Ready or not; here I come.

No, I haven’t quit poker and gone back to hide and seek. I am holding the Altzheimer’s at bay and avoiding a second childhood everywhere but the tables. Here I am quoting a tree in my side yard.

The weather outside is frightful. And a fire wouldn’t help. The whole Chicagoland area seems under water. The storms keep marching in from the west and there are more of them this morning. Various places report multiple inches of rain on a daily basis. With all the rain there is wind and the fine new Doppler radar introduce me to a new effect that went through my area; Mesocyclone. I had to look it up on Wikipedia. All WeatherUnderground had on it was that it was a little yellow icon on the map. It is a new term brought about by Doppler radar.

All the local reporters are out there looking as miserable as the rest of us. They’ve been issued hip boots and waders. We see them repeatedly standing under umbrellas having a bad hair day. Their dapper attire hangs as listless as their echoing of the last report with a flood or downed power line in the background.

So, you can see why I was avoiding reality with a bit of stud on FullTilt. It was 4 p.m. And my success wasn’t any better than the weather. The light started flickering and my UPS was talking to me every few seconds. Rather than quit, I stayed around and donked off a few more chips. I’d watch the table and then outside — the wind that had reached major proportions. Then it was all gone and a pieceful quiet descended. I left the game.

Why leave down? We’ll during all this: Out on the lawn there arose such a clatter I sprang from my game to see what was the matter.

In the side yard I have this tree. I think it is an Ash. It past claim to fame was it was there. It isn’t in a spot that offers a lot of benefits to the landscape. It overhangs the roof or at least it used to.

I’d thought I was pretty lucky not to be anywhere near a flood plain. Same for losing electricity. People just down the road lost theirs for 5 days with the heat index triple digits or close most of those days. Mother nature heard my childish counterparts shouting “Evensees” to make the game fair. I didn’t even get the chance to argue my side with passion — as we could in those childhood games.

I’ve talked to the insurance company. $500 max for the tree removal. Tree guy says he can get the boom truck in and lift it off and do it for that. Damage underneath still unknown. My ‘team’ at the insurance company will be getting to me today. I know that my team play will come with a 1K deductable. I am on Team AB. That’s all I know. Don’t even know the mascot. Hope it isn’t “Steely McBeam” for Mean Gene’s sake. My insurance company is in Harleyville, PA; so it just may be him.

I doubt if I’ll have time for much poker today.

ADDENDUM:

The following came in an email. One of those forwarded ones with a list of where its been that is longer than the message. Looks a little optimistic but interesting. Hope the horrid formatting copies so you can have an example of how not to design an email.

Once in a life time “FACT”.


Two moons on 27th August 2007*

*27th August; the day the Whole World is waiting for ……

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65 Million miles of earth.
Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am.

It will look like the earth has 2 moons.

The next time Mars may come this close is in the year of 2287.

Share this with your friends as

NO ONE ALIVE TODAY

will ever see it again.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 5:08 am and is filed under Journal, Off Topic. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.