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| i've been meaning to post something semi-serious about god having a wonderful
sense of irony and humor, but apparently so do meteorologists.
and since this one requires less exposition, i submit to you the
following selection from the weather channel's tropical update page:
In the western Pacific, small but powerful Typhoon Longwang (140 mph) is now on a course for Taiwan...
bon appetit!
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| i highly recommend evacuating from a deserted costal hamlet, as opposed
to a well-populated costal metropolis. after finishing things up
yetserday, our drive from pl to cuero was just a fast as it ever is, as
was my drive to pl from houston the day before, when nobody in their
right mind was driving south down the coast. my prayers go out to
friends in houston who were and are still caught in the gridlock
leaving the city. please keep in touch as you can. i plan
on returning to houston as soon as i can get back down to pl and help
my father de-board the house there, since my third-floor apartment on
braes bayou is now closer to the bull's eye and will likely fare far
more poorly. if anybody who has stayed needs anything, please let
me know, and i'll bring with what i can with me back into the
city.
good luck! seacrest out.
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| port lavaca this evening has a surreal quality to it. earlier this
afternoon, wandering through a deserted wal-mart (surreal all by itself
for pl, where wal-mart is the social mecca), i noticed a group of
early-teenage boys, full of nervous energy, playing tag among aisles of
deserted baby clothes until one of them realized he'd lost sight of his
mother and anxiously went off to find her. a bit later, perched
on a ladder twenty-five feet in the air, surrounded by clouds of
mosquitos and baking in the 100-degree texas sun, i paused to look over
my shoulder at an absolutely still bay and could only think what a
great fishing day today would've been. after that, on an errand
to the bank where my father works, i saw a large crowd and many cars at
a restaurant long-since closed for the evacuation and had to wonder
what they were up to. arriving at the bank to return a ladder
we'd borrowed, i nervously waited on the loading dock, peering into the
darkness of the surrounding parking lot and wondering who could be out
there assuming my father and i had more "access" to the bank than we
actually did. walking through my parents' back yard after
returning to their house, i was taken aback by the roar of the
flare across the bay at a chemical plant burning all the product
out of its lines in preparation for a complete shut-down. and
while writing this blog entry, the power has begun to flicker, though
there is absolutely no weather-related reason for this to happen yet.
the odds are now only about 50/50 (with galveston) that pl will see
a significant part of this storm, but nontheless it's a sobering
feeling to walk through the house where i grew up, a house exposed on a bluff
next to the bay, and realize that all or part of it or the
town may not be here on monday. i'll close with the contents
of an index card i found earlier in my shopping cart at wal-mart.
one side had items like "contact solution", "deodorant", "breathing
machine", "medication", and "house deed". the other simply said
"to kerville: go to san antonio towards fiesta tx. el paso exit
-> kerville".
boy, i hope that whoever lost that card still knows how to get to kerville. | | |
| most of you know that i've been an avid hurricane tracker for a while
now --- it's hard to be anywhere in my vicinity between june and
november and not pick up on this. in fact, old-timers may recall
a previous incarnation of this blog where i griped about being out of
the state during a minor hurricane landfall in my hometown of port
lavaca a couple of summers ago. my admittedly morbid and
romanticized fascination with these storms was something that stretched
back to my childhood, and a track record of never having seen one of the
things was a true sore spot --- i joked that my being around and paying
attention was a virtual guarantee that no hurricane would show up
. that was until last month, and seeing the extreme
devestation wrought by hurricane katrina on one of my favorite
cities brought me back to reality. i stopped caring,
stopped following the tropical weather, stopped hoping i'd ever see one
of these things.
whoops.
so here we are, with a potentially catastrophic storm bearing down on
our beloved third coast, with the center of the projected landfall
region tens of miles from my old home. tomorrow morning i'll be
leaving houston to drive down the coast and help my parents board up
their house, tie things down, and get the hell out of town. this
could be a hell of a storm -- some folks are starting to whisper
category 4 or 5 -- and my mother has spent the evening going around the
house, telling favorite trinkets, photos, and other things goodbye ---
just in case. i'm not sure what the next few days will bring for
my old hometown or my new one. but it's gonna be a hell of a
weekend for somebody. as long as i can find internet access, i'll
do my best to chronicle my adventures here for the loyal
xangasters. i wish those of you remaining in houston the best of
luck -- try to stay high and dry. as to the rest of you, we
coasties could use your thoughts and prayers.
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| i'm not in the habit of posting quoted material here, but this morning
i came across something that moved me too much not to share it.
the following passage comes from chapter 3 of the book of lamentations,
and it was reccommended in a months-old daily devotional reading i was
strangely drawn to today. the reading was titled,
oddly enough, "a ray of hope", and it's what i needed to hear
this morning. so, here's to me being a more hopeful ray.
i'm reposting it in case it's what you need to
hear, too.
I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all--oh, how well I remember--
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
GOD's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with GOD (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.
GOD proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from GOD.
It's a good thing when you're young
to stick it out through the hard times.
When life is heavy and hard to take,
go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
The "worst" is never the worst.
Why? Because the Master won't ever
walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard,
in throwing roadblocks in the way...
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