Thoughts on Ike

Hello from Houston. I made it home today, and it was relatively unpainful.

As I drove home from airport (yes, my car had not blown away nor sustained major damage), I passed by lots of destruction. It really was an eerie sight. I have to be thankful, though, that it wasn't worse.

One thing that I did have to snap a picture of on my way home was not 1, but 2 traffic lights dangling from the cords. I quickly pulled out my cell phone and snapped pictures from my driver's seat. The first one you can't really tell the angle. However, if you see the car in the far right of the shot, you can tell kind of wear the light was. It really was swinging back and forth right beside my car.


In the second picture, you can barely see the light, but you can see it's proximity to my car. I so desperately wanted to lower my window and reach out to touch it.


The other big adventure of the day was purchasing gas. I waited in line for about an hour, and when I finally got up to the pump, I made sure my car was as full as humanly possible. I really wish I had gotten a picture of the line of cars, but I never could quite get the shot.

Most places are still closed because of no electricity. However, both the Starbucks and the Panera seem to have electricity, and their parking lots were F.U.L.L. The draw of internet service was awfully powerful.

I know once Houston has power and things are cleaned up, life will get back to normal. In the meantime, my dogs and I will stay sheltered in our little home.

**********

On another topic, in the airport, I did have to take a picture of the new Southwest lounge chairs that are found at most every gate. These leather chairs are complete with regular plugs, USB plugs, and internet service. I could have slept here.

The Rain Follows Me Everywhere

So, apparently the rain follows me everywhere. As I said in my last post, I am in Lubbock working on something through LCU. Well, it has rained some the last couple of days, but yesterday, it didn't just rain, it R.A.I.N.E.D. They got between 8-10 inches in a single rainfall. According to the news reports, they haven't had something like this happen in over 100 years.

You know what that means, right? It means that all the schools and universities are closed and everything is cancelled. So, the reason that I am not in Houston is cancelled, and I can't actually get back to Houston until Sunday at the earliest.

Oh well.

So, I am currently holed up in a Starbucks (complete with free Wi-Fi), drinking my warm beverages, trying to get some work done. At least this will give me the opportunity to attempt to get caught up on work.

Good thing it is Pumpkin Season at Starbucks. I love me some pumpkin spice beverages.

Dichotomy

So, in graduate school, one of my roommates and I had a number of classes together. In those classes, there were invariably people who felt as if it was their mission to use as many "graduate level" words as possible. Two of the words that we heard A LOT were paradigm (and all of its forms) and dichotomy.

Well, today was truly a dichotomous day. You really could take each large event today and split it into two totally separate parts that each exhibited their own sets of characteristics.

Since I know you can't wait for me to expound on this, here I go.

So, I had a church business trip that I was leaving for today. To get to the airport on time, I had to leave my house at 5am this morning. My trip to the airport was uneventful (in fact, traffic was a breeze). I got on the plane and headed out.

Once I arrived, I headed to the car rental counter where I had already reserved the cheapest economy car they had. When I got to the counter, the worker informed me that they had overbooked, they were out of cars, and one should be arriving any moment. So...I waited...and waited...and waited. A bit over an hour later, a car arrived, and they sent it to be cleaned. When the guy brought it to me, it wasn't the cheap little golfcart that I was expecting. Instead, it was a really pretty Nissan Maxima, and I got it for the golfcart price.

Part A of the Dichotomy - Sat at the airport for over an hour.

Part B of the Dichotomy - I am driving around town in a pretty nice car for not very much money.

Then, I headed to campus. As I was walking up to the Administration building to pick up a parking pass, I slipped in the mud and fell (yes, I realize that is fairly normal for me). My jeans were covered in mud. My knee is scraped up, and I think I am going to lose a toenail. I headed off to the restroom to try to clean up as well as I could, but there was mud and dirt everywhere. So, I changed into another pair of jeans.

Since I only brought the exact amount of clothes I needed (that is so not like me), I had to go to the mall this afternoon to grab another pair of pants. I found the cutest pair of jean trousers, and they were on clearance.

Part A of the Dichotomy - I fell down and got a boo boo.

Part B of the Dichotomy - I have a really cute pair of jean trousers that will take me through the fall.

As I went early this evening to check into my hotel, I unloaded everything out of my car and headed to the front desk. The front desk manager greeted me by saying that they had had a pipe burst, and a number of the rooms had flooded, and so they didn't have a room for me. The front desk manager then told me that they had made reservations for me at a different hotel (a nicer hotel), and that they would comp my room.

I headed over to the other hotel. When I got to that front desk, the clerk checked me in and then told me that the only room they had left was one of the suites. So if that was okay, then that is where I would be staying.

Part A of the Dichotomy - Reservations at a hotel with a pipe that burst.

Part B of the Dichotomy - I am typing my blog entry tonight from a lovely, comfortable couch in my sitting room.

I Heart Infomercials

As my dear, sweet friends know, I absolutely "heart" infomericals. This love of "all things sold on television" dates back to my days of college insomnia where late at night, when I couldn't sleep, I would sit up and see what wonderful, new product Ronco product was now available.

The Ronco Food Dehydrator tempted me for years. I am not sure if it was the red "As Seen on TV" logo that was plastered across the product, or the possibility of purposefully drying out every bit of food that was in my house for the low low cost of $49.99, the point is that I was hooked.

Even now on my nights of insomnia, I will flip through the channels and see what wonderful product is being shamelessly hocked on television for an incredibly low price no doubt, and imagine how empty my life is without that product.

In honor of this love, I want to let you in on some of the current products being sold and tell you that these, too, could be yours for a "low, low price."


The ShamWow is better than a towel. "It holds 21 times its weight in liquid." Don't tell me you can't live without that.



The Smart Spin - If you are too lazy to clean up your cupboards and stack your storage containers neatly, then just buy this, and they will do the job for you. My only question is what happens if you get a little too wild and crazy with your spinning?

The Aero Garden - Growing herbs and vegetables in your house. This is perfect for the pasty white people. Imagine never having to go out in the sun ever again.

The Big City Slider - This little device makes perfect, small hamburger patties. The concept is place a ball of meat in the bottom tray and set the press on top...cooking at its easiest. Now you do have to spend a good bit of time scraping all of the little pieces out of the burger press, but the little burgers are so cute that it almost seems worth it.

Mighty Putty - Can I tell you every time I see this infomercial, I desperately want to break all the handles off my coffee cups and refashion new ones out of the might putty. I even want to add a second handle to the other side.

Pro Caulk - This is the newest infomerical that I have seen. This little gadget takes a bead of caulk and spreads if evenly with "8 sealing edges." The one drawback of this infomercial is that when your whole product revolves around spreading caulk, then that is all that will happen in a 30 minute infomerical.

Enjoy your look at these new products, and for the record, I only own one of these marvelous ASoTV items.

Non-Dairy Creamer

So, this post is my homage to Mythbusters. I admit that I embrace my nerdiness. Therefore, I have to share with you my love of the program Mythbusters. It genuinely fascinates me.

So, if you caught the latest episode of Mythbusters, you no doubt learned just how combustable non-dairy coffee creamer is. I am now a little worried about the amount of creamer my grandmother keeps in the house.

Basically, the point of the last episode was to prove (or disprove) some of the popular videos that are making their way around the internet. I thought you might enjoy seeing the videos that they CONFIRMED.

The first was the firehose car. (The following is the internet clip they based their experiment on and reproduced.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxT281HP1rc

The second was the sawdust (then non-dairy coffee creamer) explosion. (This is also the internet clip they based their experiment on and reproduced--first with sawdust then with creamer.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvPL7KC1DEA

Lastly, is just a clip of them each solving a rubiks cube (one blind folded and one with his feet).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zePA3uIbB5I

Now, the rubiks cube clip is not real. They just put that clip on the web to see how many people they could get to believe it. They revealed the answer to how it worked on the show.

So, since this post seems to be a post all about clips, here is the latest one that I enjoy that a friend sent me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHT1TutCfWM

Doesn't it make you want to create your own one man boy band?

Pollen-Induced Fog

Okay...so I think I am in a pollen-induced fog. I have been trying most of the afternoon to read through a book that I need to finish on family interaction from a multigenerational developmental perspective. Ask me how many pages I have managed to read. Three, yes only three, and I am not even certain that I remember what was on any of those 3 pages.

As I flip back through and look at all my highlighted sections, I can only hope that my brain has somehow taken in all that I have looked at. Today is one of those days that I wish I was like Superman and had super-fast reading and information retention. Alas, it is not to be.

So, I guess I will turn my pages back once more to where I started, and I will start again with the goal of not having to read these pages for a 15th time.

Or...maybe I'll just keep going. How important can the information really be if my brain did not accept it the first 14 times?

Zack, What Happened????

My dear, sweet Zack Morris, what happened to you?




Is anyone else as disturbed as I am about the now brown, long-haired Zack Morris parading around the TNT network? I'm sure his new show is probably very respectable, but his hair in the commercials scares me so much that I don't think I can give it a chance.

In honor of the old Zack, I present to you a quiz. Because, let's be honest, I am fairly certain that we all know way more "Saved by the Bell" trivia than we are probably willing to admit.

Question 1: What was the original title of "Saved by the Bell"?

Question 2: What do the initials "A.C." stand for in A.C. Slater's name.

Question 3: Who hosted a dance contest at The Max?

Question 4: What 90210 star made an appearance on SbtB?

Question 5: Who did Screech love?

Question 6: What was the name of Zack's Band that was part of a dream sequence?

Question 7: What did Zack score on his SAT's?

Question 8: What was the name of the famous singer that the girl's met in the locker room during the "Girl Band/Jessie's Drug Problem" episode?

Question 9: What was the name of the man who ran the country club that the gang worked at one summer?

Question 10: Why did Kelly break up with Zack before the big dance?