Just keep shifting, downward, downward.

Hurricane Milton shifted downward overnight to a category 4 but is expecting to gain traction again and become a 5 at some point today. News reports are still predicting he could be a 3 by landfall, and the storm surges will be worse. 

Tampa is still looking like it's going to get absolutely battered, but now that Milton's status has changed, he could get bigger and have more of an impact south of Tampa (i.e closer to me). We are hoping that's not the case, but instead of being out of the state by Thursday afternoon, Milton might still be trying to cross 75 and Alligator Alley by then. 

Not cool, man. Not cool. 

I took some photos with my iPhone 11 last night. I edited them with my name in Photoshop. 

My friend Cat said that they're so eerie looking. I told her that it's because the iPhones (those older than the 6 I had previously) have some HDR level filtering in them where they open the lens more and can bring out colors and texture. It's no special effects done by me; it's all basic magic done by the phone when you're doing night shoots. It's all in how the lens is capturing it. I think it's like using manual mode in an analog camera and you start messing with aperture and all that. I'm not technical with camera terminology, so I don't want to misquote or misrepresent anything. 

I hope this isn't a new sign.. when I was uploading the photos, I heard a voice. It sounded like a female voice saying "mommy?". My Spidey Sense went a little weird. I hope the ghosts who used to be here aren't coming back. I can't deal with them right now. I don't want to deal with them right now. Yes, we had visiting apparitions who like to do things in this place. My mother and I think it's one of the daughters of the woman who owned this unit before us. The daughter had passed away of a heart problem in 2001, according to an internet search. My mother said when she originally was looking at houses and first saw the one we're in, the walls were shrines to this young lady. She died suddenly and the family took it hard. As evident with the message boards I found the girl's name on (she was an actress, a relatively known bit part actress. For the sake of privacy, I'm leaving her name out of this post). We were still getting her royalty checks and tax stuff in the mail up until a few years ago. We did try to smudge the house a couple months ago. It worked for a while, but if she's back, we may need to do it again. 

But now isn't the time. It's still humid as all hell and with a hurricane starting, there's no way we can even open the windows since the shutters are up and I don't want to tempt the fates with smoke in the house. This is going to be interesting... 

(or rest of the week...)

Stay dry.

Cheers