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  Friday, August 13, 2004


Hurricane's Winds, Flood Waters Lash Fla. (AP). AP - A stronger-than-expected Hurricane Charley roared ashore Friday as a dangerous Category 4 storm, slamming the heavily populated Gulf Coast with devastating storm surges and 145 mph wind that snapped trees in half, ripped roofs off buildings and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people. [Yahoo! News - Top Stories]

Folks on the east coast wonder how we put up with drought and fires and earthquakes. We wonder how they put up with blizzards and locusts and hurricanes. At least with hurricanes, you get some warning: these days, you can watch them coming for hours and days on the Weather Channel. Major earthquakes, while hitting years apart, give virtually no warning -- maybe a second or two of rattling before the big jolt.

I sailed through a dying hurricane in the Tasman Sea in 1980. We were hove to for 36 hours because it was just too rough to sail. Top winds then were 65 knots, with many hours at 55 knots. A smaller boat went down with four sailors, including its designer/builder, on board, just a few miles from us.

Let's be grateful that, despite the damage, there were few lives lost to Charley.

9:47:34 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

WordCount is an interactive graphical presentation of the 86,800 most common English words, in order. Look for words by rank or by specifying the word; look for unexpected juxtapositions; look for random poetry.

For instance, "war" ranks #304, "love" ranks #384, but "hate" is #3107.

Discovered via Brand Autopsy.


8:39:27 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

STC Fellow and co-President's Award recipient Ginny Redish achieves another form of fame in "LL Spool J and the Quest for UI9," the latest in the comic strip by the OK/Cancel guys.

1:44:54 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

And Happy Birthday to:
  • Annie Oakley
  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Bert Lahr
  • George Shearing
  • Fidel Castro
  • Don Ho
  • Quinn Cummings
  • and me.
Also on this day in history:
  • The Battle of Britain began, 1940
  • Construction of the Berlin Wall began, 1961
  • PeopleSoft was founded, 1987.

10:06:53 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []


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