Ominous Resurgence At El Hierro

El Hierro Volcano in the Canary Island is acting up again after several months of relative quietude. As you may recall this blog posted HERE a satellite image of the submarine eruption there early last year. In the past 24-48 hours there has been a dramatic resurgence of seismicity and up to 3 inches of swelling of parts of the volcanic island over the course of the past week. The largest expression of the aforementioned seismicity was a M5.1 earthquake yesterday whose rockfall whose effects are prominently featured in the video clip below. The volcanic alert level has been raised to YELLOW.

Overheard ~ Like Bad Song Writing

 "She eats your heart out Like Jeffrey Dahmer" ~ Overheard on my car radio yesterday.

That line appears in the current Katy Perry song "Dark Horse" featuring rapper Juicy J actually vocalizing the wretched lyric. At the very moment it hit my ears and my brain recognized it had just been said in my hearing I was both surprised and delighted as it was unintentionally funny and further confirms what most of us who are older than Generation Y know to be true, to wit, that American music overall is being degraded and dumbed down over time. I'm hardly a candy-ass or squeamish but I am a writer and that lyric is just plain bad composition on every level. Jeffrey Dahmer should not be mentioned in any artistic endeavor or expression discussing male-female relationships.

SNL Christmas Song

There are multiple performances of this song that have aired on SNL over the years but here is one as good as any of them as they are all wonderful in their quirky, funny, cute "holiday-ness".

Do The Know It's Christmas? II

This is the second installment of "Do They Know It's Christmas" this time by Band Aid II which came out in 1989. In 2011 I posted on this blog the 1984 Band Aid version HERE. 

Oh Godzilla!

This trailer actually makes this movie look like it will be worth watching. As anybody who has followed this blog for any length of time realizes by now I love science fiction and End-Of-Civilization flicks. Perhaps less well known to you is the fact I love monster flicks provided they aren't too dumb or otherwise frustrating. Notice that this theme of the end of all things or at least a grave threat to the continuance of civilization comes up once again in a major American movie? What drives this deep-seating interest and anxiety? Food for thought to be certain! Anywho, play this teazer full-screen and crank up the speakers.

The Fire Line

I came across this on Twitter this morning and was quite impressed by it. Although it is about the deteriorating Colorado fire situation of recent years it equally applies to the rest of the West including California.

Proof of Love After Death

I came across this earlier today and was overwhelmed by both its soul-crushing sadness as well as its transcendent beauty. Watch with a box of tissues.

Picture of the Day - Fallstreak Hole

I took this image this morning in Atascadero from my mom's neighbor's house where I'm house-sitting of late. I captured it with my iPhone camera and it exceed my expectations. Note the fallstreak hole a.k.a. "altocumulus stratiformis translucidus lacunosus" at bottom left causing a shadow in the altocumulus mackerel sky. UPDATE: The San Luis Obispo Tribune ran an article on this several days later HERE. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Important Pfeiffer Fire Links

Note: this blog post will be updated as often as necessary as this incident unfolds. 

This fire is now up to 917 acres and is now 100% containment. In all 34 homes were damaged/destroyed including the home of the chief of the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade. Four outbuildings were damaged/destroyed as well. Full containment expected Friday evening.. It began around Midnight Monday morning and was initially driven by katabic winds and associated compressional heating with highs Monday into the low 80's and at 3 a.m. Monday morning it was 72 degrees in mid-December on the Big Sur Coast of Monterey County.

Inciweb Pfeiffer Incident Homepage

There are now two Hotlist threads:

IA (Initial Attack) Thread

Questions & Discussion Thread

Monterey Herald Pfeiffer Fire blog

Big Sur Kate is the best source for info when there are fires up there.
She is having internet connectivity problems as a result of the fire.
Be sure to heck it periodically for her updates when they come in.

Webcam 

KTVU Raw Aerial Video showing destroyed homes

KSBW Raw Aerial Video showing homes burning

Spot Weather

Map

Last updated 12/17/13-4:20 p.m. 

"Seeing The Sun" At Night

Tonight as I studied for my scary pre-calculus final tomorrow morning I needed to break the silent monotony and played this on my friend's killer speakers since I'm housesitting in his abode. I had found "See The Sun" by Matt Darey's Urban Astronauts project some days ago. I immediately fell in love with it and now it is my latest musical obsession with Kate Smith's vocals giving me chills and this Aurosonic remix making a good track even greater. This is the first such trance track to do this to me in some time. The video for this is pretty awesome, too, so crank up the speakers and put this player to full-screen. If you can do this solitarily and nocturnally you will get the most powerful effect from this I feel.

Purifying Fire of LUSTMORD

I tend to find the subgenre of ambient music known as dark ambient to be too dark for my tastes. However, I make an exception when it comes to the Lustmord. I first discovered it when the track  "Black Star" (below) from the album "Purifying Fire" was playing on some esoteric music radio station in the Bay Area about a dozen years ago one night while sitting in my car outside my grandmother's house during a difficult visit with her and while looking for some aural massaging of my soul. This music most intrigued me but I could not ascertain what it was and by whom until by chance I figured it out later. This is not for everybody and even for those for whom it is one must be in the right frame of mind and soul for it to resonate.

The Impossible Shot(s)

This is one of the most inspirational things I have watched in quite some time. This is both beautiful and heartwarming with maybe just a tad bittersweetness. This old vet puts on an awe shucks performance that wows the young wippersnappers. For more on this story go HERE.
*UPDATE: Gundy passed away in 2015. *NOTE: Updated 4/19/2017.

WestJet Viral X-mas Video

For a bit of background on this heartwarming tale read HERE.

2013 Drought Graphic #2

Nearly one month ago I posted a similarly-themed graphic from the same source regarding the ongoing drought. Unfortunately, little rain has fallen since and now the departure from normal has widened with just about three weeks left in the calendar year.
Image courtesy of KSBY-TV San Luis Obispo.

Picture of the Day - My Fuzz Monster

Here is my furry, four-legged daughter Rocki in all her fuzzy glory just a short time ago. She is a wonderful Maine Coon who was under-nourished before being rescued as a small kitten in 2008. Therefore, she is a bit undersized for the breed but nonetheless a full-sized cat. I regret not sharing her on this blog more often the past few years but I'm changing that now. Note: she is such an explosion of fur that I have often said of her "her fuzz has fuzz". A sweeter cat there has never been. As is common with Maine Coons she sorta acts like a dog all the while my chihuahua/terrier mix "Tequila" acts like a cat.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Cambria Christmas Carnival #2

Tonight I visited the 2nd Annual Cambria Christmas Marketplace at Cambria Pines Lodge. This was my first time visiting this event and I did so with my buddy Marybeth Shears. It was well-worth the drive from Paso Robles where I live to see this as I found it enchanting. The marketplace itself didn't really do anything for me tonight but perhaps I simply wasn't in the mood having already blown some money on Christmas shopping for mom in the lovely Moonstones store on Burton Drive in East Village Cambria.

The rainbow tunnel as entrance.

This made for a rather eye-catching introduction to the course.

I was tempted to take too many pictures of this structure.

Looking back at the rainbow tunnel.

I find most Nativity scenes rather annoyingly religious but for some reason I liked this one.

The Blue Forest of Cambria Pines Lodge...

...which reminded me for some reason of the Blue Forest in Wyoming.

There was a bit of The Nutcracker at the far end of the course.

I couldn't not take more images of the Blue Forest on the way back through.

This was my second favorite feature after the Rainbow Tunnel.

This image turned out sharper than the first one but I like both so I included them both here, one going and one coming.

My buddy Marybeth.

I realize I'm a dork but this feature made me think of the tunnel in that episode of the The Six Million Dollar Man television series which featured the robotic Big Foot and that rotating tunnel that incapacitated Steve Austin.

This has an incredibly eye-pleasing effect.

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

Picture of the Day - Highway One Sunset

Sunset earlier this evening as seen from northbound Highway 1 between Cayucos and Via Creek. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Do You Know The Significance Of Today?

Today is Pearl Harbor Day a.k.a. Pearl Harbor National Day Of Remembrance ~ A Day That Shall Live In Infamy!

It happened 72 years ago today and was the 9/11 equivalent for those alive then.

It is wise to remember that epic things of these sorts can happen at any time. Thus it is wise to be prepared all the time all the while living life fully. Perpetually existing on a perpetual war-footing is NOT living.

Star Wars Bohemian Rhapsody

My friend "Beachgoat" found this and despite not liking Star Wars or much else in modern science fiction nonetheless liked this enough to share it on my Facebook wall. It marries the movie franchise with Queen's iconic and defining masterpiece "Bohemian Rhapsody" the very first song to have what could be considered a genuine music video in the MTV sense of the term. Now I share it with you because I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overheard ~ A Couple of 90-somethings

This evening a close friend related to me the following current joke: 

Nelson Mandela died at 95 ~ Paul Walker died at 90.

The Best Little Drummer Boy Ever

My first encounter with this version of this holiday classic and for that matter with the new a cappela group Pentatonix was when this was posted on my Facebook Wall by my sister by another mother, Erin. Note that this video is filmed in the Hollywood Hills with views of Downtown LA in the background. Enjoy!

The Best of the Chelyabinsk Meteoric Event

Below are some highlights of the Chelyabinsk meteoric event from earlier this year.

Quote of the Day - Churchill

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

~ Sir Winston Churchill

Etna Wows!

This is the view of Mt. Etna this past day. It has been incredibly active this year, quite often in a most spectacular fashion as here.

It's All Happened Before But Will It Again?

It seems only apropos that following my "The Day Of The End Of The World" post day-before-yesterday that I share this short clip as a sort of coda. These two series segments form a sort of bookend pair as they show opposite ends of the story arc for the acclaimed television series Battlestar Galactica as found at the start of the story in the other posting and then here at the conclusion of the episode "Daybreak ~ Part 3", final episode of Season Four and of the entire series. Not only does this cleverly wrap up the series and connect it to present-day Earth but also cleverly gets into some more transcendent stuff such as the nature of human civilizations to destroy themselves and the degree to which there is Free Will and/or it is all essentially predetermined by human predisposition.

Picture of the Day - Grandma Martha Has Tequila

Here is an image I captured at this just-past Thanksgiving showing Grandma Martha and my dog Tequila snuggling. For not seeing Grandma very often Tequila sure takes to her! It was nice being with the women in my life this Thanksgiving. Mom was out of the picture but very much in the room. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

The Day Of The End Of The World

My entire life I have been haunted by this theme to the depths of my soul. Here is one fictional visual account of such a day. It shows this event from the perspective of the Battlestar Galactica television series from the 2000's. We see this calamitous coda to civilization known in the series as "the Destruction of the Twelve Colonies" from three perspectives: the planet Caprica, Colonial Fleet Headquarters at Pycon, and the Battlestar Galactica itself, the last remaining survivor of about 120 capital ships of the Colonial Fleet the rest of which are destroyed in this Pearl Harbor-esque assault. Below is a musical tribute ("Journey to the Line" by Hans Zimmer) to this fictional calamity derived from both the television series' movie pilot and and its two spin-off movies "Razor" and "The Plan".
Check out the follow up posting to this which shows the series conclusion: "It's All Happened Before But Will It Again?" 

There They Go Again

For as long as there has been Star Trek there has been ceaseless speculation even to the point of dogmatic assertion by a believing minority that the main characters of James Tiberius Kirk and Spock are more than mere fellow Starfleet officers, friends, and brothers-in-arms but rather much more to the tune of being brothers in each other's arms. Of course, this mostly comes from the gay community, but no matter, it is their reality if only in their own collective minds. In any case, as such topics often are to heterosexual males, this very idea is prone to be viewed in a most humorous light. This video below (which has been around a few years) is my favorite of all such fan-based innuendos having the best song ("Here We Go Again" by Neon Trees) and the best editing of all such. Enjoy!

Two Fireballs

Tonight on the way home to Paso Robles from spending Thanksgiving Day with my grandmother and mother in Fremont as I drove south on Highway 101 in southern Monterey County I witnessed two fireballs ahead of me to the south.

The first one I saw from somewhere in the King City area and of the two got the clearest view of as I watched it translate from left to right across my entire field of view arcing downwards, ever-slower and fainter and visibly tumbling. It appeared to have landed in the Santa Lucia Mountains or the ocean off the coast. It was clearing slowing down meaning it did not bounce back out of the atmosphere. It was not getting smaller or breaking up and it was getting fainter in glow meaning it was not burning up or breaking up but rather it was cooling down as attained mere terminal velocity and the atmosphere stopped burning it but rather began to cool it near the end of its descent. It was so close I could see it was somewhat elongated and tumbling. This object most assuredly plummeted to the ground as a significantly-sized object. The only question is if it made it westward into the ocean just off the coast or if it is sitting in the ground under some chaparral somewhere in the coast range.

The second one I saw only the end of as it exploded in a brilliant white flash of energy to my south as I drove a section of the highway within Camp Roberts placing this explosion to my south. I never saw tail or the heading of the object although my mother who was with me did. I missed it because I was momentarily glancing in a different direction.

Mas o Menos

Today I had a conversation with a friend of mine who this morning purchased a Dell laptop computer on pre-Black Friday special for under $400 at Wal-Mart. Her sister who rides a broom loaded up on her when this purchase came up in conversation later in the morning. Mean sister said all sorts of crazy-assed foolishness. This included the comment that my friend got was she paid for suggesting that since she did not pay much she did not get much.

I thought about this beyond just the bitch cattiness. It is illogical irrationality to make the blanket statement about things that are being sold less expensively even on special at Wally World somehow automatically are of inherently inferior quality. This is often true in the world, especially at Wally World, but not all the time for all items, especially when one takes into account specials which can feature quality items at less-than-typical price points as a means of garnering traffic into a particular store or chain. Retailers can afford to do this because they already dictate to the suppliers what Wal-Mart's costs will be. Also, Wal-Mart purchases in such huge quantities that they can still make a large profit on a small mark-up as a result of selling at scale.

It is also true that just because one is paying more for something that one is automatically getting more value for their buck simply by virtue of their paying more for the good or service. Experientially, anecdotally, and intuitively we know this to be as inaccurate an assessment as the opposite assertion. Something can be priced well-beyond its inherent value due to its value being unwittingly overestimated as a result of misjudging the marketplace or simply the seller intentionally overpricing said good or service in a disingenuous attempt to extract more  than he or she knows it is worth.

In summary, we all ought to recognize that while some patterns usually hold true and are useful to recognize such as "you get what you pay for" that it is not always an accurate saying.

Moonstone Sunset

Earlier this evening I experienced the high honor of being at Moonstone Beach in Cambria to witness gorgeous sunset. It was one of the prettier ones that I have seen this year. There were a couple of other even more breathtakingly beautiful sunsets recently which I missed but fortunately not tonight's event.

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

My Top 10 Racist White Mascots

Lately there is a resurgence in the periodic political-correctness regarding school and/or team mascots due to some special interest group somewhere trying to make a self-righteous issue of a total non-issue in order to vainly validate themselves in their own imaginations. This has inspired me to honor the spirit of the Fighting Whities of the University of Northern Colorado and do another Top Ten List. This one is of (imaginary) team mascot names derived from non-white slurs and stereotypes of whites. For additional fun I added some regional chauvinism to my list by using mostly Southern or Southern-sounding location names. 

1. The Georgia Crackers
2.  The Pensacola Peckerwoods
3. The Winston-Salem White Devils
4. The Midland Mulletheads 
5. The Birmingham Blue-eyed Devils
6. The Huntsville Honkies
7. The California Bleachboys
8. The Oildale Okies
9. The Gainesville Goobers
10. The Wisconsin Cheeseheads

All-Time Greatest Rock Performance

To me this performance "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin at the 1979 Knebworth Concert in London is the greatest rock performance of all time by anybody anytime, PERIOD! It combines the quality of the song itself with quality of the performance of the song and the charisma of the band individually and collectively driven by the late John Bonham's drums. The song itself is rather weighty and deep and gets into existentialist metaphors derived from a journey down a desolate road that never seems to end. Interestingly, I hold this opinion of this song despite not being a big Led Zeppelin fan. However, this entire performance blows me away. Go full-screen on this and crank up your speakers and enjoy!
*Updated 6/23/16. 

Say Something Is Sad

Earlier this week I heard the Christina Aguilera song "Say Something" from her new album A Great Big World for the first time and was stunned by its richly sumptuous sadness to the point of purity and melancholy beauty. It was playing on the radio on my way home from a long day's work. I tried to remember parts of its lyrics so I could Google them when I got home and discover the name of the song, but alas proceeded to forget all about it until I found mentioned in this article. This in my view is one of the sadder songs I have ever heard and the video makes it even sadder than just listening to it.

Wistfulness of Waves

The title of this melancholy yet beautiful track is "Wehmut" which in German means "wistfulness". The accompanying visually-sumptuous video for this Schiller track from the 2008 album Sehnchsucht. is both breathtaking and mesmerizing. Play this on full screen with your speakers cranked up!

Picture of the Day - Cumulus Sunset

I took this image earlier this evening at the bible study on Atascadero's West Side to which I was in attendance. A storm front had just past through and unsettled scattered thunderstorm activity in the form of cold air cumulus (and in some cases cumulonimbus) was prevalent throughout the area and further to the east with a raging thunderstorm in the area of the Grapevine a short time before I captured this image over a 120 miles to the northwest. In fact, around the time I shot this image my mother living elsewhere in Atascadero heard distant thunder from cells further to the east.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

My Top 10 Bucket List Lights

For some reason it occurred to me in recent days that there is a notably long list of lights I would like to see with mine own eyes before I leave this world and meet my Maker experience the brilliance of God's presence. Below is my bucket list of lights.

1. The ominous blue glow of Cherenkov Radiation. 
2. The piezoelectrostatic discharge of the Earthquake Light.  
3. The spectacular explosion of Volcanic Lightning.
4. The globular luminosity of Ball Lightning.
5. The heavenly green glow of the Aurora Borealis. 
6. The ephemeral flash of the Green Flash.
7. The shocking brilliance of the Red Sprite.
8. The shooting forth of the Blue Jet.
9. The mysterious red disk of the ELVES.
10.  The violet glow of St. Elmo's Fire.

Schiller's Shill

As any of you who follow this blog know by now I love music generally as it is an expression of the divine and a means in which humanity emotes and expresses and receives communication. However, I clearly am drawn to electronica in particular and trance music most especially although post-rock has piqued my interest of late. Schiller, one of my favorite music acts, like Faithless, is a hard band to define more specifically than "electronic" as they often jump genres sub-genres and also hybridize same. Below is an amazing concert they put on earlier this year featuring their new album Sonne. It sounds awesome and looks stunning. I would love to catch one of their concerts if they ever do one here on the West Coast. Set this to full screen and crank up your speakers and enjoy!

Cuesta College Offers Courses On Lying?

Last week it occurred to me that given the old saying  "There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." that means Cuesta College offers courses on lying given it has statistics courses in its math department. Of course, that thought was not a serious one in my mind but rather a jestful one. By the way, that quote was made famous in this country by Mark Twain but seems to have originated with British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. It once appeared in my Quote of the Day column here.

Tornado Skid Marks

This image does not show any dramatic damage to human constructs or even to natural features like trees. God knows there were enough images of both types from the severe weather outbreak in the Midwest over this past weekend of which this image (from Illinois) is but one scene from its aftermath. However, I nonetheless find it remarkable for its visual simplicity and for how much of a scar mere wind created on land that is fairly barren at this time of year. A forest or stand of corn would make for a dramatic damage path but one would not expect the same of fields laying dormant for winter. Note the swirl lines in the scar area. Those are the scars of sub-vortices within this obviously multiple-vortex tornado.
Photo courtesy of Fred Zwicky - Journal Star (all rights reserved).

The Trigger Effect

I first saw this series premier of Connections hosted by well-known science historian James Burke sometimes back in the early to mid-1990's and although it offered me nothing revolutionary it did help distill for me some things that were already my mind and validated a few others. In fact, I still have a VHS recording of it somewhere from that timeframe. In any case, I found this on Youtube last night and offer it to you here tonight. The "prepper" culture has emerged since this program was long off the air and even since my 1990's first encounter with this program. Something I find fascinating is that none of the essential concepts in this program have changed and if anything this is more relevant today than on the day this first aired. That means that this episode is as ominous now as it ever was. I like Burke's expression "technological womb". The good stuff here begins at 22:29 and gets rolling from there.

John McCabe Does Earthquakes

This evening the Santa Lucia Rockhounds met at the Pioneer Museum in Paso Robles for their November meeting. Semi-retired Cuesta College geology instructor John McCabe gave a PowerPoint talk about earthquakes. It was both a general primer as well as went into additional detail regarding the geological setting of California as it pertains to earthquakes as well as our local earthquake history. This included the 2003 San Simeon Quake whose anniversary rapidly approaches.

This image is deceptive as it make the crowd in attendance look smaller than it was.

A day that shall live in infamy locally.

Now it has been nearly 157 years since this event last occurred. It has happened before and it will happen again.

Photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Damme Big Splits

Are the "Muscles From Brussels" back? After taking a career nosedive, and more importantly, personal nosedive, Jeane-Claude Van Damme has reappeared in the public eye for something other than gossip column fodder. With that being said, this is a rather awesome stunt for anybody let alone a 53-year old man and it was done in one take albeit with lots of rehearsals aforetime. 

A Sign For Tequila

I found this posted on Facebook and immediately thought of my own little monster, Tequila. the dog who has owned me since 2004 and from whom I lost my bigotry against small dogs. She is a huge dog who can't help the fact she is trapped in a tiny body. However, she does not let that hold her back one iota. She is indomitable and indefatigable.

Picture of the Day - Church Soup Nazis

Today my church (North County Christian Fellowship) hosted an in-church meal as a way to bring us together. Those who made the awesome soup meal happen are my friends from left: Terry Del Giorgio, Mare Fuson, Ted Weber, and Gary Del Giorgio of Gary's Original Sandwich shop fame in Atascadero back in the 1990's.
Note: for those of you who don't get the pop cultural reference to which "Soup Nazi" is please click HERE.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Popping Lava Bubbles

This is the most bad-ass footage of Mount Etna I have ever seen online or on television. This volcanic paroxysm just happened a day or so ago. The very two best bubble pops come at the 2:04 and 2:36 marks. Enjoy!

Jeremiah's Lamentation ~ My Lamentation - Pt. 1

Back in the time of my wandering in the wilderness (biblically, metaphorically-speaking) during my 20's and much of my 30's I was lost inside my own head and lost from the world as I suffered under the heavy burden and dark oppression of mental illness and spiritual desolation. This was the direct result of  both spiritual as well as social things in my environment such as my father's untimely death when I was 15 and then losing Grandpa McGee when I was 18 just three years later which makes this time of year difficult. All the while I was dealing with the social drama on both sides of my family (and within it my immediate family) along with all the crap that comes with coming of age at that time. The real topper on this story was my having God actively in my life yet wanting little to do with Him. This placed me in direct conflict with the Him which is never a great idea.

There were multiple levels of environmental causation for this as well as spiritual causation from my losing my dad and not having any males in the family step in and be my mentor and father figure to my being under God's reproof for my pride, stubbornness, idleness, selfishness, and unthankfulness. My mental illness took the form of major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder that I know of and perhaps others I don't yet realize.

I have turned back to God and I am doing ever better on all fronts, spiritual, mental-emotional-psychological, physical, social, academic, etc. This is not to say I don't experience up and downs and plateaus and an occasional two-steps-backward-to-get-three-steps-forward any different than anybody else. However, at least I am in a consistently healthy place yet with room to improve in some areas that continue to bedevil me and yet I am still ever growing and evolving.

This morning at church I was reading my Bible in a freelance fashion (in the cafe, NOT the sanctuary during the service) and opened to this passage and was blown away by it as it caused me to recall that dark place I know so well but have not been in for some time now, thank God. I am dividing this up into two parts for the sake of functionality on this blog and ease of perusal for you, the reader. This first part offers an insight into the place I was during those dark years, a place which I realize others have been in although in a different context and for a different purpose. The Second Part offers the upshot resolution to my ongoing story, to wit, what I had to do to get back on track with God.

"I am the man who has seen troubles by the rod of His wrath.

He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

Surely against ME is He turned; His hand is turned against me all day long.

My flesh and my skin has he made old: He has broken all my bones.

He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and travail.

He has banished me into a dark place as one who has been long dead.

He has walled me in so that I cannot escape. He has placed heavy chains upon me.

Also, when I cry and shout out to Him for help, He shuts out my prayers.

He has placed roadblocks of hewn stone in my path, he has made my paths crooked.

He was unto me as a bear stalking me, as a hidden lion crouching.

He has derailed me and torn me asunder and left me in ruin.

He has drawn down upon me with his bow and targeted me with his arrows.

He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my heart.

I was a derision to all my people and their taunt all the day long.

He has filled me with bitterness, made me drunk with gall.

He has shattered my teeth with gravel, buried me in ashes.

You removed me far away from peace: I forgot what prosperity felt like.

I said to myself: "My strength from and my hope in God have died",

When I remembered my affliction and misery along with the bitterness and gall.

I still remember all of this and am humbled.

My memory of it all gives me hope."

~Lamentations 3:1-21 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

CERT Trailer Outside ~ Inside

As stated in my previous posting here the North San Luis Obispo County CERT met this morning at the 911 Supply House in an encore of our inaugural gathering two weeks ago at the Paso Robles Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for those who missed it. These two meetings were for the purpose of finding out who really wishes to be more than simply CERT-trained but also a member of the local CERT. They also served the purpose of discussing the upcoming logistics and to start delving into those logistics by means of signing forms and releases and such. At the end of today's gathering we toured one of our new CERT trailers seen below.

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