Connecting in Connecticut

John and I are currently in Connecticut at his grandparent's for a few days. Unfortunately, this means we are limited to dial-up, DIAL-UP, internet which means our posting and just about everything else will be limited.

So far we've hung with the gramps and gramma, the uncle's family and met the other John E. Merancy, and you thought just one was bad. We are having a good time, but it is a shorter visit so we have bookings every day for people to see. Thursday we head to PA for the Sholl wedding, yay. I would put an exclamation point on that yay but it's not working for some reason.

anywho- will consider posting pictures when I have something other than dial-up.

Not Your Mother's Station-Wagon

In the midst of hurricane evacuation it was becoming clear to John and me that my Pathfinder I've been driving for almost 7 years, and was almost 9 years old, wasn't holding up so well. There was a knock in the steering in addition to the other little things that have kinda always gone wrong with it, like the driver's window not rolling down during hot weather. As for the window that pretty much means it didn't work 8 months of the year seeing how this is Houston. So we decided it was time to get a new car for me before something broke that would cost more to fix than its worth. With SUV values being in the toilet, that's not hard.

So we started looking around and my basic criteria were: something nice, something with better gas mileage, but something I could still toss the dogs in the back of. This makes for some odd vehicle choices but I ended up settling on the Audi A4 S-Line Avant wagon, especially after we found a loaded out brand new 08 model for a very acceptable price since the 09's are starting to hit the lots. It may be a wagon, but this isn't even close to those pokey giant wood panel jobbies from the 80's, you'll find that out when I blaze by you and with 50% better mpg than my old truck!

Running... Now for a Reason

Many of you know I have already been training to run in the big Houston races coming up. While I was waffling on marathon vs. half-marathon, I decided to commit to the marathon and already switched my bib over to that race. The deciding factor was that I am now entered in the fundraining effort (Run for a Reason) with my cause being the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. This is the local fund established by Mayor Bill White to raise money to help those that need it most following the hurricane.

While we had some damage, it is nothing much and will easily be taken care of, so I wanted to find a way to help out and this is what I decided on.

Please visit my fundraising page and make a donation if at all possible, even a few dollars will mean a lot to someone on the Gulf Coast. I've set a personal goal to raise $2000 and will continue to make updates as we all make progress to that goal.

Intersection Idiosycrasies

With all the wind damage around here, even a trip to the grocery store a couple miles away gets "interesting". Every time you approach an intersection, it's almost a guessing game what is supposed to happen. Most traffic lights are either out or blinking, so four way stop right? No problem and people are generally being polite (strange for Houston). But then you actually get to a working stop light and this confuses people, I watched more than one person run a solid red traffic light not realizing it was actually on. Who can blame them, they just went through several in the 4-way category.

But then here's the third category: Intersections that used to have traffic lights. What exactly do you do here? Are rules based on memory of previous light locations or current existence? I'd like to know because I blew through one before remembering.

Ike Damage 2.0

After we arrived home yesterday, we immediately set to work trying to cleanup from the storm. Our area of Clear Lake has a lot of trees and this being my first trip home I was rather astounded at the general damage to the area. Whole trees were uprooted in some cases, major branches and limbs down, and just piles and piles of limbs being created. House-wise, it appears to be minor damage, like our missing chimney and almost all fences are down, but no one appears to be completely homeless in our area at least. We have unboarded the house and started making our own large pile of limbs in the front yard too. The trees in the front are generally fine, but the pecan in the back is rather homely now.


We did open the study door to a bigger mess than John left. The wet drywall started to rain down in the room and then we got up there and pulled down everything that was damp to stop the smell. The carpet has also been pulled up from the room and I am trying very hard to air out the entire house and that room in particular. Lucky for us we are actually having unseasonably cool (low in the 50s, highs in the 70s) weather to allow me to open all the windows. The major discovery with regard to this was that the water the got into the study came from a second hole in the roof. When the chimney came down, it punched through the decking over the study and it looks like that is how the water got there. Which means the water from the chimney hole may still be above the fireplace for all we know, we just can't tell.

Ike Damage Pictures

Here are the awaiting damage pictures. As soon as we get power back John and I will head home and start tearing this out. It's not too bad really. The hole in the roof has been patched over with plastic and plywood and caulked to seal. Insurance claim has been started but they aren't even giving estimates on when we can get an adjuster out or start repairs, etc. Giving that this is relatively minor damage I think we will be prioritized rather low in the list so it may be awhile.

House Status Duex

John and Aaron made a pilgrimage to Houston today and managed to get stuck in traffic for a long time. A fatal accident on I-45 backed things up in north Houston and the access roads were all flooded (still?) so they couldn't get off and go around in any way. They did eventually make it to our house and we have some idea of the damage.

The hole in the roof where the chimney seems to have been formed when they backside of the eye wall passed over us. There is a small amount of water on the living room tile that drained through the ceiling spotlight in front of the fireplace. However, the major water damage appears to be in the study which is east of the living room. This indicates the wind drove the rain into the hole in the roof and soaked the study. The ceiling and wall drywall are falling off and the carpet in that room is soaked. Clearly, we are going to have some house repair to do but at least John is getting the hole patched and sealed up as I type. The rest of the house is fine and the good news is none of our "stuff" seems to be affect for the most part. The electronics in the living room and computer equip in the study both stayed dry amazingly enough.

I'm really looking on the bright side here, our stuff is fine and the study is one of only two rooms left in the house which we had not yet remodelled. So, now we can.

John has the camera and took pictures which I will post when I can. They cleaned out our fridge and freezer too because we don't know how long the power will be out and I really don't want to return to the nastiness that could become if I don't have too. John and Aaron are going to finish up and get out of H-town again before the curfew starts to get back to D-city.

House Damage Report

We heard this morning from a neighbor that stayed in the area that our house is largely intact. I say largely, because we no longer have a chimney and instead have a hole in the roof. The hurricane did pass directly over our house as we watched the radar we could easily tell that Clear Lake City passed through the western portion of the eye. This means we saw peak winds during the eye-wall, but were spared (most thankfully) the storm surge from the hurricane which we wanted least of all. The flooding that has occured east of us in the Beaumont/Orange areas is the result of the surge.

We are sure we have some amount of rainfall that has entered our attic and potentially the living room. Unfortunately, since we secured our house so thouroughly, it is impossible for our nieghbors to get in without actually breaking into the house to find our for us. We will figure out what we are going to do over the next few days. We are fully covered and well insured so we are confident we can have this taken care of as painlessly as possible. We also know our fences and our neighbors are all down as well, but that is easily remedied.

Will continue to post status as we know it, of course. We are, along with the rest of Houston, without power, so our return is uncertain since we wouldn't be able to do much if we did.

Liquor and Pedicures

What do you do when a hurricane is attacking your house? Why you have a few drinks at dinner to forget and then go get a manicure and a pedicure in the morning. Last night we enjoyed a nice dinner at Pappadeaux (mmm) before heading back to the house to watch the Weather Channel for awhile. Then this morning, all four of us (yes, John too) went and got manicures and pedicures. The boys got MAN-icures just to be clear, so no pretty pink paint for them. But here is a picture of John to prove it happened.

We did not shoot JR.

John and I (and Lotus and Yasha) have safely arrived in Dallas at Ron and Jeannie's refugee location. Rachael and Grant are also here and were going to head back to Baton Rouge, but will have to wait to Ike passes to see what damage they get from that one too.

So here we are, the dogs are boarded nearby, and we are well prepared for a few days stay. We'll of course be watching to see what Ike does before we can predict what's going to happen with us in the next few days.

We are also in touch with most of our friends from Houston and pretty much everyone from our Clear Lake area has already left and is safely out. The traffic was very good this time and extra good for us because we left before the rest of Houston woke up to find the mandatory evac orders for Clear Lake and Galveston. For those not familiar with or location, Clear Lake, home of NASA-JSC, is located very near Galveston Bay which is why we all must go to avoide the potential storm surge and high winds that will occur nesr the water. Score one for Ike at this point making us leave.

Ike-atude

Here is our status for anyone reading this. John and I just spent the evening boarding up the house, for reference it took an hour to do the whole house and another hour and a half to raise the "drawbridge" on the one (singular) giant window in our master bedroom. To all future homebuyers on the Gulf Coast: DO NOT BUY A HOUSE WITH A MASSIVELY HUGE WINDOW!! Buy a house that has multiple small windows instead!! Trust us!!

As for the rest of it, I am now severly tired and cranky after that and we will be going to bed. In the morning we will most likely make the final decision on evacuation. Right now its looking like we will be getting the heck out of dodge. Our intended destination is Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Ron's house in Dallas, to join our fellow hurricane evacuee cousins from Louisiana, Rachael and Grant who are still there from Gustav.

We will continue to post updates here on our where-abouts if need be. We can also continue to be reached by our cell phones or by email. Should JSC have significant destruction, Nujoud is also on the MER team that may head to Huntsville to provide ISS support if necessary. Again, follow our progress here if need be.

What To Do...

...do we go or do we stay? Much to ponder over the next 24hrs...

Land Lubbers Once More

Well, the shortened Anniversary cruise to nowhere is over. :( We had a great time and it was super nice just to relax and not do anything for a few days. We both agreed that it was easily better then just laying around the house since at home we'd still feel like we needed to run errands or get stuff done.

As for the cruise itself, we did all the crui-sy things like lay by the pool, eat, watch cheesy revue shows, eat, gamble, and eat. We have no pictures, so there are none to post since we didn't bother carrying our camera around the boat. It was just us and our blue card. The biggest downside of the cruise was the super long 3+ hrs it took to just plain get on the boat Wed. It was late arriving in Galveston (as in more than just the 2 days already) and people were still getting off when we arrived at noon. So everyone was standing around in line waiting to get checked in forever (and an hours worth of that was outside in the heat, tres horrible!!).

The first night at dinner it was us, an older couple on their honeymoon, and a gang of the white trashiest folks ever. The trash was complaining loudly and with many four letter words thrown in that they had a group of 8 and were supposed to be sitting together and not split between two tables. So the already frazzled waitstaff (lots of last minute bookings on a $99 special apparently since there were a lot of cancellations) was trying to deal with them as best as possible but they were half drunk and stupid to begin with, so nothing was good enough for them. Best part (at least for me who found it funny) was how one of the girls spent the rest of the dinner with lots of "yes, sirs" and "no, ma'am" with proper table manners painfully trying to appear genteel after the initial ghetto fabulous display. Lucky for us and the other couple, we got to enjoy the rest of the dinners without them since they were reseated at a table for 8 by themselves the following night. YAY!!

Our overall thoughts on the boat: you get what you pay for. It's a very average boat, with average amenities, for an average price. So we enjoyed it because all we wanted to do was get away and it would work if you want the same. But if you are looking for a real nice vacation, we'd recommend you upgrade to a different cruise.