Situation Normal

Sunrise - not volcano glow

Good morning! Well, the coffee's hot and good, but I had to warm it with propane instead of molten rock running alongside the yurt. And it also seems that all of those hours of childhood training, playing "The Carpet is Lava" in the living room, have thus far amounted to little more than wasted time.  I had planned on getting up this morning, making a nice pot of coffee, relaxing in the hammock while I had a cup or two, and then running for my life.  Instead I'll have to settle on making a nice pot of coffee, relaxing in the hammock over a cup or two, and then running the mower or weed whacker.  But on the brighter side, I do like coffee, and I have some amount of affection for living, so all in all it's a good morning. 

Turns out they call these quick successions of earthquakes "swarms."  A dumb name, if you ask me, but then again you didn't, so I won't go into it.  

If you'd like to read more about the volcano and it's current grumpiness, here's a person who by all rights should know more than me.

The Hills Are Alive

"... with the sound of something...."

Hello everyone!

First off, FYI, I'm 100% A-OK.  Nothing going on here apart from one little tremble that didn't even come from the mountain.

What am I talking about, you may ask?  Well, if you don't know, that's good news.  That means my blogging has worked, and nothing serious has happened (which was probably going to be the case whether I posted about it or not). But in case you have heard something, and are checking here for an update, everything's fine.

What's happening is this: Mauna Kea is acting a bit fussy.  A little after 2:00 pm local time,  the USGS recorded a magnitude 4.5 quake on the northwest slope.  Two minutes later there was another measured at 3.6.  Since then, at the time of this writing (five hours later), there have been 27 other smaller earthquakes in that same place.  If you wanna check out a regularly updated list, go here.  If you click on the cluster on the north end of the island, that'll give you all the info for the most recent quakes.  If you check out the south end, near Pu'u O'o, then you'll see the 3.5 magnitude quake that I felt just before writing this.

Even with all of these quakes, I haven't felt any of them other than the one by Pu'u O'o (pronounced poo-oo oh-oh).  In fact, I had no idea anything was going on until my good friend TheMatt sent me a text asking how things were going.  He's a news photog for KOMO in Seattle, and saw something about it come over the wire. 

Why is this happening?  Who knows?  All I know is that I nearly failed geology in college.  I just can't get excited about rocks and schist. *rimshot*  But what I do know is that I'm happy it's a lot of little quakes instead of one big one.  I've always heard that's a good thing.  And if there's one thing I've learned, it's always believe what you hear as long as it makes your current situation of potential volcanic eruption appear better.

One theory though, posed by Des (who likes cooking), is that I'm not preventing anything by writing, but instead manifesting a potential natural disaster just so I have something to blather on about.  Perhaps. You can form your own opinion about that.

In the meantime, I'm going to post this, cook some soup, wrap the dogs' feet in tinfoil (just in case), and watch Dante's Peak before bed.

Oh, and I'll also be drinking beer.  There's no way I'm letting the volcano take my beer.  To paraphrase Charlton Heston, that volcano can have my beer when it pries it from my hot, melted hands.

I'm Back! (But I Might Be Leaving Again Soon)

Always know where your rake is.

I was going to write a post about this, but the further I get away from the moment, the less funny it sounds.  Now, with perspective, I realize I really just wanted to make a picture of ALF holding a potato rake in space.

Anyway, here's the article that inspired it.

http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/sir-richard-branson-and-new-mexico-governor-susana-martinez-dedicate-the-virgin-galactic-gateway-/

That said, it seems to me that opening a space port with no working spacecraft is kinda like me saying I'm opening a brewery because I have a lot of empty bottles.

Or something.


On the upside, I'm working on converting the yurt into a space ship.

Still Not Back Yet....

....but in honor of the Kaiwiki Lebowski Fest (what we call it when anyone in the neighborhood besides me watches The Big Lebowski) I found some great visuals.

And of course they must be shared.

"Turn to the power of the Dark Side, you human paraquat!"

(bonus points if you get the reference just I made to yet a third flick)

found here

 A Lebowski Anime-style?

found here

(some weird stuff there - you've been warned)

Screw you guys, I'm going bowling.

found here

Lastly,

You must ask yourself (and then do the opposite):

I'm Not Back to Blogging...

...but this is totally worth sharing.

If you like cute women, drunk women, cute drunk women, funny women, cute funny women, cute funny drunk women, women who cook, cute women who cook, cute funny drunk women who cook, women who occasionally curse, drunk women who occasionally curse, cute drunk funny women who cook and occasionally curse, OR cheese, then this is the video blog for you.

(you've been warned, there's cursing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq7G-Q9ZwC0

While this is the first episode, and it isn't the best, I think it's good to start at the beginning.  And if you watch in order, when you get to Episode 8 (the ice cream one) if you're not laughing, you're dead inside.  Better go see someone about that.

From out of nowhere, it arrives.....

....DEATH METAL ROOSTER!!!



Been feeling like posting lately, and what better way to return than.....

....DEATH METAL ROOSTER!!!

Last Thoughts on Today's Tsunami

Well, I was hoping to have some extra information for you all today, perhaps with some photos or something, but as it turned out, after a long and stressful night, today was actually pretty normal.  School was cancelled, and I asked the secretary to let me know if she was going in and I didn't hear back from her, so as it worked out, I didn't even make it into town today.  Just did yard work, and took a nap.

As for the promise to rant about the media, I've decided that in light of everything that has happened in Japan, and everything that is still going on there, any complaints I have seem trite and shallow against that backdrop.

I want to once again thank you all for your thoughts and concerns, both for myself and the other folks here on the islands.  The sentiment  is appreciated.  But as I said before, all thoughts and prayers should now be turned to the people in Japan, and what they're dealing with, as well as for the people still under a tsunami threat in parts of Central and South America.

Hopefully we can get back to the old, lighter, potato rake infested blog we're all used to soon.

Thanks again.

Downgraded

Just in: We've been downgraded from a "tsunami warning" to a "tsunami advisory".  Not an all clear, but enough to let people who have been evacuated to go home.  Seems as though it's over, 4½ hours in.

I'll be writing more later today to sum up any damages and maybe post some photos if there's anything good when I go down to check on the school this afternoon.  Plus I'm going to want to complain about the media. :)

Thanks for the messages, calls, and texts, and thanks for reading.

Again, all good thoughts and prayers should go out to everyone in Japan.

Three Hour Update

New info coming through is that some of the later waves are a bit bigger than the earlier surges.  Reports are that water more than 10 above sea level have flooded areas on the other side of the Big Island (Kona side).  Info right now is that there is certainly some property damage, but no reports of casualties or injuries.

Ugh...  Stupid news people (no offense Matt)....  All but encouraging people to go out and take pictures.  *insert string of swear words here*

Anyway, it is clear that things here are not over yet.  The good news is the sun is starting to think about coming up, so there should be more substance and less speculation soon.

Once again, I'm way way WAY above where the water can reach, so nothing to worry about with me.  Just trying to sift through all of the crap and send out whatever real info there is.

Good luck to all you U.S. west coasters!!

Two Hours In

Hey everyone.  Things are still fine here in the yurt.  Dogs are sleeping, the rain is coming down now, and I've got the news streaming online.

It seems the surge in Hilo Bay has been measured at about five feet above normal sea level.  I'm trying to picture if that height will have any impact on my school.  I don't think so...but I suppose it's possible.  It's always difficult to judge elevation.

Either way, all reports are that the evacuation worked well, and that all things being said, the tsunami has been milder than expected.  The sea will continue to surge and recede throughout the day, but the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is fairly confident that the moment of real concern has passed. Ultimately I won't know much though until the sun comes up in about an hour. 

Given that, now is the time to send thoughts and prayers for the people of Japan.

I'll update again when I have more info.

Zero-Hour Update

So I woke up to see if anything was going on.  Admittedly there's not much I can hope to see here, as it is the middle of the night, the moon has already set, and the usual morning clouds are already hanging out in the east.  In my mind's eye, I thought I'd go stand on the back porch and see the worst: the airport runway lights suddenly blink out. That hasn't happened.  Instead, there was a shooting star moving east to west through Scorpius.  That's gotta mean something, right?

*fingers still crossed*

Anyway, the 3 a.m. siren sounded, ran its five minutes, and has been silent since.

More later.

And the Hits Keep On Coming!

Just to make things interesting, we just now had a nice earthquake of our own.

http://tux.wr.usgs.gov/Quakes/hv60222496.html

Had a nice little shimmy-shake here at the yurt.  Nothing too bad, really, but given the current state of affairs I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little on edge.  So the dogs and I scampered out of the yurt and made sure Pele wasn't trying to compete with whatever controls the volcanoes in Japan.
\
Whew!

Ok....  Off to try and relax.

Communication Breakdown

It's always the same.

Just so you know, at the moment at least, I can't send text messages or make phone calls pretty much at all.  All circuits are busy.  I seem to be able to get voice mails and texts since they can come through when there's not too much for the system to handle.  At any rate, please refrain from calling until tomorrow evening.  I'm hoping I'll have internet service throughout all of this, although the more I think about it, the more I see that's not guaranteed either.  But I will have electricity and fresh water and all of that, so I suppose that's what's more important.

Now if only I had some beer....  :)

More later.

DO NOT WORRY, I'M FINE

I was planning on getting back to writing here on the blog next week, as I'll be having Spring Break and will have some extra time and a few things going on, but I figured it'd be prudent of me to write this now.

A few minutes ago, as I'm sure you probably know if you're reading this on Friday (tomorrow for me) that an 8.9-magnitude earthquake happened a couple of hundred miles off of the coast of Japan. I haven't heard much about the damage in Japan, but I hope the damage is not too bad, and the people there are safe.

If you're here reading this, it's because you're wanting to know how I'm doing here.  It's true that as I write this  (after midnight Colorado time), Hilo is under a tsunami warning, with the first wave expected to hit around 3 a.m.  That said, I'm fine and will remain so.  I'm well above any area that will be hit by the tsunami.  No need to worry about me.

I just received a call from the secretary of the school that I'm working at, and she's collecting the servers and other tech stuff from the school sites and hauling them to higher ground.

With any luck, the waves will die down before they get here, and life tomorrow will be business as usual with the added conversation of another disaster averted for the town of Hilo.  If that's not the case, I'll be posting here and possibly on twitter.

Ok.  That's all for now.  I have a feeling I'll be up pretty early tomorrow, so I'm going to try and get some sleep while I can.

Thanks for checking in, and I'm sure I'll talk with all of you soon.

EDIT: Just as I hit "post", at exactly 10 p.m., the first warning siren kicked on in town. It's a bit creepy, to be honest.