An officially published photographer! So I come home this evening to an email from the Mirror Project site owner. Seems that a magazine called Wegway is doing a feature on the Mirror Project. And one of my images is going to be included! So, the owner had to get my permission for the reprinting, which I was only too happy to give.
Just think, this means I'm technically a published photographer! How cool is that? The two-page four-page article will be in Wegway #7 so you can subscribe or order to get it. (And if ya want, you can mail it to me and I'll sign it for ya and send it back. *chuckles*) edit: Looking at the pdf that was sent, it's actually four pages and mine's right under the article title!
I know it's a small thing, but for me, it's just amazingly cool. I love photography so it's great that out of the thousands of entries, one of mine was chosen. Weee!
Photos as requested! Got a lot of response so far to the last post, so I've been working on getting the pics all taken. Not all are done, but here's a good number of them. Since there were so many, I gave them their own little page.
Photo Meme - Your Participation Requested! Saw this over at Luka's and thought it sounded like fun.
Think of 3 pictures you’d like to see. Leave whatever you’d like to see in the comments. Things around my house, or whatever .... something I can take a picture of easily. Once I have enough requests, I’ll start posting them. If I can’t, or won’t, take a picture of something you’ve requested, I’ll let you know.
Keep in mind that it's hard for me to get out and about since I don't have regular access to the only quasi-working car we own. So, generally, if you can keep it to things in or around the apartment, I can better take photos. Either that, or you'll have to wait for awhile for the shot.
Witches Weekly - Dreams To have something a little lighter in subject - no more talk of hurricanes for right now, mkay? - I'll fall back on the tried and true practice of memes.
Do you believe dreams are ever symbolic? I think dreams are generally always symbolic. As such, I feel that dreams are highly personal. What something means in a dream to me is not going to be the same as what that same something would mean in a dream to you. I don't therefore believe it's possible for anyone to interpret another's dreams. Only the dreamer can search for that inner meaning themselves.
How do you interpret dreams? Do you feel some are scenes from past lives? Future premonitons? Hidden thoughts and feelings? A little of everything. I think dreams are many things, and oftentimes many things woven in together. Memories of places we've been, times we've experienced, thoughts and hopes and fears; concepts of our place in the Universe and even momentary fragments of the greater Self and the connection we all share; the One of all things. And then sometimes, you just watch too much tv before you go to bed and suddenly, you're in a sitcom. That's the thing about dreams. You never know so you always should pay attention.
What do you feel was your most symbolic/meaningful dream? I don't know that I can say there was any one defining dream for me. I've had many over the years which struck a cord at that time in my life, or alerted me to possibilities that I maybe hadn't thought of in the waking world. There's a freedom in dreams, so I think they all hold deep meaning in their own way.
Now with power AND cable! *whew* What a long haul this one was. Shorter in overall time frame but packing much more of a punch. Shortly after yesterday's entry, we bundled up and went out into the weather, walking around the apartment complex and experiencing some of the wild, powerful wind for ourselves. We got soaked in a matter of moments. I brought my camera - safely encased in a studry Zip-Lock bag - and took some photos (I'll work on uploading them later). By the time we came back inside, our power was out.
It was about 4:30pm.
Neither of us had really eaten anything so far for the day and now we had no way of cooking anything. We're not allowed to have grills (fire hazard in apartments), we don't have any portable or canned heat source and of course, no microwave or oven. And when we went to bed Saturday night, the storm wasn't coming our way; we weren't prepared for it's arrival Sunday morning.
We waited for a little while for things to calm down and around 5:45pm, went out in search of something - anything - that might be a) open b) have power and c) have food. The radio stations were airing news reports so we were able to get a little update on the situation. Hundreds of thousands of residents were without power and winds were expected to pick up as the back side of the storm came our way. A drive to a neighboring city revealed that unlike everyone around us for miles, here was an area with power. Even better? A Dunkn' Donuts was open. (And slammed busy.) We parked, waited in line and feasted on two bacon, egg and cheese crossaints. I also got a hot tea which was fabulous, since I was still chilled to the bone from our walk earlier. Massive thanks and kudos go out to the large staff that showed up to open and serve a long line of people in the calm of the storm yesterday.
Warmed up, a hot meal in us, we heard that the Super Wal-Mart across the road had opened, so we headed that way to pick up some supplies. We got a small phone (our only one was cordless which of course won't work without power), some bread and snacks. They were out of any canned heat for cooking and there were no radios to be had. We also picked up some batteries in hopes we could get our small clock radio to run off it's battery backup (which turned out not to work.) We had no way of hearing the news or keeping up with what was going on without power.
No where else to go and nothing to do with the winds still high and the rain picking back up, we headed home. Our area was still without power. We opened up the sliding glass door and pulled the screen closed, opened some windows, lit some candles and began to wait. I was able to reach my mother on her cell phone and she was without power too. Worse, her home phone didn't seem to be working either.
You never realize how dark it gets until you don't have power. And just how much you take the electricity for granted until you don't have it. While it may be nice to have the option to turn off the lights some times, I can assure you, it's MUCH nicer to be able to turn them on.
It was late - probably about 11:30pm - when we ventured out again. There's only so much of sitting around in the pitch black you can take. No one was offering news on the radio at this point, so we didn't really know what the situation was. We went back to Super Wal-Mart and managed to find some flashlights. It was just nice to get in the air conditioning and well-lit store for a change. Having no power can be both depressing and repressive. It's frustrating not being able to see properly when you want or need to.
Got back and power was still out. At this point, Love decided to try to get some rest. It was hot and muggy and sticky out despite the winds blowing still pretty consistantly. The heat would have been unbearable without that wind.
I sat up for a little while longer and read my book by flashlight. Finally, around 2am, I decided to try to get some sleep. I wasn't really tired, but I was hoping that it would help pass the time and bring daylight sooner. Sleep was fitful from noises, heat and general anxiety.
At about 4:45am I heard a loud "THUNK" and suddenly, everything turned back on. The light I had left on in the living room shone through the bedroom door and the Gamecube that my Love was playing before we went for a walk started playing the opening theme music. I was overjoyed. I ran around, closed the windows, cranked the air and turned on some fans to help cool things down. A quick check of the tv and I discovered the cable had gone down some time during the power outage. Power was down for about twelve hours.
I was able to finally fall back asleep and sleep on through morning.
When I got up, we still didn't have any cable. But I was able to pull in one channel on the small tv in the bedroom to catch most of the noon news. My mother called to check up on us. Her power had come on the night before - it was on before she went to bed. She couldn't believe ours took until the wee hours of the morning. We were lucky though. There are still hundreds of thousands without power at this point. With no estimate of when things will be back up.
Pinellas County 214,095 people or 40% of total customers affected. 214,095 of 523,718 Progress Energy customers without power.
Pasco County 103,622 people or 48% of total customers affected. 7,000 of 12,228 teco customers without power. 62,000 of 116,645 progress energy customers without power. 34,622 of 85,893 cooperative customers without power.
Hillsborough County 167,003 people or 30% of total customers affected. 167,000 of 547,471 TECO customers without power.
Today, we went over to our new apartment complex. (We have officially decided we're moving the weekend of October 15th.) We needed to get some measurements and talk to them about some final arrangements. On our drive, we found several businesses without power. Places that previously had power were now down. It was very intermitent and scattered. A McDonalds we stopped at was down as was an Eckards Drug Store. It was weird. You could see empolyees sitting in the doorways, just waiting for things to come back up.
There was much more wind damage this time around. Debris everywhere. Last night, on our drive home, we saw a Hess station's awning over the pumps blown clean over. Signs were blown in all directions and knocked down. Branches down and even some trees uprooted. Billboards torn to shreds, flags in tatters and some signs knocked over. We had much more wind this time around then the previous storms - and for sustained periods plus gusts. Prior, it was mainly just some gusts but no real sustained winds.
When we got back home, it was about 5:30pm and the cable tv was back on. Though the internet wasn't working. I called them and they reported there were still outages in our area so they weren't suprised that some things were working but not others. It came up around 9pm and I've been able to make my first connections to check up on things, get my email and read messages of support everyone sent. Thanks guys for that by the way. *smiles*
All-in-all, we're doing ok. A rough, rough time of it but things are coming back to normal. The only thing that's bad is we had to spend money on things like a phone, food, batteries, flashlights, etc. and it leaves us with literally nothing but pocket change until Friday. We were already really tight on cash as it was and now we're dead broke. And much of our food in the fridge and freezer has gone bad from the 12 hours without power (milk, eggs, meat in freezer, etc.), so we don't have much in the way of meals for the week. Not sure how that's going to work. At the moment, that's my biggest worry. We're just really maxed out from the unexpected expenses. It wouldn't be so bad if we could eat what we have around the house, but we basically have to chuck it all and start again. *sighs*
Anyway, that's the update. Thankfully, Jeanne is gone and life can start getting back to normal again. I'm happy it's over.
Quick update Well it's been a rough day but we're still hanging in there. The power is browning out in chunks where it's on again, off again over and over for several minutes and it's turned off totally for about 30 seconds at a time a few times but so far, thankfully come back up everytime. Cable (and therefore internet) are still on as well so we've been able to keep an eye on the storm.
Some branches have ripped off the small tree out front, though the large one amazingly seems to be coming through it pretty well. The leak in our bathroom ceiling has sprouted again and though the water isn't coming through yet, you can hear it dripping against the back side of the ceiling so it will get saturated enough to break through eventually. It's also cracking open so that's not a good thing. (This is the location where the mold problem started bakc in July and since no repairs have been done, it's structurally very weak and already damaged from a week of water then as well as mold growth.)
I'm using my Love's laptop at the moment and typing quickly since I don't want a brownout to come by while I'm doing it. Sorry for any typos. Winds have been insanely loud. It's hard to explain how much noise it makes as it whips the trees around and bashes against the roof. Last hour we were having sustained winds near 60mph but now it's down to about 45mph.
It's not really raining heavy, but the wind is blowing the rain literally sideways and therefore saturating everything immeditately.
It's been an interesting day to say the least. Downgraded to a tropical storm now and on its way past us, but the backside of the storm will continue to pound us through the night. Love's parents have zero power. Don't know about my mom or sister or grandmother at the moment.
Just wanted to check in. We're ok for the moment and hanging in there, riding out the storm.
Two Words: Oh Shit Yes it's 7:30am and yes I'm up. There's apparently a mobile home park right behind our complex. And there's a siren that's been going off that states "Mandatory Evacuation" over and over since about midnight last night. It finally woke us up where we couldn't get back to sleep.
Turning on the news things have taken a turn for the worse for us overnight. Instead of exiting out a couple counties north - up in Citrus county - now it's looking like it's going to be exiting straight out the Tampa Bay area. And it was going to be Tropical Storm strength when it left; now it's still a hurricane.
(I'm in the blue circle)
(I'm still in blue circle)
They're expecting MASSIVE power outages so this will probably be all from me for awhile. Things are looking really bad. I gotta say, I'm actually worried at this point. We already have 31mph sustained winds. Gusts higher (upwards of 45mph already). And it's not here yet. Things are going to get ugly in the next few hours and stay ugly.
The National Hurricane Center is listing a 74% chance of it coming withing 65 nautical miles of Tampa as of 2am. And things have come more west rather then north-west since then.
We've only got another hour or two before it hits us. I'm really nervous right now watching how close it's coming directly to us. You have to understand that here in the Tampa Bay area, we're very lax about hurricanes only because everything always turns at the last moment. Charley and Frances came through our direction but didn't produce much more then some wind and rain around here - nothing to really warrnet comment.
So the fact that now it's heading straight for me? Woah. I really can't put it into words. We had all dismissed Jeanne from hitting us - she meandered around so much no one really thought anything of her path.
Power is already down in most of Polk county (inland from us) as well as Hillsborough County (a little more inland, but also contains the city of Tampa for example). They're basically saying that everyone will eventually be out of power within the next hour or two.
Ugh. I'm rambling. I'm sorry. I'm just freaking out a little. It's early and it's coming. I'm going to upload this now while I can. Think good thoughts for us! And wish us well.
Out for now. I'll post again as I can and if I don't post, you know why.
