Yeah! Ok, so we've been without cable for several days now, meaning no tv and no internet. We were couped up all weekend in the apartment with very little to do and nothing to watch to pass the time. (Can you say, "stir-crazy?" I knew that you could!) I can't even begin to tell you how sick of our dvd collection we are! What a long, loooooong weekend.
We had near-constant rain. Though mostly, it was light misting of rain. Constantly breezy winds with massive gusts that were both creepy and cool. Monday, we had some really, really heavy rains - the bands after it exiting the state were worse then when it was right over us. Many shingles are laying around the parking lot as well as more leaves, small branches and some medium-sized branches then seems possible. (Looking at it all, you'd think the big oaks would need to be bare for as much debris is everywhere, but they're not.) It doesn't seem like we had any water leaks in the apartment, and we never completely lost power. It would pop off for a second completely, but come right back on. Other times, it would brown out - everything getting really dim and flickery - but then come back. To say that it was a constant state of anxiety is an understatement.
Downed leaves and small branches everywhere coving all surfaces
The first couple days weren't bad. Friday and Saturday - days orginally in the strike timeline of the storm - we had normal weather. No clue that there was a massive hurricane over 400 miles wide just looming off the state. Problem is that it stalled out. Utterly. For hours. And so the timetables went from a Saturday strike to a Sunday night strike (for my area). Which meant that most of the state had already closed for Saturday afternoon. And stayed closed through today in many cases. Sunday brought the real dreary weather and massive bursts of wind. It was very hard to sleep through it all Saturday night into Sunday and Sunday night into Monday. The wind would blow so hard, the building would make these weird groans and creaks and it'd wake me up. All day Sunday, we just sat around. Watched some news and waited. And waited. And waited.
It's hard to see just how much of a mess it left. Scattering massive piles of wet leaves and branches all the way through the breezeway between buildings and piling up in front of people's doors.
The storm ended up not even exiting off the state until some time close to midnight. By that point, we had long since lost our cable and so had to try to discern the news status via our small bedroom tv which was barely pulling in about a channel and a half of local stations.
All day Monday, it rained and rained. Much harder rain then the previous days. We went out though, desperate to get out of the apartment. Discovered most everything was closed. From Barnes and Nobels (though not Borders who was doing a brisk business!) to the entire mall. Which was really bad of them, since I can tell you the roads were packed with people looking to go somewhere and get out of their homes too! The Lowes we passed was packed (the parking lot anyway), and I'm sure Home Depot was probably the same way. It was suprising what was and what was not open. Best Buy was (we nosed around there a bit), and so was the Super Target. But, many resturant weren't (surprising) and many retailers weren't either.
Some decent sized branches fell from the oak trees. People parked under them and took some dings because of it. We, smartly, moved our car to parking spaces where the trees didn't hang over into the lot.
My stomach was giving me hell yesterday. I was just sick to my stomach all day (and night). After hitting a few stores, we came home, had some late lunch and sat around the apartment some more. I called the cable company and got slack when I asked if we were getting credit for the downtime (because they hadn't started repairs yesterday and had no plans to). "We can't control the weather," I was informed. Yeah well, I can't either, but I'm still not paying for a service I am not receving I replied. To which he said yeah I would get a credit. Idiots. Sure, I understand you can't do anything about the hurricane, but you also can't expect me to pay for something I don't have. Bad thing is that I discovered you can't even access the things you've recored on you DVR (the "TiVO" type digital video recorder in our cable box) when there's no service. I guess since the box couldn't connect, it disables all the features of the box. Oh, the humorous thing? The message it gives you is "Advanced Functions Not Available." I guess programming is considered advanced then. Heh.
So....that's really about that in a nutshell. Did I mention how boring it was? What a shitty excuse for a Labor Day Weekend! Luckily, we came through it undamaged and unscathed, though our mental state was a bit shakey for awhile there. Let's not even talk about Hurricane Ivan yet, who's lingering out there as a catagory four storm which is heading in this general direction on a course for about next weekend. Sorry, Texas, Mexico and other Gulf states, but this one's yours. We've already taken two in a row. I don't want it to hit anyone, but damned if I want it to hit us. Again. So I'm hoping for a turn, a miss of the state and a drift into the Gulf to find some other state. We've had enough this year already.
Anyway, that's that for now. I've got a lot to check up on and want to go relax with a nice hot shower. Thanks everyone for the well-wishes.
~ castles of sand by Memory and Dream
at 9/7/2004 01:57:58 PM ~
~
