Jay and I drove around our West Houston neighborhood to assess the
situation; the most exciting thing we saw were two Great Danes being
walked.

{mosimage}The sky is starting to get dark, and there are gentle breezes
blowing in. Even though the hurricane is nowhere near us (and doesn’t
really appear that it ever will be), CenterPoint Energy is reporting
outages across the system. Go figure!

The storm continues to move more and more to the east. The last I heard
was that they were predicting a direct hit for Cameron, which is in the
Lake Charles area. I’m starting to think that maybe God does have
something against gambling after all.

Heard from my mom in Orlando. She seemed disappointed that I didn’t
have more to report, although she does sound worried. No reason to
worry, mom! We’re fine and we have all the Double-Stuf Oreos we can eat.

Lots of our neighbors are still here. The neighbors to our left decided
to stay early on; the neigbors to the right tried to leave but after
only getting 39 miles in 11 hours, turned around and came back. The
return trip took them 15 minutes.

Jay and I drove around the Westchase area to see and be seen.
Everything’s closed up, including the 24-hour video places on Hwy. 6. I
brought my camera this time, and will post some of the pics I took. I
was struck by how much construction is going on in this area. The
reason that’s significant is that when the winds do get here (if they
do), those sites are going to be launching all kinds of missles, like
heat-seeking bricks and rocket-propelled 2x4s. Sure would hate to be
living near that!

The most amusing thing I saw while we were out was a panhandler. I
personally think that Houston has a horrid panhandling problem because
there’s always one on every street corner. Today, though, not a one was
to be seen, except on the corner of Wilcrest and Westheimer. I’m
dedicated to my job, too, just not dedicated enough to be out on a
corner with a hurricane on the way.

In any case, I’ll post the pics in an album a little later on tonight. Now I’m finally going to go take my shower.