Some things they don't tell you to prepare for in a hurricane

• Grind your coffee beans before the power goes out
• Find something to do while you are waiting for the storm
• get something to keep everyone occupied after the power is out
• Everyone eats the boiled eggs first, boil more
• The more stuff in your fridge/freezer the longer it stays cold
• The more stuff in your fridge/freezer the more you may have to cook, eat or pitch
• Cat food and cat litter, you don't have enough, trust me
• Wash all the towels first, and everything else. Really you don't know how long until you can wash again
• LED flashlight bulbs last longer. weirder light, but longer.
• Sleep while you can, you may not get too for a while
• Get to know your neighbors before the power is out
• Trim branches before the storm is close
• Grind the coffee before the power is out. Starbucks didn't open soon enough.

One Week Later

It has been one week since Ike took his hike through Texas, and all the way up to Pennsyvania. One week that seems short and long. Here on the west side, life is mostly normal, for example we only had to work 3 and a half days this week at my office. We have water, and power, cable TV, internet. All the tree limbs are cleared up, fences are being repaired. Mostly it seems to be back to normal. Then there are the reminders. I made a peach cobbler and the family wanted ice cream to go on it. My son and I went to the store, which seemed normal until we got to the frozen foods section. It was emtpy. I mean there was milk, bread, meat, produce...but hardly any frozen goods. Waffles were about it. I picked up some beer, some sodas, some Excedrine, but no ice cream. It seemed to really hit me again, how big this thing was. And how lucky and blessed we are. We lost no food becuase power came back. We had to boil the drinking water for about a day (but we had plenty of bottled in the mean time). Galveston is hurt, badly. But she will recover. Downtown Houston is reopening. Probably by the end of next week most of Houston and the surrounding areas will have power. Our lives will go back to mostly normal.

And that is what is most comforts and confuses me both. I mean people are back to worrying about the little stuff, when a week ago, we were excited to hear someone else we knew was okay, and had hot water. My home hosted a few guests, and friends, and some were too proud or something to come over. I actually understand that, you want to be in your home. But I have seen people back to their petty ways, griping about everything, and the ones that gripe the most, seem to be those that lost the least amount. I just don't get some people.

In the meanwhile, we are coping, going to work, seeing whom we can help, and I think all of us here are tired of the news and want just to forget it all for a little while.

But we shouldn't.

Shut up Tigger! or Ike part 2

It is 1 am and my fat cat Tigger is yelling at the door. He does this whenever it is raining, or windy out. He wants to see it for himself. I have tried to explain to him that this is a hurricane, or at least a tropical storm, but you know, it seems I am not getting through to him. Well the good news is that the rain is just now starting here. And the wind is not that strong. We have storms like this regularly. I know that power is out in some other parts of Houston, but the far west side is okay for now. Not sure how much more storm is headed this way, but I am going to try to sleep again. I am glad I did not do the coffee I was thinking about. But you know, I was going to lace it with baileys or kahlua anyway. Hope Dr. Tiki would approve (www.tikibartv.com, watch it and you will understand). As long as we have power and cable, I can blog and watch Stargate. and if the power goes out, I can still try to post short entries or emails.

Truthfully the worst part of a hurricane seems to be waiting for it to get here. On my facebook I put down the old 80's song by REO Speedwagon Riding the Storm out. Now it seems more like Tom Petty's The waiting is the hardest part. Yup, even in the face of a storm, I am a music geek. I thinki I will close this off for now, before I think of other songs for the storm.
Now where is my Ipod...

We don't like Ike...

Ike the Cat 2 hurricane is coming to town. Okay it has been coming for days, but it is finally getting here. The good news is that the hurricane is being downgraded to a category 1, and where we are at, probably tropical storm level. Good news for us. These Pictures my wife took at about 6pm show how the neighborhood kids are playing, and people are out and about. The clouds are coming in, and the wind was just starting to blow, about 10 or so mph. Now the wind is just starting to gust, and we are getting ready for the storm. No rain yet, but that is fine, I need the water in my fishpond!

This is a big storm, but I know that God is bigger, and that he is with us. If you are worries about the storm, pray, it is the best thing. I know that God's people have been praying, this storm has already done things that the weathermen can't understand. I expect a rough nite, and as long as power holds, I will keep on blogging.

BTW did I mention I have a brisket cooking in the oven? Even if the power goes out, I have a gas stove, and the gas grill, so we will eat well. Seems that in looking in the fridge, I have found about a dozen chicken breasts, one ham and four beautiful NY strip steaks. Yum. Yes I am cooking it all, since cooked food will last longer if the power goes in.

Anyway, more later, and take care of yourelf, faithful reader!

In the land of AZ

Okay, not so much the land of Oz, but let me tell you, Lake Havasu City Arizona (AZ, Get it?) is indeed quite a bit different from my home town of suburban Houston. First off it is rather...well...brown here. The sand, the rocks, the people, are mostly brown. That is probably becuase of the oven that this place becomes in the summer. It was 121 farenheit today. I don't care where you are from, that is hot. Okay, so the humidtiy was 2%, and it is a dry heat indeed. It is still hot. The really odd bit is that because of the low humidity, the evaporation rate is high. So even though the pool is 85 degrees, it is cold. Why? Glad you asked; because when there is a 30 or more degree temperature difference between the air and water, the water feels cold. It was 115 yesterday, and the pool was chilly. But the real pain was getting out. The water was evaporating so fast that as soon as you get out you grab your towel and try to keep warm. Yes, in the direct sun at 115 degrees.

It has been an interesting week here, I got a sinus infection and bronchitis just before I came, but hoped the dry warm air would help clear me up. That was wrong. So I spent a couple of hours at an urgent care, where they said I was dehydrated (after drinking about 5 bottles of water, vitamin water, and okay, hops water (beer, and honestly about 5 of those). But I also had sinus, ear and chest infections, so antibiotics, steroids and decongestants it is. 24 hours later I feel much better and am looking forward to sleeping 8 or so hours straight tonight. So far I have been up and down a lot, and waking up about 5 AM local time.

On the cool side, this town has a lot of classic cars and hot rods. On the downside, the folks sold the boat, so we won't go down to the river, cruise then park in the channel, and watch the boats and people parade past. I love the parade of stuff past, but my wife is always amazed that I don'tm really gawk at all the girls in their tiny bikinis and stuff. Truth is I kind of find her more interesting than all of these toothpicks with two olives (skinny with a boob job) girls that parade past. Most are far too young and also vapid to hold my interest. I like a mature woman, one who knows who she is and doesn't have to try to impress everyone with her looks alone. Plus I am still monkey crazy in love with her. Really! Shoot, she doesn't even have an RSS feed to this, so she will only see it after I show her another blog entry later anyway if she does.

Well there is more to do, and I have to add some pictures to this, so here they are, classic cars and the view out front. Maybe I will get a sort of tan even through the 30 spf sunblock I wear out of self defense.

Remember Tech TV?

I got sick, I got better. Okay I am not best, but I am better. Not as sick, but allergies and heavy doses of tree pollen did take their toll. Good news for me is that today was a half day at work, and even though it is awesome beautiful today, I spent the most of my time off napping with a couple of my cats. When I was not watching Diggnation (check the links to the left and visit Revision3).

Man I wish I had my own TV show, my friend Jude and I always said we could do this sort of thing, but we could not figure out how or where. If you are in Houston, you can also listen to geek radio (www.geekradio.com) on wednsday nights with Technology Bytes on good old "Kommie" KPFT 90.1 on your radio dial. The funny thing is that the guys who host that are also members of the band The Flying Fish Sailors. Again if you are in the Houston area you should see them too. Any way I am planning to start a new blog about Technology, and the software that I find, especially freeware. Please tell your friends.

Illin' like a villain

I have been sick this week.
Okay, correction, I have been ILL all week. Started sometime Sunday night, and just got progressively worse. I tried the usual, ignore it, try to outsmart it, out stubborn it. Nope, was not working. At first I thought it was just bad allergies, as here in the beautiful gulf coast it has been alternatively warm, cool and then rainy, and the pollens are going crazy. But no it turned into something meaner. I tried cough drops, and my allergy medicine. I took benedryl (which often causes a Jekyll and Hyde thing for me), but that only made me wiped out and tired all the next day. What finally worked was, I took two days off of work to rest (I did dial in and work some), and I tried the following:

• Sudafed for allergies
• Nyquill/Dayquill
• Flonase
• Mucinex Nasal spray
• Nasalcort
• Tylenol sinus
• Excedrin Migraine
• Mentalatum rub
• Halls cough drops
• Tea with lemon and honey
  
• Rosemary steam (breathe the steam)
• Hot and Cold compresses on my face
• Hot baths and steamy showers
  

At some point today, it seems that the combination of treatments worked, becuase my sinuses are no longer feeling on fire, and my head only slightly aches. Okay my chest is greasy from the rub, but at least I can breathe. And the fever broke. Now I am less miserable, but still sleepy, sneezy, dopey and a few other dwarves.

Well that is the level of excitement of my life today, hope yours is better.

And to think, I had the wisdom to get sick before the weekend so I could be healthy by Monday!

Yeah, that's the bright side...