Mama mia, we had us a storm here today, brothers and sisters. Santa Barbara is even getting mentioned on the Weather Channel, with 4 inches of rain, don’t ya know.

I love rain. This affinity runs in the family; my Dad is a minor rain deity; specifically, a Quasi Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer (cf, Rob McKenna, a minor character in So Long And Thanks for All The Fish.) And I especially appreciate it now that I live in a place that cannot possibly flood. I live in a second floor condo on the side of a concrete and asphalt hill, 60 feet above the level of a creek about half a mile away. So in order for water to reach me, as I may have explained here before, US 101 would have to be under water to the height of a five story building.

Which is a nice change from where I used to live, and dread the pineapple express rainstorms that sometimes blow across the eastern Pacific from Hawaii. Over there, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to find my living room had an inch of water in the carpet. Just bloody lovely.

Anyway, we had some heavy lightning and thunder today. I had to unplug the computers. At one point I was down near the beach, about to unlock a dead-bolted solid wood door, when the thunder hit. I saw the door rattle in its frame from the sound waves. That was cool. But the best thing was just after sundown, when the clouds lifted just a little from the low coastal hills, revealing a dusting of snow.

Snow! It’s not bizarre; these coastal hills are around 2000 feet high. But it’s still very cool. Especially during the day. Usually, if we get snow on our hills it’s at night, and we wake up to it, and it melts by noon. So to have a nice white cloak during the day is special. Maybe I can get pictures in the morning.