Moore, OK, Not Okay Today

Today I was mostly consumed with academic concerns but did manage to watch a couple of hours of live streaming TV coverage from local Oklahoma City newsmedia market outlets during the immediate aftermath of today's tragedy at Moore, OK. At last count 91 people were killed and that number is expected to rise perhaps sharply. Below is an interesting fast-motion version of about 15 minutes of live video footage condensed down to about 3 minutes and showing the devastating EF-5 tornado demolish a swath of that repeatedly tornado-beleaguered community. Note the debris ball envelope the lower end of the half-mile wide wedge and also note the rapid motion of the wall cloud and its rapid descent nearly to the ground during the climax of the tornado as it was tearing up Moore, OK.

Picture of the Day - Scholarship Diploma

Today at midday I attended a San Luis Obispo Rotary Club scholarship award luncheon wherein I was generously awarded by them a scholarship for the 2013-2014 academic year at Cuesta College. The overall experience was magical and I was so impressed with the other scholarship nominees, young people young enough to be my own kids. Their accomplishments are impressive and their composure and presentation before the audience was stirring. It is impossible for me to be 100% pessimistic about the near-future of our civilization knowing people like these are being produced by our community and in communities scattered across our fair land. These new adults will be the leaders and movers and pushers and shakers and "doers" of the coming quarter to half century. I salute my fellow nominees and pray they live fruitful and meaningful and well-lived lives. I was also quite impressed with the caliber of people who are members of the SLO Rotary Club that meets at the Madonna Inn. I would be honored to someday become a member of that august body.  Photo taken with my iPhone (all rights reserved).

Eclectic Arcania's Biggest Fan

This evening in response to my Make That Three Scholarships! column earlier today I received this positive feedback from Eclectic Arcania's biggest fan:

Anonymous May 19, 2013 at 3:18 PM

AS I monitor the weather disaster that touched down near mid continent airport in wichita, I AM PLEASED TO READ THAT YOU MAY STOP EXPLOITING THE CALIFORNIA EDUCATION SYSTEM AT FRUTILITY AND PERSUE YOUR PAUL BLART MALL COP CARREER - YOU ALREADY HAVE THE RENT-A COP BODY. GET THAT GUARD CARD AND ABANDON THIS MID LIFE CRISIS. LINDA IS GOING TO NEED YOU IN LATER LIFE

In response to this lovely little comment I kept it real and responded thus:

Dear Anonymous,

Your mother must be proud of you. You, her little baby, hides behind your online anonymity and makes disparaging comments sans attaching your name and reputation to them. This was undoubtedly the sort of thing which on the day you were born and she first beheld your countenance and embraced you within her arms was the sort of thing she envisioned you would someday grow up to do, thus inspiring her to work all the harder to raise you.

Undoubtedly your mother brags to her friends and peers that you, her favorite child, trolls the internet in such a fashion as to place you on the verge of cyber-stalking on other people's blogs.

Your mom's friends envy her that she has raised a child who has grown up to live such a meaningful and productive life that it allows you the time to dabble in an online activity for whom the world views its practitioners as lowest form of life on the internet.

I'm certain she is heartened to see you, her beloved child, appear to fully grasp the intent and purpose of financial aid as well as the benefits of acquiring an education.

Not only that, your mother would be filled with pride to see you commenting upon someone else's weight and that from a position of anonymity.

As if all this weren't enough your standards of "netiquette" have you using ALL CAPS in an attempt to place emphasis although it actually means in internet etiquette that you are shouting all of which she would find as quaint and charming as I do.

However, your mother might wonder what you meant by "FRUTILITY" and "PERSUE" and "CARREER".

Your beloved mother and I definitely wonder who "LINDA" is and if by that you meant my mother "Lynda" and if so how it would be my responsibility and not her husband's primary responsibility to provide for her.

Also, your lovely mother and I both wonder how I could support my mother as she gets older if I were to pursue a career as a security guard as you are suggesting when everyone knows a college graduate has a higher earning power than a non-college graduate.

Lastly, we all admire how fast you were able to transition from beginning to comment about the severe weather in Kansas today and seamlessly segue into your inspiring message to me.

I am grateful for this opportunity for meaningful interaction with you this day. I am heartened to know there are purveyors of truth and goodness out there in the ether of the internet such as yourself whom strive to be a positive and inspiring influence in the world on their fellow human beings and in particular, fellow American citizens such as myself.

I don't wish to distract you from the important stuff you are doing with your busy life by commenting here any further so I wish you a lovely day!

Kim Patrick Noyes

Vino Vice - Episode One

Until a few days ago I had planned on today taking a $75 CPR & First Aid class (a refresher course for me) at the 911 Supply House in Paso Robles. However, it was cancelled a couple of days ago and rescheduled for the middle of next month. I had made the choice to sacrifice going on an exciting multi-club rockhounding excursion to Area 54 in Western Fresno County all day today in order to take that class. Therefore, I had planned on taking the field trip after all in light of this development.

Within a day of receiving that cancellation notice for the class I received a telephone call from my buddy William Buchanan who works as a supervisor at the new up-and-coming local security company Vino Vice whose focus are wine events. He asked me if I wanted to come down and work with them as a trainee at today's 31st Annual Paso Robles Wine Festival in the downtown City Park. He has been encouraging me for many months to get a Guard Card and join the team pending acceptance by the owner However, my time and money demands have not allowed for it heretofore. Billy told me if I was interested in his offer to not worry about the Guard Card for now with the caveat of picking it up later albeit sooner than later. Following today's wonderful experience and the motivation I now feel to do this again I am going to get that Guard Card ASAP once I get past college finals next week.

Today I thoroughly enjoyed myself, served the community, picked up vital experience, and hopefully impressed the team, particularly the boss and his three supervisors. It was nice seeing a good number of people I know visiting or working the event and even being recognized by one or two visitors whom I felt badly that I did not recognize, but such is having a 43 year-old's name retention ability.

View southeast from the northeast corner of Spring Street and 12th Street looking into City Park at about 8 a.m. before the vendors arrived.

View from the middle of 12th Street at Spring Street looking eastward towards Pine Street closure at the opposite end. This stretch of 12th Street was closed down for the day for the benefit of pedestrians arriving and leaving the event.

View looking southwest from the middle of 12th Street at Pine Street looking into the park at about 8:30 a.m. prior to the arrival of most vendors.

View north from the center of the park with the distinctive Acorn Building in the distance. This building was rebuilt following the 2003 San Simeon Quake which destroyed the original.

View southeast from the center of the park looking towards Park Cinemas.

View north from the center of the park with more detail of the rebuilt Acorn Building and to the left of it across Park Street from it one can see another prominent downtown building red-tagged by authorities following the quake and was rebuilt in 2005.

View southwest from in the east-center region of the park looking at the Carnegie Library Museum and showing the crowds having disbursed following the end of the event in the park at 4 p.m.

View southeast from the northwest area of the parking looking into the center of the park with the Carnegie Library Museum at right. Note that almost everybody has cleared the park by the point this image was captured.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Make That THREE Scholarships!

Dear Kim Noyes ,

Congratulations!  You have been selected by the Cuesta College Scholarship Committee to receive the following scholarship(s) for the 2013-2014 academic year:

317650 - Glenn H. Robinson Memorial Scholarship Fund              $ 625.00
327150 - Rotary Club of SLO         $ 800.00
313900 - Delta Kappa Gamma Alpha Mu                $ 625.00

If you wish to accept this award, you will need to write a thank you letter (TYL) to the donor(s).  You will receive a separate email with instructions and details about the TYL format. The Financial Aid Office must receive your TYL(s) by Friday, May 24th, 2013. You must submit one TYL for each scholarship you receive.

Students who will not be attending Cuesta and/or want to decline a scholarship award do not need to submit a TYL. Any students who do not have a TYL on file with the Financial Aid Office by deadline will forfeit their scholarship award by default.

Students may submit TYL via email to maria_vaccaro@cuesta.edu with subject line “1314 Scholarship Thank You Letter”. Students also have the option of submitting the TYL in person or by mail to:

Cuesta College

Financial Aid Office

PO Box 8106

San Luis Obispo, CA 93403

As a scholarship recipient, your attendance is required at the annual scholarship reception that will take place on Friday, August 9, 2013. The reception is hosted by Cuesta College Foundation and provides the opportunity for donors to meet their scholarship recipients. Invitations for the reception event will be sent out in early July.

On behalf of the Financial Aid Scholarship Committee, it is our pleasure to recognize your personal and academic achievements. Best wishes for a successful year ahead!

Sincerely,

Maria-Belen Vaccaro
Cuesta College
Financial Aid Specialist

California Disasters Group 6 Years Later

California Disasters Group Icon/Logo/Avatar entitled "Central Theatre, on Market at 8th Street, in flames" from the SF public library historical photos collection.

California Disasters was conceived by me six years ago this very day while I was driving eastbound on Highway 58 in the Tehachipi area en route to Arizona/New Mexico. I called up my then-girlfriend and asked her to set up the Yahoo group while I was out of town which she did quite effectively and here it still stands today with over 1400 members.

We have been through a lot of disasters together, mostly wildfires but also some earthquakes and tornadoes and tsunamis and flash floods and other things as well. We have seen posted here and in some cases even discussed a lot of interesting discoveries about past hazards and likewise regarding some future hazards. We have endured our fair share of occasional drama as with any group. Despite Yahoo! Groups' losing market share from where it was six years ago here we still are going strong.

In acknowledgement of and response to the perpetually changing environment of the internet and society at large we have now expanded into Facebook, Linkedin, and Reddit. Below are links to each version of the group and everybody is encouraged and invited to any one ore more of them.

California Disasters on Yahoo Groups

California Disasters on Facebook

California Disasters on Linkedin
California Disasters on Reddit

Getting Back On The Rockhounding Saddle

Late this afternoon after nearly talking myself out of doing it as I have often done this Spring I finally made myself drive down to rockhound for petrified wood and biconiods in Templeton in a relatively-recently disked field that in recent years had gotten overgrown despite its annual mowings per the local fire codes. Someone not only brought in a tractor and disking attachment but also used a backhoe to dig out some rather heavy brush.

From the looks of it this field was probably cleared over a month ago, perhaps even two. However, between my delay in noticing this development and my being too busy and/or under-motivated to actually drive down to Templeton (the next town to the south of where I live) it didn't happen until today. Better late than never!

Over the course of the less than one-hour visit I managed to find one petrified whale bone chunk but no biconoid material. I seem to remember having better success here in the past than I did today. I suspect some fellow members of the Santa Lucia Rockhounds (I won't mention Chris Driesbach by name) got in there before I did. This was only the first or second time I have searched this field since I last visited it with my ex-girlfriend in 2008 or 2009.

By the way, this was my first rockhounding excursion of any size thus far this year! It felt good getting out and getting dirty after such a long drought (for me). However, this year school and work and my own poor time management at times have conspired to keep cooped up inside much more than I'd prefer.

Tomorrow I will miss a significant multi-club rockhounding excursion to southwest Fresno County. I had hoped to carpool to it following cancellation of my CPR & First Aid class set for the same day. However, I have been invited to come in and work a security detail all day at the Paso Robles Wine Festival at Paso Robles' downtown park, and thus will mess out on rockhounding in a new location (for me).

This is the field to which I refer and I'm sure locals will recognize this location west of Highway 101.

What attracted me to come check this field today was the relatively recent diskng of it for fire code purposes. This is in contrast to its usual annual mow job which is much less likely to expose fresh Templeton treasures.

After much searching I managed to find this solo segment of petrified whale bone which I photographed in situ. This specimen is highly silicated and will take a beautiful polish. Whenever it smacked another stone it made a very distinct clank due to all the silicon dioxide (SiO2 which is quartz) within it.

This is the general area of the field in which I found the above chunk of highly silicated whale bone. Yellow star thistle is rapidly growing back so it is good I visited today before that plant could hurt my besandled feet any more than it did.

Here is a closer-up view of the specimen.

The field in question contained a fair amount of colorful Franciscan Melange jaspers of various colors such as this red one I found today. I also saw some nice brecciated jaspers as well as radiolarian chert.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).