Good to see you, Laura! I'm glad the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been. (off to go check detailed post in Natter)

Laura! MWAH!!! I'm so glad to see you.

More detail because internet!

The storm came in 2 parts. The first half arrived about 6AM Monday. I got up and sat by the east side doors to watch the awesome wind. Trees bending over, branches breaking and flying past. I noticed I could see my neighbor's house better than ever so some big trees must have been missing. The eye arrived at 10 or 11 or so. All the people around us ignored the warnings and walked around to survey the damage during the 45 minutes of calm. Lots of trees down, but it didn't look bad. The radio was saying that the 2nd half wouldn't be so bad. They lied.

The back side of the storm was horrific. We had the whole family pushing with all our might to keep the front door from blowing in while Brendon pounded shims around the edges. They held. We piled all his weights there too. I could hear the roof tiles tumbling and see them falling in the pool. The door for the screen enclosure, a couple of the braces and much of the screening blew off. Power poles that were leaning at a 45 during the eye were now upright because of the wind direction change. It went on forever.

We hadn't purchased a generator because we had planned on going up north if a big storm was coming. This was supposed to barely be a hurricane by the time it got to our side. Instead it picked up steam on the trip over the everglades.

After the storm Brendon became chain saw guy and helped clear the street and people's yards. For the last week all the kids have been playing in the street and park. Bonfires at night with the debris. The social situation is fun, although they stopped selling booze, the stinkers.

We plan on working this week on generator power since we have to get stuff done. We have the computers all connected to a big UPS which is powered by the generator. Not exactly clean power, but what ya gonna do? A couple of the programmers don't have power so they are showering and keeping their food at our house. It'll work out. Just send some cold front ~ma our way because A/C is too much for the generators to handle.

xpost+ from Natter, my 2 cents...

My take on DST is making the timekeeping (of man-invention) somewhat closer to nature/God/Gaia/etc. In fact I think we should have more divisions, set it back an hour more for July and August.

There's still too much sunlight before you have to get up in the summer.

I mean you can get up at 4:30 am, but I'm not so hot on the 8:30 pm bedtime that would warrent.

Good lord, Laura. Love to you and yours!

Erika, most excellent reading your interview! I'm aglow with inappropriate 'That's my Erika!' sisterly pride.

Must say, though, that this:

In the UK, much of society is still ruled by churches, especially in villages where we have "Parish Councils

boggled my mind. Dude. Society is not ruled by churches. The UK is WAY more secular than the US. There are churches, and it's something that some people do get involved with, but ruled by? Really, really, REALLY no.

Blah. I checked the power company website and the estimated restoration date for my area is Nov 22nd.

Off to head home to do the Halloween thing. We have phone at home, so I'm not sure why we don't have DSL. I'll mess with it some more. If it doesn't happen I'll be back at the office later....

Laura, you're off, so you won't see this, but ::mwah!::

So good to see you back, and I hope things are cool on the weather front, and return to normal soon!

Well, thanks, Fay. Yeah, that's not the way I hear it from other UKers either, just cause y'all don't have a Bible belt.(Lucky sods.)You lot might have jumble sales and make cakes for the vicar and like that which even your friendly heathen does not object to, but I can't imagine a bunch of Brits protesting the use of the word "God" in a movie or freaking because your kids learned evolution or putting faith healers on the telly.And those were the parts of American religious...culture to which I was referring, not the part where congregations or councils form parts of the community. (Actually the thought of a British faith healing amuses.) "Well, if it's okay with you, I've told the nasty demon to step off now."
"Really? Ta ever so." (Suppilcant stands) Great, I can walk...that's really brilliant. Been a really long time."
(Audience claps like at Wimbledon)

I make good punkin bread. Yum.

But why, oh why, does lite cream cheese have to have the texture of Flubber?

Can I just tell you how much fun it is to read the survey responses? Some of them are priceless.

Don't you all wish you were having my fun?