Juliancolton

I mean, they definitely are. Civil twilight begins 35 minutes earlier than it did in late June... that's getting pretty hard for even the most absent-minded among us to avoid noticing.

It's actually quite impressive how almost every weekend this summer is dark and dreary.

Depends a lot on moon phase and ambient brightness from light pollution, but I usually start around f/2.8 and ISO 5000 for 20 seconds and just keep shooting continuously until the lens gets soaked in dew. If it's a more urban environment, you'd still want to keep ISO and aperture very fast but reduce your exposure time. Expose for the meteors.

I can't remember the last time the Perseids didn't disappoint. Give me 20 ZHR Leonids over 120 ZHR Perseids any day.

Bananas have always been the clear favorite food of my toy poodle mix as well. Back when she could still hear (or see), she'd come running if you even mentioned the word banana. My grandfather used to tell stories of his dogs stealing only the biggest and plumpest tomatoes out of the garden, so that's been a thing at least going back to the 50s in some households

47.5F this morning should slow down the gardens for a few days

An emotional or mental crisis can be every bit as debilitating as the most gruesome physical injury.

53.5 was my low for the second day in a row

I saw one, uh... shell? husk? yesterday. Felt like the token 0.4" of dust from the annual fringe blizzard

I was thinking yesterday that all the rain this summer will probably delay the usual mid-August flashes of color from sickly maples in ditches. Tremendous blow to my running narration.

Dare ya to go into the main pattern thread and post that summer's back is broken. 56F was the low here

What a year for oriental bittersweet. Criminy. Trees getting choked out left and right.

The main thing is I miss the V8 power, which is more a reflection of my personal choices than the quality of GMC trucks. I'd been wanting to jump down to a mid-size pickup since I don't do any real heavy hauling or towing, but the Canyon just feels underpowered in everyday use. The gearbox is sluggish, especially climbing hills, and braking is rather spongy... I get that it's a truck and not a sports car, but it wouldn't out-maneuver some of the much bigger trucks that I've had. Otherwise, a handful of little grievances, mostly around the interior. The backup cam keeps going offline, and I'm scheduled to bring it in so they can find the loose wire. The wireless charging platform, which admittedly is totally unnecessary, is too small to fit any modern cell phone. That's a real "what's the point?" moment. Gas mileage a bit worse than the estimated 16/22, combined with a small tank, means I'm filling up every 300 miles or so. That said, the ride is smooth, there's plenty of storage, and mechanically it hasn't skipped a beat in the first 6 months/8k miles.

I bought a new 2021 Canyon Denali in February at a reasonable price, so I assume that was just before the market really went nuts. The salesman was going on about how I wouldn't be able to find a new truck in a few months' time. At the time I brushed it off as a slightly embellished version of the usual shtick, but in retrospect, I guess he was right. It turned out to not be my favorite truck ever. If someone offered me over sticker price for it, I'd probably hand them the keys on the spot.

Would you rather fight one triffid-sized tribble, or a hundred tribble-sized triffids?

Thanks for asking. I've cleared just about all the muck and debris, and got lucky that there was no damage to the fence or driveway. Many others in town definitely experienced more long-lasting effects. Only remaining issue imby is the washout in front. A whole bunch of riprap got dislodged and deposited in part of my lawn farther down, so I have no idea what to do about that. I wish I could find one of these things big enough to gather 1-2lb chunks of bluestone.

Yeah, and it's right here at the sfc. Can see and smell it even just in my yard. Definitely don't have to go upstairs to check visibility to yonder hills.

As a former young boy, there's nothing wrong at all with a good garbage truck.

The town has been scraping mud and rocks off the roads with a front-end loader, and it sounds just like plows on a snowy night. How we wish.

The homes on Gidley Rd along Sprout Creek must have been just swamped. They got hit hard during Irene, and this was at least as bad as then for our area. A neighbor grew up in my house in the late 60s and early 70s, and he said this was the worst flooding he'd ever seen from my pond. The bank and outflow channel will need some remedial work, but at least it's still a pond, which was in doubt for a while. I'm told a number of people had to be rescued from stalled cars on Waterbury and Camby last night. How folks manage to get themselves in that situation, I'll never understand Radar estimated storm total precip from WeatherTap. Totals are almost always inflated, but good for identifying spatial patterns. I finally got around to checking the Stratus - 4.73" for a total, almost all of which fell in 90 minutes.

The hits keep coming for sure. It doesn't get much more dead-nuts than this:

6" according to the PWS, I'll check the Stratus in the morning. It seems that my pond completely breached... front yard is under 3' of rushing water which continues down the road for about 1/4 mile. You could see numerous fish getting swept away, rather sadly.

Yeah, for real. Tipper says I'm over 4" now. Lord alone knows what that translates to in reality, but it's just getting heavier.

The firehose has commenced. Another weekend, another epic deluge.

Thanks for the update on when to expect the next big rain event, much appreciated