JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

For those of you who thought you might miss the solar eclipse coming on Monday the 3rd of October, there will be a live webcast thanks to the courtesy and generosity of the city of Madrid. The time listed on the announcement is set at UTC (Greenwich Meantime). If you live in Japan, add 9 hours to the UTC for the correct time to view the various stages of the eclipse. The duration of the total eclipse will be under 5 minutes.

If you were planning on updating your mobile phone you may want to hold off just a little while longer. It looks like the next “new technology” for music lovers is on the way. So you may want to start making room in your collection not only for feeling groovy but for hearing gruvi.

With the all the talk on recent discoveries of a giant squid and the Robinson Crusoe treasure, we may have to consider changing the category of science fiction to scientific possibilities.

Thursday September 29, 2005 [PC (24/365) LW (15/365) H (17/365) ]

September 2005 Total:
S-sunny (1/365) C-cloudy (3/365) PC-partly cloudy (24/365)
D-drizzle (2/365) SR-scattered rain showers (2/365)
W-windy (7/365) LW-light winds (15/365) VW-very windy (2/365)
H-humid (17/365) SH-slightly humid (12/365)

This Year�s (June 3, 2005 – June 2, 2006) Total:
S-sunny (24/365) C-cloudy (31/365) PC-partly cloudy (64/365)
D-drizzle (6/365) R-rainy (4/365) SR-scattered rain showers (11/365)
W-windy (33/365) LW-light winds (64/365) VW-very windy (5/365)
H-humid (57/365) SH-slightly humid (60/365)

Weekly Hogen (Okinawan Dialect) :
English – I’m getting hungry
Japanese – himojikunatta (???????)
Hogen – yaashikunatton?(???????)

Well the weekend following Katrina we had a typhoon hanging around the area. And once again, the weekend following Rita, we have another tropical cyclone at our door. This one has the very unusual name of Longwang, the Chinese God of Rain. To get a better view of the size of this monster check out the satellite imagery. Okinawa is that little line of dots to the NW of the eye of Longwang.

Wednesday September 28, 2005 [S (1/365) LW (14/365) SH (12/365) ]

September 2005 Total:
S-sunny (1/365) C-cloudy (3/365) PC-partly cloudy (23/365)
D-drizzle (2/365) SR-scattered rain showers (2/365)
W-windy (7/365) LW-light winds (14/365) VW-very windy (2/365)
H-humid (16/365) SH-slightly humid (12/365)

This Year�s (June 3, 2005 – June 2, 2006) Total:
S-sunny (24/365) C-cloudy (31/365) PC-partly cloudy (63/365)
D-drizzle (6/365) R-rainy (4/365) SR-scattered rain showers (11/365)
W-windy (33/365) LW-light winds (63/365) VW-very windy (5/365)
H-humid (56/365) SH-slightly humid (60/365)

For those of you who need a good chuckle and haven’t done so yet, check out ‘Garfield’ for Tuesday September 27, 2005.

Does anyone know, or know where I can locate, the total worldwide loss of human life due to natural disasters for 2005? And the total worldwide cost of loss due to natural disasters for the past four years?