Throwbacks and windstorms

So it rained ALL last night here.  And I do mean all.  At 4 AM I was up typing tomorrow's Sunday Message (which will piss some of you off), and the radar made me say, "Either it's just about to end... or it's gonna rotate back over us.

Choose #2.

Weather Underground listed the winds between 8 and 9 AM as high as 52 gusting to 66 MPH.  It was roaring.  Scrappy was getting nervous.  And right when we hauled butt out of bed at 9, there was a loud BOOM.  BOOM.  And the power went out for about fifteen seconds, and then flickered for fifteen minutes.

Moments later, Scrappy and I just HAD to see how bad it was.  And I have some pictures taken a bit later when the wind dropped and the rain slowed (but hasn't yet stopped) enough to survive.

As you can see, not a lot of damage- unless you're a leaf.

You can see a darker area at the creek's edge- that's where the water was at the height of the storm.  About 4 inches across the street at the time, too.

That parking lot on the other side was also flooded earlier.

In the yard, about five yards from the creek.

The great big mural-style banner at the old folks home across the street is now a rag hanging on one post.

At the Shoaff Park entrance.

And the golf course.

On St Joe Road.  Ahead of the branch is, yes, a biker with an umbrella.

FWFD clearing a branch from St Joe Center.

WU said we're at 1.96 inches for today, and .68 yesterday gives us... a buttload of rain.  Supposed to get "moderate" again here in about an hour and a half.  KC texted me this morning:

Told ya we should have bought that kyack

He's right.  With a KAYAK, we could have made it to the river from our front door at 9.


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I mentioned the other night doing a video for Laurie to do a Facebook "Thursday throwback".  Her throwback was playing her Tetris 2 game, which is on the same game as Dr. Mario.  Which means it came out 25 years ago.  She's played ever since, and wanted to share it.  Problem was, she picked a rather deranged director to film it:






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Finally, I have to mention a work-related item.  We are in the midst of changing our fabric vendors, apparently from one low-paid group of Chinese Communists to another.  The first victim, er, fabric to change over is what we call charcoal (others might simply call it gray).

So the last couple months, we have been testing the "contestants" for the new vendor, and are on our fourth different "charcoal".  The first wasn't too bad, and the third I think will eventually win.  The second was horrible- rolled backwards, lots of stretching and defects, 50 yard rolls which means they used up like water.  Then came number four-  The Wujiang The Dragon Textile Company.

I kid you not.

And how did they do?  Well, they put a decent amount of fabric on a very thick core, then place the rolls on pallets that are seemingly stacked very high with only sheets of plywood as dividers so that all of these very thick cores are now crushed beyond redemption.  The suction of my machine cannot pull the fabric "over the hump" at first, so to use it I have to pull several yards off the roll and onto the floor- and God help me if I have to roll it back up.  It is also rolled backwards, and when we put it on the waffle iron (AKA the heat logo transfer machine), it smells strongly of roasted mothballs, and makes you sick after a while.  It doesn't cut well, especially by scissors.  On the bright side, the coating is so smooth it cuts my chalk (line drawing) usage by at least a third.

I don't think the Dragon will make it, either.

The really fun thing?  All the fun mix ups we have had since NONE of the four contenders match each other ( and there was some question on #2 matching roll by roll).