RGV Life

It seems like it has been raining for weeks in the Rio Grande Valley. The weather forecasts have almost exclusively hovered around something like: Chance of Showers. High 90. Low 75.  There have been a few days here and there where temperatures have climbed up to 100 degrees, but they have been very few compared to other years when it has been 100 F through October. It's as if all the rain that we have not had these many years has suddenly decided to pay back its debt. Out of curiosity, I looked up the Falcon Reservoir level, which is often used as an indicator of drought conditions. Despite all the rain we have been receiving, the Falcon Lake level is still about 30 ft below capacity. In fact, we are below 2010 and 2011 levels at the same time of year. But, we are above 2012 and 2013 levels by a few feet. We seem to be somewhat following seasonal variability, in terms of lake level. In short, not quite drought, but not quite in breathe easy territory. So, what has been the...

This morning, my oldest and I took the Valley Metro bus from Mission to McAllen. I was headed to 10th and Trenton; she was headed to +The University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) . I thought I had blogged about riding the bus before; but, I don't see any evidence. It must have been put on  +Google+  or on Facebook somewhere. This must have been about 2 or 3 years back when I worked in Edinburg. The result of the previous bus riding was that I couldn't do it long-term. I was spending way too much time doing nothing during the ride, and it takes 2 hours to get from Mission to Edinburg without changing buses. The Valley Metro bus meanders through Mission, goes to the McAllen bus depot, then meanders through Pharr before ending up in Edinburg. The return trip involves equal meandering. I tried using that time to do work, read, or whatever; but, batteries only get you so far. My batteries would be drained by the time I got to work. In addition, it was eating up my data plan...