Death has been outsourced

"Hello, Death dept.? I just died. Where is my escort?"
"Thank you for calling Death tech support. We're currently experiencing some technical difficulties. Please wait for our next available technician."

[bad choir music plays during 59 minute wait]

"Tank choo sur for wetting. How meh aye hep joo?"
"I just died about an hour ago. I thought this sort of thing was supposed to be efficiently handled. I thought I was supposed to be escorted into the afterlife - who's handling this, some government agency in Mexico?"
"Oh no sur, we doo dis hir in India now."
"Oh, fine. Is this going to be worse than Sprint's tech support?"
"ob curse nott. Notting iss dot bat. Now... witch apterlipe plan did you suscripe too?
"We were supposed to choose one? I thought that just... you know... sort of happened. One size fits all."
"Ah. Nondenominachunal."
"Whatever. So what happens now?"
"I im afrait thir will be som technical difficults. We hat sum proplims with marketing lettly."
"Proplims? What kind of proplims?"
"Well - sum itiot hass bin promissink 72 virgins to sooside bompers. Virgins??? In Hell? Virchins are hart to come buy, I im tellink yoo, espetchally in hell."
"I can believe that."
"But the real proplim is that the reincarnachum sopware in India keeps claching with the Apterlife modules. Krichna... Buddha... some Arabian desert moon god... wee gott pipples expecting to bee reporn as cows and we have them poppink out in hell."
"Wow."
"It smells goot, tho. I im not allowed to like steak sizzling, but it duss smell goot."
"Cows in hell. I guess that would smell good."
"Don't tell my soopervisor."
"I won't. So what do I do now?"
"Um... take out da battry and lett joo fone sit por minnit. Den, put it back in."
"But I can't talk to you if I do that! What if it doesn't work?"
"Oh, it won't wurk at all. But by the time you call beck, mebbe we haf promlim fix."
"Oh, my god. Sprint is in charge of Death."
"No, no no. But we doo haff a hole wing in hell named for them. Beddy spetchul place, jess."

[line goes dead]

"Hello? Hello?"

America's Got Talent this year

I was sort of a newbie with America's Got Talent this year - I only watched it for moments last season because GA made me, so I could see Terry Fator, and I had to admit the guy is the best at what he does, ever.

But this year I watched almost all of it, though I missed the first episode. I mostly watched because I realized that they were featuring some really bad "talent," which I noticed all had one thing in common: when asked why they thought they could win, they said that their friends had told them they were great. The ones who were actually good would say something else, and always had some doubts about their own abilities. (Maybe they also had honest friends). I'm thinking that it could be those doubts that motivate them to try harder and get better at what they do.

After the first elimination rounds, we were left with only the good ones. Not the great ones, mind you - "great' would not include acts like the Zooperstars, a ridiculous group of people in giant animal costumes, stumbling around like morons on the stage. It would not include the female impersonator whose talent was that he looked sort of like Britney Spears and lip-synced her music. These people would at the very least draw a crowd at a supermarket, though whether people would pay admission to see them is another question.

Later in the season I began to see people eliminated whom I really liked. I'm talking about Jessica Price, Paul Salos, the Wright Kids.

Paul Salos is a Frank Sinatra impersonator, and he is incredible. if you close your eyes, you could really believe it's old Blue Eyes himself, right down to the voice, the attitude, the inflection. This guy has a career if he wants one - if not in Vegas, somewhere else. The Wright Kids belong in Branson - they can do wonders with anything from 60's pop music to blue grass.

And I was actually considering Jessica Price (above) as my third favorite - but as GA pointed out, while she is talented she is not unique, and not really even different than another fifty female country singers, though she is better looking than most of them. Still I like her, and I sort of wish I could adopt her so she could have a decent father - apparently, the scumbag abandoned the family, though Jessica still adores him. That's love for you.

So the top five are on tonight, and the voting is over, and we should get to see the winner tonight.
That means I get to express my opinions about them for all the world to see, because this is America, and because I have a blogger account. Here they are, in no particular order.

First up, Eli Mattson:



Eli is a talented pianist and songwriter, who idolizes Elton John, and by sheer coincidence, imitates his style. He only did one song of his own writing during the competition, so far anyway, and that turned out well. He sings almost as well as Elton, but the amazing thing about him is his piano-playing skill. The man is awesome. He could win, but that could be said of anyone in the top five. If he doesn't win, he will almost certainly have a well-deserved recording contract.


Nuttin But Stringz


Here is GA's favorite, and her pick to win. She could be right - if you judge by uniqueness, if that's a word, these guys are almost the definition of the word. Nuttin But Stringz fuses hip hop, classical and rock, and does it so well that it's almost a new genre in itself. These gentlemen play those instruments with skill, flair, and energy. They could easily sustain a two hour Vegas show, and fill the seats every night.



Donald Braswell almost wasn't even in the finals.

The judges tossed him out earlier in the rounds, but another act had an untimely accident, and her spot had to be filled, so they let America vote on who to reinstate. This is the man who had a vocal cord accident years ago, and overcame it to sing again. Personally, I think he is the weakest of the five finalists, but he nevertheless ought to be on Broadway, or wherever they put people with this kind of voice, because being the weakest of these five is not weak at all.



Queen Emily



This beautiful woman is my 2nd choice for winner. She stands there so quietly, with poise and aplomb and humility, but when they cue her, she turns into the most dynamic singer you can imagine. I'll probably get in trouble for this, but she's my new Queen of Soul, with all due respect to Aretha Franklin - assuming you remember her.

Some day she will do a tribute album, with all Aretha covers. I will buy it. Queen Emily could easily fill a Vegas theater, whether she wins or not.


Neal E. Boyd

And here is my personal favorite.


This guy can sing opera as well as anyone. OK, I have to issue the disclaimer: I don't actually even like opera. But that's what makes this guy special - if he isn't phenomenal, then why do I, an opera ignorer, absolutely love him? I could watch this guy sing for hours. They made him do some non-opera too, just to prove he could, and he was great there too - but it's opera that lets him shine, where you see his passion come through. He may not win, in fact I will be surprised if he does - and I don't know if he can fill a Vegas theatre night after night. But if he isn't touring the world with two other tenors I could name by this time next year, there is no justice.

Who do I think will win the competition? If I had to bet, I would sneak out of the casino. I don't think Donald Braswell will win, but of the other four, only the producers can really say at this point.

Hot bumper sticker

I love this little bumper sticker. If I still put stickers on my bumper, I'd buy one.
We sure enjoyed the week or so of cooler weather there, when the north wind gave us lower humidity and temperatures.

How's that for a short blog post?

Hurricane Ike Video

Ike, take a hike!

So here's the tale, for those who are interested.

After the power went off Friday, and I phoned in an update to Dave so he could post it as a comment to the blog, the house started warming up, as it tends to do in Houston when you don't have AC. So we went outside, and there were several neighbors standing outside on our driveway. They were there because our house happened to be a sort of midway point between their houses.

So next thing we all knew, we had brought chairs to our driveway and started bringing cold ones of various kinds and sat around talking about hurricanes and other exciting stuff. Might as well, nobody had power, and it was getting really warm indoors.



photo by Wm

We sat around getting to know each other, which was a new thing, because until then, most of us were only on a "how's it going" basis. People kept bring out more cold beverages, knowing full well that we weren't about to keep them cold for long. I think we stayed out until about 10:30, when it began lightly raining again. The wind wasn't too bad - unless you got out of your chair, in which case it tried to blow away.

We knew that Ike wasn't going to arrive until one or so in the morning, so we "hunkered down" as our local officials had advised our area to do. (They discouraged us from evacuating because the roads were full of people who needed to get out by that time).

It was hard to get to sleep because it was so hot. We got some breeze from the south-facing window, and it was good, but it was still stifling. It started blowing hard at 2:00 am, sustained winds of 65 mph, with gusts to 90. But the hurricane force winds got here about 3:30 or 4:00, and lasted until about 6:00. We weren't in the eye. At the worst of the storm, our wind was directly from the north, and it was shooting rain into our doorknob's lock slot and water was streaming out the doorknob on the inside. There was a constant howling sound under the rising and falling noise of the rain hitting the walls. We left windows on the downwind side open so we could get some more cool air, but it was still hot. If you ever wondered, a hurricane doesn't cool you down like a normal thunderstorm.

Next morning, after the winds left, I went outside in the gently falling rain to see what damage we had. Our fence was still standing, but the length to the east of the gate had been moved about ten inches or so out of the yard. The posts, instead of breaking off, had simply plowed a trough into the ground and moved out of the yard! Our neighborhood got off easy, thanks be to God. Virtually all the trees were young, and so they leaned at a 45º angle to the ground instead of breaking off and flying away. Several of our new friends and I went to each tree, pushed them back to more or less upright, and pressed the soil down with our feet. No one of us could have done that, but with all our combined strength, we got all of them up except the second biggest tree in my yard. It will continue to lean, possibly as a cool reminder of the hurricane.

Some people had gone for a local tour outside of our immediate neighborhood, and said that we should go see the older areas of the Plantation. We left Poet's Corner and we could immediately see that the fence hiding the railroad tracks was down in several long stretches. There were some large, older trees by the bayou that were down, and when we got to the railroad overpass west of our house, we saw about forty people standing around with cell phones on their ears. Seems that you could go up there and try to call - some could get actual voice calls, but most of us could only text. I dubbed it "cell phone village." We went further, and toured the older areas, and there were downed trees everywhere. Most had been pulled off the road, so traffic could move. Where trees had landed on the brick fence, it was collapsed. Here are some photos of the plants around our house, and then some of the Sienna Plantation area.


This is the crepe myrtle outside our house. It was on the west wall of the house, where the wind struck us for the last half of the storm. If you look close, there are still a few leaves attached here and there.



Here's the rose bush in the back yard. There are still some blooms, but I have no idea how they managed to hang on.



Here's the little shelter they built to commemorate the old Sugar Cane plantation that our houses now occupy. The structure did very well - the downed tree is resting partly on the roof, but doesn't seem to have hurt the shelter at all.


Here's a sign leaning way down at the school. This is the way most of the trees were leaning. Some of the signs were simply sheared off at ground level. I guess it has to do with how strong the poles are.


So there we are, with all our new friends, and one couple (Bob and Priscilla) has a generator and a grill set up. So the rest of us start digging food out of our freezers, and we brought over shrimp, and chicken breasts, and briskets and fish. Bob set about barbecuing happily, and we all set up chairs on their driveway, and we feasted on food that would otherwise have ruined. More adult beverages appeared, and we made hurricanes, which is a drink involving rum and something purple in color. A great time was had by all, and we speculated on when power might be restored. We saw brilliant flashes of light in the distance, which were not lightning, but merely transformers exploding as they tried to get power restored.

We had a little transistor FM receiver as advised by the local officials who tell you how to prepare for a hurricane, but it decided to start messing up on us. Specifically, the power button stopped working. If it was on, you couldn't shut it down. So I pulled the batteries, but then it wouldn't come back on because the power button didn't work that direction either, so GA beat it up, and it came on. Anyway, we heard news that the city of Port Arthur had banned liquor sales after the hurricane. How barbaric! After a hurricane is exactly when you need booze!

Word got in that a cold front was on the way. The prediction from the weather people was that it would arrive Monday, and that Sunday would be a hot day. I began praying that it would arrive early. And it did. Sunday was nice. We slept nicely, very nicely that night, as a cool breeze blew through our bedroom.

Monday morning, we had some cell reception in the house. Not enough for phone calls, but we could text. Soon, we could actually make calls - but we didn't make too many, because we had to conserve the phone batteries.

I spent most of Monday pruning the remains of my rosebush, clearing leaves out of our landscaping, putting appropriate foods into the compost bin, and so forth. It was a lovely day today. And then GA shouted "Woo Woo!" The power had flickered on for just a second. That meant that the electricity guys were working in our area. Sure enough, by 3:30 the power came on and stayed on. For us, the worst of it was over. There are still a half million or so families without power, and some more without drinkable water, and many many still without ice, which is more of a hardship than you might think.

It will be a week or more until we can buy any meats at the stores, maybe not that long until the lines at the gas station go down to a reasonable level. It still seems a little strange to be able to just flip a switch and a light comes on. It's kind of magic.

Lessons learned:

1) Trust God in the storm, as well as after.
2) A disaster is only as fun as you make it. Make it fun if you can.
3) It really feels good to have friends and family care about you.
4) Those things they tell you to do to be prepared for hurricanes? Do them.
5) Texans come together in hard times.
6) Caving lamps work very well after a hurricane.
7) Never move to Port Arthur.

ps. You may have seen something on the Drudge report about a woman in Galveston complaining that there ain't no FEMA coming there and they don't care about nobody. That woman is way out of line. They tried to get everybody to evacuate Galveston island up until the water was too deep to get them out. That woman is also not typical of Texan attitude. Most of us either evacuated, or we've been darn patient while people work hard to get things back to normal.

I figger she's not a Texan. She's probably from Louisiana.

We're back!

Yes, we're back. The lights came on again at 3:30, and we even have internet. That's three hours short of three days without power - which makes us very blessed. There are still over 2 million people in this area with no power, and some have no water. FEMA is trying to distribute what people need, which is a herculean task. A very few are complaining that not enough is being done, but the New Orleans attitude is in the minority. Most are good Texans, who understand that a disaster is only as much fun as you decide to make it.

I am in the middle of cleaning out the spoiled crap in the refrigerator and freezer, so I am kind of busy, but I wanted to let you all know that we are OK, really OK now, with electricity (how did people survive this climate without electricity???), potable water, and soon... soon... ICE! And I will be able to recharge the cell phone, so if you want to call, go ahead - just be aware that you may not get through.

Thank you, God, and thank you electric system repair guys.

More will follow. I think in a little while I will read all the comments that got left over the last three days...

Riding the Storm Out

---1115, 9/12/2008---
The water is now above the street level in Texas City. They have an info-babe standing ankle deep on the highway, and the water is over the curb, and rising quickly. Yes, this is mainland, Texas, not the island.

Still no rain in Sienna Plantation.

---1145---
The 311 service is no longer in effect in the evacuation zones. If you're in those zones, you can no longer get help leaving. You're on your own.
30 mph wind gusts are reported in the Sugar Land area. That's us. So it begins, but the real ugly stuff is still hours away.

---1305---
We are expecting a 20 ft. surge in the ship channel (that's a correction. Sorry). The actual hurricane eye will come ashore about midnight - 11 hours from now. That means about 1 in the morning it will pass over us, which means I can't take pictures, even if we get the eye. Darn.

The first rain in our area should begin pretty soon. We just went outside and cut flowers from our rose bushes and other flowering plants. We might as well enjoy them indoors, they'd be gone soon anyway.


---1315---
The rain has begun here. The fun begins.
By the way, the distance from the eye and Galveston is, at this moment, the same as the distance between Wichita Falls and Lubbock.

---1343---
Now we're getting rain, then sun, then rain. That's those bands you can see flying away from the hurricane if you're watching it on TV. They've seen 36 ft. waves out at sea near the eye of the storm. Mr. Elemental Energy Guy might not understand that, but most of us can realize that we're talking about 12 yards, more than a first down in football terms, only it's a wall of water that far above your head.

Here are the probables for our own neck of the woods: 10 to 15 inches of rain. Probable 65 mph sustained winds, with gusts to 100, for 12 hours. To imagine that, remember sticking your arm out the window while driving on the interstate. Remember how hard it is to see anything going by as you look at the shoulder of the pavement. Now... have you ever driven at 100 mph? (ahem, er, I would never do that, ahem, er, um). Remember how the bugs splat on the glass so spectacularly? Anyway, that's moving fast.

Getting dark again, here comes more rain.
Ike to Galveston is now only 168 miles and closing.

---1350---
They've narrowed the scope of probable landfall to between Sargent and Galveston. If you take the centerpoint of that range, and assume that Ike goes right to it, in the middle... and draw a line inland... um... that would mean the eye would go just about over us. I'm not sure what kind of pictures I could take of such an event at one in the morning, but it would sure be an experience I would never forget.

But the official track still shows it going east of us, which in terms of property damage and all that is a better scenario.

---1520---
Our sustained winds are now 23 mph, gusts to 25. Nothing really scary yet, then. Our main fascination right now is Galveston Island, where they still have some officials in the upper floors (for now) of the convention center, which is theoretically hurricane proof. Wink wink, nudge, nudge. The thing to understand about this is that the sea wall is already underwater, and the hurricane is still 150 miles out!

We've already been told that there will be no mail service tomorrow, which means they care about their employees here a lot more than they did in Wichita Falls when we had our mile wide tornado in 1979, where I wasn't allowed to go home until we finished the mail, even though I knew that my home was gone and the fate of my family was unknown. (More likely they're worried about the postal jeeps getting damaged).

The air is starting to feel a little funny, beyond just the humidity. It probably has to do with the barometric pressure, but I don't know nuthin bout no barometric pressure.

---update, 1535---
Soon all emergency staff in Galveston will be called in, and as of 9:00 tonight they will no longer answer calls for help of any kind. Three hours later, they will hear from Elemental Energy Guy, when the hurricane actually arrives there.

The first tropical force winds have arrived in San Leon (mainland), so we should have them in an hour or so (4:30?).

---1550---
Ike is now 183 miles away from our little home, sweet home. Surfside, which is already flooded due to the surge, is reporting that there are refrigerators, dumpsters and other debris floating in the water. This is the kind of local color they won't give you on the Weather Channel.

---1600---
A guy on Twitter says the seawall in Port Arthur is almost under water.

---1620---
Remember San Leon? In 20 minutes, it went from dry roads to being too flooded for cars to get through. Only those high tower pickups are making it through, plus a guy on a bicycle with his tires half under water. And it's just the surge - no serious rain there, yet.

Still no tropical winds here in the Plantation.

A guy on Twitter notes that there is a giant crane towering over downtown Houston. I guess there's nothing they can do about it - it's assembled on top of a construction site. But there could be a nasty consequence, I'm thinking.

---1655---
We're starting to get semi-serious gusts of wind. The trees on the other side of the levee, visible from our kitchen door, are doing some real swaying, and making a constant swoosh sound. We are now told that they will have hurricane force winds in Galveston by 6:30. They're announcing curfews for most towns around here, so I assume we in the Plantation are included. As if I were going to get out in a hurricane to go buy a burger. I don't know if the curfew applies to Elemental Energy Guy™ awaiting his death on Galveston Island.

They're saying all cars in Harris county need to be off the road by 6:30, presumably to give them a bit of headroom for avoiding the hurricane winds that will hit Houston shortly after. I still haven't figured out when we start with the hurricane winds - how far in advance of the center do they go?

The eye of this thing is apparently so big (80 to 90 miles across) that we will likely be in it as it passes over, regardless of the track. What we may get is wind from the east, then the calm, and then wind from the west. I'm just guessing that, of course. But if it happens that way, the worst wind will be striking the two brick walls with the fewest windows. One can hope. If so, our neighbors will be happy that we have the two-story home sheltering them.

If we still have power at 1:00 am, or when the eye passes over, I promise to blog about it. If the sky is bright enough to take photos, I will do that.

Meanwhile, GA is asking about taking Hunkering lessons, to make sure that we properly hunker down, as requested by our local officials. I would hate to find that I had unintentionally hunkered up.

---1800, or 6:00 pm---
People in Kemah are starting to worry. They're about 15 ft above sea level, and the water is pouring in from the sea, over their little barrier. TV shows water up to the nozzle on the fire hydrants, which means 16 ft so far. As I watch the live reporting from the scene, I wonder if our Hil would like to be out there, knee deep in salt water, with a microphone in her hand, explaining why the water is so deep, and asking the locals how they feel about it.

They're losing power in Galveston as I write this. They already have uprooted palm trees lying across the road, and there are chunks of a hotel blocking the way, too. No word on when the reporters get to flee the island and go report on the rising water in downtown Kemah, instead of watching each other hang onto utility poles with one hand and a microphone with the other.

The wind is getting stronger here, though we haven't had any rain for the last hour - just wind. But it is getting noticeably stronger. And here it is: sustained winds, 29 mph, gusts to 42. Here we go, folks!

---6:15 pm---
Hurricane force winds have arrived in Galveston, though the eye is still 98 miles away. No word on Mr. EEG.

The guy next door got out his hammer, and he'll putting plywood on his windows as the wind blows. Thanks, guys, for setting the example while I could still have done something about it.



Stay tuned!