Two powerful warm-core cyclones 10,000 km apart

This afternoon we had the treat of having two warm-core cyclones with (estimated) sea level pressures less than 915 hPa: Supertyphoon Juan/Megi (15W... different names from Philippines & JTWC), which saw a research aircraft dropsonde SLP of 893 mb and max winds of ~165 kts, and a polar low approaching the Drake Passage, which was analyzed by the 18Z GFS to have SLP of ~912 hPa. (On a side note, anyone know how the GFS gets this analysis? I can understanding the routine analyses of 1000 mb, heck even the rarer 970 mb low... but a 912 mb low? Is there a +/- involved... perhaps as much as 15 mb? Just thinking...)

Here are a few images.

Images from Fall

Fall is here (finally!). We had a good deluge to end September (over 9" of rain in about 27 hours!), and now the nights are cool and the days sunny and warm. Excellent fall weather! I went to the first half of the Navy-SMU game yesterday (Navy came back from a 14-0 deficit to win 28-21), and today walked around my neighborhood taking pictures of the scenery. The trees here are starting to color up, and that makes me smile!

Here are some pics.

31 - not easy to say in Spanish

Last month I celebrated my 31st birthday! I had about 20 friends from church & small group over for a celebration cookout. I've discovered that for whatever reason, numbers that end in "one" are hard for me to say in Spanish... do you say "Tengo..." "treinta un", "treinta uno", "treinta y un", or "treinta y uno" ... "años"? The trouble with this number is that "uno" is one, but my age is plural... and the adjective "a" (as in "a tree"... "un arbol"), is "un" and it's very similar to "uno". Hopefully I'll figure it out by September 2011!

Here are some pictures from last month.

Fall Retreat

Last weekend, I joined USNA Crusade for their annual fall retreat. Over 100 of us headed west to Skycroft Conference Center just outside of Frederick, MD. I rode up with Kyle and Greg St Cyr, pastor of Bay Area church, and enjoyed hearing about their lives & getting some good advice for mine. Because of required "SMT" (Saturday morning training) for the younger mids, our retreat extended from Saturday p.m.-Monday p.m. Monday was the federal holiday for Columbus day.

I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with the guys (and gals) out there- lots of good singing, good messages from "The Percolator" (the nickname the guys gave Greg b/c of his love of coffee), and of course free time & good conversations. I also enjoyed capture the flag, "Cru Cup" events, knockout, cornhole, dodge ball, constructing catapults, and generally goofing off. I remarked to several students that for me, although I enjoyed myself immensely, the weekend was emotionally draining! Normally my life is pretty tranquil- interactions with my roommates, of course time with students while teaching - but the only 'break' I got over the weekend was while everyone was sleeping (and I didn't sleep much- going to bed after 1 each night and getting up before 7).

Here are some pics from our weekend: