Strange, but for some reason I think I've actually used this image before. I found it (thank you, google images, thank you) with a search on "busy beaver". And yes, "safe search" was on (work computer, you know).
Something about hurricane blogging frenzies must just take all the entries out of me for a while, becuase after I volunteered for the Katrina peeps at Reliant, I went on a week-long no-blogging sabbatical as well. Rest assured, all is well in MarkandDanaland (if I ever found a country...), but, as the image implies (illustrates?), I have been a busy beaver. Monday was interesting - after a weekend of no internet, I rebooted everything and bingo!, all was right with the world again, so I worked as usual.
Tuesday is a different story. I woke up to no internet again. sigh. Rebooted everything, no go. Called DSL provider, left a message. Emailed work (Blackberry still worked, of course) to explain what was going on and provide some kind of support. Called DSL people again, they answered, said there's an SBC problem, hurricane-related, and that they weren't expected to get to it until OCTOBER THIRD. I just hate phone companies. Any big service provider, actually (though DirecTV are pretty friendly folks). Don't get me started about Comcast.
But I digress (don't I always? I'm also very parenthetical, if you haven't noticed. What can I say? I'm a fan of parentheses). So, that afternoon I vow to find a place to connect online (we've been having lots of problems with a production webserver at work, and it's pretty much mine to care for, so I was really feeling the heat). So I went to the closest place I know of that offers free Wi-Fi and asked if it was working. It was, so I did.
Thing is, it was a bar. At this point in the day it was really functioning as restaurant, but soon after I was the only one there. I must have had about 12 diet cokes, seriously. Bad news.
OK, blah blah, got my work done, on the way home I passed two SBC trucks, and sure enough when I got home DSL was up and running again. So I fulfulled my lifelong ambition of working at a bar. Just not how I had pictured it. :)
Fast-forward to last night. I couldn't believe it was already Thursday - just crazy! Realized I had to pick up the Hutch for some weekend Cubs-game-going (the Dave blew us off, natch). Went first to the grocery store to pick up some, well, groceries, as well as the finest Texas has to offer for Hutch's sampling pleasure. The bonus is, whatever he doesn't want, we get!
But he just got back from his run, and we all know how he loves to talk. So I'm gonna go. More later (hopefully).
I know there was other stuff I wanted to blog about, but I forgot what else. So there you have it.
Just so y'all know, everything is fine. We (still) have power - we justdon't have internet.
The storm passed with little more than steadily strong winds.
I understand tht about half the city doesn't have power, but our power has worked just fine the whole time.
Well, it's 6:30am, and the most exciting thing that's happened (apart from still having power) was Dana's page that just woke us up.
Back to sleep now though.
Wind has picked up a very little over the last few hours, but nothing substantial.
We're going to sleep now, and I expect the power to be out by the time we wake up. I guess we'll see!
Goodnight, all.
So while I was blogging last time around, my landlady called and asked us over for dinner (we couldn't turn her down).
note: picture is there because I searched for "old drunk" on google. You get what you ask for
now, we realized that (A) we're old people, and (B) we're drunk.
Damn old people.
The wind has actually died down a little, which is strange. And at two separate times tonight, we were standing outside drinking wine in the rain. I guess this is how you weather a hurricane in Houston.
Either way, the scary page makes it looks like we might not even lose power! This is quite the shock, especially considering how much damn preparation we've done. Rita IS a bitch.
Anyway, we're still fine. We're back from dinner, we're going to finish our movie, and we're going to fall asleep (in bed! not in the hallway!).
Laters.
Well, D and I were relaxing watching Urban Cowboy and heard a BIG gust of wind. Stopped the movie, poured some wine, and went outside to check it out.
We're calling the folks now to check in before we lose power.
I'll keep trying to update (I'm taking real pictures outside with our good camera - not likely to be able to share those until after the storm.
Check back later! (if we can)
This is looking more promising now. Again - to interpret, we are in Harris County, just north of Galveston. Before we were looking at the red and maroon, now it's looking like orange to yellow (and in our area, yellow). This is good news. Note: this image changes with the forecast. By the time you read this it may have changed already.
Now, I'm sure you're all hearing on the news that Houston has dodged a bullet and how the storm has been downgraded, but from what we're hearing we'll still be looking at 70mph winds.
Our landlady put things into perspective for us yesterday. She said "It's not like a tornado, where it blows for half an hour and is over. We'll have steady strong winds for 24 hours".
I have a feeling we won't get much sleep tonight. I think the biggest risk to Houston now is if Rita makes landfall and then just sticks, much like Allison did 6 years ago. Then we'll be looking at major flooding. This is why we have so much water.
D and I just enjoyed what's sure to be some of our last time outside before the storm. Our 15-liter buckets are full of water, and the Scrubbing Bubbles are working their magic on the tub now. I'm going to wrinse it out and fill 'er up. In the best-case scenario, we won't lose water service at all. But I'm not counting on that at all.
Better safe than sorry!
OK. We're doing some last-minute chores (Dana seems to think our clothes need ironing), doing what few dirty dishes we have (while we can), and waiting for the shower curtain to dry before pulling it out of the tub and filling the tub with water. Better to be overprepared, right?
So we have 12 water bottles in the freezer now (think: bike water bottles), five liters of Gatorade, four bottles of spring water, two gallons of distilled water, a Brita full of tap water, OJ, 1/2 gallon of milk, and Diet Green Tea in the fridge. Oh, and a pitcher with some lemonade. And a case of Diet Coke, and probably about 8 Miller Lites. Oh, and two bottles of white wine.
Also currently in the freezer are a big ziploc bag full of ice, three big chunks of ice that used to be half of a 4lb bag, and our two ice trays. We also froze a bowl of water (the news said this would be a good idea for keeping things cool.
If we still have power when we're ready to eat dinner, we'll be making some chicken fajitas, despite the fact that we don't have tortillas. Whatever. We can still eat it. Maybe I'll make rice to go along with it.
My number one complaint: our stove and oven are both electric. If they were gas we would probably be cool for cooking. Oh well.
SO, we have PLENTY of liquid (I didn't even bother getting into our liquor cabinet - I was only reciting our COLD beverages). We're going to fill the bathtub with water and our two buckets for flushing water. Hopefully Dana doesn't get confused and poop in the tub. Who knows how long we'd have to live with that! :)
Also, I want to point out to those of you who want to see pictures of our borded-up house. Our house is not borded up. I'd say that MAYBE 5% of houses around here have their windows boarded up, MAYBE 10% have tape on the windows. The rest are like us - couldn't get plywood or didn't bother trying, and know that taping is a waste of time and tape. We have plastic set to go - in case a window blows out we have a couple solutions ready to go (including the electric screwdriver - cordless - and drywall screws aplenty). If need be, we can use my big work whiteboard or family heirlooms to plug up any holes. :)
Actually, in addition to the whiteboard we can use a door off the hinges, we have that 6-mil plastic sheeting, we've got cardboard aplenty that we had been saving since the move (the termites discovered some of it in our shed, but I was able to salvage plenty of boxes still). As D irons I will make sure that everything is still plugged in and charging, and begin taking down pictures/mirrors etc. from exterior walls, moving electronics away from the windows, and keeping tabs on what's going on outside. We're not too worried about debris coming crashing through the windows. We hear all the reports y'all are hearing, but our house is very well protected.
Well, we're watching the storm roll in like the rest of you (you are watching, right?). I had my first bit of scare earlier today, but it really had nothing to do with the storm - D and I went on a nice long walk (you can read about it at her blog) and about halfway through, on Rice's campus, stopped to play with a dog who was chained up outside. We squatted and then sat down for a little but the dog got distracted so we continued on.
About 15 minutes later, I realized that my BlackBerry wasn't in its holster (and as one of our 4 communication devices once power is out, it's very important to me right now). We figured I just left it at home and walked back for some lunch and to take our last showers, but when we got here it was nowhere to be found. So, I hopped on the bike and rode back to where we had been playing with the puppy - and it was sitting right there.
So with everything charging up, and the threatening limbs trimmed as Dana described, we're all set to go. We've been stockpiling ice so that when the power goes out we can fill up a cooler with stuff we need to keep cold (important things like beer and white wine), and I think as soon as the power does fail we'll put that plan in action.
Come to think of it, I'm going to fill up water bottles now and stick them in the freezer. Can't believe I was just going to fill them with water.
Back to you later.
Calm before the storm? Our neighbors (two doors down) must have called the fire dept. Everything's ok, though. More updates to come...
text entry is a bit of a pain, but this could come in handy if we have no cell service or power and can find WiFi somewhere.
"The official forecast track is still slightly east of Houston, but there's been a lot of wavering in the computer models. There's still simply a lot of uncertainty."
Ah, well. It's always nice to wake up to news like this.
In other news, a busload full of nursing home residents EXPLODED overnight on the highway. Talk about bad luck.
As D and I wake up this morning the reality is sinking in. It's a gray day out (still not much wind), but that is all sure to change in time.
There was no newspaper delivery this morning, so we're going to flip on the TV and see what's going on.
To whomever commented about our phone number on the Internets: we normally have the ringer on that phone turned off since the VoIP is our primary number. We won't wven know it's ringing after this storm is over.
So D and I came home shortly for some dinner, but will be heading back to Little Woodrow's shortly after eating for more.... companionship. And beer. OK, yes. We're also drinking beer.
We shouldn't see any Weather until tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully tonight after our return you should see some good drunk blogging, which should assure you that everything is normal.
We've also heard that the VoIP line and our cell lines have been difficult to get through on. Right now, email is probably the best way to contact us, but once we lose power, who knows how long it will be until we get your messages. Our landline (which I expect to last longer than our power) is also here, and the ringer is actually on. That number is 713-664-2154. If we're home (and awake) we'll get it, but there's no voicemail on that number, so it's hit or miss.
OK. Sandwich time. Weather update: there's a bit of wind but nothing really noteworthy. Solidly from the south.
Thanks for checking in! I'll try to moblog more from the bar for your amusement.
If we don't drink this all tonight, it's totally going to get skunked!
Here are my pictures from the bike outing I just took this afternoon. I guess I'm not surprised at the number of people that were still out and about, but some parts of town really looked abandoned.
There's really nothing inherently interesting about them, but after Rita comes through, if I can get back to the bayous in time to take some comparison shots it should be very interesting.
All the pictures of our home were taken yesterday. All lawn furniture, birdhouses, etc were taken down and put away today. I'll bring the camera along if D and I go into the Village tonight and take some snaps along the way, so hopefully you can get an idea of how empty the place really is (though I'm sure the bars will be HOPPING. They already were when I went by at 5-ish).
OK, I really have to get in the shower. I stunk before my 1.5 hour bike ride in the 100 degree heat.
To sum up: ALL IS WELL IN HOUSTON. I did notice a wind from the South, but by the time Rita hits NE of Galveston (or, for Dave and Keri, Galvenston), we'll be getting weather from the northeast. Hurricanes, you see, are big swirling CIRCLES.
Woodrow's, the Ginger Man, and O'Neill's: all open for business. (picture from the top of the Arcade parking structure. Hope to get one from same place after town has flooded).
Oh, and it's hot as sin out.
EDIT: this was a picture of the sun. I thought it would come out better than it looked on the cameraphone. I guess it didn't. Stay tuned for pics from the REAL camera, uploading now.
Very strange. Even 610 at 59 seems to be moving quite well. Rather than climb up there to check it out, i think i'll head back east to Stella Link for a picture or two of Bray's Bayou, which is almost certain to flood at some point this weekend. I'll get some real pictures and post them later.
Otherwise, there's still moderate traffic on the surface streets, but the volume of what is usually about 2am traffic, i'd guess.
EDIT: This is a building D and I like to refer to as "the Eye of Sauron". It's a huge 40-something story skyscraper in an area of the city where there are no other skyscrapers, and it's got a huge, circling spot at the tip that at night looks like the Eye of Sauron sweeping the sky for that damned troublesome Hobbit Baggins.
As you probably already read on Dana's blog, i thought that with nobody in town it would be a nice time to take a ride and see exactly how clogged all the highways actually are. Much to my surprise, at 59 and hazard, there is lighter traffic (in both directions) than i have ever seen. I'll make my way towards 610. I'm sure things are worse there...
Had some lunch, we're both feeling good (though Dana is beginning to sense my stress). The thing is, there's not much more for us to do but wait.
We're going to head over to our landlord's now to get tape and appease them. Couldn't find my walkie-talkies.
The good news is, it looks like the storm is weakening. Let's hope she continues to before landfall. As of now, we're expecting strong (30-35mph) winds to begin tomorrow (Friday) afternoon around 3pm.
I just got off the phone with our landlords, who are also weathering the storm (along with three other families) in their house directly behind us. I'm going to be bringing my spare walkie-talkie over there so we can keep in touch through/after the storm (assuming we can find it!), and they have extra tape for us.
Here's the thing about the tape. I heard (or read) that the whole "taping your windows" thing is a total old wives' tale, and found evidence of that here. Oh, and also here, at the NOAA's website. A pretty authoritative source. But they're our landlords...
We'll tape the windows, but for me, it's low on the priority list. WAY low.
My "to-do" list is coming along nicely so far. More updates later.
This Rita is one big bitch!
HoustonChronicle.com - Keeping in touch might be difficult during Rita: "'Whether towers are damaged or not, if power goes out, the towers will be affected,' said Janee Briesemeister, a senior policy analyst at Consumers Union. 'If there's a power outage for any extended matter of time, the towers just won't work.'"
Also, they made mention in this article that text messages are much more likely to go through than calls. Unfortunately, text messages can't be automatically forwarded from one of our phones to another, so while their delivery is more robust, it is not assured (depending on which phone we're using). Just FYI.
Will someone out there do me a favor and check engadget, gizmodo, and joystiq for me while we're getting ready for/dealing with this Hurricane? I can't stand to not know what's going on in my geek universe.
I just up and told work not to expect me until possibly a week and a half from now. Now it's time to get to work. Updates to come. I'm sure Dana has some things to say.
SciGuy: "The models are moving again. This time the official forecast brings the storm in near Galveston Bay and Bolivar Peninsula. This is about an 80-mile shift over the last 12 hours."
I'm no meteorologist, but if the bitch keeps shifting north we could be OK. Dana didn't obey my suggestions last night (probably knowing very well I was trying to protect her from something) and saw my blog as I was brushing my teeth. Sigh.
As of right now (me at computer, Dana still in bed - how she sleeps I'll never know), we're still planning on staying. We'll get bad winds, yes (very bad winds), and lots and lots of rain, and maybe some flooding in the streets, but we're still pretty comfortable that our place will be alright. And if a window should break, or a leak should start, we want to be here to fix that before it causes more damage than it has to.
We've identified the one or two trees next to our house that may be of risk to us, and our "safety zone" in the house is well clear of those areas. I think I'm going to spend today (and what time I can tomorrow) just getting ready: unplugging everything but essential electronics, making sure we can get over-the-air reception on a TV, taking pictures and things down from (at least) exterior walls, and moving things towards the center/corners of each room - then quite likely covering them in our purchased plastic sheeting.
Our landlady and her family are staying as well - they live in the house behind us - so should anything happen we can easily retreat there (or they here).
I expect that after getting everything "set" (as described above), the scariest part will just be the anticipation of the storm, then losing contact with the "outside".
Actually, I have two walkie-talkies (somewhere!), one of which I might bring to my landlord's place so we can keep in contact.
Time for me to start getting ready. I have to contact work and tell them I'll be unavailable for the next several days.
I'll try to keep up with the updates. As it stands now, we don't expect any rain to begin until tomorrow afternoon. I guess after that it will just steadily build.
SciGuy: "From bad to worse, I am afraid"
Sigh. I just prevented D from opening the browser under the guise of being really tired. I just don't want her to have nightmares.
Talk to you all tomorrow.
-M
No, I'm not BITTER, but the losers at the Chronicle didn't seem to think that I would be a good addition to their housemom, collie-owning blogger team. I guess I'll just have to fend for myself here in Rice Village. (Track that back, Chronicle blog!)
D and I walked to CVS because I thought it would be nice to have some baby/body-wipes to clean oursleves once we stop getting water to the house, and we picked up a couple buckets while we were at it (wow. A couple beers can really affect a guy's typing. I've had to delete at least a dozen typos so far).
Anyway.. got our supplies, and went out for dinner, figuring it's best to save what food we have for the inevitable cut-off from society. And while we're at the bar, we actually forget about our plight for a while watching that crazy plane fly around and land at LAX. But then on our walk home we got a call from Andrea (until now, not a blog reader, but after this event, certain to become an addict).
Anyway, she was a bit worried. My parents seemed remarkably calm, actually, and want me to call my uncle Bob, who has lived through hurricanes in Florida, but seeing as my mom gave me a phone number with a 773 area code, I'm not sure she has the right number.
Anyway, had a brilliant (of course) idea as D and I were walking to CVS to pick up the aforementioned supplies: since our primary phone number is VoIP, I can have it trickle down through all our cell phones and our landline, and if it doesn't reach us at any of those, push to voicemail. Technology is so cool. What I think I'll do is have it call all our numbers simultaneously.
Note: in proofreading, I realized that my last three paragraphs started with the word "Anyway". Maybe that's why I didn't get the Chronicle blogger spot).
So, here's the plan: We're going to be charging all our phones until the time the power goes out. We don't expect cell coverage if the power's out, but imagine that the cell companies have a little better redundancy than we do. So: we'll charge all our phones (4) until the power is out. At that time, we'll turn all of them off except for one (assuming it still has reception). At the time that phone dies, we'll turn on another one (assuming it has reception) until it dies, then cascade on down until we're out of phones. If my (very, very rough) calculations are anywhere near correct, that should give us working phones for about 8 days.
This is not a license for you to call us. Please understand that we'll potentially be severely limited for resources, most notably electricity. These phones may be our lifelines. If you know my parents' phone number, use that - we'll be in touch with them or D's parents before anyone else. I'm sure they'll love to talk to y'all about how worried you are about us.
If you don't have our number at home (the VoIP number, which will accept voicemail), the folks can give it to you. If you know that my dad's first name is James, and he lives in Winnetka on Plum Tree Lane, you can find his number at Switchboard.com. I'd put his number here for you for ease, but he's already had his identity stolen once, and if you've got half a brain, and do actually know me, you'll be able to get his number this way.
D and I just got back from dinner, and with all these headline-hogging airplane people out of the spotlight we can finally get down with some news about US. So we're going to go watch TV before our satellite dish gets obliterated.
I may check in again tonight, maybe not. Tomorrow will be an interesting day - just walking to the village (*Maybe* four blocks), we must have seen at least a half dozen cars being packed to leave and a road full of cars ACTUALLY leaving. It's going to be a ghost town around here. However, the bar we went to after dinner was full of people planning on weathering the storm (so to speak), and intent on convincing the barkeep to open on Saturday night. I don't expect D and I will be able to leave our house until Sunday at the earliest.
Later, peeps! Don't count on me updating again tonight. But then again, I may surprise you!
So I was shaving my head (it was overdue) before my afternoon shower (also, overdue) and had some time to think. And as I was in the shower (as everyone knows, the best time to think), some thoughts were popping in.
Quite obviously, I've never lived through a hurricane. As the link in my previous post points out, Rita is becoming quite the little hurricane herself, already among the 10 largest in history. So I'm standing there (washing with no hot water, as D is getting as much laundry in as possible before the storms and I think was also doing dishes at the time), and these random thoughts are popping in my head, in no particular order:
- I read/heard earlier that it's a good idea to fill up one's bathtub with water before the storm - that way you know you have clean(ish) water for washing, flushing the toilet, etc. I hadn't thought about the whole "how do I flush the toilet if there's no water" question. I'm regretting not picking up one (or five) of those five-gallon buckets at Home Depot last night.
- While on the topic of buckets - yeah, definitely should have picked up a couple of those. What if we spring a leak?
- I thought it would be a good idea to create a to-do list pre-storm. You know, like "send an email to EVERYONE telling them how you intend to be in contact. I think we're going to have a phone trickle. First, we're going to turn the ringer on our landline (we only use it for DSL, but I bought a cheapie in case of a needed 911 call) as that's most likely to be the first one back up and working - quite possibly even before we get power back. Second, we're going to send that email with all our phone numbers on it, so people know how to reach us (please don't call during/immediately after the storm unless you're our parents. We have limited batteries). More on the phone trickle later. This is becoming QUITE the point.
- How do we get information? We've got satellite TV, which will without a doubt be knocked out during the storm. Our power will definitely be knocked out, and I'm guessing that our water will stop working/be no good at some point. How do we know that our water is no good, and to stop using it? (Hopefully batteries are on their way, via FedEx Overnight, from my employer in Chicago. And even if not, we have a TON of AA's and two walkmans that will do just fine).
- I think that our first reliable phone post-storm will be one of the cells (We have 2 Nextel phones and 2 Cingular phones) or our landline, but definitely Dana's phone at work. If we're stuck here for a couple days we might venture out "Escape from New York" style to use the phone at D's hospital. Assuming it's not underwater like after Allison.
Those weren't all the thoughts I had, but I want to start getting to-do's on the book (OK, paper) before I start forgetting. But as I promised updates, well, I had to post.
So far, so good. But the stress level is slowly getting higher.
(And welcome home, Pablo.)
Weather Underground: Wunder Blog: "the eyewall will collapse and an eyewall replacement cycle begin, putting an end to this intensification cycle. With another 12 hours to go before this happens, Rita could approach historic intensity, and is already one of the ten strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record."
Um... yeow.
Special thanks to JK, the $1.25 lady of the night (who knows who might be reading this at this point), for letting the wife and I know that Rita has been upped to a Category 5 Hurricane.
She (and many others) have emailed thoughts/concerns, and I've mentioned that the best thing to do is check our blogs for updates. So here's my update:
I have pretty much finished the last of the major work that I expect to get done for the week. It's a hundred degrees here now, and the skies are - funny enough - crystal clear.
We found a couple gallons of water today. Also, when Dana was at Kroger's earlier, she mentioned that all the drinks and canned food were HEAVILY picked over (no big surprise there). One thing that was remaining, however? Probably the only two cans of Skyline Chili in all of Texas. These Texans don't know what's good for 'em!
Oop. Dana's getting paged right now. I'll let you know what's up when she gets off the phone. Until then, enjoy learning about the best chili in the world.
(Now if only she could find some Graeter's, this would be the best hurricane EVER!)
Update: The page was just Dana's boss, who is driving his family to stay with family in El Paso and then flying back to Houston. I guess the only reason he's taking them is because they're like 5 and 3-year-old girls who are scared to death. He's lived here forever and isn't worried about what might happen.
Just read this post on the Houston Chronicle Storm blog, and sent them an email to see if they want my help.
So beginneth my illustrious writing career.
Do you have a blog, live in the Houston-Galveston area and plan to ride the storm out?
If so, we'd like your help with an experiment in citizen journalism.
We're launching a blog this afternoon called Stormwatchers. We'd like volunteers in key parts of the area with experience blogging to tell us what they're seeing as the Hurricane Rita comes closer, makes landfall and moves on.
Well, D came home at about 10am today to tell me she has the rest of the week off (in accordance with the Houston mayor asking that all "non-essential" workers be released). She is on standby for ER call, however.
Also, I just received the following email:
Because the Houston community is preparing for Hurricane Rita, the Rice University School of Continuing Studies has decided to cancel all classes beginning Wednesday evening at 6:00 p.m. through Saturday. This includes all personal and professional development classes, classes within the Master of Liberal Studies program, and English as a Second Language classes.
Note: The free Scientia panel discussion on Hurricane Katrina that is set for 5:00 p.m. tonight WILL STILL BE HELD.
We will reschedule missed sessions as soon as Continuing Studies is operational.
Thank you.
We're OK, still, and the consensus around us (and with D's coworkers who have lived in Houston... forever) is that our biggest worry is branches coming off trees and busting windows.
D and I took a quick survey of the house, and the only thing that seems to be in danger of crushing is D's car. If our neighbors leave, however, their spots are nowhere near trees.
We also took some "before" pictures outside in case any damage does occur, and have figured out the safest spots in our house to be during the storm. It's going to be a cozy night in our hallway on Friday.
As of now, only 70-mph winds are expected in Houston. I sent D to Kroger to pick up what she could, but I know it's (A) going to be a madhouse and (B) going to be picked over. She'll get what she can.
In the meantime, I've got to work.
This is my new favorite "how to scare the crap out of Mark" hurricane-tracking site.
Last night D and I took a trip to Home Depot and saw just how picked over it was. They were out of Duct Tape, batteries, and water, the only blue tarps they had were 40'x60' (and God knows how expensive), and I got the last hatchet (only because it wasn't where it belonged). Also picked up the last roll of 6-mil plastic sheeting (10'x100'), a box cutter, and a crowbar.
Right now, the image that displays on the page I linked above shows Harris county (where we live, aka Houston) making it through the storm with moderate to minor damage. With a flick of her wrist, though, Rita could bring us widespread to severe damage, which would not be fun. Right now, my biggest worry is that a tree is going to keel over on our house/car/bikes(!), so D and I are going to do a survey later and see what the most likely "risk areas" are.
We're not in the Harris County evacuation zone, but I think if Rita becomes a Cat five and they call for an evacuation we might just go to San Antonio. We'll take cover in the basement of the Alamo.
I'm starting to relax finally. Maybe I'll skip out on the full-fledged water and tarp run. But we're still gonna go buy SOME. :)
The first picture here is from the Chronicle, depciting the "Harris Gully" - a likely flood area, from what I can determine (we've seen roads here flood during thunderstorms before. I imagine a hurricane will make things quite a bit more interesting.)
This picture below is my superimposition of google maps on the Harris Gully, with a big fat star where our place is. Right on the border.
Actually, before this little graphic design exercize, I thought we were on the outside of the gully. But according to this (assuming a pretty accurate map by the Chronicle), we're just INSIDE the gully. Wicked.
And my sister is coming in to visit this weekend. Should be fun.
Check this out to see what's been scaring me this morning. When Tropical Storm Allison hit in 2001, the city was totally flooded. If Rita becomes a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane, we're in for an interesting weekend. I've already decided that it would be prudent for us to pick up water supplies and a lot of canned food today just in case. Along with a battery-operated NOAA radio (and batteries), some tarps (in case windows blow out) and duct tape.
Ok, this is scary. Let's hope the bitch changes course.
The bad news is, Houston is dead center in the projected path of our dear friend Rita (I can't get that damn Beatles song out of my head). The good news is, D and I are outside the evacuation zone.
What I'm seriously wondering, though, is if we should spend some money on a video camera before she gets here? It's sure to be quite a show. Anyone feel like donating one? :)
Well, after (finally) getting home on Friday at about 7:30, I walk out of the airport and there's D pulling up (right on time). I throw my stuff in the trunk, hop in, and we drive off to a Mex-Mex place that she had heard of from a med student she's been working with, called Pico's.
It was yummy, and I think on par with our so-far favorite Guadalajara, but I think Pico's takes the top spot because it's margaritas are better (and they have one called the "Horni" margarita).
After that, we headed home, watched a CSI (of course!), and went to sleep.
Saturday, I was going to either wake up with D to ride to her Houston Fit marathon clinic or go to the Gator Fest, but I realized that I hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in over a week so decided to sleep in instead. It was the right decision - I ended up sleeping until like 9:30 (an eternity for me).
When D got home we chilled and read the paper, then showered, got dressed, and.... what did we do for lunch? Oh - she had her leftovers from the night before..... no... Oh yeah - we went to Barnes and Noble so I could buy a book for my Cognitive Psychology class (it's more that more than Neuroscience) and hit up a sandwich place (which was awesome) for some grub. I had a shrimp-cake burger (think crabcake), and D had the club.
Barnes and Noble didn't have the book but called Bookstop (new favorite bookstore ever) down the street and had them hold it for me. I dropped off D at home (she needed a nap), bought the book, and two others, and came home.
Read for a bit, napped for a bit, and we both woke up. I got to work on my week-old pile of mail, then made some dinner for us. Me: Lean Cuisine. D: leftovers from Pico's. Dana won big time.
Then we had to leave for the Davis/Milby game, watched that, went to BW3's for some drinks/snacks (I was still hungry), and came home. D fell asleep while we were watching another CSI, and we went to sleep.
Yesterday we woke up at about 9:30, ate what little we had for breakfast (two frozen waffles - D doesn't shop while I'm out of town), and got showered and ready for the game. We were going to walk to the light rail station (it drops you off right at Reliant), but were running way behind, and with our on-the-field passes we'd have to be off the field by 11:30 - 30 minutes before game time.
So instead we drove to D's work, parked there, and caught the train. We made it to the field at about 11:10, and 20 minutes ended up being just the right amount of time. In time, I'll put our pics and video from the field online. Until then you can just suffer and stare in wonder at how cool we are.
Got upstairs, I had a "Texas Dog" (footlong hotdog), D had a normal dog, I got a diet Coke and water (she had a beer and a water, I was sweating like a lawyer in hell and in dire need of liquid, with no taste for beer in my mouth. I know - strange), and we found our seats.
For most of the first quarter we were baking in the sun (and D has the splotchy, "I missed a spot" sunburn to prove it), but after that the shade reached us and the seats were no longer skin-boilingly hot to the touch. The Texans suck. Just when I leave Chicago and it seems like the Bears actually have a team this year. Sigh.
Anyway, I have to get back to work but overall, a packed weekend. Class starts on Wednesday for me and I have to finish the book beforehand (RIGHT. only 540 pages to go!), so maybe not so much blogging before then. We'll see.
Field passes to the Texans game. Full week for me!
Jeff davis panthers vs. Milby 'buffs'. People here can't be bothered with all the syllables in 'buffaloes', i guess.
The milby drums are pretty impressive...
Dictionary.com/crawling horror: " Ancient crufty hardware or software that is kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the hackers
at a site. Like dusty deck or gonkulator, but connotes that the thing described is not just an irritation but an active menace to health and sanity. 'Mostly we code new stuff in C, but they pay us to maintain one big Fortran II application from nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror.'"
You don't want to know how I found this. I wonder if I should put this in my list of skills for my IBM application?
They better make that supposed PSP firmware downgrader work for 2.0 (or whatever firmware rev this ships with), becuase I sure as hell just justified owning my PSP. I want this now.
Third row. The view is even better than it looks in the picture.
At Cubs game 2 of three. Go Cubbies!
So as you can see from my previous entry, I was at the Cubs game last night. I also am planning on going tonight (provided it doesn't rain), and was invited (AGAIN) for Wednesday's game. If you get the game, watch on Wednesday, as you'll probably see me (and Dave, and Hutch, and... whoever else comes). Dave's dad's tickets are the bomb.
Anyway, I WON'T be going if I hear back from Julie and Andrea - we're supposed to try and get together for dinner this week at some point - but I don't expect to hear from them, which probably means I'm going.
Ah, but I just checked the schedule and the game is on Comcast Sports Net Chicago. Which means that unless you live here, you won't be able to see it. Pity.
I woke up feeling absolutely horrible today. Too much boozing (and I ran out of allergy meds, which doesn't help either). Tonight we'll be taking it easy. And by "we", I mean "me".
So much to do, so little time.
This week's sports attendance schedule for me:
Monday: Cubs v. Reds
Tuesday: Cubs v. Reds
Wednesday: Cubs v. Reds
Thursday: off
Friday: off (sweet merciful God, I get two off days)
Saturday: POSSIBLY the Gator Fest ride (got D's approval, not sure of my willingness to get up at 4:30 to burn 1:20 worth of gas to pay to go on a 50-mile ride, to see alligators and then burn another 1:20 worth of gas) then the Jeff Davis game at 7pm.
Sunday: Texans v. Steelers. D and I got these tickets comped from the team dietician because I fixed her computer. Should be fun!
Dana should really know better than to send me to websites about weirdo bike rides. Because now, I just want to go to this. I WANT to spend all weekend taking in Gator Fest, but I know D has running clinic and a football game on Saturday (not to the mention the fact that by the time I get back I'll have been away for a week).
How can someone NOT want to go to an event where on the about page they say:
The Great Texas Alligator Roundup, the premier event of GATORFEST, invites Texas alligator hunters to bring in their “harvest” to compete for cash prizes. The festival coincides with the opening of the 20 day alligator season in Texas and the Roundup sees an average of 10% of the alligators harvested from the wild in Texas annually. Previous years’ winners have been over 13 feet long!
What'd you do this weekend, Mark? Oh, nothing. Just went to the best annual Texas alligator round-up EVER!
D and I talked about it, and even though I found like four classes I really wanted to take, we decided that limiting myself to a challenge I could handle would be a better idea. So I enrolled for a class about neuroscience.
GENIUS! :) I'm really looking forward to it. And since it's at night, there is NO WAY I'm going to sleep in. :)
Let's make this happen. I'd love to be at the game in Houston where we clinch the wildcard this year....
Water towers. THIS will definitely be the end of me today.
The first of what is sure to be many bad decisions this weekend...
OK, I know it's been a long, long time since I've posted. I'm a big weiner. A lot has been going on (as you can probably tell from the multiple posts last Friday), and I just haven't taken the time to fill everyone in on what's up.
So, after heading out Friday to volunteer at the Reliant Center, I came home to Dana (whom I had called, requesting she pick up much needed cold beer) and we chilled, ordered some Hunan, and watched TV. The next day was the beginning of her Birthday Extravaganza Weekend©, which didn't end officially until Tuesday (her actual birthday). Saturday she received the Palm Tungsten T5, which I reluctantly got her (who wants to get their wife a Palm Pilot for her birthday?), but she really needed it. Anyway, she got that and a little package for it that included extra stylii (styluses?), screen protectors (ripoff?), a nice leather case, and a car charger. I don't really remember what else we did that day. But she lost the car charger. :)
Sunday, also I don't remember what we did (this was a long time ago, people!). One of those nights we did go out to see The Skeleton Key (pretty good), followed by a screening of Saw when we got home (Netflix, of course).
My highlight of the weekend was going on a ride on Monday. We're not sure exactly how far we went - the route was 31 miles, but we got lost and kind of made it up, but I'm pretty sure it was about a 30-miler (neither of our computers was working at the time). My position on the new bike is changed a bit (higher saddle, lower stem), putting me in a more aero position, but I'm loving the bike so far. As part of our detours we were actually forced to hit a couple dirt "roads" (really just paths that big construction equipment had made in what was otherwise a rocky, grassy field), and we both realized that we needed proper mountain bikes to have a lot of fun bumping around (hehe).
Monday was nice, otherwise. Neither of us really got much done that we'd have liked to (cleaning, straightening up, being productive, etc), but I did take a solo trip to the grocery store and made some dinner a couple nights in there somewhere. I was going to surprise her with the family's secret flank steak marinade (with flank steak, of course) on her birthday, but instead she wanted to go out for sushi (and frankly, I had done a lot of cooking and was ready for a break from the kitchen, as our Hutch-like pile of dirty dishes would attest).
I just remembered. We were going to head to dinner at Mark's on Saturday to celebrate D's birthday (originally she was supposed to work a TSU game, but it was scheduled at Reliant and they cancelled it for obvious reasons), but she fell ill to the stomach. After recovering, we headed to the movie. So that was Saturday. Monday, we also watched a lot of CSI, as there was a Labor Day marathon on Spike that TiVo caught for us.
OK. So, Tuesday, sushi, followed by drinks. She also got MORE birthday presents on Tuesday (I couldn't NOT give her something on her actual birthday). I really am setting myself up for trouble - I spoil her rotten.
Tonight there's another Jeff Davis HS football game - I'll head out there if she can come get me before the game, after work. Otherwise, there's plenty I can do here that I'll probably ignore.
For example, packing. I'll be heading to Oxford this weekend for Homecoming, followed by working next week in Chicago.
And oh, yeah - the job at ABN with IBM is looking pretty good for me. I'm sure we'll have details to work out, but since management is going to stay intact and we're all getting offers, and IBM has a VERY liberal out-of-office work policy that is determined by - surprise - one's managers, I should be fine. Some of the contracts are going to be limited to 6- or 12-months, but frankly that wouldn't be too horrible either. We're going to get the same base salary, IBM has GREAT benefits (including an employee stock purchase plan), and like I said before, a geek like me could do a lot worse than having those three letters on his resume.
OK, back to work for me. Have to have something to show before getting back to the office next week.
Peace out y'all.
Literally, cots as far as the eye can see. In joining the food group, i have latched on to a good group.
The good news is, new volunteers seem to be pouring in. Must have decided to come join the effort after finishing school and work.
The cots have now made it almost all the way across the arena, and the volunteers who set them up are on their way towards the loading dock near where we're set up. Still no displaced victims have arrived, but I expect we'll see the first of them soon. My guess is that once people begin arriving en masse, things are going to be very different around here.
They are literally filling this whole place up with cots. There must be thousands and thousands of them...
Just had a quick pow-wow with the staff from reliant. Apparently, we're going to get the worst of it: the people who have been in the SuperDome for the last five days. We've been told to expect arrivals between four thirty and six pm.
We've also been told to use the bathrooms now, while we still can. Also, to let them take whatever they want: if they want a case of soda, they can have it. Basically, give them everything until there's nothing left to give.
Another call-out: breakfast tomorrow is at 6am, and they want people here between five and five-thirty. I'm going to try and make it. If you're in the area and can, please come help.
Cut yourself on 40-lb bags of ice? Improvise a bandage with paper towel and some cellophane.
Ok, as it seems we have some downtime, i'll take a moment to explain what's going on.
We are on one side of this enormous building -i'd say it's 300 yards wide and four times long as it is wide. Our area - cots, food/drink tables, and dinner tables, is probably 300x250 yds. At the very far end of the structure is a hive of activity, but i have no idea what's going on down there.
We were told at 'orientation' that we should not work for more than seven hours at a time, but if we're going to begin serving dinner at 6pm (cst), i just don't see how i'll be able to leave.
If you're in the houston area and want to help, ignore the reports saying not to just show up. PLEASE show up. If we get the numbers they're saying we will, we're going to be very, very overwhelmed.
I have no idea how our meager setup is going to feed 16000 people. My guess here is that we have about 2500 cots in the arena (whatever this place is called). Now we're being divvied up at food/drink stations. I'm at a krispy kreme station...
I heard a rumor earlier that since reliant is a pepsi park, they weren't going to allow coke. I guess they got over it. I just stepped outside to get some air. I can't believe i've only been here two hours. I'm exhausted and energized at the same time. There are so many people here working their asses off to help. It's really incredible, all the different people...
This place is transforming. Cots starting to come in...
Now we're being sent back where we were to help with food. It's really humid out. Can only imagine what's going on inside the dome. Reliant arena appeared unused...
Chaos. We were told to go in and take initiative. I'm headed to either the dome or arena. Told to expect a bad smell... More later.
Fire marshall has closed the dome. Am in arena hall 'a'. This will be cafeteria area for the coming 16000 people. We are setting up the caf area in time for dinner at 6.
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