Assault and Battery Charges on Ike (the Hurricane, that is)

So its almost a week since Ike hit the Houston area and caused widespread distruction and chaos. This was the scariest weather event I have ever sat through, and this is coming from a kid from the Philippines, which always experiences some type of monsoon or typhoon activity. It didnt help that the neighbors tree slammed into the house everytime a huge gust came through. I doubt I slept a wink Friday night/Saturday morning. Trees are down everywhere and signs certainly didnt fare well in the high winds.

To keep us occupied, we have been mostly hanging out at Aaron and Whit's house, sitting on the porch with drinks, harrassing the passers-by. The rub of it all is that their neighbors right accross the street have power while they dont--so we curse them daily. In reality, it isnt that bad for us since we have hot water, a gas stove, and an intact house, which is a lot better than those who live in or near Galveston. We just cant store any fresh food at the house or wash our clothes--we had to visit Caroline last night to get that done!

The latest news for our zipcode, 77007, is wonderful: "[these] zip codes have sustained extensive damage, and will therefore have a restoration timeline that extends beyond Monday, September 22." Yipee. It really bites because the houses just a block away have power and we have to drive by their electricity using arses everytime we head in or out of the neighborhood! For those who know me, they know that I like making charts...its the enginerd in me. So here's one of the history of outages for our neighborhood. Notice that the trend looked wonderful for the first half, but then has worsened and stalled for the most part. Does not look good for us.

Since Dave Boyd's memorial service has been moved to this Saturday, I wont be racing Terrafirma. It was a mutual decision by the whole team since the hurricane has disrupted all of our lives. So I plan to do that and then just clean around the house a bit. I'm sure we will be well past stir-crazy by then, so we probably will have to do another day trip like we did last weekend. The only issue is what to do with our dog, Rock. He's still a puppy, so he is a bit unruly around new surroundings.

Nothing much else to report. Have been intermittently heading to the park for brick workouts. Planning to head downtown on my bike to take pics of the blown out windows of the skyscrapers. Hopefully life returns to normal soon, for all of us.