Exit78

A year ago today…,

February 9, 2012

The weather was much different.  It had been a colder winter overall and, on February 9, 2011, we had our second snow in a week – and it was a very respectable snowfall.

This year, our warmer-than-normal winter has returned to seasonal temperatures, but we’ve not had any snow or ice since sometime in November or December, and that wasn’t much.

How is the winter trending in your neck of the woods?

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Leaving Colorado…

February 8, 2012

After 2 weeks in Colorado, we left Grand Junction on a short drive to our next destination, Arches National Park.  It was 131 miles (211 km), mostly on Interstate 70, though the actual straight line distance was 60 miles (96.5 km).

As we traveled west in Colorado several days earlier, the landscape had gradually changed from high mountain forest and tundra to high desert country, with quite a bit of farming in the Grand Valley of the Colorado River (once called the Grand River).  Driving west into Utah, the landscape became more and more desolate with a stark and fascinating beauty.

This was our third visit to Arches National Park.  The previous two were brief, but this time we had three nights reserved in the park at Devils Garden Campground.

Arches National Park is in eastern Utah.  It has over 2000 natural sandstone arches and many other interesting geological formations, such as spires, balanced rocks and sandstone fins.  It was designated a national monument in 1929 and became a national park in 1970.

Selected Information Resources:

Arches National Park.

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• Wikitravel
• Discover Moab
• GORP
• The American Southwest

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Spam. – Virus program kerfuffle. – Internet ethics.

February 5, 2012

A new comment on one of my blogs says, “I have read a few good stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how much effort you put to create such a great informative website.”

At first glance, this very complementary comment might appear to be legitimate, but it’s just too vague, with no correlation whatever to the content of the post.  It’s comment spam.

The funny thing  about this particular comment spam is that it was left on a post titled “Hello World.”  The blog isn’t even active.

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When I went to update our virus protection software last month, I upgraded to a product that had more protection, and didn’t think anything more about it.

Friday, I was viewing my e-mail spam folder prior to permanent deletion and found a message from Norton telling me that my virus protection software had been automatically updated – the old software that was no longer on our computers.

Time to contact customer service.

I managed to get online and find the customer service link.  There was a note that said that the customer service online chat was the quickest way to resolve problems, which was fine with me.  I don’t care for dealing with customer service by phone and, with chat, there’s no struggling to understand the representative’s accent – and there was no way I was going to try to resolve this with e-mail.

The wait was just a few minutes and I “worked” on other things while I was waiting.  The customer service “expert,” to use Norton’s term for their representatives, was able to help in a relatively short period of time.  He did offer to apply the subscription time to our current product and refund 10% of the renewal price.  I told him,  “I would prefer the full refund instead.”

After he had processed the refund, he wrote, “I’ve noticed that you have been waiting for longer than expected. I’m sorry for this inconvenience and as a gesture of good will and to thank you for your patience, I would like to add an extra 30 days to your subscription. Is that ok with you?”  How did he know it was my birthday?

He didn’t, of course.  Funny thing, though, it was his birthday, too.

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It’s unfortunate that unethical individuals and organizations try to take advantage of people through the internet.

Imagine an online world where you didn’t have to deal with spam, viruses, phishing and scams.

Unfortunately, that innocent online world only lasted a few short years.

I was subscribed to a few genealogy online mailing lists that went silent in the 90s when a guy in Atlanta selling laser printer cartridges sent one of his ads in a mass email to the lists.  At the time, the mailing lists were hosted on a server at Indiana University.  The load from that mass emailing crashed the server and, eventually, that incident forced the mailing lists to find a new home.  That was my first exposure to the impact of internet spam.

Today,  staying protected from online attack requires spam filters, a good virus protection program and a firewall to prevent unauthorized access to your computer.

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How about you?  Any recent spam or virus issues?

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The big Six O…….. Oh noes!

February 3, 2012

This is one of those (secretive  s-h-h-h-h ) benchmarks that lots of folks seem to want to keep hush-hush, no more than whispered about, when they get there.

Not me.  I’d rather just face it (and get it over with) and embrace it (what more can you do?) fully.  Today, I turned sixty.

Every day, about 330 or so boomers reach this point.  Born in the 50s, radical in the 60s (not me!) and early 70s, settled down in the 80s, splurged in the 90s, and lost our financial butts in the 2000s (not me ).

Supposedly sixty is the new 30 – or is that the new 40?  I don’t know about that.  I think it’s just rationalization for some people, to make them feel better when they get there here.

I took another tack on dealing with this benchmark and it really helps to lessen the impact.  Over the last year, as the time  grew closer and closer, I just more and more started thinking of my age as 60 instead of 59.  After all, since last summer sometime, I’ve actually been closer to 60 than 59. 

I don’t feel 60 – mentally or physically.

Retirement? Still doin’ it – part time.

Check out Exit78 on Facebook.

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Greatness around the corner.

January 31, 2012

Great accomplishments are overrated.  I prefer to “go with the flow.”

How about you?

Cartoon shared from Calamities of Nature.

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Daffodils in January? – Crazy winter 2011/12.

January 28, 2012

Overall, for us, this winter has been crazily mild.  While, we did have one spell in December that was cold enough to brown much of the ground vegetation that normally stays green in this part of the country, it has been much warmer than normal for most of the season.

Still, it’s not normal to have daffodils in January, but we have the first blossom of the year – and the forecast is for temperatures above 60°F (15.5°C) for the week ahead.

So is winter over?  Where is all the cold weather? Is this global warming?

Winter’s probably not over here.  Typically, our snowiest month is February, followed by March, and we’ve even had snow in April, though some years we don’t get any snow at all. Last year, on February 9th, we had nearly a foot, and that was the second snow of the week.

On the other hand, spring-like conditions in early February 2008 led to a tornado outbreak that killed 13 in Arkansas (55 in southern US) with widespread damage and power outages.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see more big storms or winter weather in the next month, this year.

While it’s been unusually warm here,the reverse is true in other places.  Alaska has seen some brutally cold weather, worse than normal, and very heavy snow in places.  Sea ice in the Bering Sea is moving south much earlier than normal – and it’s moving fast, threatening to halt the snow-crap harvesting at the peak of the season.  Very cold temperatures and strong winds are pushing the ice south at 10 to 15 miles a day, 5 times the normal rate, threatening $8 million worth of crap pots and other gear already in the water.

In my view, our warmer weather and the colder weather in Alaska are just regional climate variations, not global warming or cooling, not a direct manifestation of climate change, though change is coming – it always is.

Globally,  temperatures have been relatively stable over the last decade.

While warming alarmists tout the decade as the warmest on record, “relatively stable” for more than 10 years isn’t warming.

As I’ve said in previous posts, my view is that we are on the verge of a significant drop in global temperature.  When it starts, if it starts, is anyone’s guess.  The loss of heat may have already begun in the waters of the world, without yet being felt in the weather.

One ominous prediction, though, says that the coming cold may move the geographical center of the corn producing region of North America from Iowa south into Kansas.

I’d rather have global warming.

What has the weather been like recently for you?

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Colorado National Monument.

January 25, 2012

Over the years, we’d been through Grand Junction at least 4 times, but had never stopped there or visited any of the local attractions.  After this trip, Colorado National Monument will certainly be a place we would like to visit again.

Colorado National Monument, established May 24, 1911, is located just to the west of Grand Junction.  Part of the larger Colorado Plateau, the monument features canyons that cut deep into sandstone and even granite formation.  It is high desert country, with elevation in the park ranging from 4000 feet to nearly 7000 feet above sea level.  Summer temperatures are usually very hot, while nighttime winter temperatures can be extremely cold.  Precipitation is limited, with an annual average of just over 10 inches..

The monument has a lot of hiking trails, with varying length and difficulty – we took two moderately long hikes during our visit, managing to wander off of the Devil’s Kitchen trail into and unmarked area.  We also took the Monument Canyon Trail from the upper trailhead to the Coke Ovens overlook and back.  The lower portion of the train from the lower trailhead to Independence Monument and back is highly recommended for visitors looking to do only one hike.  It’s a 2.5 mile hike that follows the base of sandstone cliffs, offering views of towering rock formations and, in the fall, it’s the best trail to see desert bighorn sheep.

Photos from Colorado National Monument have been published on the Exit78 facebook page in the “Colorado National Monument” album.

Selected Information Resources:

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• Wikitravel
• The American Southwest
• USA Today Travel Tips

Karen’s Post  – Colorado National Monument

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Sustainable

January 23, 2012

Sometimes the overuse of words make them unsustainable and actually reduces their impact.

This work, at xkcd.com, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This means you’re free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). More details.

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Grand Junction and Art on the Corner.

January 20, 2012

As we had a few days before our next reservation – Arches National Park, – we decided to stop in an area we had only passed through before, Grand Junction, Colorado.  While we were there, we took a stroll down Main Street and discovered Grand Junction’s “Art on the Corner.”

While at Grand Junction, we also visited Colorado National Monument and The Museum of Western Colorado.

The name “Grand” is derived from the Grand River, the name for the upper Colorado River before it was renamed in 1921.  “Junction” is from the joining of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers, just southwest of the downtown area.

Selected Information Resources:

Grand Junction.

• Wikipedia
• Wikitravel
• Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau
• City of Grand Junction
• The Daily Sentinel
• Grand Junction Downtown Partnership
  • Art on the Corner
• Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce

Museum of Western Colorado

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Cooling or Warming? (another test of settings)

January 19, 2012

I’m running another test of the settings of the plugin to send posts to facebook.

The figure provided with this test is a trend of satellite determined temperature variation for the lower atmosphere of the entire planet.  The figure is published monthly.  The temperature variation (or anomaly) is plotted as a temperature departure from the average value from January 1981 to December 2010.

The high peaks of the running 13 month average at 1998 and 2009 occurred from periods with strong El Ninos.  The drop at the end of the figure corresponds to La Nina periods

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