The Stars That Usher Evening Rose

I can not believe the destruction this hurricane has caused. It makes me sick just seeing the aerial videos that have been coming in from New Orleans and the coast of Mississippi. Those people sitting on their roofs waiting to be saved in New Orleans as two levees broke today flooding atleast 80% of the city. New Orleans is uninhabitable and looks like it could be for the next two months as that is the time they are thinking it will take to restore power. Along the coast of Mississippi I swear it looks just like a Tsunami had hit there. Everything from the coast up to quarter to a half mile inland was totally destroyed. All that's left in most of these places are just foundations of where buildings used to be. You can easily tell how far the storm surge came in as all the debris is piled up. There were huge buildings that were picked up and moved across highways and then dropped. I have never seen destruction like this before from a hurricane and I find it hard to believe that I ever will again. This storm caught a ton of people off guard. I don't think anyone expected this kind of damage. This storm will effect everyone in this country even if its just increasing your gas prices.

As for my aunt obviously from the videos I have seen from towns near her the news doesn't look good. We were able to get in contact with her today and she road out the storm in Pensacola, FL. She tried to make it back to her home in Pass Christian, MS today but they stopped her long before she got there because the roads where still underwater. The one main area that there still has been no photos or little word coming out of it is the Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis, MS areas where my Aunt lives. Only word I have heard from that area is that 80% of the buildings are distroyed and that people are walking around with their belongs in shopping carts. But, that is all we have heard from that area. From what I understand the reason for the lack of photos and word from this area is because the area is still inaccessible. My aunt hopes to be bale to get back in there by this weekend to see if anything is salvageable. She is also worried about her neighbor who decided to ride the storm out. Hopefully they survived but I wouldn't put my money on it. After she gets to the house and her business or what's left of them and goes through everything she plans to fly to her sons place in Washington state to stay there for a while to get things grouped together. It will be a while before she or anyone else really get a chance to start rebuilding. I feel so sorry not only for my aunt but for all of these people directly effected by this storm. It will take those areas many years to recover from this storm. It almost feels fake.

This morning Hurricane Katrina made land fall as a major hurricane just east of New Orleans and then made land fall a second time still as a major hurricane west of Gulfport, MS. Being a weather geek that I am I have spent the last two days doing nothing by reading my book and following this hurricane (besides the times I was in class today of course) . But, being a weather geek is not the only reason I had interest in this storm. My Aunt lives and also owns a shop in Pass Christian, MS. Both the Shop and the house are within a few hundred yards of the gulf. In case some of you all are curious were Pass Christian, MS is it is just west of Gulfport, MS pretty much right where Katrina made that second landfall. These areas were effect by a storm surge between 30-35 feet which is a record and that doesn't even take into account the 130+mph winds they endured for a couple hours. We have tried to get in contact with my aunt as we don't even know if she evacuated the area. We assume she has because she is the type that wouldn't even think about sticking around for something like this. But still not being able to get a hold of her has made us a little worried. We will try again tomorrow and hope for better luck. Knowing how Gulfport got hit I do not expect it to be good news for her place. I suspect the shop to be gone as it wasn't much more than just a simple wooden structure. The house was a one story brick home which probably got flooded out. But until we hear from her we wont know for sure what things are like there. Once I hear something I will post it here. My thoughts are also with all the others who have been effected by this historic storm as I can not imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes.

Last night as I was sitting at the computer just after 11pm I hear boom and the whole dorm shook. My first thought was that someone in the room above me had fallen off their bed. But then I realized that someone falling off their bed would not have shaken a concrete block building. After that I thought nothing more of it until about two and half hours ago while sitting in my Meteorology instruments class when I overheard people talking about an earthquake. My first thought was that somewhere out west had been hit by an earthquake. Come to find out that boom and shaking of the dorm was actually a small earthquake, 3.8 (though they are now saying 3.7) on the Richter scale. With one that weak it is no surprise that when I originally felt the building shake that my mind never wondered to the idea of an earthquake. That marks the second earthquake I have ever been in. The other being about 2 or 3 years ago while going to school in Young Harris, GA. That one hit in the middle of the night and I slept though it. That one was stronger than this last one registering 5.8 on the Richter scale.

I have to admit I am not liking this new food service we have here at the school. The new company that is serving the school is called Chartwells replacing Sodexho from before. Sodexho was definitely better. It seems most of the food I have had this year taste funny. Even the salad dressing taste funny. They always seem to be running out of food which almost never happened in past years. It seems almost every time I go eat they are out of something whether it be just the salads or one of the actual entrees. The dessert bar sucks, they have a limited selection and it isn't even all that great. Sodexho had a much larger and better selection. The drink station setup is annoying. You have no place to set your tray in order to fill up your glass so you have to either do a balancing act to fill your glass or you have to go find a seat and set your tray down then walk back to fill your glass. In past years they always had a place where you could set your trays down next to the drinks. Also they have totally changed the food court in the Highsmith building around. Only thing similar to last year is the grill. They got rid of my burrito place (though they are supposedly bringing in something similar) and they are adding some oriental place in there. The latter two places aren't even open yet and supposedly wont be for a another month. So yeah Sodexho needs to come back.

I think there might be something wrong with me because I am actually enjoying my physics class and I even have fun doing my physics homework. It's still early in the semester so if I am still enjoying this class and the homework at the end of the semester then I will definitely know there is something wrong with me. Who knew finding the instantaneous velocity of a ball rolling down a ramp would be enjoyable. Maybe its because so far I am finding it to be easy.

I have been obsessed with Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 lately. The other night I designed a roller coaster that is 455 feet tall and goes 113 mph, it is a 3:05 long ride (course a lot of that is just going up the 455 foot lift hill) and is over a mile and half in length and the people on the game actually ride it, it's awesome. I have almost beaten the career mode on there as well, so once I have beaten that I will probably go back to designing coasters.

Still waiting to hear back from Michael about Ozzfest this year. Concert is just over a week away, Sept. 2nd. So time is beginning to run a little thin. Not really his fault though so I can't blame him. Hopefully things will get sorted out so we can get things moving. Also still waiting to hear back from Cathy about the concert the following weekend. Not sure what is taking her so long but oh well.

Classes so far have actually been better than expected. My Calc. II professor (same one I had last semester) has totally changed the way he does things. Instead of three big 100 point test he is instead going to give five 50-60 point test with five fifteen point quizzes before each one. The quizzes are actually optional but if you don't take the quizzes then you can't drop your lowest test grade. So far my Physics class hasn't been that bad I actually finished all the homework assigned in the amount of time he said it would take to do one problem, but I am sure that will change as the semester progresses. My two meteorology classes seem to be ok. Only complaint I have so far is that the homework for the Climatology class is ten times harder than I expected. But overall the classes at this point aren't all that bad.

Last night I went to an Asheville Bloggers get together thing (I think they referred to it as Blogapalooza) they had up in Weaverville. It was pretty cool. I got to meet a whole lot of new people from around Asheville that I probably wouldn't have otherwise met. It was nice being able to put some faces to some of the blogs. They all seem to be really cool people, easy to talk to. I didn't get there until about 6:30pm because I had to work and I stayed until about 8:30pm. I look forward to the next one.

Ozzfest at this point still seems to be a go. Haven't gotten my ticket yet because I am waiting on Michael to get his because I don't want to get mine and then find out he can't go. So once he gets everything he needs to sorted out and buys his ticket I will get mine and we should be good to go. Though I have to admit I have a gut feeling that something like a test being given on the 2nd that we can't miss is going to fuck everything up. I really hope I am wrong. As for the Staind and 3 Doors Down concert the following weekend I haven't heard anything back from Cathy on that one yet so it's still on hold. We shall see what happens I guess.

I figured I should probably post. I originally said I was going to post a week ago when I first got to campus and here I am just no posting. I got back in Asheville on the 10th as planned. I got here around 12:30 in the afternoon and unloaded everything into my room. From there I went and had my PS2 fixed. The guy fixed it right there on the spot and didn't even charge me instead of making me wait a week and charging me $25 if he would have had me leave it. Can't complain about that. From there I went to the mall and picked up Madden 06 which I had ordered earlier this year.

Thursday and Friday I spent most of the day training for work. Training was pretty much the same as it was last year. Go over the rules how to work things and meet everyone. I found the getting to know each other parts pointless as we all basically knew each other from last year, but oh well. Sunday was my actual first real day back working.

Other than training I have been pretty lazy this week. All I have done is gone out and picked up the few things that I needed for the room as well as a grocery stop. I have been otherwise sitting the room playing Madden or playing on the computer trying to be as lazy as possible before class start tomorrow.

Talking with Michael it seems that he, his brother and myself are going to go to Ozzfest this year in Charlotte on the 2nd of next month. We would have to miss classes that Friday in order to do it but as Michael pointed out we will be in no rush to head back home as we have a 3 day weekend that weekend. Also just found out today that Alter Bridge (formally Creed), Staind and 3 Doors Down are going to be in Charlotte on the 11th. So my sister and I are thinking about going to that concert since I am a Staind fan and she is a 3 Doors Down fan. Anyway that's it I guess once classes start I am sure I am going to have plenty to complain about.

We have the internet working here at the house but that is only because it decided to start working on my computer. My parents computer is still not working correctly so when leave they will be stuck without a reliable computer until they buy a new one. Supposedly they plan to buy a new one in the not to distant future so we shall see what happens.

As for me I played one last round of golf here on Friday and did terrible as usual. I still enjoy myself though. Today I have spent the day packing things up and getting them ready to leave here Tuesday. I have to be back in Asheville at the school on the 10th between 1-4pm. I have work training the following two days. Tomorrow I will spend more time getting things together so that way Monday all I really have to do is just start packing the car. The closer time comes to leave the more I seem to look forward to it. If it wasn't for the insane amount of class work I am going to have this semester I would probably be going crazy wanting to go. All that class work is going to suck, I am not looking forward to that part.

On Friday evening we had one of the coolest looking storms I have ever seen skim past us. The storm had a nice shelf cloud form along its outer edge, seeing this I wasn't complaining much that the storm was just skimming us. For those of you who don't know what a shelf cloud is it is a cloud that can form around the outer edge of a storm that looks sort of like a shelf. A shelf cloud represents ether a strong gust front or downdraft associated with the storm. In other words that cloud means potential strong ass winds. Normally when you look at clouds that people say are pitch black and they are really just a dark bluish purple color. Well I can honestly say that these clouds were pitch black. I have never seen clouds as dark as those were. Also most of these kinds of storms you can see the base of the clouds were with this storm I couldn't for the longest time it was pitch black all the way from the ground up. If I didn't know any better I would have thought there was a 30 mile wide tornado on the ground. I stood at the front window of the house here and watched the storm for a while as it was close enough to hear the thunder and watch the lightning. You could even see the clouds within the storm sinking and rising with the movement of the air. At the storms closest point to us I could even see the rain which had a green tent to it which signifies hail. All we got from it was a little wind and a little bit of rain, but I am sure nothing compared to if it had hit us head on.

Anyway, This is probably my last post from Orlando for the summer. This summer has flown by, they seem to go faster and faster every year. My next post will probably be when I return back to school on the evening of the 10th. So until then I will be busy packing and getting ready to go and then Asheville here I come, again.