rob’s place

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He is a big storm and you can see where he’s going.  We started getting rain yesterday and expect more bands to come through today.  It’s off and on gusty in the 20-30 mph range in Orlando.

One thing to pay attention to is if this storm drifts to the west, it could come in at a steep angle.  It may not make much of a change in New Orleans as they will get the brunt of it almost no matter what.  But if it comes in at the steep angle, that makes it stronger as it moves into Texas.  Houston will need to watch for that.

My fiend Kevin shared some good resources to track the storm including a guy riding it out in New Orleans, blogging and twittering.

My resume run through wordle as a ‘word cloud’
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All day yesterday we were getting soaked.  It was Gustav.  He was still over Cuba but was raining on us all day.  We expect a bit more today as he moves on to Louisiana.  But check out this time lapse video from NASA showing Gustav’s growth over the last 3-4 days.

Ever since our visit to Alaska I have loved the place! I started following the Alaska Podshow which is a weekly video of Alaskan things.

And of course this week Alaska has been put back into the news with McCain picking Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice President.

Below is a nice video from the Alaska Podshow of a short hike with Sarah Palin.

That’s Hurricane Gustav (Cat 3) to the west and Tropical Storm Hanna to the east.

I always knew that once a tropical storm or weak hurricane got out into the Gulf of Mexico it usually errupts and intensifies into a major hurricane quickly.  Both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita did it in 2005.

But I didn’t really know why it happens.  I know the water is warm (hot!) but I didn’t know until today why this really happens. It’s called the Loop Current.

…if the water is still warm at lower depths, then water being pulled to the surface remains warm, and the hurricane can increase in intensity if other atmospheric conditions are also conducive to strengthening. Meteorologists look for areas of deep warm water of at least 26 degrees Celsius (79°F). A continuous supply of warm water is one of several critical factors in enabling hurricanes to intensify beyond the initial level of a major hurricane (Category 3)

How warm is the Gulf right now in relation to Gustav?  You tell me:

This isn’t always a guarantee.  If the storm moves fast it may not intensify to a grand scale.  However, since Hurricane Ivan in 2004, the 5 hurricanes to make it to Cat 5 strength, 3 of them went straight through the Loop Current (this isn’t counting the Cat 3 and 4 storms) .

So keep your eye on Gustav.  He’s heading right through the Loop Current.

Thankfully he’s not supposed to get to Cat 5, but this explains why storms like Gustav can grow very fast in the Gulf.  Keep your eye on Gustav.

This is bad, bad, bad.  Here’s what we have going on right now with Gustav to the west and Hanna to the east.

Close to 50 are dead in the Caribbean because of Fay and Gustav already.

It’s about to get worse though not just for the Caribbean.  Here’s what Hurricane Gustav is expected to do this weekend:

It goes without saying that this is just horrible for New Orleans.  And you may have heard about the oil rigs that are in trouble.  I found this map somewhere but can’t remember where.  It’s where some of the current oil rigs are around Louisiana:

Yeah, most of those oil platforms are in trouble.

My heart goes out to the Cubans and Hispolians.  It’s been a tough couple weeks.  And it’s probably going to get worse.

The storm track closest to Cuba was Fay.  The one on top of Jamiaca is Gustav.  The path aiming for Cuba from the North is Hanna.

I really don’t like the way Hurricane Gustav is shaping up right now.  On the long range track, Gustav is looking to be a Major Category 3 hurricane aiming for somewhere between Houston and New Orleans by early next week.

The bad news for New Orleans is if he stays on track, NO will get the front-right quadrant of the major hurricane.  In case you didn’t know, that is the most dangerous area of these storms.

Hurricane Gustav Spotlight

We got a call this morning from someone saying they are from CR Associates, phone number 877-738-4814.  They said a relative of ours put us down as a contact.  We didn’t know the person but said we’d check it out.

We also did some looking online about CR Associates.  Couldn’t find anything relevant.  So I searched for their phone number and found this listing for (877) 738-4814 / 8777384814.

Just what we expected.  A scam.  My wife called back and the person on the line was very rude, raised their voice, and didn’t want to tell us anything about them.

I called a little later and spoke to a guy asking what their company was about.  He wouldn’t answer my question and twisted my words, then hung up on me.  I called right back and he picked up.  He was mad, and told me I was ‘using the wrong bait to find what I’m looking for’.  Not even sure what that means, but it’s obvious they don’t want to have a conversation with me.  He hung up on me again.

So just so you know, if you get a phone call from CR Associates from the phone number 877-738-4814, just know it’s a scam.  Or at the very least, a company that doesn’t want to answer any questions about who they are or what they do.

I like to stay up on current events.  The last couple weeks though I’ve been preoccupied with the Olympics and Tropical Storm Fay among other things.  I knew that there was a war with Russia and Georgia but I really didn’t get what was going on.  It seemed Russia invaded Georgia just for the heck of it.  I know that can’t be (fully) true, so I did some reading this morning and think I’ve got it kinda figured out.  It’s more complex than this, but here’s how I’m understanding it now.

First let’s get out the map:

Okay, see that part in the middle called South Ossetia?  The people group living there are mostly Ossetians, a group of Iranian descent.  They are a people divided to the south and the north.  This map doesn’t show it, but in Russia, just north of S. Ossetia is an area called North Ossetia.  The land in the north is Russian.  The land in the south is confusing.  But the first thing I realized is that this is a people group divided by border.

In the 80’s there were no problems (wink).  Georgia, Russia, Ossetia, and also Abkhazia to the west of Georgia were all part of the USSR.  But when the USSR split up, Georgia got it’s independence.  In fact, both Abkhazia and Ossetia wanted theirs also but they became part of Georgia.

Where it gets funky is that over the last 15 or so years, both have been given special autonomous government while still a territory of Georgia.   But the Russians say that 90% of the South Ossetians (in Georgia remember) have Russian passports and protection from the Russians.  Georgians say that the Russians helped to install a Russian government and is fueling the Ossetian rebellion.

So a few weeks ago South Ossetia launched a small attack on Georgia. (see edit at end of post) Georgia decided to retaliate with more force.  Russia, feeling they have a responsibility to protect S. Ossetia, launched an even stronger attack on Georgia.  S. Ossetia was almost completely destroyed from the fighting.  Russia also can claim that Georgia was attempting genocide since relatively no Ossetians live in Georgia proper and they were attacking a place filled with the ethnic Ossetians.

Meanwhile Abkhazia decided they’d take the opportunity to launch against Georgia also and drive out any remaining Georgians in Abkhazia.  The Russians came to assist the Abkhaz to ‘establish peace’.  In this case, peace means no more Georgians in Abkhazia.

Today Russia announced that they believe that both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are independant nations.  Georgia is insulted along with the EU and the US. Meanwhile the Abkhaz ethnic group and the Ossetia ethnic group are elated.

Sources: Wikipedia: 2008 South Ossetia War, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Gaurdian.co.uk: Russia defies west by recognising Georgian rebel regions

EDIT: it’s unclear who was responsible for starting the war because there were “ongoing occasional skirmishes [that] escalated to a war early in the morning of 7 August 2008, with an attack by Georgia into the break-away region of South Ossetia” (source wikipedia).  It does seem that Georgia was the aggressor, not South Ossetia as I originally wrote.