A photoblog and other things

G’day everyone. I’m safe and well! I just arrived back from the hotel to find my apartment still intact. There isn’t a huge amount of damage around the place – a few downed trees here and there but in my neck of the woods we seem to have gotten off pretty lightly. I didn’t even lose power at my apartment. I’ll be writing some more stuff later – I have to get ready to go out now 🙂

I need to see something happen here. My mind normally races at a million miles an hour, and I have some mechanisms built in place to filter out a lot of the crap that could come out. I do it for all you lovely people out there. If I didn’t of course, you probably wouldn’t be reading this because you probably would write me off as being ‘a bit of a weird wanker’. But, my mind is racing and I have nothing to occupy it with. I’m turning into a freaking psycho here. I’m going to turn into one of the performers at Key West, sprouting out mis-guided gibberish at harmless tourists passing by for measly tips.

As you may or may not have guessed, I’m running on alcohol at the moment. It’s nearly 1 am in the morning. Hurricane Frances has decided to park its flossy butt about 150 miles east of where I am. Not only that, it’s decided to turn into a bit of a wuss by downgrading itself to a category 2 hurricane. I don’t know what is going on with this hurricane, I ain’t used to them, but it seems the local weather presenters over here don’t have a clue of what’s going on either. Not even the guy on channel 7 who wears the pin-stripe suit and as far as I can tell, has not mispronounced a word so far, knows what the dickens is going on. It seemed like when it was first approaching the Florida coast that Frances’ vengence would be swift and harsh. Now it’s crawling along at 6 miles per hour and it’s wreaking havoc on the Bahamas. That’s pretty bad because the infrastructure in the Bahamas for this sort of thing is pretty crap, according to one of my civil engineer friends over here who frequents the place.

I think I would speak for a lot of people when I say that impatience is growing. Everyone is waiting for something to happen. 2.5 million people have evacuated Florida because of Frances. By now it was supposed to be half way over Florida, but the bugger has decided to be a prick and taunt us. Do nothing or do something Frances! Leave the Bahamas alone. Come and pick on someone your own size (reality check – it is as big as Florida state).

We can’t go outside. All the shops are shut for tomorrow and probably the next day and the next day after that. People want to return to their homes. People want to get out of their shelters. Personally, I can’t keep on drinking – do you know how expensive drinks are in a Sheraton hotel?

It’s now or never Frances. If you’re going to do something, do it now. If you’re not, stop prancing around and get the f out of here.

This thing is bloody HUGE with a 185 mile radius, which is quite unbelieveable. Coverage on this hurricane is on every channel there is, and at work yesterday the *only* thing I heard people talking about was the hurricane – where they were going to get enough wood to shore up their houses, making sure they had enough supplies, where their evacuation zones were. Theoretically, I should be at work today. However, the office has been closed down for today and possibly tomorrow. Given that it’s also the labor day weekend over here, that’s 5 days I’ve potentially got off. I have to find some good reading material I think…

I know that if it does hit this far south, which seems like a possibility, then I sure as hell ain’t staying in my apartment. I’m on the top floor (number 4) and am located right on the corner. I’m practically in the most exposed position you could get. Yes, there will be shutters being put up and yes the glass is shatter proof but I don’t know how much safer that really makes me feel up here. So, I’m going to shack up in a hotel with some friends for the weekend. Plus, they’ve got back-up power generators there (I haven’t heard about any for here yet) so that’d be handy for keeping up to date on stuff.

I’ve bought enough supplies to keep me going for a few days. That’s about half a supermarket, but hey. No really, I do have to go buy some more though.

Well, I’d better get going and sort some stuff out. I’ll see if I can fit in another update post before too long. Meanwhile, you can go check out this site for an image loop, and this site for an update on the expected path of Hurricane Frances (click on the link called ‘maps and charts’).

This category 4 hurricane (max sustained wind 140mph) has a few people in Florida a bit worried… including myself.