When It Rains, It Pours
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Today's already a funky day, and it's only just 7:30.
The public transit service which operates the buses I used to get to school ia on a one day strike. I now have a bicycle I could use to get to an alternate bus on the reduced service route. Unfortunately, the back brakes are ineffective, and I really haven't ridden it in anything like a traffic situation. Though I don't have class, I had agreed to several meetings today that I cannot miss, or risk missing paper deadlines. And, as Dave says, today is "Car-Free Day". So will I finally have to drive to campus and pay for garage parking? Or do I hop on my rickety death-trap and cross the union lines?
In addition, I am preparing for Hurricane Rita. I'm expecting to just ride it out here, though the latest projections show the storm bringing 50+ MPH winds here on Saturday. I could drive to visit family, I supposed, but I think things are fine here, and I'd have to go east through Houston to get there, and if the storm is bad, I might not be able to get back through coming east.
Today, though, I should gas up my car (so much for Car-Free Day) and go to the grocery store to by emergency rations and bottled water, just in case. I'm not expecting things to be too bad here, but we could easily lose power and phone service on an intermittent or extended basis. And since my television programming comes by satellite, the cloud cover might shut that down. For those outside the path of the storm, email and instant messenger might be more effective means to contact those of us in the central Texas area.
I don't know what Nutmeg is doing for the storm, but she's on the eastern fringes of the storm, so I'm hoping that she doesn't get anything too serious. I'd like to think they don't have her babysitting monkeys at work all weekend.
I am a little concerned that Friday, we had plans to go out to the Salt Lick for BBQ with some friends who are back in town after an extended absence. If we're getting torrential rain and 30+ MPH winds Friday night, that may have to be canceled. And the Austin City Limits Festival (an outdoor music event) is also this weekend. I think we are very lucky in order to be able to think about such trivial things.
Who I really feel sorry for are the disposessed New Orleans residents who are now living in Houston. The storm will be bad there, but hopefully not catastrophic. Some computer models show Galveston and some parts of the outlying Houston metro area under water, but any flooding should be able to run off naturally (unlike New Orleans.) People are taking this one seriously, though, so hopefully this storm will be the one we can say that this is where we started getting the planning and response right after Katrina.
The public transit service which operates the buses I used to get to school ia on a one day strike. I now have a bicycle I could use to get to an alternate bus on the reduced service route. Unfortunately, the back brakes are ineffective, and I really haven't ridden it in anything like a traffic situation. Though I don't have class, I had agreed to several meetings today that I cannot miss, or risk missing paper deadlines. And, as Dave says, today is "Car-Free Day". So will I finally have to drive to campus and pay for garage parking? Or do I hop on my rickety death-trap and cross the union lines?
In addition, I am preparing for Hurricane Rita. I'm expecting to just ride it out here, though the latest projections show the storm bringing 50+ MPH winds here on Saturday. I could drive to visit family, I supposed, but I think things are fine here, and I'd have to go east through Houston to get there, and if the storm is bad, I might not be able to get back through coming east.
Today, though, I should gas up my car (so much for Car-Free Day) and go to the grocery store to by emergency rations and bottled water, just in case. I'm not expecting things to be too bad here, but we could easily lose power and phone service on an intermittent or extended basis. And since my television programming comes by satellite, the cloud cover might shut that down. For those outside the path of the storm, email and instant messenger might be more effective means to contact those of us in the central Texas area.
I don't know what Nutmeg is doing for the storm, but she's on the eastern fringes of the storm, so I'm hoping that she doesn't get anything too serious. I'd like to think they don't have her babysitting monkeys at work all weekend.
I am a little concerned that Friday, we had plans to go out to the Salt Lick for BBQ with some friends who are back in town after an extended absence. If we're getting torrential rain and 30+ MPH winds Friday night, that may have to be canceled. And the Austin City Limits Festival (an outdoor music event) is also this weekend. I think we are very lucky in order to be able to think about such trivial things.
Who I really feel sorry for are the disposessed New Orleans residents who are now living in Houston. The storm will be bad there, but hopefully not catastrophic. Some computer models show Galveston and some parts of the outlying Houston metro area under water, but any flooding should be able to run off naturally (unlike New Orleans.) People are taking this one seriously, though, so hopefully this storm will be the one we can say that this is where we started getting the planning and response right after Katrina.
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