Kenny Landes | Graphic Design | Web Development | San Francisco

It seems impossible, but a hurricane could be about to strike Southern California. I was in San Diego last week, where the water was noticeably warmer than usual…in the mid-70’s. That’s ice water to East Coast ocean swimmers, but about 5–10 degrees warmer than normal, even for San Diego. The NOAA graphic I have posted shows the hurricane could reach San Diego within 4–5 days. By then it’s likely to be much-weakened. However, the potential rainfall could make for a disastrous downpour, resulting in mudslides and flooding.

Check this out, excerpted from the L.A. Times blogger Pete Thomas:

As Southern Californians continue to deal with fire and smoke, residents and tourists in Baja California Sur are bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Jimena, an intense storm that might cause widespread flooding and damage.

The 8 a.m. Monday advisory from the National Hurricane Center positioned the eye of the storm 355 miles south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas. It’s traveling to the northwest with maximum sustained winds of about 145 mph, making it a Category 4 hurricane. It will make landfall in the Magdalena Bay area late Tuesday or very early Wednesday.

The government of Mexico has issued a Hurricane Warning for the southern half of the state. That means hurricane conditions are likely within the next 24 hours.

Beachfront hotels are shoring up and fishing fleet crews from Cabo San Lucas to La Paz have been pulling boats from the water or moving them to safer areas. Guests at Rancho Leonero Resort on the East Cape were sent home. Guests at nearby Hotel Punta Colorada were moved to Hotel Palmas de Cortez. Both are Van Wormer Resorts properties.

Tracy Ehrenberg, general manager of Pisces Sportfishing in Cabo San Lucas, said Monday morning that seas were calm and the port was still open. In fact, Pisces has two charters today. Ehrenberg expects the typical chaos in advance of a hurricane — long lines at gas stations, etc. — to ensue throughout the day.

Mark Rayor, who runs Vista Sea Sport in Buena Vista in the East Cape, took delivery of a Cabo 35 fishing boat Friday in La Paz. A day after he drove the boat south to the East Cape, he drove it back to the protected harbor in La Paz. “The people I bought it from told me it was a lucky boat,” he said. “I’m hoping they were right.”

If there’s a silver lining, the region is drought-stricken and parched, and Jimena is already delivering showers. Said Eric Brictson, owner of Gordo Banks Pangas: “It has been a while since we have been hit, so this could be the one one that finally brings some much-needed rainfall.”

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/08/hurricane-jimena-.html

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This past week in San Diego, I got the chance to spend a day at the beach. I used to do this a lot when I was a teenager, after my family moved from Kansas City to San Diego. However, the past 10 years have been very busy, productive years. The ways of my past have been forced to take a back seat to the ambitions of the present and hopes for the future.

Living in San Francisco, warm weather is in short supply. We have spectacular beaches that are usually too cold for fun-in-the-sun. Even when the air is warm, the water remains very cold.

When I go home to San Diego, it is mostly to visit family and catch up with friends. So this time I decided to just take a day out for me. I always enjoyed going to Torrey Pines State Beach when I lived in San Diego. The steep cliffs create a sense of distance and seclusion from civilization. Once again, I was not disappointed. The weather was spectacular. It was not too crowded, and the ocean water was a refreshing 74 degrees, making for good swimming.

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I’ve been adding lots of new skills to my tool belt the last year or so. This weekend I took a big leap, with my friend Kevin’s encouragement, to migrate my site content into a CMS. It’s the direction I’ve wanted to go for some time, but I was busy churning out uninspiring school projects. With a little bit of help, I was able to do a preliminary set up with a downloaded theme. It’s a starting point, but what an amazing place to start! I’ll be continuing to add content and build the site out better once I return home to San Francisco. I love having an integrated site to display all the facets of my personality: personal, professional and other interests.

As all this has unfolded, there have been several side projects, too. My plan to set up all my feeds in Google Reader is finally finished. It will be so much easier to simultaneously keep up with my job search, track design trends, etc. I also finally focused on the Photoshop-to-XHTML work flow. By focusing on some tutorial resources, I will be able to master this skill quickly. It’s not terribly difficult, once I sat down and focused on what needed to be done. Today’s sideshow was finally organizing all our bookmarks and putting them up on Delicious. It seems the big lesson of this visit has been to be resourceful. No sense reinventing the wheel! We still have a few things to do, but my “working vacation” is not even half over.

I don’t know what I’d do without my buddy, Kevin. We met in school when we were both in the early stages of career changes. We had many overlapping interests and life experiences. It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime friendships. We challenge, teach each other, encourage and support each other personally and professionally. The picture in this post is from our recent visit to Flash Camp at the Adobe offices in San Francisco. I’m already wondering what fun memories our next visit will bring…

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