Camera and windstorm II (photos)
I was leaving work when I saw a large branch from a tree fallen halfway across the rightmost lane. I pulled back into the parking lot and dragged the branch out of the road, then saw that half of the trees between the building and the road had been knocked down by the wind. Scary. One had been broken off not far above the ground; most of the others had just been knocked over, pulling their roots out along with the sturdy poles tied to them to hold them up. I was about to get back in my car when I realized that I could take some pictures.
So here are my first attempts at putting photos in this journal. It'll take me a while to figure out what looks good, what resolution to use, how big the images should be (both in pixel dimensions and download size), etc.
I should probably just put images on a separate adjunct page to make for fast downloading of the text pages. Or maybe I'll just put "(photos)" in the title as a warning.
Anyway, I got on the freeway and discovered that, as I'd pretty much expected, the wind was perfectly happy to buffet my little car around. Big bully. But I've driven in strong wind before—I drove up the western edge of Kansas during my Wanderjahr, on a narrow little highway, only discovering after I reached my destination that there'd been a wind advisory on that highway that night—so I knew if I was careful and stayed alert and didn't oversteer I'd be fine. But I still went mighty slowly.
Saw several cars off on the shoulder on the way home; called the CHP when I got home to let them know. All the cars looked like they had nobody in 'em, but couldn't hurt to check, especially since one looked like it had run off the road and hit a pylon or something, and was nearly invisible until I passed it.
Got off the freeway at my exit, and a couple blocks later there was a big black plastic trash can rolling around in the middle of the road. I pulled over, waited until I was absolutely 100% certain there were no cars coming (I could see several blocks in that direction), and ran out and grabbed the trash can. I buried it in a bush next to the sidewalk and hoped that would hold it in place.