Potpourri or A Little of This and a Little of That

I hate allergies.

I don't know what blew in, but I wish it would blow out.

Yesterday was not a particularly good day. I must have gone through a box of Kleenex and several allergy pills. When this happens to me I get cranky. I was cranky at school yesterday. I am sure the kids thought I was cranky.Today has got to be better. This weekend has got to be better. Baylor has a bye week so I don't have to worry about going out to a football game. The Heart of Texas Fair does not start till next week. I still have time to get better and get rid of this. If I don't get rid of it maybe I'll get used to it.

Tutoring starts in a few weeks. The kindergarten teachers need to get together to determine which students should attend tutoring. We also got our schedules on Wednesday. I have been assigned to tutor 5th grade.

Wow! What a switch. Spend all day with my kindergartners and then head upstairs and spend an hour with 5th grade. That's a 5-6 year jump in a matter of minutes.

The neighbor across the street called the other day. He wanted to know where we picked up our campaign sign. After the remnants of Ike blew through his signs were gone. He had them placed along his frontage with the road. He had placed several about every one-quarter mile. It looked good. I'm not sure if the wind blew them down or if they were "taken" down. I noticed yesterday that he had a new sign up. This time it was placed next to his driveway.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Slowly Back To Normal

All is well in Houston. Or at least, all is as well as can be expected.

I finally spoke with my brother last night who lives in Houston. He lives in the general vicinity of the Gulf Freeway and the South Belt Tollway. This was near the approximate path of the eye wall of Hurricane Ike. I would say probably within 7-8 miles west of where the eye wall passed.

His family decided to stay at the house which was boarded up and sealed up as best as he could get it. The reporters at KHOU who covered the storm in the Galveston - Houston area referred to this as "hunkering down". I suppose my brother and his family were "hunkering down".

Lance said they lost power around 11:00 PM on the night (Friday, September 12, 2008) the hurricane began to approach the area. The electricity was turned on Friday night the 19th. One week. He was so excited that the cable was on he checked e-mail and watched a movie until 2:00 AM. Pam was tired and went to sleep.

Lance was looking forward to getting up early on Saturday morning in order to tend to untended business on the computer. (Read that as checking on and paying bills again.) He went to the computer; no Internet. He went to the TV; no cable. AAARGHHH! Now it was off to Kari's house with the laptop to take advantage of the Internet.

I suppose the worst thing that happened was my brothers fence blew down courtesy of the near constant hurricane force winds for several hours straight on Friday night and early Saturday morning. There were also a few lost shingles but not much else. No flooding fortunately.

My brother is now retired living a life of leisure. Pam still teaches math in Clear Creek ISD. She learned that her buildings roof was torn off and many classrooms flooded; probably her own. Clear Creek will not be ready for teachers until Friday, September 26 and students returning the next Monday. Under this situation I don't think a 12+ day vacation at the the beginning of the year is very enjoyable.

Lance said his family made the decision to stay because the storm was only a Category 2 and they did not think it would be as bad as Alicia many years ago. They stayed in Houston for Alicia and the eye wall passed over their house. He told me that he remembered walking out and looking at the calm blue sky. Didn't happen this time around.

Having said all of this all things in their world are slowly returning to normal.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

Beautiful

It's amazing the difference a couple of days makes. A hurricane came through and on it's heels a welcome cool front settled into Central Texas. All this in the middle of September.

Hurricane Ike blew through on Saturday and pretty much was out of the way on Sunday and helped to pull the cool front down our way. For the past several weeks the temps were in the 90's for highs. Especially prior to the hurricane.

Sometimes it felt like we were in Arizona.

Yesterday the high was in the 80's. That's downright cool according to our standards; especially with that nice dry northeren breeze. The low last night was in the 50's.

Brrrrr! Chilly weather, but it's nice on the AC bill.

© 2008 Barry T Horst

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

Ike Blew All The Leaves Off

Yesterday was an interesting day. Perhaps not interesting; maybe just a tiny bit different.

I woke up yesterday morning expecting to witness the outside edges wrath of Hurricane Ike. You know, the wind and rain thing.

I looked out the window. Just breezy; no rain.

So I sit at the computer and do a few things. I downloaded the AVS Video Editor from "Giveaway of the Day" and then paid some bills. Isn't sad how all of these businesses hound you to visit their stores and get their merchandise. Then when you finally do it, they start bugging you for money.

Since the weather wasn't too bad I decided to go to HEB and buy groceries. Apparently Ike was on the doorstep getting ready to knock. I stepped out and the wind picked up and it was starting to sprinkle. I got in the truck and headed off to the store. By the time I got to HEB the wind was blowing pretty good. It blew my truck door closed before I could jump out. Fortunately, my foot was still safely inside the truck. The rain had picked up but I was destined to shop.

I finished at HEB and decided to head to Sam's. By now we were feeling the full wrath and fury of Ike. Okay, it wasn't really "wrath and fury" it was more like "wind and rain". It never seemed like much rain though. There was a lot of wind though. On the way to Sam's I would sit at red lights and the truck would rock back and forth. That's an awkward feeling when you drive a Chevy Silverado. Anyway, by the time I got to Sam's the rain was coming down pretty hard. I don't know if it was a lot of rain or just rain driven by the strong winds. Yeah, I know. It was both.

By now it was 11:30 AM. Now I'm glad Baylor played on Friday night.

On the way home on IH 35 there was a semi that lost control and had driven up on the concrete center median thingy. His front wheels were hanging over the top. Sort of like a puppy that was standing on it's hind legs by small fence or something of the like. Only this was a "BIG PUPPY". The DPS troopers were furiously trying to get there but had a tough time because all the traffic behind the truck was a dead stop.

It turned out to be lousy weather. But it was a great time to go shopping. No traffic and hardly any customers in the stores. The sample ladies at Sam's were hoping they could go home early since they weren't busy.

I got home and checked the mail. There was a letter from Citi Bank or some such place telling me they had $5000.00 to give me. I shredded the thing. It would be just my luck that once they gave me the money they would turn right around and start wanting it back. I also got catalogue from an outfit called Stafford's in Thomasville, Georgia. I don't know why I got it. I flipped through and found a Leather Flyswatter for $55.00. Now that's what I need because that $1.00 Wal-Mart model just ain't cuttin' it.

Geez, these people must think I have money tree. I've got news for them. Ike blew all the leaves off.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.