Hey You Guys!

Yesterday Ike blew threw. No, not our cat but the hurricane. I don't think I've ever seen such a strong "remnant" storm from a hurricane. The winds were whipping around and if you were outside it was pretty scarey. I was on the porch when a limb from the next door neighbor's tree snapped. Anyway, after it was all over we were without power. It was a pretty new experience for us as at our other house we never went without power over 5 minutes, but then again we hadn't had such a strong storm in years, not since the tornado. At any rate, the first few hours of powerlessness was fine. Later on, it was getting old and I would have rode a bicycle to generate power to our house. Ragged had to go to work because she works for our local electric company so I was home alone. The first guesstimation was that it would be 72 hours before everyone had power back. There was no way to tell where within that time period we would fall. I was imagining the worst. Last night we got out lanters, candles, and flashlights to fend off the dark. It was kind of fun, like camping without the tent and mosquitos. Nevertheless, we went to bed early. Today, Ragged went to work early and I went to Panera Bread to do some work as my actual work place had power but not network capabilities at first. Around lunch time, I hunted down some ice and put some of our food in a cooler in an attempt to save it. I got two of the last bags K-mart had. Who knew K-mart had ice, but I remembered seeing it there before and it was the first place I tried. Anyway, I then went to work for awhile and discovered they had network connection at that point. After being there fore a couple of hours, I decided to come on home and found that we had had power for about 45 minutes. Altogether, we were without power for about 28 hours, maybe a little less. It's a damn sight better than 72 hours. So, I put all the food back in the fridge and I threw open the doors to enjoy the cool weather. It's back to business as usual at least at the Chez. There are still alot of people without power. I feel their pain.

Ike (not the hurricane)