Global Warming Hits Denver -- December 30, 2014; Earthquake Hits The Homestead; No Fracking In The Immediate Area

Tweeting now:

The temperature at Denver International dropped to a record -19° at 9:05 pm MT, breaking the previous mark (-11°) set on this date in 1898 - @NWSBoulder

1898 AD. That's like more than a hundred years ago. 

Just think, with global warming, the record -19 would have only been a -17.

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A Note to the Granddaughters

That's cool, but this is even cooler. I felt my first California earthquake today.  The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

A shallow magnitude 3.9 earthquake was reported Tuesday afternoon 12 miles off the coast from San Pedro, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 3:26 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 1.9 miles.

According to the USGS, the epicenter was 14 miles from Rancho Palos Verdes, 15 miles from Long Beach and 16 miles from Seal Beach.

Shallow earthquakes do not result in tsunamics, if I recall correctly; it's the deep earthquakes.

We're spending Christmas in San Pedro. My son-in-law, younger daughter, and I were visiting a hobby store in downtown San Pedro when the earthquake shook -- about 3:20 p.m. (I see the article gave the exact time. Sorry.)

it was very, very, short, maybe measured in one second -- maybe two seconds, but that might be a stretch. We thought it was construction workers on the roof of the building. Our daughter saw the huge front department store window "move." No damage. We really didn't know that it was an earthquake until we heard it on the news moments later (the store owner had his television set on). 

Prior to visiting the hobby store, we were out visiting Cabrillo Beach Aquarium and Research Library, perhaps one of the best marine research libraries in the United States. We were told that the aquarium has the largest student program in the US. It's a small museum in one sense, but a huge museum in another sense. For all its press, the aquarium at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is about the size of a large closet compared to the very good-sized Cabrillo Aquarium. Just saying. In addition, at Woods Hole, there's really nothing to visit unless one is a research scientist from what I could tell after a couple of visits; on the other hand, the Cabrillo Aquarium is all about hands on.

The Cabrillo Aquarium is free, though it's nice to donate $5/adult to visit. Parking: $1/hour. 

I took advantage of the opportunity to learn a bit more about the history of the San Pedro area. It turns out that the whole southland (from Compton and Torrance, south to the Pacific Ocean; east to the Los Angeles River (separating Wilmington and Long Beach); and west to the Pacific Ocean, began as one large Spanish land grant to a Manuel Dominguez, or at least I think it was Manuel. It was definitely Dominguez. The area was composed of two Spanish ranches, Rancho Palos Verdes and Rancho San Pedro. The "ranch" encompassed about 118 square miles. Manhattan Island, in comparison, bought for $24 in trinkets and beads (obviously an apocryphal story), is 23 square miles in comparison.

By the way, there is no fracking in the immediate San Pedro area. At least as far as I know. There are a few vertical wells that were drilled a long, long time ago, but no rigs in the immediate area either.

As long as I'm rambling, I might as well mention we also visited the marine mammal care center at the southern tip of San Pedro, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There are seven such centers up and down the California coast; the largest is in Sausalito; the San Pedro care center is the second largest. They are expanding, building two more pens. The fur seals were sleeping, seemed content. A few sea lions were enjoying the water, but most were also dozing. I think I can finally tell the difference between seals and sea lions: think ears and the two rear extremities. The marine mammal care center is one of my favorite places to visit when in San Pedro.

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The UE Boom

By the way, the other day I mentioned how "perfect" the UE Boom speaker is -- the gift I gave my wife. She was curious whether it works with the MacBook Pro laptop. It does. At first I couldn't get it to work, trying to figure it out intuitively. A quick google search provided the answer. Done. It's an incredible speaker.