Hurricane Irene

Funny with the natural disasters theme of the end of the month.  Well call it natural events because the earthquake wasn't a disaster and hopefully the Hurricane won't be. We were going to ocean for the weekend.  We were going to go down Thursday night and staying til Sunday.  With the storm predicted we considered leaving Monday until my sister texted (from the ocean where she was on vacation) that an evacuation order was issued for Friday.  I guess we're not going. I then accepted it might be coming so time to get prepared.  My main concern is losing power for a few days. We went and got food, but nothing more than the normal weekly shopping trip and a case of bottled water. I emptied the ice cube container into a cooler and froze some bottles of water in case we need to pull the food out of the refrig.  The next issue was the boat.  I had inquired about pulling it out for the weekend when we thought we were going, but since were were staying it stayed in the water.  I put the motors down, effectively shortening the boat allowing it to have more room to move. I started to double up the lines and thought I might need more, but I had stored a bag full of lines in the boat which were prefect; almost like I had done this before?  Isabel was the welcoming party for the Proline 2950 in October 2003 only a few months after purchase rode it out fine.  This picture was the morning after the storm where the boat was only a few feet over the dock.  The night before it had been upto 6 feet over the normal high water level.

Survived the 100 year storm levels of Isabel once; I guess it will be fine again.


Watching the news Friday you would think that the world was going to end with this strom.  The super markets were packed.  Funny thing to me is the liquor stores (and bars) were doing a brisk business.  Is it the alcoholics think they wont be able to get out or people can't deal with being shut in for a few days? So I bought a case of diet beer (MGD 64 lemon).

My prediction is it will hit, high winds and rain and a little higher tide.  I summary no big deal.  That being said my recent prediction track record isn't 100%.  See last weekend I wanted to go for a motorcycle ride.  I knew that the forecast was for isolated thunder storms.  I checked the map and the only storms were up above baltimore county in PA.  So off I went the plan was to ride to centeral Baltimore county and loop down into the city to the gym.  Well I got about 15 miles from home and looked south and saw dark, dark clouds.  Time to head home.  Problem was i had to ego southeast to get home pretty much into the storm.  I got about 2 mile from home and the rain started (steady but not pouring).  A mile more and the lightening and thunder started and it started to pour).  I pulled into a gas station and thought: In 20 minutes this will clear right up.  Well an hour later I rode home in a light rain.  At the gas station the attendant talked to me about his motorcycle he had in India.  He said it was fast 150cc , one of the most powerful they had over there.  When he asked what size motor was and I told him 600cc he seemed incredulous.  He asked how fast it was, will it do 100?  I told him 160 and 0-60 in 3 seconds he again seemed dubious.  Then he guessed it the cost and he was under by a factor of 2.  Once he accepted that he asked did I have a car too. That was entertaining but the funniest part was when he noted that he would be hesitant to ride here, because women drive here.  I had to smile at that.  Anyway his conversation help pass the time.  I set out before it ultimately stopped, because a tornado alter was issued for the area and the thunder had subsided.      

All this Hurricane discussion led to a funny discussion about the dogs.  If worse comes to worse and this is the end of civilization as we know it (according to the local media) and we run out of food, which dog would eat first?  My wife says the female who is the heavier one. Which makes sense, but I say the male because females have more body fat and the male's weight is more lean muscle, meaning more meat.  
We'll see if it comes to that....