COVID finally came for Ken Layne of Desert Oracle Radio. But he did his usual Friday-night stint at the Z107.7 FM mic anyway, and you can catch the podcast of same at all the usual places.
“Some people say you should not do your radio show when you’re sick in the head. But I am not one of those people,” he explains.
Layne is waiting for Hurricane Hilary to visit the Mojave — it’s something new for a lot of the local desert rats, but as an old Nawlins hand he knows a little something about rigging for heavy weather.
This week’s episode is heavy on advice for riding out the storm. But he also recounts his bout with The Bug, a random prowler testing his door, and the apparent death and resurrection of a big ol’ spiny desert lizard who is a regular on his patio (but not the radio show).
“Be careful, friends,” Layne advises, adding, “And once you’re prepared, it’s time to hunker down. Enjoy the excitement — nobody ever says that on the weather report — but it’s exciting. It’s real life, it’s right here. No Netflix necessary.”
No excitement for us here in The Duck! City — Hilary will be giving us a miss — but we might catch a little wind burn from her passage. I guess it’s Netflix for us. How about you?
Mad Blog Media 
I recall when Gloria went right over us on Long Island when I was in grad school. Back when one is young and goofy, we bought a couple cases of beer and sat on the roof of the Geology Building and had the storm pass right over us. Only real excitement was watching stuff blow buy and having a 4 foot by 10 foot window implode.
Then I went to the house four of us shared and had to patch a hole where a tree fell on the roof. Landlord help? Hell, no.
I’ve never really experienced a serious “weather event” like that. I helped cover the aftermath of a tornado in Manitou Springs in 1979 or ’80, and that was an eye-opener. And of course we had the Waldo Canyon fire in B-burg back in 2012. But again, we were mostly observers rather than active participants.
Frankly, I’d just as soon keep it that way.
No kidding. Or as Winston Smith would say, “don’t do it to me, do it to Julia”
We had near misses with the Las Conchas fire, where I was watching dead embers rain down on the house, and Hurricane Iniki, a Cat IV hurricane that was supposed to roar right over us on Oahu but took a dogleg and leveled Kauai instead.
Yeah, a Cat IV. And we had just made our very first mortgage payment.
Those are the sorts of exciting moments one wants to miss.
Too bad Hilary couldn’t take a hard right, hit the gulf, go around Florida, and come ashore and park right over merry lego.
And, no we ain’t getting and rain here. Our monsoon has been the classic nonsoon.
We got a big 0.06-inch rain on Thursday. Woo hoo, etc. We had that frog-strangler on the 8th but that’s been the extent of our “monsoon.”
John Fleck reports that The Duck! City has quit taking water from the Rio — which could go dry through Burque again this year — and is pumping groundwater for municipal needs. Good times. Maybe not.
How deep is the groundwater lens the city is pumping? Unless it is geologically sequestered water that doesn’t interact with the Rio Grande, one is simply robbing Peter to pay Paul.
https://water.usgs.gov/ogw/gwsw.html
Word!
Man, I have no idea. But I’ll bet John Fleck does.
Looks pretty deep.
Click to access chap3.pdf
That’s a deep dive (you should pardon the expression).
That water is cold says I. Patrick says it’s deep too.
With a tip of the stingy-brim to the late, great Mudbone via Richard Pryor.
Cold front came through and lowered the temperature to the low 90s for a couple of days, then we went right back to 110 Fahrenheit today. Rain, what’s that?
We’ve had a stretch of cool mornings, which is nice for riding the old bikey bikey if you get out early. Start much later than 9 a.m. and it starts warming up right smart.
Not 110° smart, though. ¡Hijole! You can warm your breakfast-burrito tortillas on the hood of the car. Probably cook the eggs and chorizo there too.
Here we have the ever-popular red-flag warning starting at noon. Seems slightly unnecessary since the wind howled all night long and is only slightly less rowdy as I drink my morning java. Herself had to get up at one point to pop an allergy med; I just tossed and turned.
People have been baking bread in their mailboxes and it comes out a little dark on top, like almost but not quite burned. I have blisters from opening the mailbox, and at least one local business hung a silicone pot holder on their back door latch because an employee blistered her hands trying to get back in after taking something to the trash…
Leave your Schwinn locked up outside the Piggly Wiggly while you run in for a RC Cola and a Moon Pie, you come out to find your tires melted and the whole shebang stuck to the sidewalk like a skeeter on a vein.
Or a tweaker dancing around whining and crying about how they blistered their hands on the handlebars while they keep saying something about “I was just straightening the bike on the rack”.
Hoo-boy, now SoCal’s enjoying an earthquake. A singlewide in Lubbock must be looking mighty good to some of these folks this weekend.
I got to experience an earthquake once, in West Hollywood, and I can’t say I recommend it. I’d rather fly United.
I was in the John Wayne airport for the Whittier quake in 1987 I think. It was a 6.2 just a mile or so down the street if memory serves. Saw shit, like concrete columns and parking lots, move that should not move. Never so glad to get in the air.
It has just been drizzling and spitting for the last 6-7 hours and the rain gauge shows a bit more than an inch of rain here in North East Los Angeles. I just barely noticed the earthquake. What is next? Fire, pestilence, plague, frogs, vermin, fire & death of the first born? It is getting to feel a bit biblical.
You folks are getting it all. Who’s the pharaoh out there, anyway?
I think a surprise visit from el trumpo would certainly be a major contributor to your “We’re definitely f*cked” disaster list.
The Whittier quake was mine, too, IIRC. I was sleeping on a friend’s floor when all of a sudden it started moving. I didn’t care for that at all and got outside most ricky-tick. I dunno which was scarier, that quake or West Hollywood.
“If I have told you this story before, don’t stop me. I want to hear it again.” Groucho Marx
One tenth of an inch of rain last night. Jeez Louise, maybe our fire season will be in September and October this year.
Hat tip to Nick Legan for his Adventure Cyclist road test of several years ago. I rode the Litespeed Gravel up Hyde Park Road, as it is only slightly heavier than the Cannondales but I have it set up with 46/30 crank and a 11-32 cassette in honor of my geezerhood. Coming back down from the top it was amazing in the high speed hairpins. Way better than my other bikes. On the other hand, my knees hurt like hell tonight.
Nick did good work, for VeloNews and Adventure Cyclist. I always enjoyed reading his tech pieces and reviews. Never felt like he was talking down to me from the heights of his wisdom, which he has aplenty. It’s rare to find that sort of light and easy writing style combined with the technical know-how.
And yeah, that 46/30 11-32 combo is the shit. As are fat tires. If I were to ask Mark Nobilette to build me another frameset I’d ask for clearance for 42mm rubber without fenders and 38mm with.
I have two wheelsets for that bike. A really nice set of FSA-AGX that came with the bike which have the original 700-38 Gravel Kings on them, and a set of DT something or others that they built for me up here at BTI shod with 700-32 Gravel Kings with a file center patch that are almost as fast as road tires. I had the 32’s on for this ride as it was all road riding and the mini-blocks on the 38s are overkill while the 32’s take the edge off a rough road.
The bike turns in faster than the Cannondales when you ask it to at speed so that surprised me at first, bombing down Hyde Park at over 40 mph (I’d rather die fast than linger). But I found I could go into a hairpin faster than usual and dive through it without worrying about overcooking it and ending up in the weeds. It was wicked good fun. Especially as the lower half of Hyde Park has been repaved, so it is nice and fast whereas the top few miles still are a pavement version of a moonscape.
I bought the bike after reading Nick’s review and set it up over the phone with Litespeed after a discussion with O’G, so hat tip to both of those gentlemen, who, as someone just said, don’t talk down to mere bike riders.
That is a nice bike. I can only imagine the pleasure of riding one down off of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain Natl Park as Nick did. Regarding new Litespeeds, I just wish from a traditionalist’s perspective, that they still utilized their original decal graphics. I’m not fond of the new-to-me style that they’ve used for the last 15 years or so.
It’s funny now that I read the article again, I hadn’t thought that if the frame is designed right and the tires are appropriate, that you can run either 650 or 700 wheels. As an old bird still riding the range on my herd of rim brake steeds, I hadn’t considered that disc brakes allow the use of varying wheel sizes.
Shawn, most folks here know I an a disc brake nut. And to me, the TRP two piston mechanical discs are the cream of the crop. Once you ride a disc equipped bike, especially in the rain or on long descents, you will never look back.
Efficiency is following a pathway that needs no brakes. At least until ERS systems are developed for bikes. Learn from the folks that live on the streets that brakes are just complications that can break down and that slam-and-sliding a foot works really good to shed some speed.
But in truth, for the past many years I haven’t found myself in a situation where I’ve needed a braking force that has exceeded my calipers and v-brakes. In a case where I might have needed a greater braking force, locking up the wheels would likely have put me into a worse position. I understand the design advantages of discs, but until I pick up a new-to-me bike, retrofitting my trusty steeds is not practical. Besides aren’t brake discs dangerous and possibly make you vote for a pompous buffoon?