The 3PM update is in.  Gustav is fully onshore and dealing misery to the heart of Cajun Louisiana with heavy rains and winds as it disassembles itself.  Its path is carrying it northwest through the state and into east Texas.  Tropical storm force level winds will likely play havoc with rural and small-town power systems but in the greater scheme of things the storm is essentially defanged.

As I sit here trying to calm Miss Kitty (see the post below for an idea of how difficult this is) I’m waiting for the remains of Gustav’s eye to pass to the north of me, at which time I should see possible tropical storm-force wind gusts and more rain, but those stories about us being deluged with huge amounts of rain have yet to materialize.

All I can say is this has been one heck of a way to spend Labor Day…

Now all we have to do is get that million people who evacuated to come back home.  I know most of them are chomping at the bits, especially for here in southwest Louisiana.  Yeah, the local emergency preparedness folks didn’t actually cry “Wolf!”, but the actual ‘wolf’ involved was two pastures over, eating somebody else’s cattle.

One of the tragedies of these weather vents is the untold story of the strain on our little furry friends as they see their homes upset, their families in turmoil and they don’t really understand all that is going on around them. Continue reading Little tragedies →

The 11Am update showed up at 12:19. Key points are that the silly thing is collapsing faster than expected, and it’s still moving fast. A wind profile tool available on the commercial service says that my location will see tropical storm level winds for a few hours this evening until after midnight. I don’t expect to see ANYTHING near hurricane-force winds, even in gusts.

We do expect a bunch of nasty, squally rain. As a matter of fact, the radar shows it just about fifteen miles east of here. Here’s the radar:

Folks, this sort of activity is not uncommon here, especially in the springtime when cold fronts come ripping through. The radar looks like this a lot every spring, and we see wind squalls with 40-60 MPH gusts often enough to know what they’ll look like.

All that being said, I don’t see any possibility of damage unless something generates a tornado, and even then those are most common on the other side of the storm.

The big question is if the lights’ll stay on. Even then, the circuit I’m on is not in a heavily treed area, so I’m in pretty good shape there, too.

To all the people who’ve stopped by and read my ramblings and left comments and offered up prayers, well, it looks like the prayers worked for me. I appreciate all your concerns and thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Next update will be some time after 7PM.

Those of us who spend much time in a doctor’s office should appreciate this! Doesn’t it seem more and more that physicians are running their practices like an assembly line? Here’s what happened to ol’ Boudreaux:

Boudreaux, him, he walked into a doctor’s office.

The receptionist saw him and said, “Hey, Mr. Boudreaux. What you got?”

Boudreaux looked at her and said, “Me, I got shingles.”

So she asked for and wrote down his name, address, medical insurance number and told him to have a seat.

Fifteen minutes later a nurse came out and asked Boudreaux what he had.

Boudreaux said again, “Shingles.”

So she wrote down his height, weight, a complete medical history and told Boudreaux to wait in the examining room.

A half hour later another nurse came in and asked Boudreaux what he had. Boudreaux said, “Shingles.”

So the nurse gave ol’ Boudreaux a blood test, a blood pressure test, an electrocardiogram, and told him to take off all his clothes and wait for the doctor.

An hour later the doctor came in and found Boudreaux sitting patiently in the nude. “What you got, Mr. Boudreaux?” said the doctor.

Ol’ Boudreaux sighed. “Me, I got shingles.”

The doctor asked, “Where?”

Boudreaux said, “Outside on de truck. Where you want me to unload ’em??”

(Slightly modified from a post by ol’ Clyde at CSP Gun Talk’s Political Page.)