Since the west coast is being bombarded by storms galore,

any suggestions how to kill time till christmas?
Hate staying indoors..

heard we're having a third storm monday..arghh

Take up indoor rock climbing or go to an indoor range or go see a movie or move to Arizona where we have more sunny days than any other state.

THISISME

/rubs chin

hmm ..interesting
[thinking]

Hey, send some of that wet stuff down to San Diego please.  We're still in drought here.  This years season-to-date total is still less than last year's, and that was a bust!

Some suggestions:

1. Fire up the oven and refresh all of your dessicant.

2. Inspect every firearm, firearm part, and all of your tools for rust and take corrective action as needed.

3. Clean the inside surfaces of all of your windows.  When it stops raining, clean the outsides and all of your window screens.  Things will look nice and pretty when the sun comes out.

4. Between showers, cultivate the soil in your flower garden.  Make sure your drainage is working OK, then plant some flower seeds and bulbs.  In April you'll be glad you did.

5. Have you sent out your Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Ramadan cards yet?

6. Get on the phone and call all the friends and relatives you've been neglecting.

7. Clean up that mess in your living room.

8. Turn off your computer and blow or vacuum the dust out of it.

Any others?

Disneyland?

GunLvr

You want to see stupidity at it's greatest level?

Just pull up a chair near a busy street and watch the cali people deal with water on the road and drive. You'd think they've never seen rain before! (Of course sitting in the rain would be just as stupid, but you get my point)

Hahahah, I'm busting up just thinking about it!

In the big thunderstorms we had a couple of weeks ago I saw dozens of people standing outside gawking at the lightning.  It was pretty cool, but anybody who has ever lived where thunderstorms are common would know to seek shelter.

Practice room clearing.

i like that one
[BD]

Got a girlfriend?  Hmmm..let's see, it's raining, want to stay away from Cali drivers that can't drive......need to pass the time indoors, want to get some exercise.....hmmmm....

heh, sorry to say im single
lol

ahh well

plenty of fine hinas out there

Not to depress you even further, but consider this: What are your equally bored PRK legislators doing right now? That's right, they're staying inside where it's warm and dry...thinking up more ridiculous laws and/or ways to bankrupt the state.

cynic

Get on the loading bench and load more ammo.

I decided to ride the bicycle to work this morning. It was windy and cold, but not raining.

Come time to get off work though, HOLY SHIT!!! Fuckin nasty rain and wind!! Only thing that kept me going was the fact that I knew I had a fresh and [b]dry[/b] change of clothes at home.

-T.

HAHA!
Come watch the "Real Washington residents" drive in the rain. It's just as good of a show.
For people who are SUPPOSED to be able to deal with rain they FREAK when the road gets wet.

What to do when it is raining in SoCal? Get youe ass out into the wilds and have some fun enjoying nature as it gives SoCal the liquid skyborne enema it deserves. There are some cool fallsm streams and rivers to enjoy in the rain, not to mention the mountains and the deserts.

This is ironic....

Just a few weeks ago, one of the major networks had a story about the water rights issue between Califorina farmers and the urban dwelers.  Seems like Kalifornia is taking more then their share of water from the Colorado River (IIRC).  And the Feds are "forcing" them to cut back to their allotted amount starting next year.

Now, they have all this rain.  Maybe they should think about making a big reservor some where.  Oh wait...that would destroy some kind of habitat....so odds are it won't happen.

(Just ignore me.... just ranting....)

Actually SoKal is in the process of building 3 pretty BFD's and one BFL!


MWD's massive Eastside Reservoir now under construction near the San Jacinto River and the town of Hemet in Riverside County. Standing in the bottom of what will be a reservoir covering nine square miles of arid land, I was staggered by the immensity of the project. This off stream (non-river) reservoir features three earth and rock fill dams, with a combined length more than four miles long and ranging from 130-feet to 280-feet high costing $2.2 billion.

Farming was the mainstay of this area for 100 years before the earthmovers began tearing down entire hillsides. Somehow this manmade bucket is supposed to draw two million visitors a year for all the recreation such artificial lakes can offer. There is even talk of rerouting the San Diego Canal to create an artificial Class 2-3 whitewater course.

For instance, the unused groundwater storage capacity in the Chino Basin (comprising parts of Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties) is estimated at somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 acre feet. Unused storage capacity in the Central Basin of Los Angeles County is also quite significant. Plus, water provided through groundwater storage and water conservation doesn't evaporate the way surface storage does. The Met projects that an average of 14 million gallons of water will evaporate from the Eastside Reservoir each day.

The three dams built in Riverside County, California, for the Eastside Reservoir project, will hold back 987 million cubic metres of water. The dams, which were completed in December 1999, required the excavation of 31 million cubic metres of foundation material.

Extensive foundation excavation was needed for the dams, which also required careful placement of embankment material to enclose portions of two valleys between a pair of bedrock ridges.

The two larger embankments - the West and East dams - block the west and east ends of the valleys. A relatively narrow ridge 500ft (152m) above the valley floor at its highest point forms the north rim of the reservoir. The lowest point of the ridge, where the Saddle Dam was built, is 190ft (58m) above the valley floor. The reservoir's south rim is formed by a broad bedrock highland with peaks as high as 1,100ft (335m) above the valley within a mile of the reservoir.

The reservoir will be 8,000ft (2,438m) wide at its west end, 10,000ft (3,048m) in the east and about 2,500ft (762m) wide near the middle. When full the reservoir will be between 160ft and 260ft (49m and 79m) deep.

EARTH-CORE ROCK-FILL DAMS

The three earth-core rock-fill dams are made from soil and rock materials obtained from borrow areas within the confines of the project. Core materials were obtained from the silty and clayey sandy alluvium in the floor of the reservoir and the rock fill came from the bedrock highlands of the reservoir's south rim.

The embankment designs of the three Eastside Reservoir dams are similar. The upstream and downstream slopes of the rock-fill shells are two horizontal to one vertical. The crest widths of the West and East dams are 40ft (12m) and the crest width of the Saddle Dam is 30ft (9m).

Earthquake movement was a major consideration when designing the dams. The San Jacinto Fault, located about 6 miles from the reservoir, is capable of 7.5 on the Richter Scale. The San Andreas Fault, located about 19 miles from the reservoir, is capable of 8.

The planning and site selection studies for the Eastside Reservoir began in 1987 with design studies starting in early 1993. The first major construction contract for the excavation of the West Dam foundation was awarded in May 1995, and construction of the East Dam began early in 1996. All three dams were completed in December 1999 and the reservoir is now being filled.

WEST DAM

The West Dam rises to 285ft (87m) above the valley floor. Its alignment spans a nearly flat alluvial valley floor 1.5 miles wide between bedrock abutment ridges.

About 65% of the dam's foundation area is founded on quartzite and phyllite bedrock; the remainder is founded on dense alluvium that fills the three buried channels, which are up to120ft (37m) deep. The foundation excavations were extended 90ft (27m) below the original ground surface to remove the liquefiable soils.

To minimise foundation seepage through the alluvium, 3ft (0.9m) thick cut-off walls of plastic concrete were constructed across the three alluvial channels and excavated at least 2ft (0.6m) into bedrock.

To reduce seepage through the rock foundation the entire core width was consolidation grouted and a double-line grout curtain was installed to a depth of approximately 125ft (38m).

The West Dam grouting took about two years to complete and required 1 million feet (304,800m) of grout holes.

EAST DAM

The 2.1 mile East Dam, constructed by a Kiewit-led joint venture, is the longest of the three dams. It measures 185ft (56m) long, 1,200ft wide at the base and 40ft wide at the top. Before embankment of the dam could begin, more than 18 million cubic yards of alluvium had to be excavated to reach a solid bedrock foundation.

The embankment required 43 million cubic yards of crushed rock. An on-site crushing plant crushed and processed over 14 million tons of rock in 20 months to supply the dam's materials.

The cut-off wall, which consists of a 3ft (0.9m) thick plastic concrete mix constructed through the weathered portion of bedrock, varies in depth from 10ft to 110ft (3m to 34m) and totals 250,000ft² (23,225m²).

A two-line grout curtain reaches depths of 150ft (46m) below the foundation in the north segment of the East Dam and 100ft (30m) in the south segment.

SADDLE DAM

The Saddle Dam rises 130ft (40m) above the lowest point in the ridgeline of the north rim and is about 0.5 miles (0.8km) long.

The Saddle Dam is founded completely on phyllite and schist bedrock. To minimise foundation seepage, a two-line grout curtain extends up to 100ft (30m) below the foundation.

METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a consortium of 26 cities and water districts that provides drinking water to nearly 17 million people in parts of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

Metropolitan currently delivers an average of 1.7 billion gallons of water per day to a 5,200 square mile service area.

Just to give you an idea of how much of a BFD and BFL it is going to be.

Diamond Valley Lake
This reservoir will hold as much water as combining Castaic Lake, Lake Mathews, Pyramid Lake, Lake Perris and Lake Skinner into one.

Reservoir Surface Area
4,500 acres
4.5 miles long
More than 2 miles wide
160-260 feet deep
Maximum elevation 1,756 feet above sea level


[img]http://66.113.223.42/lakes/images/pic04.jpg[/img]

When these photos were taken the lake was only 3/4 full, the dams were still under construction!

[img]http://66.113.223.42/lakes/images/pic22.jpg[/img]

[img]http://66.113.223.42/lakes/images/pic18.jpg[/img]

During Construction
[img]http://www.water-technology.net/projects/eastside_res/images/Eastside01.jpg[/img]

[img]http://66.113.223.42/lakes/images/pic06.jpg[/img]

Well, after being stuck in the rain a few times on my motorcycle, I can relate to the 'rain-(pedal??)-biker' in this thread... And people's driving looks a whole lot worse when you're on a bike (knowing that if you slam on the brakes, you'll be doing the concrete back-slide @ 40mph)...

November Rain may make a nice song title, but it's a major PITA when you're stuck in it (especially in WI, where it's *#%!#%* COLD (as in '1 degree colder and it's ICE) rain!). December rain... YEA(but-at-least-it's-not-SNOW)CK!!!!!

Rain? Awwwwwwww...man. You need a nice tropical storm that dumps 21 inches of rain in 24 hours. Yeapper...welcome to Florida ,the sunshine state. you don't like the weather here? Wait twenty minutes...it'll change. [BD]

I guess if an earthquake took place here...people would die of shock, by the thousands.

I've been watching my old DVD's..Red Dawn, Night of the living dead, Patiot, and others