sunny weather made a welcome (but too brief) visit this weekend. Friday's high at our weather station was 70, while yesterday's high hit 77. Today looks to be somewhere around 70 to 75, as cooler and wetter air returns tonight through next week.

This week's Hood River Weather poll question is specifically designed to make you crazy or at least irritated. Given the federal government's seeming inability to contain spending, is it better to match income to outgo (tax and spend), or to borrow against the national debt and let future generations deal with it (borrow and spend).

I deliberately left out more reasonable choices (like maybe control spending better?), since I just don't see the feds wanting or being able to do that any time soon.

I waver between the two bad choices, but lean more towards tax and spend. It seems a little more honest, at least as long as the level of taxing does not unduly strain people's and company's budgets. As a percentage of GDP (which is how deficit defenders typically justify national debt), total taxation in the US is way down on the list, 34th lowest out of 36 major countries.

On the other hand, I think most people prefer tax cuts and especially "free" rebates from the feds. There is something to be said for Keynesian economic theory that it is rightfully the government's job to stimulate the economy through deficit spending in times of economic slowdowns.

Unfortunately, the flip side of Keynesian theory is that the government should run a balanced budget or surplus the rest of the time. But that involves responsible balancing of taxing and spending and is no fun at all for politicians or their constituents (us).

The last time we even came close to having a balanced budget was during the Clinton presidency, where gridlock between the Democratic president and Republican congress helped keep the government from adding and expanding spending programs.

So maybe gridlock is the economic model we should be striving for? And what does that mean for the choices in the upcoming presidential election?

Universal Health Care?

A little rain today, and then back to a dry pattern for at least a week. We're about 30% below average rainfall for the month, but still 13% wetter on a rain year basis. Plenty of snow pack in the mountains at this point, so not much chance of drought this year in Western Oregon.

This week's Hood River Weather poll asks whether we should be moving towards a "single-payer" universal health care system. Our current health care payment system is an inefficient, expensive mix of employer-provided benefits (which most employers are shedding as fast as they can), Medicare, largely unaffordable individual plans. and a huge group of uninsured people, many of whom end up overwhelming emergency rooms or foregoing care entirely.

There is no perfect health care payment system. There are, however, more efficient ones. We are the only wealthy, industrialized country that hasn't figured out that universal health care coverage, with a single payer system, costs much less per capita and provides the same or better level of care. Probably not as timely care for non-critical procedures, but timely enough. And those folks who can afford to pay for more immediate non-critical care would be able to, either thru private payment, supplemental insurance, or medical tourism. Even the Federal General Accounting Office estimates that a single payer system would reduce administrative costs, contain medical costs more efficiently, and save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Unfortunately, there is little political will for such a system, and no public groundswell in that direction. No current presidential candidate endorses a single-payer system. It's too much of a leap from the current system. The insurance lobbies are too powerful, and the time-worn protest of "no socialized medicine!" is a favorite rallying cry of many who still have good affordable coverage themselves. But we already have "socialized medicine". Medicare on the national level, and "free" emergency room care on the local level.

My opinion? I have reasonably good medical coverage through my employer, I'm no fan of socialism, but I believe that universal single payer health coverage is the obvious economic choice, and the sooner the better.

And now, back to the weather. We made it thru winter, and spring is just around the corner...

So Much For That Poll...

Thanks a lot, "Mitt". If that is indeed your real name...

When I decided upon a Hood River Weather poll last weekend, it seemed a pretty safe bet to list the "4 leading candidates" as choices. But noooooooo... with Romney's withdrawal from the presidential race today, John McCain appears to have an insurmountable lead on the Republican side. Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul are still in the race, and have lots of supporters, but odds now favor McCain.

Meanwhile, at least the Democratic race remains interesting. I don't think I will do another political poll until the Oregon primary (May 20th). If even then.

Bundle Up

4:00 pm Sunday afternoon. It's still relatively warm outside at 37 degrees, but a very cold air mass from the northeast is coming our way this evening. This will be our first arctic breakout of the winter, but not at all unusual for January. Expect low temperatures over the next 4 days in the mid teens and maybe lower. In these type of events, we'll have east winds of 5 to 10 mph while Portland on the other end of the Gorge will have 50+ mph east winds. Brrrrr!

However, no chance of breaking any local all time cold records this week, as low temperatures in 1930 at this time in January were in the -15 to -20 range.

The Hood River Weather poll this week attempts to be topical with the question "how do you heat your home?" We have a natural gas furnace, supplemented occasionally with a wood stove. I've lived in 6 different houses here since 1976, and this combination of heating along with a pretty tight house is the best ever. Still, winter heating bills just keep climbing. It doesn't seem to matter that we use the same or fewer therms or KW hours, since the cost per unit continues to climb.

Oh, by the way, I replaced the outside temperature sensor late last week, and the occasional "extremely high temperature" reading problem hasn't reoccurred. Keeping my fingers crossed.

UFOs?

The Hood River Weather site has featured a weekly poll for over a year now, and it's been fun to see how site visitors feel about various issues. One of my 2 blog goals this year is to do a new posting here with each poll, with my personal take on the issue, and y'all can elaborate on yours if you want.

OK, UFO's. In the mid to late 1960's, as a teenager, my fascination with all things skyward and beyond in the Universe prompted me to join two of the civilian UFO research groups in existence at that time: NICAP and APRO. Both groups gathered UFO reports and attempted to impartially separate the explainable sightings from those that would point directly at aliens as the most likely explanation.

I really wanted to believe that we were being visited; that the galaxy was teeming with intelligent space-faring civilizations, some of whom had discovered us here on Earth. After all, Star Trek and numerous science fiction TV and movies had plenty of aliens running around.

But over the years, nothing (including Roswell, alien abductions, and mysterious lights in the sky) has stood out as anything other than natural (and mostly honestly misinterpreted) phenomena. I'm still open to strong confirmable evidence that will irrefutably prove aliens are visiting our backwater section of our galaxy's suburbs. But Fermi's Paradox pretty much sums up my skepticism. Given the age of our galaxy, and the fact that many other solar systems have existed millions of years longer than ours, much older civilizations have had plenty of time to colonize the entire galaxy if that was likely or possible. And it would be obvious. But it's not. In fact, in the EM spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet, including radio, the galaxy appears to be absent of intelligent signals. Except, of course, our own radio and TV broadcasts, spreading outwards at the speed of light and now in a sphere about 75 light years in diameter from Earth. BTW, for those who would like to participate in the ongoing search for radio wave evidence for intelligent life, I highly recommend running the Seti@home software.

Here's my take on life in the universe: Given that there are likely millions of planets that can support life in the billions of galaxies that exist, molecular and single cell life is probably very common. Multi-cellular organisms (plants and animals) take a lot longer to emerge, and are less common. Intelligent and space-faring life is probably extremely uncommon; the result of a improbable combination of selective, very random events over millions of years of evolution. And, any such civilizations are likely to find the unimaginably immense distances (translate: travel time) between stars insurmountable, assuming they don't become extinct first. Maybe they create intelligent autonomous robotic probes to travel and colonize for them, but... where the heck are they...

So, maybe we are one of some Extremely Isolated Intelligent species in the Universe, which only makes our own human existence even more marvelous and precious and worthy of our best efforts to preserve our planet and not destroy ourselves and our fellow species.

Hopefully this will be the longest post I will ever make in this blog. :)

Midsummer Musings

After last week's heat wave, the high temperatures have moderated into the 80's with a relatively steady but not overwhelming west wind; perfect for wind sports and a lot of other outdoor activities. Forecasts are calling for more of the same with a slight chance of showers midweek.

This week's web poll asks what people think is the most likely "actual" reason that the Bush administration pursued what a lot of people are now seeing as an ill-conceived invasion of Iraq. I have previously posted some of my thoughts on the issue.

The poll lists 4 choices: To dispose of Saddam Hussein and WMDs, to spread democracy, to fight terrorism, and to attempt to stabilize the Middle East politics and culture (and therefore the area's oil supply which the global economy now firmly depends on).

I assumed even before the invasion started that the last reason (global oil supply security) was the most likely, at least in the decision-maker's minds. The first 3 reasons didn't fit the known information: Saddam was the only power that held the various factions in Iraq together, and pre-war inspectors had said he had no WMD's. There was little tradition of democracy in the area, and besides, democracy is probably best when people decide they want it themselves and work from within to achieve it themselves. Last, invading Iraq wouldn't help against terrorism and would squander our resources in the process.

So, that left the fact that we have or are about to reach peak oil globally (it's mostly all downhill from here), and the neo-cons figured that we would establish a foothold in the Middle East and that would solve that. Seems like a much better approach would have been to create a far-sighted energy policy that actively encouraged alternate energy sources, conservation, and increased energy independence.

In a humorous comment to the post directly before this one, dbradway mentions that I left out one choice in the web poll. After reading it and laughing, I had to agree, since I've also thought that no president other than G.W. Bush would have seriously entertained the notion of an Iraq invasion being an appropriate action. Not even Bush's dad...

Taxing Times

As usual, this week's Hood River Weather poll (on taxes) has absolutely nothing to do with the weather in Hood River. Unless you count weather in with death and taxes as things that are certain to occur in life. Benjamin Franklin probably meant to include "weather" in his quote, but just didn't have the room.

Typical spring weather continues in Hood River, with some sunny days, some rainy days, and most everything in between. We still haven't had a warm spell into the upper 70's or 80's, but those won't be too far off.

I've received several emails regarding Apple computers vs Windows based computers (see previous blog). Apple clearly has led the way for years with their innovative graphical interface, ease of use, and being less prone to malware and computer glitches. Since they have almost totally controlled what hardware and software runs on the OS, there are far fewer system conflicts. Windows machines, on the other hand, are less expensive, available in far more configurations, and have been opened up to many thousands of hardware and software developers. Which, of course, makes them potentially more unstable.

Anyway, here's a cute Mac vs PC ad that is making the rounds:

Religion and Politics

In anticipation of Easter, this week's Hood River Weather poll dives head first into one of the two taboo subjects that must never be discussed in polite company. Since the poll has already violated the politics part, religion is next. So much for polite company...

I have always found the study of the world's religions fascinating. We are (mostly) all trained as we grow up to think that belief in a supernatural Deity or Creator (that can't be proved or disproved and is to be accepted on faith) is a primary virtue. (We especially are trained to always capitalize Deity or Creator).

I myself prefer to find (and try to practice) the common threads that run through religions. For me, some of those common threads are: There is something much bigger than ourselves, and we are all a part of that, as is everything around us. One should strive to live a moral and ethical life. Our beliefs should make us kinder and more empathetic, rather than divide us. And if our beliefs help us face our own and other's mortality, so much the better.

Other than that, I just don't know. I'm not so sure that we humans can ever really know (with our wonderfully complex but finite minds) what is spiritually "true". We can absolutely feel and insist that we do, but that could very well be wishful thinking. Plus, one can never prove a generalized negative, such as "there is no God". Given that, agnosticism feels right to me (and is, at least for me, an honest and humbling position). But I certainly could be wrong. I do know for sure that being alive and part of this Universe is an awesome blessing and absolutely amazing (with hardly ever a dull moment). Not to mention that, at least physically speaking, we are indeed Stardust.

Oh, the weather in Hood River? Great, if you like rain and cool temps with occasionally warm sunny days, which I do.

70 Degrees

The high today reached 70 degrees, tying the record high for the date set in 1965. The forecast calls for cooler temps and possible rain Monday and Tuesday, then warmer and drier through next weekend.

And the sun, for some reason, is setting about an hour later. Gotta love these longer evenings!

The current web poll asks how you access the internet. Hopefully most people visiting the HR Weather site are using broadband; it is definitely not dial-up friendly.

Monday Monday

A beautiful sunny day today, the high almost made 60 degrees. No wind, and it was a bit hazy. It figures this would happen on a Monday, the past weekend was generally cool, with high fog that just barely burnt off late in the afternoon. But we still got some yard stuff done this weekend: shrub trimming, the first lawn mowing, and the first plantings in the vegetable garden (snow peas and radishes).

Looks like another nice day tomorrow and then rain returns Wednesday thru...

The web poll this week is regarding phone services; specifically, do you have a land line only, cell phone only, or both. I guess I should have included VOIP (voice over internet protocol), but if you have that, just answer "Neither", as it's hard to imagine that anyone has absolutely no phone service of any kind in this day and age. Although that does sound appealing sometimes.

We have both types of phones currently, but I've been watching our usage pattern vs pricing, and right now "land line plus 1 cell phone" is almost exactly equal to "2 cell phones and no land line". It's interesting that some developing countries are skipping land line development entirely and going straight to cellular.

Web Poll Feb 26

Cool, rainy and possibly snowy during the coming week. This morning, though, we are enjoying partly sunny skies (In the winter, I much prefer that phrase to "partly cloudy skies").

(Picture from our house in Hood River looking at Underwood Mt across the River in WA)

A new web poll this week regarding political leanings, suggested by Rick H. I myself am sitting on the fence at "neutral". In fiscal areas I am pretty conservative, and in social areas and foreign affairs more liberal. Currently it sort of balances out to neutral. Unfortunately, both major political parties aren't all that different anymore and neither of them are particularly fiscally responsible or seemingly even capable of dealing with long term issues that don't appear to require urgent immediate action but actually really do. Like climate change, energy policies, budget deficits, health care reform, social security and medicare funding...

I think it's human nature to allow big, slowly developing problems to just kinda sort themselves out, especially if the immediate choices are painful, difficult, or involve sacrifices. It's easier to put them off. Unfortunately, we might not be very happy with the future results of putting things off.

Regarding past web site polls, I am somewhat relieved that 88% of site viewers are either happy with the HR Weather Site layout, or have no opinion. I do plan on creating a more state of the art site design at some point. "After retirement" sounds like a reasonable plan. (See? It's only human nature, or least mine, to procrastinate...)

Web Site Poll

No rain yet, but the computer models are leaning more and more towards a rainy pattern starting sometime this week. We need some precipitation. The big rain year surplus built up by November's record rains has been steadily eroded by the scarcity of rain since early January.

I've been doing this blog for about a month. I wasn't sure about a blog initially, but I've found that writing one is strangely enjoyable. I'm now wondering if anybody else finds this blog the least bit enjoyable, interesting, or useful. To help find out, this week's poll question at the Hood River Weather site asks if you have visited this blog and whether you will visit it in the future.

The polls have been fun to do, and I appreciate all the suggestions viewers have sent. One drawback of the polls is the limited scope of the answer choices. One potential advantage of this blog is that you can elaborate here on your poll answers if you so desire. So, feel free to comment here on this or any other poll. Comments don't necessary have to relate to any particular post that I make.

In addition, if anyone would like to be able to create actual posts here in addition to commenting, let me know. I'm open to multiple authors as long as posts are at least vaguely related to Hood River or weather. Or perhaps other stuff. How's that for open?