Sandy brings wild winds

Other then a 10 minute power failure last night around 9pm and the sound of heavy wind outside,  hurricane Sandy has been pretty tame for me in Montreal.

But I know the HMCS Moncton is out in the Atlantic with the 8 metre swells. After what happened to the HMS Bounty yesterday I am worried for my daughter, but no news is good news.

It's not over yet, the wild winds and rain are still going to affect us for a day or two. 

Ophelia going to hit Newfoundland today

Can't help but wonder if it will hit with a whimper like Mary or hit much harder. Last I checked it had downgraded substantially. At some point it was a category 4 hurricane when it passed near Bermuda. Now it appears to be a tropical storm strength, with gusts at hurricane level.

Regardless fall is here. It's all of 10C right now with a high of 14C today. BRRR.

Maria hit Newfoundland with a whimper

For all the hype, this particular Hurricane didn't have as much hot air as we were led to believe. This isn't a bad thing, the folks in Newfoundland got some rain and wind but no major wind storm or loss of power.  No one is complaining that Maria was a less intense!

Also I want to add a note to my previous entry, where I finish off by saying "religion". One friend asked if I didn't mean the Catholic religion. No I didn't mean just them. But saying religion is wrong too. My dad would have called me on it as well.   It's not religion, it's not even Christian religions.    I think those I want to blame are those particular denominations who felt that in order to save those "savage souls" they also had to destroy who these people were, their societies and their way of life.  Those denominations are in part the ones who are being banished but they probably aren't the only ones. 

I really have no use for organized religion and it probably comes out a great deal in my criticism. I'm part of a larger group of Quebecois who were born at the end of the quiet revolution and for whom religion and in particular the Catholic Church is like an enemy. The Catholic Church controlled so many aspects of the Quebecois life in the past that my generation grew up with a profound distrust of religious institutions.

For me this is despite the fact my mom taught in the Catholic School board, she had several friends who were priests and the fact my step-dad was a Catholic priest before marrying my mom.   My aunt also taught in Catholic school board for her entire career and had several friends that were nuns. I spent more time with clergy as a child then with children. [In generally I spent more time with adults then with children as a child]. 

As far as I can remember I've not had a bad experience with nuns or priests, I've never had fear of them and as it goes I've never met a nun that didn't like me! Including the Organic Chemistry teacher that would find me in the cafeteria after I'd skip her class, to tell me what we covered in class and that her door was always open if I needed help!!! 

To get back to my point - no one should be forced or pushed into a faith.  If a particular religion works for you and matches your morals and beliefs then great, a match made in heaven! However no one should be forced to change who they are to fit within the confines of a particular religion.

Maria about to Hit NewFoundLand

In a couple of hours hurricane Maria will land in Newfoundland. Let's hope for everyone in that province that it doesn't hit as hard as Igor hit last year. The Canadian Military had to be called in to help rebuild bridges and roads that didn't survive.

 Since Hurricanes do come this way from time to time, the people know how to prepare so there should not be many if any deaths, but there will be some destruction.

I can't help but wonder if Maria's the reason it was 7C this morning outside. This isn't September weather!

Hurricane season picks up of late.

Summer is always hurricane season and this summer appears to be no exception. I always check out the Hurricane centre website in season. We had Irene barely 2 Sundays ago. Lee  dumped tons of rain on Louisiana and I sure we'll get the rain remnants if we haven't already.  There's been Katia which thankfully seems to stay well inside the Atlantic and it doesn't look like it will find land until it gets over the UK  by next week.  There's also Maria that is following Katia but sadly it will affect some islands in the Caribbean, and hopefully it will avoid Florida and the Carolina's.  Last but not least, there's Nate, I believe the 14th named storm this year,  in the gulf of Mexico that will land in Mexico shortly.

Post Hurricane Irene

Here I thought I'd not been in the area most affected by Irene, but it turns out I was wrong. Some of the areas we drove through were some of the areas most affected by Irene in Quebec it turns out. At least we drove through a part of Quebec that received the most rainfall. 

All I can say with the winds that we experienced - gusts close to 100km per hour, I'm happy I had the unhealthy part of my maple tree cut down - when I had a close call with part of the tree falling really close to the house.  It would certainly have come crashing. 

I was looking at the National Hurricane centre website tonight, and there's a hurricane that may land in US' south next week, there's a depression in the gulf of Mexico that's going to land in Louisiana and there's potentially a post-tropical depression forming not so far away from Nova Scotia. Looks like the winds are propitious for creating storms at the moment.

In the path of Irene and other news this morning.

I'm not sure if the good folks who chose the hurricane names stopped to think about the meaning of the names they choose to name hurricanes?  The reason I'm wondering is that the name Irene means peace, and I can garantee that the people in the path of Irene will not find peace of any shape!!!

Irene as seen from space looks terrifying according to one astronaut. What's for sure is that from the Carolinas all the way up the East coast to NJ is under hurricane watch. It originally looked like it would go towards Nova Scotia, but now it seems like it might come up the St Lawrence valley after hitting Jersey near New York City.  Montreal often gets massive rainstorms as remnants of hurricanes disperse over land.

Elsewhere in the news I found out my friend from Baltimore had a nasty fall yesterday and is in the hospital with broken bones. As best as  I understood she did a lot of damage to one wrist and may have surgery today to fix the wrist.  Something tells me this means she will not be travelling to Montreal Labour day week-end.  Even if she's still mobile, she might not want to travel with a cast. I guess I'll wait and see. 

Apparently there was a large blast at the UN building in the Nigerian capital. No one has claimed responsibility for this bomb. I guess we'll no more about this as the day progresses.

About 150 Syrians were arrested in Saudi Arabia for demonstrating. I guess they figured since the King told Bashar to stop the killing of his people, that it was ok for them to show support for their fellow Syrians but it seems Saudi Arabia does not want ANY protests on it's soil. Of course, it's too afraid that the Arab Spring will spread to their country. 

Lots of people are arrested, detained, beaten and tortured in Syria every day. Yesterday was no different. Bashar's thugs found one of Syria's better known cartoonist walking home and kinapped him. He was released on the road to the airport in Damascus after they beat him up and broke at least one of his hands. It would appear poor Bashar has very low tolerance for any criticism. Apparently Ali Ferzat had been more bold recently in drawing the Syrian President.

The only good news for me is that my daughter who is in Halifax will be Montreal bound tomorrow :)  On that note I have to pick up stuff before my cleaning lady arrives and get the heck out of here.