Hurricane Ike Recovery.

[Day 1 – Friday]
Just before a round of Wii Mario Kart, we got our flashlights together in a little competition of who has the brightest flashlight in lieu of a some Hurricane named Ike. Around 9:00 PM Friday, we lost power! We all (Ben, Sarah, Jenny and I) rushed outside to check out the neighborhood and found a really eerie sight. The entire neighborhood was lit only by the moonlight that could pass through the thick could passing over us. We walked around, met up with Teresa (she copied us and moved in OUR neighborhood after us, hahaha) and ate her ice cream in the front yard during the blackout. The wind started picking up and we rushed inside their house before we got hit in the face by anything flying around.

The house was lit by a few candles and we hung out in the kitchen. I don’t know why, but Ben, Sarah and I spent a good ten or fifteen minutes taking turns trying to ninja-flick the candle flame out. There we a bunch of close calls, but I was the first one to flick it out, GO ME! I think Sarah brought up the fact that there was beer in my refrigerator and so we unanimously decided to hurry back and drink up!

By the time we got back, the house was already a bit warm, so we opened up a few windows to let the breeze cools us off. We played a round of King’s Cup (OMG awesome game), Jenga, and Speed-Scrabble. It sucked not having any power the first night. By this time, the wind really picked up and it started to sprinkle. This was Teresa’s signal to go get her brother from a neighbor’s house since he forgot his phone. As Teresa and Jenny are knock at the door, Ben sneaks up behind a truck. They start returning back to our house and Ben POUNCES on them! Teresa runs off screaming and her brother runs the other way. What a brother…hahaha. Teresa heads home and we end up back at my house to get ready for bed.

[Day 2 – Saturday]
I didn’t well sleep all night. I kept one waking up, walking around, checking windows and the yard. Morning came and still no power, HMPH. I took a look around the house and the only damage we had were two of our bottle-brushes were leaning at forty-five degree angles in the backyard from the crazy wind and one panel from our fence was knocked out. Jenny and I took a drive around the neighborhood to check out the damage. There were just a few trees leaning over, nothing really completely uprooted, a bunch of branches in the streets, but still drivable, and shingles everywhere.

After returning, my parents showed up to check up on us since they’re only about a twenty minute drive away. We all agreed to crash at our parents’ house since they lost no more than thirty minutes of power the entire night! My parents assessed the damage and took off. Ben and Sarah took off afterward while Jenny and I drove to Marie’s house to scoop her up. This was when the devastation of Hurricane Ike was more visible. Street lights were hanging from the poles, huge trees knocked over, billboards knocked out, and some flooding. Some streets were impassable due to debris and there was absolutely no power.

When we got to Marie’s house, we saw that her fence was knocked over, and TONS of pine needles and branches scattered throughout her yard. They seemed to have it worse than us, but nothing crazy.

[Day 3-7 – Sunday-Thursday]
I don’t remember much besides playing Risk, Monopoly, Wii Mario Kart, and getting on the canoe around my parents’ lake. At one point, Ben and I returned to our house and cleaned out the refrigerator. This was completely disgusting, but we had to do it. The freezer had blood from the sausage and ground beef we stored up pooled at the bottom. The fridge smelled like an old trash can. Nothing Colorox can’t clean up. The same day, my dad came by and we cut off some branches to the tipsy trees and put the upright again. We were on a roll, so we weeded the backyard, trimmed the rest of the trees so we can have a nice walkway without a branching slapping anyone in the head. These were the highlights of the aftermath.

If you’re asking about work, well our building lost power and got a little water damage from the windows. Working from kind of sucked, but I did learn to mock a bunch of objects and catch/handle exceptions properly.

That evening, a few of us decided to go to Sammy’s despite the curfew. While we were there, I got a text message from a friend that our friend had power (she lives in our neighborhood too). Around midnight, we drove home and sleeping in my own bed in my own house with A/C felt great!

[Day 8-9 – Friday-Saturday]
We spent the Friday morning enjoying the power and then I was off to work. We finally got power there as well. We setup all the servers and cleaned up all the cabling. We left the place ready for a fresh start on Monday!

What good is power without the Internet? Almost absolutely POINTLESS! We just got home today (Saturday) from a dinner at Luby’s and returned to my house with Internet. Time to catch up on news, blogs, and everything that I’ve missed…

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