Help Identify This Hit-And-Run Driver!

Update and Bump:

Shona and Blaine still don't know who the hit-and-run driver was. Rack your brains, folks -- do you know anyone with a blue four-door sedan who might have been in Lawson Valley last Sunday (June 10)?

Original Post:

Driving home yesterday afternoon, just around the corner from our house I spotted this sign. One of the kids in our neighborhood was struck by a hit-and-run driver, and the parents are looking for information. The sign didn't say what kind of shape the kid was in, which worried me, so I called the number on the sign and got Shona (pronounced SHOW-nah) -- the mother of the boy who was hit by the car.

From the moment she started talking, she sounded far too cheerful to be worrying about a seriously injured son, so I worked up the courage to ask her about the situation. Her son is not seriously injured, thank goodness -- mostly he's suffering some abrasion "rashes". His younger brother witnessed it, and he's a little rattled by the whole experience. But they're ok, and that's the main thing.

A sheriff happened by shortly after the accident, and called in the CHP. Shona reports that the sheriff's deputy was very helpful, but that the CHP officer seemed more concerned about the registration for her kid's motorcycle. The officer told her that since they didn't have a license number (as mom points out, what's he supposed to do -- catch a glimpse as he's flying through the air?), the CHP couldn't do anything. One is forced to wonder if the officer has ever heard of the notion of a criminal investigation -- even I could think of a few things to do, starting with canvassing the neighborhood. Shona is quite frustrated by this lack of police enthusiasm, and understandably so. She's determined to do her best to find some information that will help identify the hit-and-run driver.

If you have any idea who this hit-and-run driver might be, please call Blaine or Shona at 619/659-8990.

All they know now is what their kids observed: that the car was a four-door sedan in a fairly light shade of blue. I'm sure you can imagine, just as I can, how badly they want to see some justice rendered. Please...help them if you can.

Mt. Lassen Vacation

My father and I four-wheeled and hiked all over the Mt. Lassen National Park area from June 3 through June 9. Each day is described in a post, and most of the posts have a number of photographs (about 500 in all). This post serves as an index to the whole vacation.

06/02: On the Road!
06/03: Mt. Lassen
06/04: Turner Mountain
06/05: Juniper Lake
06/06: Manton and Wilson Meadows
06/07: Humbug Valley
06/08: Devil's Kitchen and the Unnamed Waterfall
06/09: Rice Creek, Lost Creek, and Marion Creek
06/10: Home, Home, Home...

Quote of the Day

Today's quote is by Representative Jeff Flake (R, Arizona), who said:

I get beat like a rented mule.

This was in reference to his repeated amendments to kill earmarks. These amendments always fail, "even though he's gone after such howlers as a hydroponic tomato project in Ohio and a rain forest exhibit in Iowa" (as the WSJ's John Fund puts it).

Summer is Here!

We experienced a very abrupt transition this week, from unseasonably cool temperatures to the usual very hot days of summer. We haven't broken 100 F yet, but we're getting close...

The graph at right shows the sunlight levels here for the past seven days, as measured by my weather station. You can see by the nice smooth curve that the past five days have had totally uninterrupted sunshine -- not a cloud to be seen anywhere, and wall-to-wall blue sky. The forecast is calling for partly cloudy today through the weekend, and even a chance of drizzle on Sunday -- but that same forecast called for partly cloudy the last few days, so its credibility with me is quite low!

The graph at right shows our relative humidity (in green, using the righthand scale) and temperature (in red, using the lefthand scale). Here you can see that the past three nights have been very low humidity -- not the usual pattern, but common enough. These low humidity nights are quite reliably followed by rapidly heating air in the daylight, and high temperatures; that pattern holds here, and therefore I expect high temperatures again today. It seems that dry air heats more rapidly than humid air, which makes sense -- there's much less energy to expend. Also, the wet air at night is at least partly caused by evaporation of water from plants and the ground, and the evaporation process reduces the temperature at night, giving it further to climb the next day.

It's times like these that make me thankful for a reliable air conditioner!

Oh, Ouch, Harry...

Chris Muir skewers Harry Reid. I just cannot imagine how that man wins elections in Nevada...