Took a chance last weekend to hit up a little known SoCal mountain on a partial powder day (it snowed 18-24 inches 36 hours prior). The powder wasn’t quite Colorado Champagne, but it was pretty darned good for SoCal. If you consider yourself an decent skiier, and you can handle blacks most of the time, Waterman is your place. They only have a few green and blue runs (which are good enough for first timers, but not for someone just wanting long cruisers), but they have a good number of steep runs in and out of the trees.

This time we will likely see data throughout the storm as long as the instruments themselves hold up (Rollover Pass may have just bit it). During Katrina the instruments held up for awhile, then the National Bouy Data Center itself went offline as it took a direct hit. Of course, this storm isn’t much like Katrina, but there’s definitely already some pretty major flooding.

Click on each of the plots to see the water level plots.

Galveston Pleasure Pier:

Rollover Pass, TX (close to the worst storm surge)

Clear Lake, TX (right next to Johnsson Space Center):

Finally getting around to some much-backlogged pictures from last summer. I’d like to post more here, some fun stuff going on with flying planes and building robots, but life keeps getting in the way. For some more informal picts (unedited), see my picasaweb gallery. I’ll continue to post my better pictures on flickr, but this gives me a way to share without feeling like I have to sort through the pile and pick and choose.

Dad and I headed up the Reagan Library tonight for the 4th try at the launch of a Satellite atop a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 100 miles to our east. Fortunately the weather cooperated this time, and despite being a bit cold, the launch went off without a hitch.

Don’t miss the 4-day old baby elephant! In my wife’s words, “So little and cute.” It’s all relative I guess.

A co-worker brought in his Segway yesterday, so I had to take the opportunity for a photoshoot with my balancing robot Gizmo and his bigger cousin.

We carved these last weekend, but at least ours is still alive and kickn’ for the grand total of ZERO trick-or-treaters that came to our door. Oh, and I left the upstairs balcony door open to cool things off tonight, and a cat came in to visit. It was working it’s way down the stairs when I saw it, at which point the scared kitty made for the door. Random.

Nothing as dramatic as last year, but there are a lot more fires this time around and it really does seem like the whole world is on fire here. We’re not in any danger so don’t worry about us. Closest fire was Sunday – about 3 miles away, but moving the other way. Hopefully the wind will die for good this afternoon and they’ll start getting a handle on these over the next few days.

I took my inverted pendulum balancing robot, added a camera and wireless transmitter, and let everyone around the office take a spin. The event was not without mishap, but it’s a lot of fun to watch people interact with the robot, and not so much fun when they try to block it’s view, or just don’t get out of it’s way. Or they kick volleyballs at it. That’s just mean.