Procrastination Pays Off

Some days anyway...

Tuesday's surprise lesson
The big bad plumbing nightmare back in the Ancestral Diggins didn't turn out to be as tough as I figured. The best part is, I didn't open any cans of worms! I was worried about that, too. Rust Never Sleeps goes the old saw, and there was plenty of rust on the old piping I needed to remove and remodel.

I dug the access holes a month ago, and worked on other irrigation stuff while I put off the inevitable. Tuesday the day finally came that I couldn't go forward unless I addressed the task at hand.

It turns out that the rust that I feared would thwart me at every turn was bad, but it only changed my choice of tools...the only truly mission-critical fitting that could be my mega-colossal trophy "Can Of Worms", was the single cooperative one! Once I had everything removed, a quick blast down to the local hardware emporium filled the parts list, and all I had to do was make up the valve stack, install it, and I could turn the water back on.

Just one problem...wouldn't you know it...

I'm trying to match an existing 3/4 inch union that's poured into the sidewalk slab. The new union from the local Medium Box Home Improvement store was different where it counts...it wasn't a match inside where the seal is. Drat! This meant a trip to the Real Plumbing Supply two towns away...grrr...

I pulled my sweaty t-shirt off and kicked back with some iced French Roast for an hour...resigning myself to the late afternoon visit to the plumbing supply.

After a half an hour, I threw on a clean shirt, wrapped up my WD-40 soaked union in a rag, and headed to the shop. I caught the red light downtown, and in the 30 seconds I waited for my turn, I decided to hit the other hardware store on the off chance that they might have the mate to my union.

Saints be praised, the Helpful Hardware Man had just what I needed...at just over twice what I paid a quarter mile away...but twice the price was still under $9.00, and saved me an hour of back and forth motoring..."green" too!

There's a new wrinkle to our weather today...humidity...lots of it, too.

The marine layer never completely burned off today, and there's not enough breeze to mix thing up either. Consequently, the marine layer is acting like a lid on a saucepan and I feel like poached eggs!

I saw a tweet from @CBS13rightnow touting a fire at a junkyard in Roseville, so I clicked on it and what a dreary looking sky they have up in the Big Valley! It looks just like high overcast on the webcast...similar to what we have today in the Inland Valley.

Well, breaking news being what it is, when I tuned in the Channel 13 News, it turns out the "junkyard" wasn't a junkyard, and the fire wasn't in Roseville either...

The weather tease at the end of the fire segment said hazy sunshine today with cooling ahead...

Thursday's drizzle
Our weird summer weather continues with drizzle and cold blustery conditions today. The Sun didn't burn through the marine layer until after 2PM.

The gardeners come Thursdays, so I stayed out of their way...I went grocery shopping instead of getting on the Diggins job. By the time I got back and had leftover pizza for lunch, my fervor to dig had waned...I watched the internets for political news...Tennessee Primary...and some Weathergeek goodies.

NOAA issued their Hurricane Outlook Update...nothing to see here...they stood pat, no changes to their prediction...they still call for an active hurricane season.

I looked again at the SST Data for the Atlantic...it's just not that hot. Most of the area where hurricanes are born is at normal temps to +1.5C. The Gulf of Mexico is normal to -1.5C.

We are going into the heart of Hurricane Season, and we've had three named systems so far. I still don't think this will be one for the record books. It seems to me that there's just not enough heat in the system to get things off simmer.

I found another Ocean Oscillation too...the Arctic Oscillation. This one impacts the Ice Cover in the Arctic. This one will be difficult to find a proxy for going back through historical records...not a lot of data collected up in the Pack Ice Region...

Most of the historical oceanic data came from Ships' Logs. This is a problematical source given the wide range of care in taking and recording such data, not to mention the variability of the instruments. Early thermometers all erred to the cold side.