RAIN! Glorious RAIN!! And Happy Independance Day!

 

 

 Ahhhhh....so nice to smell it coming in, feel the temperature drop and the wind pick up.....and then it comes. Gently at first, and then it turns into the first really good downpour of the year. By the time it turned back into a nice, steady drizzle to when it stopped (for now?) was almost an hour. I'd give you a reading from my weather station, but it hasn't recorded any rainfall! The rain measurement consists of two modes, individual increments, and a "Storm Mode", which sees it raining, decides "Oh, this is a storm", and records the rainfall for a "Storm Event", which means it doesn't end that mode until it hasn't detected any rain for a (user adjustable) time. Since they're stored in separate registers, I'm thinking my software is only reading the "Storm Event" register, and reporting it. Something I have to look into when I rebuild the little server PC and install a fresh load of the latest release of Kubuntu, a Debian-based distribution of "The Linux Operating System". The little server has been chugging along for 272 days without a reboot or update. I can't update it because I picked a version of Kubuntu that did not have Long term Support, and I missed the window to upgrade it to a newer version. It could be updated, but it would be far too much work. I'll grab all the weather data off it before I wipe it.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the city's fireworks display, so The Kids and both Little Guys will be over, as we have an "open space" area in this neighborhood that provides a very good view. He's been getting do good at driving my little R/C truck, that I went out and got another one so we could chase each other around the backyard.

Not quite the "International Race of Champions", but I was getting tired of him waxing my tail when he had the truck, and I had one of his other "Radio Controlled" (barely) toys. Hey, equal equipment for all! These are excellent beginner's R/C models as they have full proportional steering and throttle, compared to the "Bang-Bang" controllers his other vehicles have.

And we'll be flying the flag this weekend in remembrance of a day long ago, in a country far, far away...

UPDATE.......

The rain collection bucket had some trash in it, blocking the entrance to the tipper bucket inside the housing. It had a whole lotta water in it, and after I cleared the hole, it indicated .35" of rain, so yep, we got some rain!