Rendai

It has been a fun few days. We’ve been keeping cool thanks to a cold front that came in Sunday. Unfortunately, we don’t have power, but have a few friends that got power yesterday (a hot shower is a great thing).

The hurricane itself was worse than I would have thought given how far we are from the coast. Power went out at the house around 1:30 AM. After that point, the only lights we had were from the glow of transformers popping around the neighborhood. They made an eerie sound close to what the monster in Cloverfield made. The hardest part of the storm didn’t hit until 4 AM. The odd thing was the power tried to come back on around then, but was browning out. I remember opening my eyes to see my digital alarm clock flickering (the ‘1′ would partially come up, then go out, then I’d see portions of the ‘12′ of ‘12:00′ pop up for a brief moment). I immediately ran (immediately in the sense of being groggy and sleep deprived) to the switch box in the garage to turn off the power to the house. I couldn’t see out of the front door to the cul-de-sac except for the slight glow from our neighbor’s front electric light flickering like a gas lamp. One thing I didn’t think about was the pressure difference between the outside and the house. I was pushed back the second I opened the door to the garage since it’s more open to the outside. Just walking to the breaker box was difficult with the wind curling around the garage doors.

The only other disconcerting effect of the hurricane was feeling the building shake from the more powerful gusts. In the future, we won’t be sleeping on the third floor during a hurricane. We took a quick look around once the wind started dieing down around 10 AM the next day. So far, there doesn’t appear to be any major damage to the house. There is a slight leak from inside the exhaust out of the AC. The cap probably came off in the high winds. If that’s the extent of the damage, I’m extremely happy though. We have running water that has been tested, food for quite some time, and friends that are kind enough to let us use their network access. Now we just need to get power restored to the homes in the surrounding area. We made out very lucky compared to other families.

There are still a large number of people in Galveston that are taking pictures on the Seawall. Not the best place to be, even with the storm ~200 miles from the coast.

Really, a hurricane isn’t carnival:

Three years ago, I posted about Hurricane Katrina as it affected my family and close friends. Rita came close thereafter making for a fun 40 hour jaunt to Dallas. In all, it was an unpleasant time for my family and they only recovered and moved into their house late last year.

Last week Warren and I kept tabs on Gustav when it looked like it was going to be a sequel to Katrina (almost to the day). Now we have Ike bearing down on Houston. I was really hoping it would veer to the east like Rita did, but this time Houston isn’t as lucky. We’re looking at a 1 – 2 AM landfall of Ike just to the west of Galveston. I’ll be making sporadic posts today and possibly tomorrow depending on access to the Internet. Warren will be posting as well, including through twitter once the power goes out.

I’ve found a wealth of links that I’m using to keep up-to-date:

• Brendan Loy is posting again (you’ll remember he posted quite a bit during Katrina).
• Eric Berger handles the science blog at The Chronicle. He has a live chat this afternoon, and has been doing a fine job providing information about Ike.
• Andrew has been posting and has been more conservative on the hurricane. Contrast that to some people that have been hyperventilating for days.
• Live feeds from the major networks in Houston
• wunderground always has great information.

10:45 AM CDT: The water surge is really beginning to hit Galveston. Note how far away Ike is at this point (200+ miles). Water service has been turned off to portions of the city because of salt water contamination. Many of the feeders around I-45 are now flooded. People on the island should be leaving, not taking pictures on the seawall with their cell phones.

The Kemah boardwalk is overtopped by water. People are already being arrested for looting (idiots).

Of course I would end up being the good guys (again)

Personally, I’m thinking of making a Disciple of Khaine because the game mechanic seems interesting. We’ll see.

Warren, his sister, father and I harvested over 200 lbs of Cynthiana grapes two weekends ago. He has taken graduated from wine kits to the real deal. We had a great time, and it was good to get outside and do something physical for once. I’ve been stuck behind the keyboard for most of the year and stretching my legs felt good. It wasn’t hard work and was over in a few hours. Cynthiana (aka Norton) grapes are a difficult grape to use, but does well in the area. This part of Texas has a few issues with a disease that kills most of the ‘noble’ grape lines, so it’s hit or miss.

In other news, I’m taking the next week off on vacation. We’re going to Austin for a few days but nothing really major. I had hoped to spend the week playing the beta of warhammer online but it doesn’t start until the 7th (doh!). Oh well, I have a ton of technical books I want to get caught up on. In either case, I don’t have to worry about work and can just take it easy.