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We survived Hurricane Ike with little damage. Thanks to everyone who kept us in their thoughts and prayers. The only damage we received was to our fence, which had its gate torn off. That only took a couple of hours to fix. We were also out of power for almost 3 days. We had plenty of supplies so overall we were pretty fortunate. I only wish it has spared Josh and Lisa’s roof. Today is back to work, although it seems pretty deserted around here. After lunch, we’ll probably work the rest of the day from home since they’re encouraging it, when possible.

I’ve been neglecting my blog so it’s time to start posting again. Work is closed tomorrow because of Hurricane Ike. At least according to the latest forecasts, it is heading right for us! I made the mistake three years ago of trying to evacuate during Rita, so this time we’re going to try to ride it out. We’ve got enough supplies; I’m just hoping the power doesn’t go out. To make it even worse, Mathilda got sick yesterday. At least she was able to make it to the doctor to get some medicine today before everything in the city shuts down. Hopefully she gets better quickly so that we will only have the weather to worry about.

It saddened me greatly to hear about the recent shootings at Virginia Tech. The New York Times put up an excellent page to help remember the victims. Please visit this page and take a few minutes with me to remember those who lost their lives needlessly and pray for their families in this difficult time.

This past Friday, we went to see Journey to Skye: The Scottish Festival at the Toyota Center. It’s a Scottish music and dance show featuring the current and five-time Juvenile World Champion St. Thomas’ Pipe Band. Now, I’m not normally one to go to see a bagpipe concert, but I’ll try anything once. I’m glad we went, because I really enjoyed it! The bagpipes were terrific and were accompanied by an outstanding drum-line. I almost hated to see it end. I wasn’t a huge fan of the dancing, but that’s just me. If you ever get a chance to see something like this, don’t pass it up, it’s really something unique and fun and you need to see it at least once.

When I went home last Christmas, my mom told me about some papers they found detailing my grandfather’s (who passed away when I was very young) first-hand account of the sinking of the ship he was on in WWII. He was a Captain in the US Army Veterinary Corps, and was involved in the transport of mules from Australia. His ship was sunk by an enemy submarine off the coast of New Caledonia, killing all of the animals on board. The book Mules Go to War was written about the sinking but it’s out of print and difficult to find, however, my mom has a copy that was signed by the author for my grandfather. Something like this really brings WWII history to life for me when I realize that it happened to someone in my own family. The following is an outtake from my grandfather’s report:

At 11:15 P.M. (ship’s time) July 25, 1942, the “Tjinegara” was struck by two torpedoes on the port side near the deep tanks or in No. 4 hatch. The ship almost immediately listed very heavily to the starboard side. We were then some seventy miles off the coast of New Caledonia. The alarm bells were ringing and there was quite a bit of confusion in getting to the life boats. In the rooms and hallways in the lower decks there was quite a lot of brownish smoke. The horses were panicky and neighing very loud, probably associating the smoke with fire, but apparently there was no fire on the ship. The two lifeboats on the starboard side and the two on the stern were the first to be lowered. The two on the port side were last. Due to the starboard list of the ship, they had to be pried over the gangplank. Every member of the crew was safely removed from the ship. Three of the horses escaped through the torpedo hold in #4 hatch and could be heard swimming and nickering for approximately one hour. At approximately 1:15 A.M. July 26, 1942, or about two hours after the first two torpedoes struck, the third one struck in the starboard side somewhere forward. In twenty minutes the Tjinegara started down stern first. Several S.O.S. messages had been sent out before the ship was abandoned. Some five minutes before the ship sunk a PBY Cataline plane came over in search of the submarine, but by that time it had disappeared. The plane signaled that a rescue boat was on the way. The first four life boats were picked up about 10:30 A.M. July 26, 1942 and put ashore in Noumea, New Caledonia. The last two lifeboats were picked up at 8:30 P.M. that night by the U.S.S. Worden, a Navy destroyer.

This past weekend, a tornado hit my parents’ neighborhood. Fortunately, my family is fine and they had no damage, but many other people in the area were not so lucky. It’s just scary when a storm, even on such a small scale, can hit so fiercely that close to home. Sadly, as I don’t tend to pay much attention to the news, I didn’t even know about it until my dad called to tell me they were okay.

I’ll be going there to visit for Easter, and hopefully by then everyone will have had a chance to rebuild at least a little bit. I’m just thankful my family is okay, and my best wishes go out to all those who were affected.

I went to two Astros games this weekend to watch them sweep the Cardinals! Although I had standing room only tickets for the Sunday game, it was worth it to see what could be Roger Clemens’ last game at Minute Maid Park. But after last night’s win, Houston is within 1 1/2 games of the NL Central lead. Go Astros!!

[Update, Sep 29th] – The Astros are now only a 1/2 game behind, just a little more to go!
[Update, Oct 1st] – It’s all over for the Astros now. They didn’t make it to the postseason, but they put up a great fight and we loved watching them try. Thanks for a great season guys!!!

I have written a SHOUTcast Sidebar Widget for WordPress and have made it available for download. You can see it in action on the sidebar. It only requires the URL of the SHOUTcast server to get started, and is fully customizable through HTML templates. Try it out and let me know if you find it useful.

Last Friday, just as I was getting ready to leave work, I starting coming down with a fever. (Why couldn’t this happen on a Monday instead?) Well, I was in bed most of the weekend, and I’m just now starting to feel 100%. I even had to miss the free Hootie and the Blowfish concert that my friends got to go to. I still don’t know what caused it because I didn’t have any other symptoms and it went away with just Advil and Tylenol. It may always be a mystery, but I am just happy it’s all over!

My sister Pam just got married today! Congratulations to you and your new husband Dave. I wish you both many years of happiness. You can find the pictures and videos I took here.