Hurricane Ike Does Its Damage

What a mess this was. I have been thinking about this post since last weekend. This was the storm no one wanted to see. I have never seen such intense media coverage of a hurricane since we've been living in Texas. I think that folks were suffering from what they call hurricane fatigue; there had been 2 or 3 other warnings this year that didn't amount to much but this one was different. The sucker was 700 miles wide, pretty much the entire width of the Gulf.

Many folks were like, "It's only a Category 2, and Katrina was 4". Jim Cantore, the best weather guy out there for storms like this was understandably frustrated with reasoning like this. Because it was such a big storm the Category didn't matter, when it hit it was going to do damage. Boy, did it ever. Galveston, where 40,000 knuckleheads opted to "ride out the storm" got lucky. The storm pretty much decimated Galveston Island but moved about 300 feet to the West sparing the island from being completely under water. Most people realized the error of their ways and hopefully will listen more closely next time. This was the storm we thought we were going to get three years ago with Hurricane Rita, but it missed us and hit Beaumont, TX and Port Arthur. It did plenty of damage there.

As of today there are still hundred's of thousands of people without power in Houston, down from 2.9 million last Saturday morning. Several of my Chipotle restaurants are still without power and we're hoping they come back on soon.

I think the state government did a much better job of communicating to the public this time around (although not everyone listened) and started the evacuation process days, not hours, ahead of the storm. This was a welcome change to trying to evacuate 5 million people in Houston simultaneously like they did with Rita. More people died on the highways during the evacuation then from the actual storm.

The good news is last week was the peak of the storm season. Although there are two more storms they are keeping an eye on I hope that things start winding down.

One of these every three years is plenty.

Before You Know It

Let me first say, this isn't a mid-life crisis. At least I don't think it is. I am getting ready for a Regional Retreat next week at work and one of the things we're doing is getting old pictures of everyone to have some fun with on breaks. Myself and the other Regional Director are the main presenters so we are getting more pictures of ourselves to play before we speak and it has been quite a trip down memory lane for me. From this picture up here which must have been '71 or '72 (I was a handsome little guy wasn't I?) to my 7th grade picture where my hair is wet from gym class and parted on the side with full on geeky glasses and a yellow shirt with the biggest collar I (or you) have ever seen. I should say that I was never the "cool" kid in class although I did manage to blend in with other kids considered "normal" by my sophomore year. I am not sure what cool or normal really was (or is) today, and really I don't care. I am way past all that stuff.

I turned 40 this year and it has been quite a pivotal year for me. I do find myself thinking more about my own mortality, my kids, and life in general. Questions like "Is what I'm doing for a living making a difference?", "Am I there for my wife and kids enough?", "Am I making a difference with the way I live my life?" are all rolling through my now bald head. I hope so is the answer to all of those. I'm doing my best to make a difference but it does feel like sometimes I'm treading water.

Before you know it, life is whizzing by like a freight train and there is no stopping it. And would we really want to?

Maybe this is a mid-life crisis. I'll get through it though. Stay tuned.