Tag Archives: hurricane

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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It’s Thursday night… and that means it’s time again for your regular installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week. In no particular order, here we go…

1. Ron Paul. As much as he’d like to roll back the clock, it’s not 1789. The Constitution and the laws have to be expansive enough to deal with the real world, not the loony tunes world you’ve created in your own head. It’s not ideal, but I’d rather have TSA running security at the check in line than turn that mission over to Blackwater. Guaranteeing free and secure movement around the country is a compelling national interest and belongs in the purview of the federal government, you cranky old coot.

2. Rain. Enough already. Between pansy hurricanes and tropical storm remnants, it’s been raining more or less for two weeks with occasional pauses to regroup, reinforce, and start raining again. It’s really time to knock it off for a while. Since the dogs still won’t go out unless I go with them, this is becoming a priority as getting soaked to the bone two or three times a night is no longer a sustainable solution.

3. People who over-share personal information. I don’t need a running narrative about whatever you happen to be doing over there. I don’t care that you think oysters are disgusting. And I absolutely, positively don’t need or want to know the fascinating medical history of your family and the trials and tribulations of elder care. We happen to share office space, I promise you that doesn’t mean we need to share our deepest, darkest secrets… mkay? Thanks now.

4. Apple. Yeah, I said it. Apple. Release the damned iPhone 5 already. I’ve got money and I want to give it to you.

What annoys Jeff this week?

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Since none of these things are big enough to stand alone, here’s an amalgamation of the things that are annoying me this week. Somehow it feels like this could become a weekly feature. Trust me, this is nowhere close to an exhaustive list.

1. How the hell is it September already? I feel like I just finished unpacking my boxes a few days ago and now expect to look outside and see three feet of snow on the ground at any moment. This does not qualify as having fun and therefore time has no business going so fast.

2. Enough with the hurricane talk. The wave that became Hurricane Katia was all of what, 200 yards off the African coast before the news channels picked it up as a major weather story? Hey, I’m all for preparedness but since I still have the canned goods and bottled water I bought for Irene, I think we can give Katia a pass until she gets within a thousand miles, ok?

3. Stubbing your toe first thing in the morning always sucks. It sucks more when the toe in question has an ingrown nail. At least I think it’s ingrown based on the completely unqualified research I’ve conducting using the world’s leading search engine. All I know it is hurts like a mother when anything touches it, which is pretty much all the time since my employer insists that we must wear shoes.

4. Moammar Gadhafi. Seriously. This douchebag needs to just be dead already.

Where credit is due…

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I was all set to come back to the house tonight and write a scathing rant about Comcast. Give their track record, I didn’t think they’d have a prayer of restoring service today. Happily, I would have been dead wrong in that assessment. So now I’ve got to give credit where it’s due. Less than 36 hours after the lines came down, I’m back up and running with TV and internet. No fuss, no resetting boxes, just walked in turned things on and the signal was there. Nice job, Comcast. You done good this time around and I appreciate that.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll get lucky and I’ll have something to rant about.

Telling tales about the end of the world…

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I was really warmed up to take the worst that Mother Nature could dish out… and as usual, Mother Nature turns out to mostly be a pansy. Her worst, at the moment, would appear to be denying me access to cable television and high speed Internet. Both of these are annoyances to be sure, but not quite the mayhem and chaos we had been promised earlier in the week.

I know there are flooded basements, trees downed, and homes lost out there, but for most of us in the all-Irene-all-the-time news cycle, all this experience has really served to do is reinforce the already strong notion that weather is almost always over-hyped and under performing. That’s a pity, because the time in the future when calls of imminent destruction go out and it’s not just a drill, most of us are going to shrug, go on about our business, and think we’ve seen it all before.

There’s got to be a better way to handle these things than the media going crazy and making every story a tale of the end of the world…

Here for the party…

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Back when I was in college and dinosaurs roamed the earth, pretty much any weather event was an excuse for a party. Impending snow days, heat waves, severe thunder storms, meteor showers, summer, nosecone footage from bombing runs against Iraqi anti-aircraft radar sites, whatever. You name it and there’s a fair chance that it was a perfectly acceptable reason. Here we are now with Hurricane Irene, harbinger of doom, scourge of the Mid-Atlantic, destroyer of New England practically on our doorstep and I haven’t seen one single article, Facebook posting, or Tweet announcing a hurricane party anywhere. Not even a mention so far. I think that’s sad.

What happened to you, Maryland? You use to be cool. I’ll bet before long you’re going to tell everyone to hunker down with a hand-cranked weather radio, a couple of gallon jugs of water, and some canned goods. I’m disappointed. I expected more defiance from a state of waterman, coal miners, and faceless government bureaucrats. Surely someone besides me will realize this could be the social event of the year. I’d offer to host, but only have the one bathroom, ya know?

Select “Panic” in 5…4…3…2…

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So you guys may have seen that the media are making a big stink about the impending hurricane of doom that will be sure to devastate the East Coast over the weekend. Judging from the current models and from watching these things semi-professionally for the better part of the last ten years, I’m more inclined to think that eastern Maryland will end up getting a little soggy on Sunday and maybe have a few branches blown around if things “get bad.” That said, there’s always the off chance that this thing doglegs left and shoves a wall of water directly up the Chesapeake. That would fall directly in the category of Situation Other than Good. With the track edging east with every model run, that unhappy outcome seems less and less likely.

What seems more likely at this point is that the regional weather personalities and newscasters are going to whip the local indigenous population into frenzy by close of business Friday regardless of what the reality looks like. What this means is that every idiot with a pickup truck, a car, or a moped is going to come out of the woodwork and descend on Walmart, Costco, and every grocery store within driving distance and buy six gallons of milk, two dozen eggs, five loaves of Wonder bread, and a metric ton of toilet paper. I ordinarily don’t begrudge anyone their pre-apocalyptic stockpile, except in this case their panic is going to conflict with my normal grocery shopping schedule.

In the event that this was an actual emergency, I’d be the first to institute the no harm, no foul rule, but in the case of purely fictitious disaster, I’m less inclined to give stupid people the benefit of the doubt. My inclination at the moment is to go ahead and make due this weekend by drawing down my own fairly impressive stockpile. Sadly, like Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, I just don’t know if I can stay away from the spectacle of so many asshats gathered in so few places. I know I shouldn’t, but I might not be able to keep myself from going to watch the spectacle first hand.

Gas Lines…

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Coming home from the office this afternoon, I swung into the Costco parking lot so I could feed my 5.8 liter beast. The first sign of something being not quite right was the guy standing in the middle of the lane waiving people away from the pumps. No problem, I think, I’ll just go around and come at the pumps from the other side of the lot. No dice there, either… another guy in a orange safety waiving traffic around. Stopping to ask what the hell the issue was, all he did was point to the 30-40 car deep line waiting to even pull up to the pumps.

All I can say is what the hell are people thinking? I know there’s a hurricane and that refineries in the Houston area are going to be shut down for a few days. I also know that prices are going to spike by 30-45 cents because of that… But waiting in line for 40 minutes to get gas $.30 a gallon cheaper than it will be tomorrow just seems silly to me. I mean, just do the math… for me: 30 gallon tank x $3.45/gallon = $103.50. Same 30 gallon tank x $3.75/gallon = $112.50. Sorry gang, but my 40 minutes on a Friday afternoon are worth a damned sight more than $9.00. I’m just sayin’.

Outside looking in…

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Having had some small role in every major natural disaster since Hurricane Isabel in 2003, sitting at home watching Gustav do his thing has been kind of an interesting experience. Actually, I’m not at all sure what I should be doing with myself. I have a bag about half packed as I really had expected to get a call by now. So all that’s really left at this point is to watch and wait. Maybe I’ll get to sit this one out and get all of my information of questionable credibility from the cable news channels. And since the grass is always greener on the other side, I’ll spend the next week wishing I was doing whatever it is I’m not.

Standing down…

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This first outing of 2007 has been full of sound and fury, sure enough, but has come to nothing. We’re closing down, packing up, and heading out. Lots of build up only to watch everything fizzle when it was time for the big event. Is it possible for a hurricane to give you blue balls? Never mind, ignore that question.

I should be back in the MEM tomorrow afternoon… at least for a few days.

Stupid sit and wait…

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The last time I did this, I was working 13 hour days on top of a two and a half hour round trip commute. This time I’ve gotten myself set up in a hotel three blocks from the office and when I get to the room, I’m still exhausted. This office isn’t as fun as working across town at the center of the storm. I have a sneaking suspicion that things will start picking up tomorrow when we start kicking people out the door and lining them up in central Texas. For the time being, I’ll be happy racking up overtime and travel pay. Keep an eye on the Weather Channel for the next few days and you’ll have a pretty good preview of how tired a/o pissed off I’m gonna be for the next few weeks.