Notebook of Weather Observations Whilst a Hurricane passes me by . . . .

Saturday 8/27 5:00pm: Looks like Katrina is going to be the largest, closest hurricane to South Texas since we moved here in 2002. Haven't seen any changes to the weather yet, though.


Sunday 8/28 7:00am: Weather's a little weird this morning. The land "Where the Sun spends the winter" (old San Antonio Tourist slogan) is overcast and grey; looking more like Winter than Mid-August. Showers are peppering us intermittently even though It hasn't rained steadily here since April (and rarely does in the Summer.) The clouds are odd as well: they're all high broken overcast cumulus clouds with a fair amount of sunshine peeking through.

Sunday 8/28 12:00pm: Counting Louisiana license plates on the way from church: 2 or 3 seen. (We rarely, if ever, see any Louisiana plates this far from the border.) Northwest Church of Christ had planned a water-party picnic to celebrate returning to school next week -- and got more water than they dreamed of. Well, the crops needed it pretty badly.

A lot less sunshine than this morning, too.

Sunday 8/28 7:00pm: The wind shifted this afternoon. Airplanes usually fly overhead on the landing pattern to San Antonio; now, they're taking off overhead as the wind has shifted to the Northeast. That doesn't happen too very often down here.

Magnificent Sunset; plenty of fat cumulus clouds to highlight and glimmer in the last vestiges of the setting sun.


Monday 8/28 7:00am: Wow -- just, Wow. Most incredible sunrise I may have ever seen in my life as high overcasrt and low, scudding, purple clouds frame the blood-red rising sun in the east. Almost didn't get a sunrise at all with all the cloud cover; but eventually it poked through and put on quite a show.

Wow, indeed.

Monday 8/28 12:00pm: It's only 85 degrees in the Alamo City; the forecast today was for 98 degrees. I seriously doubt it'll get there. It's actually quite cool and pleasant with the overcast. For once the air conditioner in the office I work in is cold in the extreme, instead of just being able to keep up.

Monday 8/28 4:30pm: First time I've ever driven home since we moved here that I didn't need tha A/C full-blast on and my sunglasses. Full scudding steel-grey sky in progress overhead; and the dust patterns on my windsheild say it's been drizzling on-and-off most of the day.

At a stoplight on the way home I see another weird weather thing I've never seen before. The clouds are coming out of the east and making a left turn above the city and heading south. I wondered if I was losing my mind until I realized; it's the cenmtral rotation of the clouds around the storm's eye.

Man, that's gotta be one kick-ass storm to influence the weather this directly over here. I'm a Midwestern boy who's seen lightning storms, blizzards, tornadoes, and green skies -- but this is truly awe-inspiring.

Counted 27 Louisiana license plates on the way home.

Wow.

~~~JD~~~

Katrina Bitch-Slaps Gulf Coast; Film at 11 . . .

The above picture is of a Hurricane Evacuation Route sign on I-45 heading north from Galveston Island, which I mentioned in a previous post. It's a weird thing to see one of these along the Interstate in good weather; and another thing entirely to watch them as you're evacuating your home and loved ones from a killer hurricane's path; like my neighbors in Louisiana are doing right now. We're feeling the effects right now here in San Antone. This morning the Airport started lauching airplanes in the opposite direction as usual (to the North rather than the south) as the winds shifted from Hurricane Katrina. The skies are intermittently overcast as feeder bands sweep north from the storm; we even got a bit of rain as well.

Got a little Captain in Ye? 

J.D. Long, Famed American Astrounaut, attempts to take his own picture in a mirror at the Manned Space Flight Center in Houston TX. (Rumors about his beard being caught in the helmet's visor appear to be false.) 

David Sheik-Hossen; world traveling French Astronaut, visits the Manned Space Flight Center in Houston TX. (Photo without space helmet not available.) 

Life Is What Happens To You On The Way To Do Other Things . . . .

The oddest thing happened to me the other day.

For the first thing, I've noticed that Interstate highways leading away from the Gulf Coast (I-37 from Corpus Christi TX; I-45 from Galveston TX; I-65 from Mobile AL) all have exta-wide right shoulders and little blue-and-white signs every 2 miles that read "Hurricane Evacuation Route." It's a bit weird watching the little signs leading away from the coast for 50 miles or so, but nice to knolw somebody had the foresight to think of such a contingency.

Makes sense, right? In case of impending hurricane, they use the shoulder too for added traffic capability.

The second thing? Well, last Sunday we decided to go to beautiful Corpus Christi Texas. Fabled land of Spring Break debaucheries, Sunshine, and the world's greatest coastal fishing, as well as the home of the U.S.S. Lexington -- the feared "Blue Ghost" aircraft carrier of WWII. Seems like a safe bet for a day trip, right?

Heh. Guess again.

Admission to the Lady Lex was about $21.95 per person -- substantially greater than we planned. After touring the old girl (which is in substantial need of repair, unfortunately) we drove though downtown Corpus looking for a beachside seafood joint, figuring it'd be chaper and fresher closer to the Gulf, right?

Again, Heh-heh-heh.

With apologies to any residents of the Belle of the Gulf, she's certainly seen better days. The downtown looked like a hurricane had been through there recently, although it's almost certainly been 10 years or better. Vacant lots; closed stores; and a general air of urban semi-blight prevailed. After miles of driving up and down Seaside Blvd looking for a place to eat, we eventually returned to our starting point to an old-fashoined Diner which had very good food -- but not the seafood we had our taste buds set on.

A nice day, slightly disappointing overall, but not terrible. Still, disappointing, and a bit creepy and sad.

So this past Friday (five days later, for those completists out there) I took a day off for another excursion. After a quick pit-stop at the ever-delightful Buc-ee's (see previous post) which has become my nephew David's favorite kitschy tourist trap, drove on to Houston TX and the Johnson Manned Space Center. There we saw the sights and (almost) took the tour of the Center before it started raining and abbreviated out tour.

Since we had some extra time on our hands, we decided to toodle the 27 miles down I-45 to Galveston Island and see what was out there as well. A trip unplanned; almost as an afterthought, but that road less traveled has made all the difference. We found Houston's Chinatown that we'd been looking for (for almost 3 years!) We also found a plethora of Seaside souvenir shops, bars, and cheap excellent seafood joints like we'd been searching for the previous weekend, and ate until we were stuffed. The place we found had the BEST deep-fried soft-shelled crabs I've eaten since i was stationed in Augusta Georgia 21 years ago -- just magnificent. Out waiter was a teenaged Russian emigre attending U.T.-Houston, and was both surprised and thrilled I spoke a bit of conversational Russkiy.

Imagine that.

Galveston's pretty enough and reasonably-enough-priced that we talked about maybe moving there. Oh yeah, that'd break my heart; having to live on the ocean and eat fresh seafood every day.

God Provides, indeed.

~~~JD~~~

A Brief Note Before I Run Off . . . .

Been awfully busy lately, so I haven't had much time to update lately. We've got our nephew David visiting from Paris (the one in France) so we're almost constantly on the go somewhere on the weekends -- which is when I usually post, y'know.

Plus to make matters worse, my USB ports on our brand-new laptop are on the fritz; which means I can't synch up my camera to post any new pictures. We've figured out a fix; but it will take me an hour or two of uninterrupted time to do it -- which I haven't had lately.

So we're all alive an well. Work is going very well for both of us; and we completed our move last weekend. Pictures when they become available. Gimme a week or two.

~~JD~~