No, I have not disappeared from the face of the earth – I've just been busy!
The current rain storm has brought us sustained gentle rain, exactly what we've been needing so badly. I just checked my rain gauge – we're at 3.27 inches for storm total so far, and the forecast still calls for another 30 hours or so of possible rain. Wahoo!
Yes, I know that my web sites for Lawson Valley weather and the Lyons Peak cameras are down (along with several others). They're all on a server located at a friend's house some 30 miles away, and I need to physically go there to see what's wrong. No ETA for getting it fixed, as I don't know what's wrong...
And to all those people who want to know what I thought of the results from the Iowa caucuses (cauci?): I think they're irrelevant, and mostly what they did for me was to illustrate for the umpteenth time the many reasons I don't like any of the candidates. Except maybe Thompson; the more I hear from him, the more I find to like (though I've still got major reservations about him, too – most especially his support of McCain-Feingold). A pox on the whole lot!
I once read about a proposed system of voting that would give each voter the choice of either voting for the voter's favorite candidate, or against the voter's least favorite candidate. The result for each candidate would be the sum of all the for votes, minus the sum of all the against votes. The candidate with the highest score would be the winner. If that system were actually in place in the U.S., this year I'd definitely be choosing an against vote – no matter which Democratic candidate wins the primary, I'd be more worried about that candidate winning than I would be passionate about the Republican candidate (whether it was McCain, Guiliani, or Romney).
The only time I'd be in a bit of a quandary would be if somehow Huckabee or Paul got the Republican nod – but if that happened, I might be thinking about emigration. For example, suppose it turned out to be Ron Paul vs. Barack Obama? Just entertaining that thought for a moment make my head feel like exploding!