Rainy Morning - Updated

Good friends have lost someone very dear to them, and it's hard to feel of use when those friends are so far away. Please keep A., A. and B. in your thoughts & prayers today. Shirley was "Mom" to many, and wife to a good man who is hurting today.

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It's 56 and humid this morning. The girls will be going shopping shortly, with multiple stops planned. I'm going to be picking up an external hard drive for photo storage. I've grown tired of juggling CDs and DVDs looking for a particular folder, and trying to remember which year it was that I took it, or scanned it ... whatever. The 500GB drive ought to address it nicely, not to mention speeding up the access time, so I won't mention it. Oh. Wait ...

I thought DVD storage was the way to go, until I saw how long it takes to open the folders, even with a fast drive. Faster is better.

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The sound of rain gently pattering on the leaves outside the window really takes me back. We sometimes miss the torrential downpours of the Midwest, although I can cheerfully live without the resultant flooding.

Other than visibility problems, driving in those rains never gave me much reason to worry, until we bought an '83 Jeep CJ7. No one had told me of the built-in leaking windshields in CJs - it was 1983, therefore pre-Intarw3bz - and we discovered the issue in such a rainstorm. My wife was holding a couple of large rags on the dashboard above the radio and glove box, while I desperately looked for an overpass we might share with a motorcycle or two.

Water ran down the dash in great streams, thoroughly wetting our pant legs and socks, and filling our shoes - and the floorboard.

I wasn't as worried about the floors, since we were already aware of the drain plugs. The electronics and stereo speakers, & the papers in the glove box were our primary concern.

Later, I applied silicone bathtub caulk around both edges of the windshield gasket, which addressed the problem, although it didn't do much for the appearance of the vehicle.

Life with a CJ7 was fun, though, and I frequently miss its low maintenance, great mileage, and the convertible top. I notice that most of the CJ/XJ variants here have hardtops, which makes sense given our heavy snowfalls, and the mid-winter temps in the minus-25 range. My ragtop wasn't able to keep passengers warm in 20-degrees above, so temps 40 to 50 degrees colder than that would be an issue.

But driving "topless" was fun, back in the day. I lost a couple of ballcaps that way, though ... and getting caught in a sudden shower was always exciting.

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Mt. Redoubt has gone back to sleep, more or less. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has downgraded its status to "yellow", the "advisory" status. There have been no significant events, tremors, etc., in some time.

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That's all I have for now - have a great Sunday, and thanks for stopping by.