Hey, hey - what's up with you today? Here it is another Sunday night and Jeanne has come and gone, at least for the State of Florida but the rest of you probably aren't so lucky. I still can't believe that a second hurricane hit in just about the exact same place as Frances, or that we've seen four of them in the last six weeks. I don't think that my hotel in Tampa fared as well this time as I've been talking with them all weekend and today they lost power and a skylight blew in the lobby and it was pouring down rain - and they kind of expect that the electricity is going to be out for some time to come. That reminds me, but my power was out this morning for like an hour and a half for no reason that I could figure - I was just dang glad when it came back on.
I think I've actually got my lawn all put back together and spent a lot of time yesterday pruning broken limbs off of my trees out back and bagged up another five bags and raked up another ton of pine cones and needles and such. I then mowed the whole thing and it's still looking very nice, at least it's all green and stuff.
Oh, and I was in Dallas, TX last week from Monday and came back home about 11:45pm on Thursday so it was a short night and then I worked all day Friday trying to catch up from the prior two weeks of travel. I didn't do so well but most people left me alone so I'm hoping that I am home for some time to come and that I can get back into my normal routine. Dallas was nice - I was there for a three day Hilton training at their corporate headquarters, not too bad I guess and might have learned a thing or two. But it was just getting to be nice here when I left - lows in the 60's at night and highs in the low 80's - but then I go there and it's 90' every day so it didn't even seem like I left Florida. In coming home on Thursday I had like a three hour wait for my flight so I hung out at DFW - and did you know that you can actually get your hair cut while you wait, I kind of killed two birds with one stone. I really need to buy a new battery for my laptop though as it won't even boot up without being plugged in so I need to do that in the very near future at least before I travel again. I bought a new dvd writer too and installed that on Friday which took all of ten minutes - and this one is a DVD +/- R/RW version so it can make any type - and my other one was ticking me off as I kept buying blank dvd's and then they wouldn't work cuz the write speed on my old one was too slow.
And the big news is that they paved my road while I was gone, I saw that they had started on the side street when I was leaving on Monday and it was done by Thursday night, I hope that they are still putting a few finishing touches on it in the near future as my ditch still needs a little work. Here are a couple of photos of the before and after though (click a pic for a bigger picture) and it's one heck of a difference if you ask me!
Or click dirt or paved for a bigger picture.
I guess that's it, I'm watching the premier of ER which I recorded from last Thursday as I wasn't home to watch it and I need to watch this one before the next one comes out on Thursday. Take care and stay safe - and don't let Jeanne rain on your parade! Have a great week!
Well, here it be another Sunday night, the weekend is over and it's back to work in the morning. And what a beautiful weekend it was around these parts too - mid 80's during the day and even feels really nice out right now. I ended up spending all day outside working on the lawn yesterday, I bagged up at least 8 huge lawn bags full of branches, pine cones and pine needles and then mowed the whole thing and it's looking as lovely as it usually does. The house is no worse for the wear either and not a missing shingle, the only thing that's messed up is that one of my sycamore trees is standing at a 30' angle leaning towards the neighbors fence and I'm not too sure how I'm going to fix that. And it's a bummer too as I planted two of them at the same time so it's one of a pair and I'd really have to hate to cut it down and try and replace it. My new maple tree is also standing straight up in the front yard, just all of the leaves blew away but hopefully they'll grow back some day.
In driving around town over the weekend there sure are alot of missing billboards and a heck of alot of telephone poles that are leaning over more than they used to plus some of the places down on the beach really got ripped up with the winds. I don't even think that it rained all that much, well more than a couple of inches and it's all dried up now and pretty much back to normal. My grocery store sure was pretty bare tonight when I went shopping - so I'm kind of glad that I missed all of the excitement as everyone stocked up and boarded up but I still wish that I was here for it just the same.
Not too much else to report though, they are still rolling my dirt road in hopes that some day they'll come and pave it but no sign of that yet but they said that it would be complete by the end of September so they'd better hurry up and get to it. And in being gone all last week I am really in the weeds, I tried to catch up as much as I could over the weekend but didn't really make much of a dent in things. At least I'll have enough to keep me busy for another week, and should make the time fly by as well.
I guess that's about it for another day, not much on tv either so I'm watching Titanic for the 500th time. And I think that I'm just about ready for bed too - I got so spoiled with my firm Serta mattress and after sleeping in that overly soft bed at the Marriott it feels just great to be home sleeping in my own bed! Have a great week and I'll talk with you again one of these days.
Ivan Update continued (Sat, 09/18 am) ...... well, I got home at 5pm on Friday (about an hour delay in Memphis) and had to check out the house before I went and got my boy. I'm happy to report that there was no damage other than the lawn being trashed, I have power, phone and internet so I'm a happy camper - plus it's a beautiful Saturday morning too! Montie's doing great - more later probably tomorrow (so stay tuned!).
Ivan Update ....... well, I have no update other than I've been in Omaha, NE since Sunday watching the storm with the rest of the country and seems like it took forever to finally make landfall which I guess that it did at 3am this morning in Gulf Shores, AL. I guess that things could have been alot worse as it was headed straight for Panama City at one point and kept going west although I think that we got the brunt of the wind and the rain any ways.
My pup is staying with Linda and Jimmy (thanks guys!) and I called at 7am this morning and guess that they had one heck of a rough night but survived and are doing well. They told me that they still had power and phone but lost cable tv but I guess that they'll still survive listening to the radio. I hope to go home tomorrow morning - at least I'm getting on a plane for somewhere so that I can see how my neighborhood is doing and if my home is still ok. I haven't been able to call home (not that anyone would answer) all day, all I get is a click and it doesn't even ring. I guess that alot of people on my side of town are without electricity so I may be one of them - I just hope that it doesn't take up to three weeks to get it restored as I've been reading that it might.
But I'm fine and beat and can't wait to get home tomorrow, I think that I would have almost rather been there to ride it out than to spend all day today wondering what happened and if everything is ok - all I can imagine is one of my pine trees laying across my roof with the front door gone - but I guess that I shouldn't be thinking like that and just hope for the best. Thanks to everyone who wrote and checked in and offered a place to evacuate to and I'll be sure to keep you up to date as the weekend goes on. Talk with you soon.
Frances update - we got squat here anyways. It was suppose to rain all day yesterday with high winds and that's all that they talked about - but it sprinkled and was cloudy for most of the day but doubt we got more than an inch of rain. And it was windier today than it was yesterday - probably 30 mph winds this morning when I woke up but didn't see any yesterday. And it rained once today for about 15 minutes, again no where near an inch of rain. The weather certainly isn't helping my dirt road any - but that's also no where near as bad as it was a week ago.
I went out tonight after work and raked up 3 big-ole-bags of pine needles and pine cones, that was the only negative outcome out of the storm and I still really dislike them dang pine trees. Other than that all is well here - at least until they figure out which way Ivan is headed and it looks like it might be headed for the Gulf. What's new - I just keep tracking one storm and then the next - I think that I have a permanent shortcut for them on on computer's desktop. Otherwise budgets are doing me in ....... I think that I'm going on week #2 straight and they are really getting on my last nerve.
Happy Hump Day though ........ have a great rest of the week.
Happy Labor Day Evening everyone ....... how goes the final summer holiday weekend on your end? Not much out of the ordinary happening on this end but it will be nice to have tomorrow off even though I've got a bunch of work that's got to get done. I've pretty much finished up one of my budgets and am 3/4 of the way through my second one and if all goes well I'll also finish up most of that tomorrow and be done with them for another year ....... I've almost got them down to a science at this point but they still suck pretty much.
And we are all waiting to see what Frances brings our way tomorrow and guess that it all depends on how much force it picks up once it hits the Gulf overnight and is suppose to be here tomorrow morning although it's suppose to go to the east of us and we aren't suppose to see all that much - we haven't seen anything yet other than a 10 minute shower around 6pm tonight but then it was gone. The temps certainly did drop - it was 95' at 4pm and 82' at 6pm, kind of felt kind of nice. And if you want to check out the lastest on the storm you can click this
link and I've found it to be a pretty good site for tracking the storm since it first began. My hotel in Tampa is again sold out tonight even though we had 50 rooms to sell this morning - I'm still not sure where everyone came from as I thought that they would all have been headed home by now. It's been crazy over the last few days though - and I do feel for those in south Florida who lost everything.
It certainly sounds like it's going to be a pretty wet Labor Day on this end though and we are suppose to get at least 3" of rain and we might see winds near 60mph - but on a good note at least it should be during day light and not in the middle of the night ....... well, unless that slow moving huge storm sticks around for 24 hours maybe we just might. I got a new modem last Monday and think that it helped my issue of loosing my connection as I haven't had that issue since - plus the guy hooked me up with a Motorola Surfboard modem which is pretty sweet. He said that they didn't give it out to too many people as it was double the normal cost but I guess that I lucked out or he was feeling really generous. He also told me that I shouldn't mix and match my equipment and that was probably more the reason for my troubles, I've got a Linksys hub and a Netgear router connected and guess that's what's plugging up my signal. I ordered a Netgear network switch to replace my hub that should be here next week and I'm hoping that that also helps to keep me up and running.
Not much else to mention though, there is nothing on tv tonight so I decided to watch a movie and I guess that I'll get to that ....... let me know how things are going on your end. Talk to you later - enjoy your Labor Day holiday.
