When writing my previous travel woes post, I figured I should check how many miles I’ve flown on United.  As of 4/26/2008, I have flown 299,929 miles with United.  The vast majority of which has been since the fall of 2005.  Not bad!  :)  I tallied up roughly 60,000 miles in 2005, 140,000 miles in 2006…and just over 100,000 in 2007.

Trying to fly home to LAX tonight.  My flight to Dulles, which I connect from there to LAX has now been delayed until 8:30pm.  utoh!

First it was Air Traffic Control issues, now it is weather delays in Dulles…add to it likely delays here in ATL due to weather and things are not looking good.  .75” hail is now being reported in the Severe Thunderstorm to the west of ATL.

Interestingly enough, the last time I was significantly delayed like this (the crew for my flight has been sitting around here at the airport since 2pm!) was here in ATL in December of 2006.  I ended up missing my office Christmas Party that time. 

Given all the flying I’ve done over the last two/three years…it is a surprise I don’t have more horror stories when it comes to flight delays etc!  :)

On the Farecast.com Blog, the latest post reads: Microsoft Acquires Farecast.  No details on what Microsoft intends to do with Farecast, but you can get a glimpse as to how MSN Travel has used Farecast @ http://travel.msn.com.

This comes across as a rather odd acquisition… but Microsoft has made no bones about making such deals often.  Especially when the belief is that acquired technology can be used as a platform.  Maybe there is something special in their price prediction “secret sauce” that Microsoft really liked.  :)  Will be interesting to see if they do more than just rebrand Farecast as MSN Travel. 

It is funny to watch this go full circle.  Microsoft created Expedia back in the heyday of MSN.  Expedia was spun off; much like CitySearch (and almost what is now MSN Autos).  MSN Travel uses Expedia today to help customers find and build their travel plans.  MSN CityGuides are back.  Now Microsoft buys Farecast and will certainly bulk up MSN Travel in the future.

p.s. I know I need to blog more!  Been super duper busy but I’ll be sticking around these parts for sure!  = ]  Fun days are ahead…

Terrific coverage and a live stream of MSNBC @ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22997326/.  If you are a political junkie...this veritable scoreboard is a ton of fun to watch!  :)

From this morning's Forecast Discussion from the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California:

THE AVERAGE HIGH FOR DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES SO FAR THIS MONTH IS 64.2 DEGREES...AND WITH THE HIGHS FORECAST FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS...IT WILL END UP AT 64.1 DEGREES...THE LOWEST AVERAGE MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE FOR THE MONTH OF JANUARY IN ALMOST 30 YEARS...SINCE 1979. WITH 7.97 INCHES OF RAIN IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES...IT WILL BECOME THE 11TH WETTEST JANUARY OF THE 131 SINCE RECORDS THERE BEGAN IN JULY 1877.

Its been fun to wear all my scarfs, coats, and jackets this month! 

I woke up at 4am today and wasn't able to get back to sleep.  Once the sun was up I went to the roof of my building to snap a couple of pictures.  It is an absolutely gorgeous day thus far in the dry slot between the storm to the west of us and the subtropical jet to the south.

Can you spot the Hollywood Sign?  :)  I have a zoomed in photo of it from my building in my Downtown Los Angeles Photo Album.

Sure it has a ridiculous name (surprisingly the anchors seem to never choke while saying it every 10 minutes!) -- but it is Southern California's only live million watt weather radar.

The potency of the incoming storm has been somewhat in question...the question being just how much rain and how hard will it fall.  It all depends on the interaction of the low pressure off the coast with a stream of subtropical moisture being pulled northward towards Southern California.  I've seen many of these scenarios in my past 28 years in Los Angeles -- and sometimes the ingredients just fail to come together.

In the last 5 minutes, the first lightning strike on the lightning detection network showed up...and not from the cold core low off the coast...but in the subtropical perturbations being drug up from the tropics.  Look well south southwest of San Diego.

Inbox spelled backwards...this looks like a killer plug-in for Outlook, bringing an element of social networking into the mix.  I'm most excited about easy access to attachments and using the built in sidebar to jump to previous email from a particular contact w/o leaving the email I'm currently viewing!  I signed up for the beta and will post an update on how my experience went!  :)

Click the Badge below to learn more and sign up for the beta!!

Minutes away from the kickoff of CES 2008 with the Bill Gates keynote.  Unfortunately, I'm in a meeting here in Las Vegas so I may not be able to go join the festivities!  :(  At any rate...I promised the webcast links and I apologize for not posting them earlier!  I'll update my blog with the webcast archive after the show.

Live in Los Angeles?  Add http://www.livedoppler7000.com to your favourites and track the strongest storm to hit the Southland since January 2005.  Click on Live MEGA Doppler 7000 HD on the left.