Friday, July 19, 2002

Friday Coffee Talk This is going to be brief. It appears my hard drive on the laptop may be failing. Doesn't anyone make a laptop hard drive that doesn't fail after a year? It's going to be the end of a perfectly inperfect week. I'm going to fire up the CDburner and make a diskmirror. Wish me luck. Pittman Resigns as COO of AOL/TW - I told you this one was coming. Bob Pittman has resigned under pressure. I'd prefer to say he's resigned because Bob saw the writing on the wall, knew he was going to take the fall for literally hundreds of screw-ups, mergers and other dumb business moves made by AOL before, during and after AOL took over Time-Warner and countless other start-ups and established businesses.. and decided it was time to get out of Dodge. Ask me, I know. I've lived it. I could write a novel on the roller coaster ride. I suspect the next place you see Bobby will be attached to a "mouse" or "friend of the mouse." He's always wanted to be back in television since MTV-days. Spaceweather Reports Another coronal mass ejection is heading for Earth. It was hurled into space Thursday, July 18th, by an explosion near the huge sunspot 30. The expanding cloud could trigger geomagntic activity when it sweeps past our planet. Sky watchers--especially those at high latitudes--should be alert for possible auroras after nightfall on Friday and Saturday. Meanwhile, sunspot 30 remains impressive. It stretches 15 Earth diameters from end to end. A second spot (active region 36) has grown nearly as large in recent days. You can see both--but NEVER STARE DIRECTLY AT THE SUN. Visit spaceweather.com for safe solar observing tips. There are more pictures of the June Solar Eclipse appearing on their site. Many are wonderful or plain wierd. This weekend is the Northwestern end of the Southern California Quilter's Run. I was supposed to go. I suspect I will be rebuilding a hard drive on a notebook instead. Gotta run the HD's making really wierd noises. 1:21:33 PM

A Suspected Arrested  This morning arrested a 27-year-old Alejandro Avila (right), of Lake Elsinore in connection with the kidnapping and murder of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion. At the moment the police are releasing little information and are attempting to sidetrack the public's attention by releasing the 911 tapes of the person who actually found Samantha's body. If you hear the tape, the young man of the young man "Justin" who called in the discovery of Samatha's body-- it will rip your heart out. The LA Times Article is the best composite news source. Many of us late night owls here in the LA area got the head's up that the police had found a car matching the description in Lake Elsinore/Temecula area. It was in the general area near where the body had been found. I had heard via the scanners and news leads, Forensics was all over the car like a swarm of bees, but from the sketchy information the cops were putting out, it sounded like a pretty sound lead. They were also putting out a low-key signal that they were also searching and collecting evidence at the suspect's mother's apartment where the suspect lived. The suspect has told the cops he was at the Onterio Mills Mall on Monday when the kidnapping took place. This should be easy to prove, because security at that mall has camera's everywhere. No doubt someone's napped all the mall tapes. I hope. Also Avila's mother said had called her Monday night. That also should be easy to tell, especially if it was a cell phone. Also about lunchtime today the Riverside Deputy DA's Paul Dickerson said Avila was previously charged with Child Molestation of two young old girls, a couple years ago-- but found not guilty. The DA said he was personally absolutely sure Avila had committed those crimes. Okay-- so did the profiles and cops consider him a known suspect? I mean, how many green hondas are in the area, registered to a known sex offender? 12:58:40 PM

© Copyright 2002 Mary Wehmeier. Last update: 8/1/02; 2:52:16 AM. Comments by: YACCS