Malibu morning picture of the day - Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Dear Friends, Family, Gentle Readers,
It's Wednesday the "coast is not clear."

The sky is sort of airbrushed grey today, but since the sea is very calm, the variations in surface disturbance have appeared again.

This makes it look like there's a rolling hill of water, but no, it's flat; that's just varying surface color.

IF that were a rising mound of water relative to the height of the shore, that would be a tsunami. FYI, there are tsunami evacuation route signs around here and in Santa Monica.

The instructions here in Malibu are that if there ever is a tsunami warning, we all need to get through the canyon and shelter in Malibu Creek State Park. That's a ridiculous expectation if you imagine the entire population of east Malibu trying to get down a one-lane-each-way mountain canyon road within minutes. Guess I would just go to our upper campus and just watch geological history being made and be ready to become a piece of ocean detritus.

Speaking of history: For those of you who wonder if anything ever happened on this day, U.S. president James Garfield was shot in 1831, only four months into office. He did not die immediately but lingered into September. Interestingly, there was no provision for the Veep to assume duties when a president was incapacitated, so they had to figure out how to solve that problem with 25th Amendment (the Constitution had only been in effect for about 50 years at that time). Luckily there was no war in Afghanistan going on.

And a little bit of Chinese lore: In the traditional calendar the Chinese divided the year up into 24 half-months. We are in the mini-month of "Grain-in-Ear." Obviously the name is agriculturally based; other months are named "Rains," "Insects Awaken," "Grain Buds," "Great Heat," etc. Obviously it's a slow morning right now... ah but some work just rolled in. Have a wonderful day.

Love,
Pops