Fallout Shelter

Robert Craig Knievel

Evel Knievel -- dead at 69, and dead from disease.  You'd kinda hope (as much as you can hope for any kind of death for someone you don't dislike) that he'd go out in, say, a car crash, like "Q" -- Desmond Llewelyn -- did.  Alas, and alas. 

Yes, it's still dry here

From the NWS via Weather Underground's Durham page:

	Public Information Statement
Statement as of 2:34 PM EST on November 30, 2007 ... November 2007 will go down as the driest on record at the Raleigh-Durham international Airport (RDU)... November 2007 rainfall observed at RDU... 0.48 of an inch. The previous top 5 driest Novembers at RDU (since 1944) 0.50 2001 0.61 1973 0.73 1991 0.88 1960 0.95 1981 This will also be the 4th driest November on record for the entire Raleigh area (going back to 1887). The driest November on record for the Raleigh area occurred twice... (1890 and 1931)... when only 0.06 inches was observed. At the Piedmont triad international Airport (GSO)... a bit more frequent rainfall in November totaled out to 0.84 inches of rain... pushing it out of the top 5 driest for GSO. Rainfall records for the year may be set... Yearly rainfall at both RDU and GSO will likely fall in the top 5 driest by the end of December. Observed rainfall at RDU... 31.36 inches (8.47 inches below normal). Driest on record for the Raleigh area (since 1887)... 1. 29.93 inches in 1933 2. 32.09 inches in 1921 3. 33.71 inches in 1976 4. 33.92 inches in 1930 5. 34.43 inches in 1965 Observed rainfall at GSO... 28.28 inches (11.61 inches below normal). Driest on record for GSO (since 1928)... 1. 27.74 inches in 1941 2. 29.67 inches in 1986 3. 29.83 inches in 2001 4. 32.44 inches in 1930 5. 32.86 inches in 1968 In addition both RDU and GSO new records could be set for the fewest number of days with measurable rainfall in a calendar year. At RDU there has been only 81 days of measurable rainfall (0.01 or more) in 2007. This is 11 days less than the record low of 92 days set in 1969... 1965... and 1953. At GSO... there has been 76 days of measurable rainfall in 2007. This is 9 days less than the record of 85 days set in 1986. The normal number of days with measurable rainfall at both GSO and RDU in a calendar year is 113... meaning both locations have seen more than a month's worth of fewer rain days than normal. The normal number of days with measurable rainfall for December at both stations is 9 days. Given the current dry pattern and lack of frequent rain events both RDU and GSO stand to set all time records for the fewest number of days with observed rain in a year.

Kidney stones

Don't get 'em.  They suck. 

Today's obsessions

Isolate languages, and a few of the peoples who speak them, à la Wikipedia.

I don't think the same person wrote the isolates page and the endangered languages page: on the first, Basque is listed as one of the few isolates that's "living," while the endangered page lists it as "in decline."  I'm pretty sure Basque has way more than 1000 speakers (the endangered page lists that as a guideline number).  The endangered page also lists Cornish (not an isolate) as "Previously extinct, attempts at revival have restored small native speakership."

And, if you can read this, you're reading a "killer language."  I'm mostly writing this to keep from posting about anything more on the news.  I'm sure that'll make my language even more killer, while wasting electrons like mad.  :)

Paul Harvey would be no help here

...and in other "medical" news, since when does getting defibrillated mean being "treated for an irregular heartbeat," especially when you already have an implanted defibrillator?  I would say Cheney's going to wind up like William Cozzano in Interface, except he'll never be elected president.

...the rest of the story

It'd be interesting to nice to know what else is going on here.  Even the current news reports aren't consistent. 

If his femoral artery was pierced and he's even alive, he's a lucky MF.  If he doesn't have brain damage, he'll be extremely lucky -- until someone breaks into his house again or tries to kill him. 

Edit: I guess he wasn't so lucky after all. 

Pardon our mess

Does anyone happen to know what's going into the space on the 700 block of Washington Avenue across the street (more or less) from the new condos?  It's a lot more extensive than what was torn down. 

AND, while I'm posting, I bet the same person will know:  How long is Main St. going to be blocked off between Brightleaf and Downtown?  It seems like it's been at least a month so far, but I haven't actually been counting. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Some combination of the Kanye West's mom/Jan Adams weirdness on Larry King, Barry's posting "Alice's Restaurant," and the holiday made me wonder about what was the weirdest thing I've ever seen live on TV -- not a show or anything staged, but a live event.  I guess I've seen some pretty weird things that were "news," like the OJ Simpson low-speed chase and the (almost) 3rd game of the 1989 World Series.  But the first thing that sprang to mind was Jim Rome's interview of Jim Everett on ESPN2 in 1994, which I saw live with my friend Rob: 

Rob and I were glued to the set the next night to see what Rome would have to say about the incident. 

Join the fight against Christmas creep

Michael over at The Bull in Full is leading the fight against Christmas creep.  Go help him out. 

Milestones

... and that last post was #500, more or less, at Fallout Shelter.  My first post was on 1 September 2003, so those 500 posts have taken 4 years, two months, and 18 days.  That works out to a little over 2.27 posts per week.  So far, there have been 1,090 comments on those posts, which makes an average of 2.18 comments per post.  There have been about 35897 page views since the blog was started, which makes for a lifetime average of 23.31 posts/day.  The distribution is not even at all, of course.  For example, over the past 90 days, I've averaged around 61 hits/day.  I'm not counting feed statistics in the above, and I'm not going to go dig those out.  :)  I should probably do some aggregate statistics for all my blogging in multiple places, but a guy has to have some secrets, right?  :)