It's my 4 year anniversary of blogging on Dreamwidth. Oh, I've been blogging longer than that.... I started on LiveJournal over 13 years ago. And I do still blog on LiveJournal. I cross-post (manually 😡) to both ( Read more... )

Hurricane Helene struck the United States last week, causing widespread damage across multiple states in the Southeast. Recent reports have the death toll at 162 with hundreds of people still unaccounted for. When we think of deaths and property damage caused by hurricanes we traditionally picture images of gale-force winds pounding homes on the ( Read more... )

I've posted plenty of times recently about the weather being hotter than past averages (and getting hotter). It's only fair that I share when the weather's cooler than normal, too. The past week or two we've seen slightly below-average temperatures around the area ( Read more... )

It was a hot day today. The weather app said the high temperature was 95° F. That's hot for around here. A typical daily high in mid-late July around here is 81° F. Global warming is making hot days like this more common and more widespread.

Note I'm not saying the fact it was hot today proves global warming or man-made climate change. Just like ( Read more... )

We made a decision to cancel our travel plans for the Fourth of July weekend. We were going to drive up to northern California and spend 4 days hiking in the Trinity mountains near Mt. Shasta. Now we'll stay home instead. I've even given up Friday as a PTO day. I'll work on Friday instead. 😢

We made this decision on Sunday, when we were home and ( Read more... )

Alaska Travelog #21
Glacier Overlook Trail - Tue, 18 Jun 2024, 1:30pmYesterday when we visited Kenai Fjords National Park to hike partway up Exit Glacier I noticed there were signs along the road and the lower part of the trail, indicating how much further down the foot of the glacier extended not that long ago. Today we've come back to the park to ( Read more... )

Alaska Travelog #17
Kenai Fjords National Park - Mon, 17 Jun 2024, 1:30pmWe have a big hike ahead of us today- to Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park. Ordinarily this is the sort of thing where we'd get up early in the morning and get going early to make sure there's enough daylight. But with Alaska's ridiculous long summer days, plus being ( Read more... )

Alaska Travelog #12
Asea in Kenai Fjords NP - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 2:30pm

Finally, the moment on this day-cruise I've been waiting for came. ...Well, two moments came. First, the dang fog lifted. Finally we could see the mountains around us in Kenai Fjords. And by "see" I mean see more than the first 100-200' above the water. We could see thousands ( Read more... )

Last week came an alarming announcement from the head of the UN. “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” UN Secretary General António Guterres declared, as scientists confirmed that July 2023 was on track to be the hottest month on record- and possibly in more than 100,000 years. Example news coverage: Guardian ( Read more... )

It's been hot recently. That's not just a "here" story but seemingly an everywhere story right now. Much of the US is roasting under a heat wave, as are many other countries around the world ( Read more... )