If you're too young to get the reference in the title I'm not going to explain it too you.
Anyways.... Thanks to Hurricane Ike there are approx 1.6 million people in Houston who still have no power, and I'm one of them. Fortunately, unlike a lot of other people in the Greater Houston area, we came through the storm with virtually no damage at all, save a 12ft long piece of gutter being ripped off the house. Jar(egg)head had more damage as you can see on his blog here.
Power went out around 8 or 9 pm, hours before the storm made landfall, while the wind seemed to be little more than good kite flying weather. Water pressure vanished Saturday, after the storm. The land-line telephone was fine until Saturday afternoon, hours AFTER the storm has passed us. Cell phone service (except for text messages) crapped out sometime in the night.
Saturday just plain sucked. It was hot. The cool storm-driven natural air conditioning of the night before was replaced by...nothing...zip...no air movement AT ALL. Any less airflow would have technically constituted a vacuum and would have been an improvement. Thank goodness for AA Battery Driven FM radios and a deck of cards that helped maintain sanity. Started making calls to check on people in the area and let our folks outside the state know we made it through OK. Did my twice-daily conference call to check on things at work.
Sunday, sucked less than Saturday. Water comes back enough to shower and flush (YEAH!). Not quite as hot, beginnings of a regular breeze. We managed to get batteries (1.5 hours line waiting = 1 hour in line to get in another line + .5 hours in line in the store itself), but no lamp oil or battery powered fans. We also managed to procure ice (2 hours line waiting). Surprise shipment of 28 generators showed up while I was in line for batteries at Home Depot, but didn't feel like shelling out $1200 for something I'd still have to hunt down gasoline for. Tracked out to Katy Mills Mall for dinner at TGIF just before the curfew went into effect. Recharged our cell-phones with a big 900Watt UPS I had charged up on Friday specifically for this purpose.
Monday, sucked even less than Sunday. Got more ice, much better (read cooler) weather, cell phones getting better but still hit or miss, land-line telephone came back, breakfast at MickyD's. All of our neighbors were were given their electric power back on Monday for the specific purpose of taunting us. Travelled to the mad angel's daughter's apartment to do an inspection. She has power, water, cable and Internet inside the loop...also for the specific purpose of taunting us. Spent a few hours at a co-worker's house leeching off his broadband and 'lectricity to sync my emails and recharge my laptop batteries. More conference calls, our building is still closed and running on generators. Pizza for dinner at Domino's, more radio and card playing.
Now it's Tuesday afternoon. The level of suckage has significantly decreased. Cell phones seem stable again, land-line phone stable now also, weather is excellent. Ice is still rare. Refilled our gas tanks as the lines are becoming more manageable in our area. Some people had been reporting 2 hour waits in 4 block long lines for gas as of Sunday. We had filled our tanks to the brim on Friday in anticipation of Ike and had been driving very conservatively. Looks like official word from Shell Facilities management is that our building will not be open for "business as usual" until next Monday. I still plan on going in because I've got to roll-up the financials for the Programme for August by this Thursday. It also gives me good high-speed Internet access and a place to plug in and recharge all my stuff. Probably no air-conditioning though. :(
Anyways.... Thanks to Hurricane Ike there are approx 1.6 million people in Houston who still have no power, and I'm one of them. Fortunately, unlike a lot of other people in the Greater Houston area, we came through the storm with virtually no damage at all, save a 12ft long piece of gutter being ripped off the house. Jar(egg)head had more damage as you can see on his blog here.
Power went out around 8 or 9 pm, hours before the storm made landfall, while the wind seemed to be little more than good kite flying weather. Water pressure vanished Saturday, after the storm. The land-line telephone was fine until Saturday afternoon, hours AFTER the storm has passed us. Cell phone service (except for text messages) crapped out sometime in the night.
Saturday just plain sucked. It was hot. The cool storm-driven natural air conditioning of the night before was replaced by...nothing...zip...no air movement AT ALL. Any less airflow would have technically constituted a vacuum and would have been an improvement. Thank goodness for AA Battery Driven FM radios and a deck of cards that helped maintain sanity. Started making calls to check on people in the area and let our folks outside the state know we made it through OK. Did my twice-daily conference call to check on things at work.
Sunday, sucked less than Saturday. Water comes back enough to shower and flush (YEAH!). Not quite as hot, beginnings of a regular breeze. We managed to get batteries (1.5 hours line waiting = 1 hour in line to get in another line + .5 hours in line in the store itself), but no lamp oil or battery powered fans. We also managed to procure ice (2 hours line waiting). Surprise shipment of 28 generators showed up while I was in line for batteries at Home Depot, but didn't feel like shelling out $1200 for something I'd still have to hunt down gasoline for. Tracked out to Katy Mills Mall for dinner at TGIF just before the curfew went into effect. Recharged our cell-phones with a big 900Watt UPS I had charged up on Friday specifically for this purpose.
Monday, sucked even less than Sunday. Got more ice, much better (read cooler) weather, cell phones getting better but still hit or miss, land-line telephone came back, breakfast at MickyD's. All of our neighbors were were given their electric power back on Monday for the specific purpose of taunting us. Travelled to the mad angel's daughter's apartment to do an inspection. She has power, water, cable and Internet inside the loop...also for the specific purpose of taunting us. Spent a few hours at a co-worker's house leeching off his broadband and 'lectricity to sync my emails and recharge my laptop batteries. More conference calls, our building is still closed and running on generators. Pizza for dinner at Domino's, more radio and card playing.
Now it's Tuesday afternoon. The level of suckage has significantly decreased. Cell phones seem stable again, land-line phone stable now also, weather is excellent. Ice is still rare. Refilled our gas tanks as the lines are becoming more manageable in our area. Some people had been reporting 2 hour waits in 4 block long lines for gas as of Sunday. We had filled our tanks to the brim on Friday in anticipation of Ike and had been driving very conservatively. Looks like official word from Shell Facilities management is that our building will not be open for "business as usual" until next Monday. I still plan on going in because I've got to roll-up the financials for the Programme for August by this Thursday. It also gives me good high-speed Internet access and a place to plug in and recharge all my stuff. Probably no air-conditioning though. :(
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