SOCIAL: 'deep quoted in Chron!

[E. Grace Gellerman]

Quote from our favorite gregarious software engineer highlighted below.


<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/02/RAIN.TMP>


BAY AREA
  The rain's a pain, from roofing jobs to softball fields 
  - Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, April 2, 2006


Cancel the volleyball game and stow away the beach towels that aren't 
being used to sop up water. The Bay Area is under the weather this 
spring and there is no relief in sight.

There were more rainy days in March than ever before in San 
Francisco, Oakland, San Rafael and Santa Rosa, and the monotonous 
pounding is likely to continue for at least two more weeks, according 
to forecasters.

The daily soakings have ruined or forced the cancellations of 
countless activities, including picnics, softball games, playground 
outings and bicycle rides. It has even put a damper on the 
time-honored spring activity of gardening.

In fact, the only outdoor activity that the rain has not spoiled this 
spring is puddle-stomping, a practice that many outdoor enthusiasts 
and people whose livelihoods depend on good weather are taking up in 
frustration.

"This has been the worst spring that I can remember, and I've been 
umpiring for almost 25 years," said John Sherman, 57, after another 
weekend of rained-out softball games in San Francisco. "The biggest 
payday I've gotten was a day I went out to fields that were clearly 
unplayable, and they just didn't call the game on time."

The winter softball league in San Francisco postponed 350 out of 412 
games because of rain, said Jack Wolf, who has run sports leagues in 
San Francisco for 52 years. Little League, soccer and school sports 
programs around the Bay Area are all suffering from canceled 
practices and a backlog of rainouts.

"I've never seen anything like this," Wolf said. "I am very mad at 
the rain devil."

With 25 days of precipitation, downtown San Francisco set the March 
record for number of rainy days. The previous record was in 1904, 
when it rained 23 days. As of Friday afternoon, 8.74 inches of rain 
had fallen on the city, making it the second-wettest March since 
records began in 1850. The previous high was set in 1983, when 9.04 
inches of rain soaked San Francisco, according to the National 
Weather Service.

Oakland, with 22 days of rain, San Rafael, with 24, and Santa Rosa, 
with 25, also broke their rainy-day records for March. Oakland 
International Airport had 7.22 inches of rain during the month, 
breaking the previous mark of 5.69 inches set in 1958.

The -- let's face it -- lousy weather is being caused by a westerly 
wind pattern that is blowing storms over the Pacific Ocean toward 
Northern California. The wind trough has been stable for a month, 
essentially funneling rain directly over Hawaii and then through the 
Bay Area approximately every 48 hours, said Brooke Bingaman, a 
meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

That global pattern isn't showing signs of budging for the next two 
weeks, said Jan Null, adjunct professor of meteorology at San 
Francisco State University.

"There is not a lot of relief in sight," Null said. "April is going 
to continue to be wet. There are going to be a lot of vacations over 
spring break where people will not be coming back with suntans."

The wet weather has left a great many Bay Area residents stir crazy.

San Francisco's Amandeep Jawa, 37, normally invites all his friends 
to barbecues in front of his Valencia Street home in March. The 
gregarious software engineer also organizes outdoor dance parties, 
but hasn't gotten his groove on since the balmy days of winter.

"We had the first one in Dolores Park, and we've been trying to do 
the second one for, oh, three months now," Jawa said. "It's insane. 
We need rain sometimes, but enough is enough. If I wanted to live in 
Seattle, I'd live in Seattle. I didn't sign up for this."

Parents and day care providers are equally frustrated, if not more so.

"I have two boys, so it's crazy for us,'' said Lisa Polakis, a Mill 
Valley mother whose children are 5 and 2. "They're going crazy. They 
need to be outside. I really feel like boys need to get energy out, 
and that's not easy to do when it's raining all month."

Faced with the prospect of yet another visit to the Exploratorium, 
library or Discovery Museum, some mothers are putting on the galoshes 
and venturing out with their kids.

"My son gets a kick out of looking for pill bugs and worms that have 
come out in the rain," said Lisa Barnes, 37, of Sausalito, whose son, 
Jonas, is 2. "He loves to go out in the rain, stomp in the puddles, 
and sail leaves and pebbles down the rainwater."

Soldiering out into the elements has its risks, though, as Melanie 
Grubman found out. The puddle that Grubman decided to ride her 
bicycle through the other day turned out to be 2 feet deep and full 
of sewage.

"I went down and I was, like, swimming in it," said the 27-year-old 
education coordinator for Marin County's Safe Routes to Schools 
program. "Right after that, I had to teach a class on bike and 
pedestrian safety. The kids thought it was funny."

At least Grubman's humbling pratfall into a stinking puddle didn't 
cost her any money. Roofers, construction workers, tree cutters and 
other tradespeople have not been so lucky.

Marty Hernandez, owner of Guaranteed Roofing in San Jose, said that 
in a normal year, he would have completed six or more roofing 
projects by now.

"We can't work." Hernandez said. "We haven't worked any good jobs for 
over a month. I just have to sit and wait until the rains are over. 
It's a burden for all the trades that work outside. If you haven't 
got any money saved up, you go broke."

Tourism is also taking a hit. The Golden Gate Bridge reported a 4 
percent drop in sales at the toll plaza gift center and a 22 percent 
drop in sales at the cafe compared with March of last year.

"People aren't sitting outside and enjoying a hot dog," complained 
Mary Currie, bridge spokeswoman.

Attendance is also down at the Japanese Tea Garden, Stow Lake and the 
San Francisco Zoo, according to the San Francisco Recreation and Park 
Department.

The fact that it has been raining cats and dogs might be influencing 
people's behavior in more mysterious ways. Dog adoptions decreased 
and cat adoptions increased in March at the San Francisco SPCA, for 
reasons nobody can quite explain.

Gloomy weather has long been associated with depression and suicide, 
which might be why people are flocking to local tanning salons.

Julia Louis, 20, an employee at Sun Company Tanning in San Rafael, 
said March was the busiest month of the year.

"Most of the people come in here and say, 'Oh my gosh, it's so dreary 
outside. I just need to get some sun,' " said Louis. "Probably half 
the people who come in here, the rain is their reason."

Cindy Bonilla, a nursery buyer for the Sloat Garden Center in San 
Francisco, said the extra water has been good for Bay Area weeds and 
bad for many vegetables and ornamental plants.

"The ground is so saturated that people are having a hard time 
putting stuff in," Bonilla said. "The tomatoes that everyone wants to 
plant for the summer have either been ravaged by snails or soaked and 
shredded by hail and rain."

The daily downpours might also have something to do with a big 
increase in hungry rats that she said are responsible for devouring 
the bark off lemon trees.

The stormy weather has turned park trails around the Bay Area into 
quagmires. Raging creeks, mudslides and flooding have forced the East 
Bay Regional Park District to close off some of its 1,100 miles of 
trails in 65 parks.

"It's been terrible," said Shelly Lewis, spokeswoman for the parks, 
which cover 97,000 acres in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. "It's 
the most rain damage we've had in our park in at least two decades 
and probably in history. A lot of the trails have been washed out. 
The creeks are raging, and mud is an issue everywhere."

The park district had to postpone Saturday's grand opening of a new 
park in Martinez until June. Last week, an Afghan new year's 
celebration with 4,000 people at Del Valle Regional Park in Livermore 
was rained out.

Golden Gate Park isn't faring much better, unless you're a fish, said 
Rose Dennis, spokeswoman for San Francisco's Recreation and Park 
Department.

"If this doesn't let up, I'm going to build my own ark and collect 
two of everything," she joked. "We're reliving the Old Testament."
  This week's question:

What's your favorite pastime on a rainy day?

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/02/RAIN.TMP
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle 
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