Shared Marginalia

A couple of months ago Amazon quietly announced public note sharing for their Kindle eReader. I was surprised they didn't make a bigger deal about this great leap forward. You can now read a book with a friend, friends or classmates and share each other's marginalia. I don't know if you have ever passed a book around with everyone adding to the margin notes but I can attest from several such ventures that it is well worth the time. The only drawback was waiting for your turn to get the book or being first in line with completely virgin pages. The last in the queue, of course, gets the full benefit of sharing everyone's thoughts, dreams, reflections and critique.

Now we can do it live and be updated as the group reads through the book in real time. Sure we all have to buy a Kindle or download the free app. to our laptop and upload the same book but trust me this is worth the effort. I assume all the eReaders will add this feature soon. 

Geographical separation will no longer limit the members of your book club; you can have an eBook Club. Who wants to read Heart of Darkness with me? Or the Foundation Trilogy? Or Catch-22? Or . . .

Weather Below the Radar

Yes, this is a post about the weather.

No, the weather here in Northern California has not had the impact of the rains, floods and tornados of the rest of the country. But yes, strange and unsettled weather does seem to abound this year.

Today is June 1st, normally we would already be a full month into fire season. You see California has a wet and a dry season. Up here in the north, the rains comes from late October until April. Then everything dries out and we have fire season. Sometimes long fire seasons. Today as I look out my window, I see very little of the great view towards the City and Bay of San Francisco because it is raining. Checking the weather report, there is yet another much bigger storm coming our way this weekend. Our wet season is not even close to being over.

Yesterday I read that the waterfalls in Yosemite Park are spectacular this spring because of all the snow melt. We have had 20% and in some areas 40% above average snow pack this winter. This means great waterfalls, more water for the reservoirs and hopefully more for the Central Valley farms. And, if the view from my window is not a saturated mirage, we are not done. When these storm hit the the mountains, they will add still more to the snow pack.

Last summer most predictions were for below average rainfall totals this year. We are in the midst of an La Nina system out in the Pacific and that means less rain for us and floods in Australia and Indonesia. But massive storm systems out the the Gulf of Alaska have been funneling down our way all winter and the result is La Nina has been trumped by the wet weather from the Great North.

Although this all sounds benign and good for everyone, there is the matter of the fuel for fires when it eventually dries out. Wet weather encourages the growth of underbrush and grasses that are the basic fuels for wild fires, so when we finally get the big dry out; the potential will be there for some big fires as well. 

All in all, strange weather this year. Environmental conspiracy theorists may now take over the conversation.

ADDENDUM: I wrote too soon, today it was announced that a warm spell in June could cause massive flooding from the 2X even 3X higher than average snow pack. The sky is falling! The sky is falling!! And it appears the apocalypse is white and fluffy . . .