Storm came, storm went. Buh bye-yeeeeeeeeee.....

Helene's dirty side graced us with a present of strong winds, tornado activity and massive storm surges, but luckily we didn't get the destructive category 4 style wrath that Tampa, the Big Bend and Panhandle got. 

The stories I heard on the radio this morning are horrible. But we lived it similarly a blink of an eye ago. 

My neighborhood seemed to be in a protective pocket, since the intersection just 10 minutes south of me was closed due to being under water last night. It just so happens that one of those streets that leads directly (in a way... 10 more minutes "in a way") to Fort Myers Beach. The connecting bridge to FMB is Matanzas Pass and both ends were under water. The beach had enough storm surge that the streets were re-flooding the houses and businesses that are still cleaning up from Ian.

By the way, tomorrow is the 2 year anniversary of what would be called (in the end) a Category 5 hurricane that decimated the area. GFY, Ian. GFY. 

As ye old Northerners (Mainers, primarily) used to say, "you can't get there from here", due to the closures on my side of the fence (where's the justice, where's the sense). Therefore, what would be about 15ish minutes from where I live, is now over an hour because you need to drive into Bonita to get on to Estero Boulevard. Good luck being able to do anything close to Times Square since there's 4 feet of ocean hanging out where the living statues used to plant themselves. 

I haven't been at the beach since before the storm of 2022, due to not wanting to "play tourist" while the locals are trying to put the pieces back together. Sure, any restaurant that is open needs business, but I'd rather make sure those who live on the island are served first. They need the area more than I do. 

Helene's hydration wrath went onto Sanibel, Captiva and Pine Island, where she closed those bridges as well. Unfortunately, the only way into Sanibel (and subsequently Captiva) is the Causeway, the tough thing is that the waves beat down some of the new cement there. From what I heard, the water wasn't as bad as it was on the beach, but it was still standing room only at some of the businesses. Matlacha Bridge was also not passable, and videos showed the Gulf not paying attention in driving, as it was crossing a normally busy road in the wrong direction, leading that area bogged down as well. 

Cape Coral had similar issues, and thousands are without power across this area. It's not as massively dark as what happened north of me, but the storm did enough local damage that there was a skeleton crew at work today.

We were all surprised at who came in, and my supervisor said it took her well over 90 minutes to get from her house to work, when it only takes about 30 on a good day. Others said they had random power loss but it wasn't constantly out. Others said they had enough tree limbs down that they knew it would be a great weekend for 52 pickup even though they were preparing for far worse. 

(Yesterday) My mother and I listened to the wind blow and didn't watch the sun rise (damn the lies), as we also were expecting far worse. When we heard the intersection near us was under water, I went outside to see what was going on with our street. It was drier than the Mojave after its own rain storm. But the wind... the wind tried moving me across the driveway, and I'm far from being a skinny latte. 

But today, my ride was pretty clean, minus land mines of down palm fronds in my community. What really shocked me was the fact only one set of intersection lights were out, and that was right before I got to work. No water in the street, no down power lines. For as much as the area floods where I work, they too were bone dry. To think just 3 blocks more, and that part of the city was under water. Whatever layer of plastic wrap that was over my community, seemed to be over the area I work at. 

Weird.

I do have some photos of my community from yesterday. I didn't do much editing to them and you can see how the wind was doing something fierce. I had walked to the community gym and back, because I didn't want to waste using gas in my car in case we were trapped for a few days... better to keep a full tank in the event you've got to bug out (not that we have up to this point, unless you count the week we spent at Joe's place during Irma). 

All photos taken on an iPhone and edited in Photoshop. 

That's about all the update of the storm for now in Fort Myers. As I wrap this up, it's currently a Post Tropical Cyclone in Kentucky, so it's far enough inland to fizzle out pretty soon. There's something brewing in the Atlantic that could be near us by next weekend. Hopefully that too decides to turn and go somewhere else. 

Until something else happens, keep your shirt on.

Cheers;

See Also

* I (intentionally mis)quoted Fleetwood Mac's The Chain, which is track 07 off the Rumours album - listened to the wind blow and didn't watch the sun rise (damn the lies)

* I quoted Richard (& Linda) Thompson's Walking on a Wire, which is track 02 off the Shoot Out The Lights album - (where's the justice, where's the sense).

* iPhone 11 (basically all "renewed" by Amazon)

* Photoshop

Storm hasn't really hit us yet...

But word on the street (okay, the news) is that a transformer blew in Naples (about 50 minutes south of me) in the middle of the night, lighting up the sky like a rocket flare. So that area is definitely without power. On top of the water that's currently on the roads, they are probably kayaking in places right now.

According to The News Press, "LCECs power outage tracker is showing more than 4,000 without power in North Fort Myers this morning after Hurricane Helen bands swept through Southwest Florida this morning. The outages are among others throughout the area. LCEC's website reported that the power was expected to be restored later this morning. 

In total, 8,000 or so residences were without power per our power tracker."

Lee County Government tweeted this morning "Bands of inclement weather will be passing through Southwest Florida throughout the day. Stay off of the roads if possible. If you must drive, exert extra caution and never drive through flooded roads."

And yet my boss gave the option to come into work (or work from home)????

Although, so far here, there's nothing major going on. My phone had tornado alerts at 8am, but they weren't super close to where I am. The brunt of any type of the storm is not supposed to really hit us for another hour or two. News casts are saying there are areas that are currently somewhat under water, locally, and others are without power. I know where I work is bound to have water issues. It's dry right now where I sit, but I'm sure it'll change shortly.

We have the lanai shutters slightly open and it looks calm and peaceful, but knowing the day is far from over, it'll not remain that way. I'm glad we have power still. Hopefully it remains. This time tomorrow, I will probably be sitting at my desk at work and doing all of my overdue tasks from today, since 98% of the people are working from home (my job doesn't allow that, as I'm in the mail room).

On a different note, I found out yesterday that the Roku 3 has severed its ties with ABC's streaming app. 

ABC must have a contract with Hulu (like everyone else it seems these days) in order for Roku to be like "this is where we get off". They've done that before when Comcast and Paramount (previously Spike TV) were in a contract dispute. I remember the news about it because I was watching Ink Master and all of a sudden couldn't get the show. Bar Rescue was the same. Found out one of the platforms didn't want to pay the other the amount of money that was being asked (or something to that affect) and thar she blows... Comcast dropped the Spike services. I'm not saying it's a similar thing with ABC, I'm just surprised there was no email or anything from Roku saying "we are no longer keeping the app". It's fine; I only used it to watch The Good Doctor and on occasion, my mother asked to watch one of the late night talk shows on demand when Hotwire was taking a hotshit and misbehaving. 

I think if I end this now, if it looks nice enough, I'll see if I can get some time in the gym before storm clouds roll in again. 

I'll check in when I can. 

Stay dry and try to practice your breast stroke (not in these waters.. there may be alligators and snakes afoul).

Cheers;

Dam... Tzfardeiya... Kinim... Arov...

 No; stop with the ten plagues. Rosh Hashonah is coming up in a couple weeks; not Pesach. 

I haven't seen the tree frogs yet on the shutters, so I'm hoping that's a good sign that whatever we are getting won't be so bad. 

That's not to say I wasn't woken up a few times in the night for "URGENT!" "CRITICAL!" alerts on my phone via the Weather app. During the day today, my watch kept tasing my wrist because the storm surge warnings and watches / tropical storm warnings and watches / tornados and every other thing in between was coming in. 

The storm hasn't even gotten to the Keys yet, and the electronic devices were going bonkers. 

I had my little handy dandy speaker plugged into my computer at work and we listened to the local live streams of various news stations in my office, until it started to be on repeat. There was too much office drama happening to really invest anything into the background noise of the news. So off the speaker went at 2. 

As of right now, we're just going to get the dirty side of things - lots of heavy wind, rain, flooding. But not the damage of a hurricane. Just the residuals. 

Which may explain why the animals are still around.

Then again, whatever part of the storm we're getting, won't come knocking on our door (Come and knock on our door / We've been waiting for you) (sorry; squirrel) until sometime around 8am tomorrow morning. Which means I most likely won't be going to work. There's no way in hell I'm going to attempt to drive across town without knowing how bad it's going to be. I also don't want to be stuck down there and the storm start later in the morning, as they're predicting could happen. The area my work is in, floods on a dime during normal rainy season, and my driving a Hyundai Accent, all I have to say is "nope". I've got caught in too many messes down there already. I'm not risking my life during a tropical storm. I risk it enough in the summer during a normal rain. 

So I'll stay home and work on reading A Taint in the Blood: A Novel of the Shadowspawn by S.M. Stirling and hope to finish it soon. I had read the first chapter before I got Rachael's book out of the library, so now I'm trying to finish this one. 

I've totally been out of the loop for vampire history, because this book I'm reading now is about vamps and privilege. When I was watching Young Dracula, they had a butler named Renfield. I didn't think anything of it. Now that I'm reading A Taint in the Blood, they mention Renfields a lot. Like I said, I'm not current anymore on lore, so I had to do some digging (sometimes I'm not the brightest and I forget things). A Renfield is Dracula's (or any vampire's) human servant (familiar) that the V can manipulate to their advantage (promised immortality). Because Renfield can do things in the light, they are responsible for upkeep of things - acquiring specific items that the vampire needs (victims, etc). But, they aren't like normal humans. They don't survive on typical food; usually it's bugs and insects (as Bram Stoker wrote about) but in the case of S.M Stirling, it seems like the human in this story eats like everyone else does - normal food. 

I don't want to delve into too much spoiler details, but I am actually enjoying this novel. I should try to put the other books in the series on my library list, so I can read them when I'm done, much like I did when I had the Lilith Saintcrow / Dante Valentine oopsie (I had bought book three by mistake and didn't realize it was book three). So it's better to read things in order!! 

But yeah, I might be reading a lot tomorrow, depending on how the weather turns (not the world) and how my back makes out because I've been sitting a lot lately. Some people are saying we'll be fine, some are saying not. If we can make it through the entire day with out the power going out, that will be excellent as it's been still humid as all get up. There will be no air circulation if we could open the windows since the shutters are blocking the screen. 

With my tub filled and a pot of water filled "just in case", we're going to play it by ear tonight and tomorrow. My car is hidden in a garage and our garage will have the carabineers put on in the morning. We're as ready as we will be and really are putting it out there that we get nothing. 

If anything, a couple people I work with (and myself) would love for some things to happen to specific people, but I can only allude to it, as it can be read as I'm starting trouble, and I'm not. Karma can come reverse and bite me in the ass. So I'll just say "I hope some people get salty cake and some people get sweet cake. You won't know until you eat it" and I'll try to update when I can.

Stay safe

Cheers

See Also:

* I quoted the "Three's Company" theme song from the 1977 television show of the same name.

At least you can prepare better for snow

It's that time of season again... another tropical storm is projected to send Southwest Florida some strong storm surge (flooding), rain and wind. 

Helene is at some point going to be upgraded from a Tropical Storm to a Hurricane and make her way into the Gulf and touch town in the Tampa area. Moving north to the Big Bend area and Panhandle before (as one map showed), landing as a post cyclone depression in (of all things) Indiana. 

But until that happens, we're on standby and look out because she's on a very similar flight pattern that Ian took on September 28, 2022. 

Which his two year birthday is in four days.

Not to mention Irma turned seven September 9 to 11 this year. Southwest Florida is stuck between a rock and a hard place right now because we're still trying to get back from 2022 even though parts of Fort Myers Beach was still rebuilding from Charly in 2004. Other parts of the state are trying to rebuild from the last 10 years of disastrous storms.  It's a vicious cycle. 

Right now it's fine even though earlier I put our shutters up as a precaution. If the weather people are correct and we don't get anything but water and wind, then the shutters were put up in haste. At least they're easy to move. But if we get anything past a category 1, we're also covered. These things have paid for themselves in the last seven years, as we purchased them once Irma went away. They saved us during Ian, and every once in a while my mother will close the lanai ones a bit, due to the lightning we get in the summer. 

Peace of mind and all that.

However, what's just as crazy, is I don't know about work. At this moment, everything is normal -  I'll get up tomorrow, do my thing, come home. We are not totally going to be affected until the middle of the night on Wednesday, until mid day Thursday. Whether that be just wind and rain or anything worse. 

My boss is under the impression we'll be fine. The radars he is tracking say it'll stay far from us and head straight north. A few people I have talked to at work are looking at different models and say otherwise. Again, if you put Ian's map next to Helene's, they're just slightly off, but Helene is in the same area as Ian was for us and look how that turned out.

That lies the problem. Hurricanes shift. Irma did that and Ian did that. Blizzards you can see when they start and stop. You can go out when it calms down and shovel. Move the fluff to have more rain down from the sky. It may be cold, but odds are, you're going back in to a warm house. Power goes out frequently for older places, but not all the time. During hurricanes, you never know exactly when it's coming and you can't see it. You can hear it, but only sights you have on it is when the water runs through your street. Power goes out and what do you do? You're stuck inside and if it's 90°, opening a window won't get a breeze during the height of the wind. You have to keep your shutters up. No light in your house in the middle of the day. You're in a closet. 

It's all a catch 22. At the end of it all, are we any better than we were before it started? I don't know.

 Was a lesson learned? Maybe - you know what you need to do for next time. 

Will there be a next time? More than likely.

Will it be soon? I don't know. 

I feel like at this moment, I'm running in a circle and not explaining everything going on. Since it's after 9pm and I've got work tomorrow, I should cut this soon. Currently we're under a Tropical Storm Warning. I'll update as I can and when I can. 

Hopefully this is all for naught and we get itty bitty baby puddles on the roads. Power stays on, no problems to businesses. Let it all be fine...

Is ignorance really bliss in these situations?

Cheers;

Release The Kraken!

 Okay, so I am not watching 1981's Clash of the Titans.

Although I haven't seen this movie in years, nor have I seen the reboots, I do remember watching it in my great-aunt's apartment in New York when she was asked to babysit me for a while. I don't remember the exact date, but it had to be between 1988 and 1990. I don't remember if we were up there for an event or just to visit family. No one believes me when I say "I remember Etta letting me watch Clash of the Titans while she babysat me in her apartment". I also think that also was the one and only time I was in her place as well. 

So yeah...  I am not watching it now. It happens to be one of those sentences people always say when something's got to go down. That being said, I am trying to figure out if a neighbor is going to put any more Halloween decorations out, as the Kraken they've secured to their corner last night, takes up some real estate their other stuff won't fit next to. 

I tried looking up "kraken halloween decoration" and "octopus halloween decoration" on Amazon. They both have similar stuff for sale, but I didn't see anything close to what the neighbor has. 

I had to be quick since I was in my car and didn't want to be totally obvious, since I was at the gym prior and wanted to get home. The photos were not color corrected or anything; I just added my name to them. They were taken on an iPhone 11 and the name graphic was done in Photoshop. 

I mentioned I was a the gym in my community. It's a small gym at the clubhouse and definitely shows it's age. For a 20 year old community, the equipment must be at least 15 years old. When we moved in, there was only a small area to work out in, as the main area was completely different - it was a racquetball court. That had barely been used, and was turning gross, so they reinvested in the area and made the space a full fledged gym. 

However, the stuff in there now, is not so great. The pictures don't do justice of how small the area really is, and even though we've got some amazing looking items. The treadmills are needing repairs on the belts (one of them is a NordicTrack special one where every time I use it, I feel like I'm going to wind up in the emergency room because it's just janky), the leg press machine has the cables that are constantly over stretched and no one can seem to replace them, one of the bikes has so many loose bolts, it feels like the seat will collapse under you and you'll catch some scrapes (someone else mentioned this to me yesterday), the elliptical machines are so rusty, that they're more than likely a health hazard.

It's crazy how you notice little changes in a period of time. I used to go to this gym when we first moved here, so I remember how it was only in the smaller part of the area (where the "captain's chair" is - to the right of that, as the wall above it used to be the start of the racquetball court). Then I used the equipment when the area expended. What stopped me was all the kids under 15 that would come in and just use the area as a hangout spot. I got tired of it. So I never went back.

It's been quite a few years and now I've been put in a situation where I probably need to do something better for myself, so I've been going since the end of May. I've not noticed a complete difference on myself, but my mom says she sees it. And yes, I do use most of the stuff there. People are surprised I'm able to use the Captain's Chair because of my lack of being fit, but I prove them wrong time and again. Even when I had a membership to the YMCA back in Massachusetts. The trainer I got for a couple sessions couldn't believe I could do anything on that machine (and he wasn't so fit himself). 

It's all about the element of surprise, apparently. 

I do things when I can. I get between 1.50 and 2.0 distance on the elliptical when I can push myself between 35 and 60 minutes. I use the bike for 6 distance in 30ish minutes. I walk the treadmill for 20 minutes but haven't really met a mile yet. I use the dumbbells. I make the attempt to try everything because someone has to do it. It's just that it gets peopley in there and some of the people are hanging out while others are plonking things down. 

It weirds me out, but I soldier on as much as I can since I have a bit of a back problem and my head stays on a swivel because I can't help but watch everyone. I know I've got some issues and I can't help it. At least I can work on them at my own pace. 

Speaking of pace, I need more water to drink. My mother wants me to start a movie with her before it gets too late, and I'd like to take my contacts out and put my glasses on. 

So until next time, stay swole. 

Cheers;

It's a laser show without the trippy music

Decades ago, I went to a Bar Mitzvah. It was one of those big elaborate celebrations that the Mitzvah Boy in question had his party take the family from Pennsylvania to New York and back to PA. Only challenge was that the bus ride to New York just didn't do a tour of Times Square. We stopped at some multi level facility where each floor was its' own theme and the kids went wild for it. The overall trip ended with a laser show with the music set to Pink Floyd. 

Which apparently is a big thing, not that I would know. I don't follow the band, but I do happen to own a few singles. I know a general first level "I think" information about this long standing band, but not enough to delve into any conversation that doesn't make me look foolish.

I do have to say, based on other "big things I've heard", most people have have a basic understanding of some sort of conspiracy about playing The Dark Side of the Moon while watching (on mute) Wizard of Oz. Apparently, you get some epic synchronicity for the first 50 or so minutes of the film, but you have to start it at the exact right nanosecond for it to work. This idea has many references of title, so I'm sure if you research it, you can find it. I can't confirm how amazing it is, as I've never tried it. However, I've read that there are some "wow" moments. Overall, it's a damn good time. Or at least for the first half. Nothing I've heard says to play the album on repeat for the entire duration (unlike I recently read The Wall pairs well with Wall-E, and that's one where you can repeat the music).

Comparing "stoner type music" to movies is not why I'm writing. I'm writing because we had our own laser light show the other night and I didn't have any music to play. 

The video has my mother watching some political news update on the television instead of a band playing through the flashy booms. I should have had her mute the talking box, but I didn't think about it. So when I moved from the living room to her bedroom, there's a darker shift and quieter shift in the background, even though I've put music behind it all (including at the clubhouse when the pickleball players were playing).

Squirrel note: Since we are still in rainy / hurricane season, it's only fitting that we've been getting crazy thunder boom booms lately. A few times the sky clapped so badly, it shook the building I was in. We thought a tree or something fell on the roof. When my mother texted me she said it felt like canons going off, I knew it wasn't just where I happened to be at the time. 

Back to why I'm posting: The storm from the other night started out with my leaving the gym and seeing some very menacing clouds approaching, and by the time I got home and out of the shower, a light show was popping.

Had I took the thought to set up my Canon Rebel EOS T7i, I would have gotten some still photos to add to the video below instead of using just my phone, I would have.

Therefore, all videos were taken on an iPhone 11 and edited in Pinnacle Studio. I threw over stock music that Pinnacle provides. 

I have to point out that when I'm in the bedroom filming in the dark, the iPhone likes to color manage, where night time scenes are lit more when you are on normal settings. It doesn't matter if it's a photo or video; regular mode means night time stuff has more light filtration. Zoom in or out, the color magic doesn't happen so dark is dark and overly light is overly light. That's why I ended up going back and forth in filming, where the sky looked more muddy blue, and then it went to more dark or black, so you see the lightning better. My zooms are noticeable. In the living room, you see everything, including my shadow on the lanai window, and I make a point to say that too. LOL. 

Also, the video is a quick edit reel. "Really quick edit" for almost 7 minutes, haha. I was originally filming snippets to send to a few friends up in New England. One of them recently had a vacation down here, and was able to see some of the storms in action, but seeing how he loves nature, I wanted him to see the newest fire strikers. He had been in the state for the building shaking storm, so now it was a little more to see instead of feel. We joke that with all the rumblings Florida gets, plus my friend's love of nature, we should be Thunder Buddies and neither of us will be scared of bad things that can happen. 

Yes, I know there's a lot of mixed thoughts with the idea of being someone's thunder buddy, and I also know where it came from. You just have to have a sense of humor some times. Make the best of it. So we do. 

I've circled around long enough with this post, that I think you'll "get the picture" about an early September storm. 

Apologies for any remnants of an error arrow in the video. I've got an old laptop I'm working on and sometimes upscaling or converting doesn't go easily on this thing. I try to edit out the errors, but sometimes I miss them or make the video worse. One of these days I'll get an updated rig...

Cheers;