UNDER CONSTRUCTION

I'm one of those folks who puts furniture in a room and never thinks to move it around, but I've been inspired by others who have undertaken the task of updating the look of their blogs and thought I'd at least give it a try.

If you have comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to express them. I have only a small amount of creativity in me and it's quite painful when I try to use it!! :)

When I got home this evening from book club I was talking to Arlene and I was telling her about the swarm of mosquitoes that came into Stacey's house as we were all leaving. I was telling her how huge they were.

We spoke of a few other things, but then a few minutes later Stephanie walks in the house moaning and groaning about the mosquitoes and how huge they are!

We laughed cuz Arlene and I were just talking about it.

Stephanie proceeds to tell us that the lady she was just babysitting for says that the large mosquitoes are called coastal mosquitoes.

Arlene pops up and says...

"Dang!, even the mosquitoes evacuated!!"

Happy First Day of Fall, Y'all

Fall is my favorite season. And yeah, it won't ever look like this here in South East Texas, but at least we know cooler weather is just around the corner and winter is on it's way (bust out the wind breakers!!).

I don't know about you, but I'm excited!

A Nonpartisan Message From Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton

I thought the SNL skit Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did was pretty darn funny.

FYI - If you decide to watch it, I give it a PG-13 rating for some crude humor.

Weird, But I Like It

The worst is finally over and freakishly good weather is on its way.

I have now lived through two hurricanes and volunteered to help others during the aftermath of both Rita and Katrina and after each of these storms, the weather was horrendous. The storms pass, the sun comes out and the August/Sept heat creates unbearable conditions exacerbated by the lack of electricity and a/c.

Yes, we had some scary thunderstorms roll through the area this morning, many of us lost electricity for a second time in as many days, and many streets flooded again, but with that bad weather has come some seriously abnormal weather.

The thunderstorms this morning were caused by a cold front that's moving through.

A COLD FRONT!!

By the grace of God, we have a cold front that's blowing out the humidity in the air and bringing "cool" weather to the area.

I feel blessed to have weathered the storm without much damage to my home or car, but I know there are MANY in my town that are not as fortunate and the next few days/weeks are going to be spent without electricity or water. If there can be bright spots, it will be the opportunities we'll have to volunteer our time and talents to help our fellow friends and neighbors while they recover.

Thankfully we'll have good weather to do this.

Anyone know of any volunteer opportunities? Let me know.

The Aftermath - Part II

Here's a couple of pictures of the damage in the backyard. You can't tell it, but the tree in the middle of the pic was uprooted and is leaning over the back portion of the house. Paul Thomas and one of the Torbit boys came over and cut off the biggest limbs that were sitting on the roof.


Here's Arlene (and me) cleaning up and working off our "Ike 15." You can see where the fence was knocked down in a few places.

The Aftermath - Part I

Arlene and I faired pretty well. I was awake until around 4:30 this morning when I finally fell into bed completely exhausted. I had my windows open and listened to the wind and rain lash against the house and through the trees.

For the 2.5 of you who are just chomping-at-the-bit to see some exciting video, here you go. :)

Make sure you're sitting down before watching; they're pretty boring and you may fall asleep while watching!

This is the backyard at about 7am Saturday.

This is the frontyard after about 8am Saturday.

Our power was restored at 1:30pm this afternoon.

Guess Its Time For Bed

Electricity went off at 11:30pm. A few minutes prior I had let Arlene's dog, Bonnie, in from the backyard. She's a quiet dog, but she came in whining and paced the living room for several minutes. It wasn't until the electricity stopped flickering and went off for good that she calmed down and went to sleep.

Did she sense what was about to happen or was it a coincidence?? Who knows.

See ya on the flip-side!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STACEY

Ok, so the day is basically over, but I wanted to wish my friend Stacey a happy birthday. She's one of the coolest people I know.

It kinda sucks that she's having to celebrate it from the safety of her home as Hurricane Ike comes ashore.

Good or bad, bet she'll never forget this one!

Maybe we can go to lunch sometime soon.

Love you!!

Hunkering Down

I was reading my friend Stacey's blog earlier. She was talking about the new phrases she's been learning thanks to Hurrican Ike.

"Run from water, Hide from wind."

She has coined, "The Ike 15." It's the weight gained from eating all the comfort food during this weekend. I went to the store this afternoon to get a few "essentials" to carry me over during the storm.

Bread
Soda
Oreos
Crackers

____________

The video below was taken around 6:30 this evening. Since Arlene and I are hunkering down, I thought I would try and chronicle the storm somehow. We'll see how well I do.

So Much For That

Here I thought I'd have all this extra time on my hands while sitting in my hotel room these past couple of nights. Um...yeah, right.

It's 9:16pm Wednesday evening and I'm just getting in.

Last night it was after 8 when I finally got in for the night.

On the plus side, I have learned a great deal from the meeting I've been attending these past few days and I'm actually excited to get back to work and implement the knowledge I've gained.

Granted, with Ike barrelling down on the Houston area, it could be a couple of days before that happens. ConocoPhillips put out an email this evening stating that the Houston offices would be closing at noon on Thursday with the plan to re-open on Monday. We'll see how that goes.

You all will probably think I'm certifiable, but I'm pretty excited for our impending weather. I wish we could enjoy it without all the destruction.

Hit or Miss?

It's still way to early to determine where Ike will go, but for now they've got it coming to us.

Jeff Masters, at Weather Underground, predicts a western LA landfall.

Track Forecast for Ike - third paragraph (Jeff Masters' blog)

As Ike moves approaches within 300 miles of the Louisiana coast on Friday, there will be another trough of low pressure capable of turning the storm to the north. The GFS, GFDL, HWRF, NOGAPS, and Canadian models all predict that this trough will be strong enough to turn Ike northwards into central or western Louisiana. The UKMET and ECMWF models disagree, and think high pressure will dominate enough to force Ike westwards into Texas, between Corpus Christi and the Louisiana border. These two models have been trending too far south with Ike so far, so I would lean towards a landfall in western Louisiana at this point.

Off to Oklahoma

I still can't seem to get anything out of my brain and into my blog, but I'll be away on business this week with several nights on my own and plenty of time to blog. Maybe I'll be able to dislodge some posts (I don't count weather updates as real posts).

I'm taking my camera on the off chance that Ponca City, OK has some pretty landscape.

I'm scheduled to return home Friday morning. Just in time for Ike??