T+60 -- January 5, 2019 -- PG&E Explores Bankruptcy Filing; Global Warming Hits California

Bankruptcy talk.  PG&E link here .... exploring filing some or all of its business for bankruptcy protection as it faces billions of dollars in liabilities related to fatal wildfires in 2018 and 2017.

California cold: natural gas is pulled from Aliso Canyon storage for first time in three years. Why? It's cold in southern California.

The storage facility has not been tapped for three years, but now pressed into service ... "due to cold weather over the last week and high customer demand for natural gas, all SoCal Gas storage fields, including Aliso Canyon, have been used to provide system reliability."

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray .... on a winter's day ....

California Dreamin', The Mama's and the Papa's
SwimSwam: top 10 "swims" of the year. Coming in at #2 -- Katie Ledecky!

#10: Townley Haas, UT (Texas Longhorn)
#9: Andrii Govorov, UKR (Ukraine)
#8: Caeleb Dressel, University of Florida
#7: Kathleen Baker, USA
#6: Ben Proud, GBR
#5: Daiya Seto, JPN
#4: Adam Peaty, GBR
#3: Caeleb Dressel, University of Florida
#2: Katie Ledecky, USA 
#1: China & Japan -- men's medley relay

Narrative for #2:

There was probably no better example of a statement swim than Katie Ledecky‘s world record mile at the Indianapolis Pro Swim Series.

Ledecky, a new pro after leaving the college ranks just two months prior, shattered her own world mark in her very first race as a professional swimmer. The swim tore five seconds off her previous world record and gave Ledecky (at the time) the top 8 swims in history in the event.

She currently owns 9 of the top 10 times in history, her world record sitting more than 18 seconds ahead of the #2 performer in history, nearly 20 seconds ahead of #3 and more than 22 seconds ahead of #4, who is coincidentally the second-fastest American in history.

The swim also spurred a wave of social media admiration from other Olympic swimmers, including Rowdy Gaines noting that Ledecky’s 800 split would have beaten everyone but herself at the Rio Olympics and Jacob Pebley wondering if Ledecky should get third-place prize money for the men’s event considering she beat all but two men swimming in Indy. See also this link.