02:16 - 07.06.07
Candid Camera
The power went off just as I was waking up my youngest to prepare for his workday. Not surprising since there had been about 80 mm of rain in the 14 hours from when the storm first started. An unexpected "supercell" burst, said our meteorologists. That is this city's AVERAGE rainfall for the entire month. By the time the deluge subsided we had about 100 mm in total. There were something like 50 lightning strikes per minute at the height of the storm, two of which hit humans and two that started house fires. Oh yeah. I must say I'm in awe of our emergency services. The emergency line was swamped - pun intended - with frantic calls about homes and roads flooding and people being trapped in vehicles that were waterborne. See, sometimes cell phones are a good thing after all. Some people needed emergency generators delivered to keep their home oxygen pumps working so they could breathe. A couple of hours without power - that's about how long it took for ours to be restored - didn't seem all that bad after all.
I did go out and check around the circumference of my home while my youngest was getting dressed. I just wanted to be certain there was nothing that needed immediate attention or repair roundabout. The water was pouring off the roof over top and through the eaves and fascia. At the one corner it looked as though the pressure of the water might push the whole contraption off. My poor trees and bushes looked as wounded as a week ago when heavy wet snow was overpowering them, but there wasn't much I could do for them either. It was a short tour, but I was soaked through when I went back inside the house. Oddly enough last trip to the grocery store I splurged and bought a new umbrella, since the one we had was broken. I was a bit bemused by the urge; no compelling reason I could think of logically at the time, but I guess listening to one's intuition isn't always a bad thing, is it? On the television, reports made a lot of reference to the amount of rainfall in 2005 when we had that 40 day and 40 nights thang going on. Remember when the one co-worker's roof - and many other families - roof collapsed and she and her family of six had no bathroom as a result. I had been thinking of her yesterday when the storm hit and was hoping that their roof repairs had been well done. Nice lady, that one, and I miss talking with her. From the news reports it sounds as though there is millions of dollars in damage to public infrastructure and millions more to private property. A lot won't be covered by insurance either from the sounds of it.
Once our power was restored, I worked away on the computer trying to get out as many resumes as possible between crashes. My youngest still seems to think it is a hardware issue, but all the reasonable fixes have been tried. Since it seems that the beginning of the crash always comes just as I am visiting one of the really reputable news websites, I'm wondering if there is a malicious code attached or set up to intercept accessors. Maybe a rival in their industry? That seems like a reasonable surmise when even one's keyboard becomes disabled while posting to one's diary, doesn't it? On the other hand, it doesn't make sense, since there are very few people other than me who read what I write to you, dear diary. It happened once before with our broadband provider - some one had put malicious code in their security and firewall software. That was during the strike of their employees. Remember? In the news I guess it isn't just civil servants like me and other Returning Office staff across the country who are being targetted by Revenue Canada for disagreeing with the new governing party. This story about multiple audits on Dr Suzuki for speaking out about the greenhouse gas issue makes one wonder if the politicians are using this as a first line of attack to shut down dissent. Isn't a functional democracy supposed to allow for expression of, and protect those who have, dissenting opinions? On a more interesting note, news of Amnesty International now broadcasting satellite photos of Darfur so that real time observations of the attempts of their government to commit genocide can be used as a type of Neighbourhood Watch program. If nothing else, it can be used as incontrovertible evidence in future war crimes trials, now can't it? Maybe this is the way to stop civil wars and assaults on civilians by non-governmental paramilitary organizations too. You know like the Medellin, FARC, Taliban and so forth. The intent would be to gather proof and to prosecute, not cause more bloodshed though. Never know. Most bullies like to operate unobserved. This can show their behaviour world-wide. Sunshine disinfects. We'll see.
However, my computer is giving signs of crashing again, so I'll sign off then edit when I can get it back up again. Good night dear diary.
�
�
