hard to picture what you went through here on the eastern end of Long Island where it is flat. My prayers are with you.

There's a joke about bad luck—something about being attacked by a shark and a bear on the same day. Here's a pic of an unfortinuate bear that was washed to the beach as a result of the mudslide. The surfboard was chomped a couple of weeks earler. Makes the joke seem like it's a distinct possibility.

Rosebud and I have been staying close to home these past couple of weeks. The Santa Barbara mudslides have closed Hwy 101 and the recovery effort is creating quite a mess. A non-stop caravan of dump trucks hauling mud slurry, rock and rubble have rendered many of the roads dusty, hazardous and generally incompatible to shiny, low-slung Minis with semi-slick tires; a minor inconvenience considering the hundreds of families who have lost everything, including their loved ones. [link]

We've had some pretty awful luck lately. California's largest wildland fire followed by a devastating mudslide (not to mention last weeks earthquake), it's almost like we built all of this on top of an ancient Indian burial ground. Oh wait... we did.