Arkansas River below Dardanelle Dam following extreme rains


(click on lower picture for larger image)

I made it out of the house yesterday for the first time in almost a week. We went into town, but I still wasn’t feeling the greatest.

I guess what I thought was a cold turned out to be the flu strain that’s been going around. Since I didn’t go to the doctor, I don’t know for sure. I was planning to go yesterday if I wasn’t significantly better.

Ran a fever for several days and was pretty much out of it round the clock. Slept a lot. Not much coughing, which is funny, because the main thing I’m left with now is a cough.

Haven’t looked at much online until yesterday.

We’ve lost power at least three times today. The generator is sitting ready just in case.

According to the National Weather Service, we’ve had somewhere between 2.5 to 4 inches of rain today and our county is in a flash flood warning. Fortunately, we live on top of a ridge so don’t have a problem with flooding. There’s still a lot more rain to come, I think.

With being sick and all of this rain, it’s hard to get some of the stuff done outside that I wanted to do during this time off.

I go back to work three weeks from today and the contract job will go until the end of August.

I’ve finally succumbed to a cold — first one this season of any consequence.

The good news is that I won’t be passing it on to anyone at work because I’m not at work — for now.

I was hired as a contractor to work through the first week of March. Then the students went to the plant to support the other unit’s refueling outage. I’ll go back to work about the 8th or 9th of April — the week before classes pick up again. My last day was supposed to be Friday, but that turned into a snow day.

The snow is all gone. Living about 500 feet above the river valley, when we have frozen precipitation, we generally get a bit more than many of the surrounding areas and it usually lasts a little longer. But, still, it’s Arkansas and March, so the snow didn’t stay around long.

I’ve taken about a 5 day break from reading e-mail and looking at blogs… I’ll get back to it. Just taking a bit of a break.

During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been looking at, and downloading, a lot of images associated with the Depression years and the dust bowl. I read a book called “The Worst Hard Time” and found a copy of the old Government propaganda documentary “The Plow that Broke the Plains.” With all of that as a starting point, I picked up a copy of Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”

I read quite a bit — and I used to read a whole lot more — but I’ve never been one to get into the great classics of literature. This time, though, having spent some time getting to know the background, this book is an easy and interesting read. I’ve never tried to read it before, that I know of, and I think I would know since the protagonist’s last name, Joad, is so close to mine. (Did I really just use the word protagonist?)

Assumption of the Mother of God Church in Deviatiny (200 years old). [Russian Empire]
(English translation of photo title)

Russian Title: Khram vo imia Uspeni?ia Bozh’ei Materi v Deviatinakh (200 liet). [Rossiiskaia imperiia]
abt. 1909
Prokudin-Gorskii, Sergei Mikhailovich, 1863-1944, photographer.
album: Views along the Mariinskii Canal and river system, Russian Empire
Digital color composite made for the Library by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, 2004.
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress)

Using emerging technological advances in color photography, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) made numerous photographic trips to systematically document the Russian Empire. He conducted most of his visual surveys between 1909 and 1915, although some of his work dates as early as 1905. Library of Congress

Mike’s edited and enhanced version on flickr

Stonington Conecticut in 1940

While I like taking and sharing photographs, I also like finding and sharing public domain historical photos.

1940 Nov.
Delano, Jack, 1914- photographer.
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection
Original digital image at Library of Congress

Mike’s edited and enhanced version on flickr

I don’t spend much time on YouTube or other video sites, but today I came across some interesting historical footage.

The following excerpts are from Wikipedia

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a pair of mile-long suspension bridges in the U.S. state of Washington, which carry State Route 16 across the Tacoma Narrows between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. The first bridge opened to traffic on July 1, 1940 and became famous four months later for a dramatic wind-induced structural collapse that was caught on motion picture film.

The wind-induced collapse occurred on November 7, 1940 at 11:00 AM (Pacific time), due partially to a physical phenomenon known as mechanical resonance.

From the account of Leonard Coatsworth, a driver who narrowly managed to escape the bridge before the collapse:

“ Just as I drove past the towers, the bridge began to sway violently from side to side. Before I realized it, the tilt became so violent that I lost control of the car… I jammed on the brakes and got out, only to be thrown onto my face against the curb… Around me I could hear concrete cracking… The car itself began to slide from side to side of the roadway.

On hands and knees most of the time, I crawled 500 yards [450 m] or more to the towers… My breath was coming in gasps; my knees were raw and bleeding, my hands bruised and swollen from gripping the concrete curb… Toward the last, I risked rising to my feet and running a few yards at a time… Safely back at the toll plaza, I saw the bridge in its final collapse and saw my car plunge into the Narrows.”

No human life was lost in the collapse of the bridge, though Coatsworth’s cocker spaniel named “Tubby” was lost along with his car in the collapse.

Today: Rain likely, mixing with snow after 4pm. Cloudy, with a high near 40. North northeast wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Tonight: Rain and snow likely before 9pm, then occasional snow . Low around 31. North northeast wind around 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Friday: Occasional snow , mainly before 3pm. High near 32. North northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Redbreasted Nuthatch

March 4, 2008 at 1.07pm CST
Camera: Pentax K10D
Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Twelve and one-half inches

More than we normally get in several years combined

March 4, 2008 at 8.25am CST
Camera: Pentax K10D
Exposure: 0.011 sec (1/90)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 100

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