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Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Dress Up Day

This evening, Jennifer and I walked around the Rice Village to check out the people in costume in clubs and bars. We went into one with a live band. I had a margarita on the rocks and Jennifer a beer on tap. There were a group of people who were dressed up as TV icons like Jack from Jack in the Box complete with the round head, the King of Burger King, Caesar of Little Caesar with boxes of pizzas on his speer. Also a lot of sexy somethings like sexy Dorthy (there were a few of them), sexy pilot and a sexy cat. It was a fun night checking people out and hanging out with my girl.

Oh I was wearing my kilt. DD, I am still using it.

Posted by Eric at 10:18 PM

Friday, October 24, 2008

Old Friend Came to Visit

John is one of my 2nd oldest friends. I have known him since I was in 8th grade. He just recently started being a trucker, driving big semi trucks across the country. Today he was making a delivery in Houston. So I went up, picked up Jennifer and then picked up John at a truck stop. There were a whole lot of semi trucks parked there. He has a nice truck and quite big. He has a bed, a tv, dvd player in the cabin of his truck. Pretty cool.

We then took him to Oishii's for Japanese. Then to House of Pies for desert. I had my favorite, Key Lime Pie. He would tell us about his adventures as a truck driver and what it is like being on the road. John and I reminisced about when we l lived in California and told Jennifer about out late night card games at Hof's Hut. John and I would play 4 card games at the same time. Kings Corner, Crazy Eights, Rummy and our own variation we created - Double Kings Corner with 2 card decks. We would sometimes play until 4a.

Then took him back to his truck. It was great to see and hang out with him again.

Drive on John.

Posted by Eric at 11:30 PM

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

1st Day Back Teaching

According to the official report at around 1p, between 65-70% of the students enrolled at the college returned today. That is pretty good. I heard that 75% returned in a Mississippi college after Katrina. There were students of mine that lost everything. They were also glad to be back at school. It gave them a sense of normalcy. They said it also gave them a break from cleaning their houses.

I found out today that there was another BOI professor stayed on the island during the storm. What is it with these Born On the Island people? Are they all nuts?

Since Wednesday is my short day, I when home to eat, clean my bathrooms and cleaned up my upstairs balcony. It still had water and other crap there. I cleaned up most of it. I will let is dry before I clean the little bit that is left.

After that I wanted to see downtown. When I got down there I was able to drive down the streets. Everything is gone. All the stores and restaurants have all been cleaned out and the dry wall taken out. Just the wood beams remain. Places like Sky Bar and Saltwater Grill gone. The downtown I liked to go to is like a ghost town. I started tearing up. It was just sad.

I then went to my friend Ron's house to see if he was still there working on cleaning up. He was still there (he has been living in Houston since his house has no power or gas). He had already cleaned up all the mud and had already thrown out his fridge, hot water heater, couch and other stuff. He was lucky. His dry wall is still fine unlike other people's houses.

We then went to Papa's Pizza and Ron knows the owners of Papa's. They also own Mario's on the seawall (it was their 1st place they owned), Saltwater Griill, Sky Bar and Yagas. They said they are working on getting them all back up and running. Yay. The owner told us that he had just took a cup that had the reopening of Yagas after Rita out of a cubbard. (During Rita, their wall to that restarunt fell.) He said that it would have been a 2nd annaverery in November of the reopening and it did not even get there.

It is just sad for all those people and some how I was very lucky.

It is just sad.

Posted by Eric at 10:38 PM

Monday, October 6, 2008

1st Day Back on the Island

Well I am back on the island and got to play with Mercury (my computer) for the 1st time in 22 days. It is hard to imagine how much water really got on the island. Even though it was only a high category 2 (it was 110mph winds. A category 3 has 115mph winds and up), because of the large size of the hurricane the storm surge was like a category 4. It went up 19 feet. To see what that might be like go to this link. There is a reason I left. I still do not understand the 40% of the people who live on the island stayed.

Click on a number then click play.
Storm Surge.

Posted by Eric at 12:40 PM

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Day 23: Finally Home

Since the boil water order has been lifted and I start back to work on Monday, I finally left my 2nd home at Jennifer's and drove down to my 1st home. The island is more cleaned up since I came down to check on my place last week. There are still boats on the causeway and on the sides of roads. It will take a long time before this island is back what is use to be. With meetings tomorrow and school starting on Wednesday it will be interesting to hear all the stories others have about the after effects of the hurricane.

Posted by Eric at 11:40 PM

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Day 22: Boil Water Lifted

Galveston Island finally lifted the boil water order. So when I go back down on Monday I do not have to worry about what to do about cleaning dishes and brushing teeth. Yay.

Here is the complete article.
City lifts boil-water order.

Posted by Eric at 10:52 PM

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Day 20: Still Here

I am still here in Houston with Jennifer. Galveston still has a boil water advisory. Also there is no cable in the island so no internet. Faculty at the college are to meet on Monday to discuss how we will finish the fall semester. Students will resume classes on Wednesday. So I will have to be back on the island on Monday whether or not the water or cable is fixed.

I am still composing, reading and playing Diablo II so I am still keeping busy.

Posted by Eric at 4:20 PM

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Day 19: A Relaxing Evening

Tonight for dinner, Jennifer and I went to the Daily Review Cafe with my friend Ron.. He has been living in Houston and taking daily trips to his house in Galveston fixing and going through stuff. Though his house is raised 14 feet, since the water in his area was 19 feet, he has massive water damage. I thought it was a good idea for him to have a nice dinner with friends for moral support. We ate outside under the starts. It was a nice cool nice with no clouds. The dinner was quite good. Ron and I had some wine. I had a Riesling which was very good.

It was a nice and pleasant dinner with a friend who has lost some of his stuff to flood waters and a long road to fixed up his home.

Posted by Eric at 10:24 PM