Little weather.
Had a breif whistle of the tornado sirens this evening as a storm rolled through. Andrea and I were just sitting out on the porch watching some pretty heavy rain come down and maybe some pebble sized hail. After it moved on we noticed the clouds moving weird directions (like three directions at once). Right about the time I got to thinking, that kinda looks like “rotation”, the sirens started to blow. Never did see any funnel clouds come to bare, but it was kinda cool watching it all develop. Too bad I didn’t think to grab my camera until after it all passed!
Will it grow?
Well I said after we got back from Hawaii that I wanted to plant a palm tree out front. Turns out that it’s possible… but not too realistic. Well for a few weeks now Wal-Mart has had these palm plants sitting for sale for $12 and I’ve been tempted but convinced myself to walk past ’em. I mean sure it’s just $12, but then you have to buy a pot and soil. All a gamble because knowing my track record, I’m going to just kill the thing anyway!
But Andrea has been encouraging me to just buy it the last couple times, so we hauled that thing home on my lap in her Mustang! I’m sure that was a sight to behold. So there she is. Hopefully it can get enough light and I’ll keep it wet. We’ll see if it grows or if it dies!
12.9.08First Snow
Well it’s official. Winter is here. Andrea snapped this picture at lunch of our first real snow so far. Man was the wind blowing. Made it cold, but at least it kept the driveway clear!
Oh HAIL no!
Well we had quite the hail storm roll through late this morning. Golf ball sized stuff and it fell hard. Did a number on my car. I’m going to have to fix the hood, roof and trunk. No other serious damange that I could find.
Figures. In a week and a half my car would have been parked safely in a garage. 🙁
Mud everywhere!
Well for the last two months there’s either been snow on the ground, or the ground has been frozen. Last couple of days have been decent, but now EVERYTHING is mud. My landlord was nice enough to come over with a plow and push snow from the driveway and sidewalk. Unfortunately, he pushed a lot of the gravel with it. So those are mud too.
Let the dog out. Muddy paws.
Take the trash out. Muddy feet.
Get out of the driveway. Muddy car.
Come home. Muddy carpet.
Bring on the sunshine!
Still not 100%
Well power is back and life is kinda returning to normal. Just a few little anoyances remain. Like the three giant piles of limbs that are laying in my yard waiting to get hauled off. I piled up all the stuff I could carry, but the landlord is going to have to come over with a chainsaw and cut up the bigger stuff. There’s limbs so big laying on the ground that I can’t even drag them. Not that I’m Hanz or Franz, but the fact remains, that they ain’t moving anywhere if its up to me to move them. I could start hauling stuff out with the El Camino, but it’d probably take 15 trips. There’s ALOT of tree on the ground. Times like this I wish I lived in the country and could just light ’em all on fire. Of course if I lived in the country, I probably wouldn’t have my power back yet either. There’s still lots of folks in the dark.
Our cable hasn’t been hooked back up yet. I understand that there’s a lot of customers down, but when we called them to let them know, they wouldn’t even take our address. They just said they’re going to go from house to house and see who’s out. I dunno how long that’s going to take, but I’d guess it could be months. I’m sure they still want me to pay my full monthly bill though. Yeah, it’s a bad deal for everybody, this storm, but I bet if you were losing income off the deal, you’d be a little more motivated to get out there and get people hooked back up. If its not hooked up tonight when I get home I guess I’m going to have to call and be the squeaky wheel. I bet they have a list for THOSE people.
Being without the internet is an inconvience, but it’s not that bad really. I’d probably be more tore up about it if I hadn’t been out of power for three and a half days and realize how nice it is just to have a warm place to sleep. That kinda helps put things in perspective. I’ve still been able to efficiently waste my time. I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XII and having fun with that game that I’ve been putting off for a while. Watched some movies and lots of Friends episodes with Andrea.
So its not all bad, but it will still be nice to be able to settle back into the old routine again. I suppose it’s good to mix it up once in a while though!
Got power back…kinda.
The landlord called today at work and said he got a generator hooked up to the house. WOO HOO! Its not enough to run the whole house at once. But its enough to run the heater, the fridge and the lights. Probably no TV, but I can live with that until the power comes back on for good.
Just glad not to have to use the dog and cat as an electric blanket at night anymore. At one point last night all four of us were curled up under the many blankets.
So as long as nobody steals our generator, we should be good!
Some new pics of the ice.
Welp. Still no power at the house. It wasn’t quite freezing when we got there this morning but it was close. You could see your breath in the house.
Reminds me of the stories the old folks tell how they’d have a glass of water by the bed when they went to sleep and when they woke up it’d be ice. Ha ha.
It’s a bum deal. Looks like it might be a couple days before we’re back up because they’re going to get all the mainlines up before they start connecting individual houses. 6-9 days before everybody has power they said. But they’re hoping that MOST people will be back up by Saturday night.
We stayed at Jason Marsh’s place last night. He hasn’t lost power the whole time. Wouldn’t you know as we were sitting there the power started to flicker. He almost kicked us out saying we were bringing it with us! It did last the rest of the night though.
According to the website, outages are still being reported faster than power is being restored. About 1,000 more homes are without power now than there were this morning. Over 12,500 houses with no power in Riley County alone right now.
So it’s gonna be a few days before this whole mess is put back together. I’m not too worried about it, because there’s nothing I can do. But it’s pretty easy to get stressed out when you’re basically kicked out of your home. All is good though, couple deep breaths and you just go back to doing whatever there is to do.
Little bit of ice.
Here’s some pics of what happened overnight last night as the ice storm rolled through.
Pretty crazy. I think the El Camino is okay, but I wasn’t going to run out there and check. It was like a war zone man. Trees were literally falling from the sky. You’re hear CRACK! POP! WHAM! as a limb would fall from a tree. A guy could get killed just standing around out there. I had to go clear the driveway so Andrea could get her car out for work and it was like being in a minefield. Just hoping you don’t step in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We’ve been lucky not to lose power yet. Our power lines are pretty vulnerable though. I think they’re running straight through a tree or two. So I’m almost just waiting for it to happen. They’re calling for another half to 3/4 an inch of ice throughout the day. Who knows what I’ll come home to. Good thing the pets have fur coats.
We’re doing fine though. Andrea made it to work, and I’ll head that way in a bit. Nothing is broke yet that I can tell, and it’ll be up to my landlord to figure out what to do with all the big ass limbs. I’ll be nice to pile ’em all up for him though!
Cold and Ice
Boy, today was one of those days that you get up, you get on the road and say, “Man I wish I didn’t have anything to do today.” I left the house for a remote today at around 9:00, and the roads were black ice. Saw 4 cars and a semi truck in the ditch on my way over to the radio station. Everybody on the interstate was doing about 40 mph. Except for the dude that thinks its cool to “just drive normal.” I like to think those people are having to get towed out of a snowbank a few miles later down the road. It was SLICK!
Didn’t cancel the remote though. Didn’t have too many people show up, but it could have been worse. There were actually a lot of people out and about. Between everyone Christmas shopping, and K-State graduation, there were a few too many idiots on the road for my taste. I took enough hits in the old car, I don’t really want to start getting this one beat up! I’ve put too much work into it now. =P
Tomorrow is probably going to be better though. Its supposed to actually snow instead of this freezing rain crap. Slush, snow, packed snow, I can dig that no problem. “Just drive normal.” Ha ha!