Posted 9:23 AM by Floyd

I apologize for not having blogged yesterday. But I had an excuse; it was raining. That is stupid, but also legitimate.

Here's the deal: I live in the hills west of (northern) Silicon Valley. I cannot get cable Internet, though I live 10 miles from the former headquarters of @Home. I cannot get DSL. My only option for high-speed Internet access is satellite. Satellite normally works fine, though it is about $20 more per month than DSL or cable. But heavy rain interferes with the transmission.

Yesterday when I woke up it was raining hard, and it rained hard until about 10 p.m. I wouldn't be surprised if we got three or four inches; I put a bucket in my bedroom to deal with a leak there and by the end of the day it had about seven inches of water in it. Today I woke up to grey clouds, but no rain; by comparison with yesterday, it was like bright sunshine.

The rainstorm was torrential but not violent. There was little wind and as always in the Bay Area, no lightning or thunder. I have seen more snow than lightning over the last two years. One of the special moments of the Midwest vacation that my wife and I took this summer was a lightning display over Indiana cornfields, followed by a warm summer rain.