Hurricane Ike...

This bugger has taken over my entire workday.

I came into work with My Genius Friend Dave squealing like a stuck pig because of pressure being applied to him from all possible directions. Then I slowly got to see (sort of) what he had been going through all day, lol.

I mean, I've still got the sweeter shift. I'm dealing with maybe a third of what he had to deal with. (Maybe...) But this is most definitely what Genius Dave refers to as one of those days wherein I earn my check. I'm glued to my switchboard watching the live coverage of Ike (the eye of the hurricane hasn't yet reached Houston; it's still getting walloped by the northwestern "eye wall" and more than three million people are already without power there) and cutting the local weather-babe in when she's got local info to impart.

Whoa. Had to pause while writing because I had to do a cut-in.

But I was saying, it's not heavy lifting or breaking rocks or anything, but I have to pay close attention tonight.

It's kind of interesting, though: I've actually experienced this hurricane as it has landed in real time. It's an interesting thing. Watching a hurricane begin to come onto the coast, then actually "land" (which weather-type folks count as when the middle of the eye of the hurricane is over land -- despite the fact that the destructive winds hit land LONG before the eye does) and make its way from the water across the land...

One can easily imagine an H. P. Lovecraft type Elder Thing slowly slipping out of space and devouring the planet, impossibly slow and impossibly inescapable.

Well... One with my sick li'l mind can imagine it, anyway, lol. ;P

But it's odd. We're a society that has little patience. If you're not watching the radar for hours upon hours you might be tempted (as I was today, actually) to look around you and think that probably nothing's going to happen.

But when the thing eventually arrives and you start seeing that footage -- winds that scoop boats out of their ports and lob them inland -- and you remember that this really is a scary friggin' event that's transpiring! And THEN, as you wait and wait and WAIT for this thing to slake its figurative hunger and move on, you really REALLY get a sense of the horror. It just comes and comes and comes and keeps coming, then there's the half hour to forty-five minutes of catching your breath during the eye, then it's on again, and again it just seems to keep coming!

I've got to say that, selfish as the sentiment is, I am so very grateful that Ike is unlikely to attack Austin.

Okay, I should get back to work.

Just wanted to check in, and to say "LOVE YOU, SWEETY" to my Hot-Thang! ;D (She's such a goddess!!!)

If you're safe and warm at home, ENJOY! :)