What a letdown

Well, that was underwhelming. When a hurricane comes through and you sleep the whole time, that's pretty lame. I was really looking forward to it. Everyone freaking out around here, lines 6 miles long at the Costco, bottled water sold out...but no, the biggest piece of debris I could find was a pine needle that landed on my car. Whoopee.

I mean, come on. I lived in the midwest and southeast, and witnessed the cyclonic destruction of tornadoes...even helped my sister cleanup after one and made a small profit. Went to the West Coast and bounced through two earthquakes, one of those actually crumbled a brick wall or two.

But "Hurricane Earl" (if he's not already weakened into a Tropical Storm) did little more than wet the grass here. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for complete mayhem and destruction. Maybe a Ficus to fall on the car so I could get the insurance money for it. After living through the tornadoes and earthquakes I have developed a strong respect for nature's fury. But it's hard to respect Category 4 Fury that brings nothing more than a simple summer shower.

Earl's running a little late

Must be some trouble with the El Camino. 9:00PM, I haven't seen any raindrops yet and the trees aren't really moving around too much. It's weakened again to a Category 2. It was a Category 4 this morning. We'll probably get some high wind in areas, not much likely over 50MPH. Probably some coastal/tidal flooding and heavy rain.

What's interesting is that we do get several bad storms here on the coast every year. They come with 50MPH+ winds, and there's coastal and tidal flooding, with heavy rain. What's the difference between those and this hurricane? The cool name. As far as we're concerned anyway. I'm sure the folks on Cape Hatteras and the Caribbean would beg to differ. The Outer Banks are expecting a more direct hit with the hurricane force winds.

Which makes me glad I'm not filthy stinking rich...at least today. See if I were, I would probably want to own one of those cool beachfront houses down there on the Outer Banks, and tonight I'd be stuck somewhere in a hotel wondering how much will be left when I get to go back. Maybe I'd just buy a vacation house there and not keep the important stuff so close to the Atlantic.

Oh well, a boy can dream, right? I do at least still have a job. I did interview today with a guy from the Network Engineering team. He's really cool and I think I would enjoy working with these guys. They're expanding in the Mid-Atlantic region and I would be coming on at the beginning of that expansion, which is a good thing. I won't bore you with details, but all the crap I've been bitching about for the last couple of years with the old company, they pretty much are doing away with. I likey.

All righty then, off to hunker down and watch Earl come rip through here.