Rain, rain, go away already...sheesh!

The house is almost completely shuttered up now. Got out of work just after noon (hurricane warning came in at 11:00am, but the wonderful NHC didn't specify if the warning extended inland or not...), and began my preparations.
- Go to bank and get money (check)
- Go to Target and buy some extra supplies (including...get ready folks...a Coleman cooler that keeps ice up to 5 days in 90 degree heat!)
- Shutter up house
- Etc.

I'm not too clear on the 'Etc' part myself, but it's whatever I normally do when a storm comes, but don't recall it until it's time to do it. Maybe I should make a list...

Hurricane warning!

*sigh*

This is eerie

Okay, the storm is most likely not going to direct hit/significantly impact us (us = anyone not in the Florida Keys). Good.

Nonetheless...it is perfectly still out this morning. I'm looking at the top branches of an Australian Pine tree that towers a good 80+ feet in the air, and not a branch is moving. The lake is a mirror. Why is this significant? We live on a coastline where the temperature has never been recorded higher than 99 degrees, due to the constant sea breeze. There should be SOME trickle of wind, but there isn't any. Very spooky.

It just doesn't get any better, does it?

QUIZ TIME!

Guess what we're under now?
a) A tropical storm warning
b) A hurricane watch
c) The threat of imminent destruction
d) All of the above

The correct answer, of course, is "d) All of the above".

9/18/05 11pm NHC Forecrast Path for Tropical Storm Rita

Okay, okay. I'm being overly dramatic. We're not about to be smited, especially by a storm this close (wait, didn't Andrew rapidly intensify when it was this close to South Florida?) to us, but it does make life rather stressful, if not interesting. They really just get to be a big pain in the ass.

Owel, here we go again...

Oh...GREAT...now THIS one appears to be coming!

Just what I need after a long week...

My father is finally out of the hospital

He's out...finally! The doctor took awhile to show up today, which delayed him getting out until this evening...but atleast he'll be sleeping in his own bed tonight, and won't have someone coming in every couple hours to wake him up. You did good, Dad! Now get healthy and strong again so that you don't have to go through that again, and can play with your grandkids!

Again, thanks to all of you for wishing my father well throughout this. I have no doubt that your thoughts and prayers helped him get through this and recover quickly!

It's almost like camping...

Last night I was able to sleep through the entire night on the cot in my father's room because he was finally able to rest as well. The hardest part of the stay for him appeared to be over.

When I got to the room, the blinds were completely open so that you could see the rather nice view outside (looking west-southwest at the 836 expressway, across Little Havana and into Coral Gables). I asked my father if he wanted me to close the blinds before we went to sleep, but he said no, leave 'em open.

The view from room 824

In the middle of the night, I woke up, and since the cot was next to the window, I was looking up at the night sky. Just outside the window, high in the sky, was the near-full moon. It was a very beautiful, and it recalled the times I used to go camping. Well, that and the cold air in the room. (Jeez, hospitals like to keep it near freezing!)

The 'new' sleeping arrangements
(Note the blogging device on the bed next to the backpack)

Night shift, day 3

Started my 3rd night shift at the hospital about an hour ago. My father is now in a private room, so I can stay with him throughout. His pain comes and goes, but that's about the worst of it. He's doing real well, overall.

I only had about 5 hours sleep today, and I was tired when I got here, but I seem to have my second wind now.
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

...continuing that LAST thought...

Jeez...just got a wrong number on my cell phone...at 3am...from what sounded like a kid asking for 'Katie'. Go to sleep, people!

Atleast I wasn't asleep...yet...

I hate Katie...and her friends...

Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

TV schedule de jour

Let's see, I re-watched the Lost season finale earlier (premiere is next week!), spoke to my sister for a bit, spent a little over an hour with my father (just before midnight-just after 1am) who's doing well (fighting mild nausea and occassional pain), watched Mythbusters, the end to the Arizona-Milwaukee baseball game (Arizona won in the 12th), two episodes of Cops, and now Magnum PI.

I ate a sub for 'breakfast' when I got here at 9pm, and just ate my lunch (another sub...Subway had 'em at 2 for $9). I think, however, I will get some rest now. *yawn* I really hope my father is in a private room tomorrow...

Y'know, there's this neat show on TV...

They have camera people follow police officers around oin their beats. They go to different calls, with people getting in fights, domestic issues, robberies, etc. Boy, these COPS really deserve our respect...why do they only air this show in the middle of the night instead of, say, primetime on Fox?

Ooooooh! Magnum PI is starting now! When will the fun ever stop?

Cedar's oustide smoking lounge vs. Alcatraz

I report, you decide.

The outside smoking lounge (with bolted down chairs):
Alcatraz:

Any questions?

My sleeping arrangements for last night...and tonight

I found that if you slid the two sets of chairs together, positioned the pillow in one chair so that my back was in it and the end of the pillow was under my neck, my butt was in the other chair and my legs hanging over the edge...was still uncomfortable.
I think I'm going to make my chiropractor appointment NOW rather than later...

Hey, but I've got all the creature comforts of home....oh...heck...who am I fooling?

Happy, happy! Joy, joy!

That still never gets old...

(Here's coincidence for you...I took that photo a couple weeks ago. Note the time on the radio. The time is exactly the same as when I finally got around to blogging this. Weird!)

Even though I live in a big city...

This can still be found a mere couple miles from my house...

This is just wrong...

...if you ever wanted to know why today's youth acts the way they do...it's because of their drinking...

(Please note, that's non-alcoholic beer...)

Doing some blog catch-ups...

You're going to see some items I haven't blogged the day they happened. So sue me.

(Well, don't...I really wouldn't appreciate it...)

Another long night awaits...

Just got back from the hospital, and I'm going to get some more rest before I go back to the hospital. I saw the doctor before I left, and he said my father would be staying in SCCU again tonight, which means another night of the waiting lounge.

*yawn*

Hockey season can't get here soon enough...

They're having a rodeo at the Office Depot Center. This weekend.

Ugh.

P.S. My apologies, it's now the "Bank Atlantic Center". Great. Ugh.

WAIT! Don't press CTRL-ALT-DEL! That's my Dad!

Yesterday, when I first saw my father in SCCU after his surgery (he was still unconscious), I was amazed at all the monitors that were hooked up to him. One was a Windows-based PC running a DOS application. Becoming alarmed that a Windows/DOS system was being left to the life-critical monitoring of my father, I asked the nurse what that system monitored.

"Oh, that's our pharmacuetical ordering system."

Well, THAT was a relief!

(Order me some meds then...)

It's all worthwhile

Since my father is in SCCU (Surgical Coronary Care Unit) for a day or so immediately after his surgery, they do not allow visitors to stay in the room with him.

So many people told me that staying overnight in the waiting room was pointless. Visiting hours were every two hours or so for 15 minutes, starting at 9am until 9pm, and the nurses said they would not allow me back during the night. "I don't care, I'm staying," I told them. "If he wants to see me if he's awake later or if you need to get me, I'll be right outside."

I settled in for the night, pulling the sets of chairs together, taking 2 Advil and getting comfortable as best I could. People came in every hour or so to go outside to the hospital's best replica of Alcatraz's rec-yard (photos later)...an outside smoking area...which was annoying, but couldn't be stopped. I got probably 4-5 hours of sleep.

Around 5:50am, a nurse came and got me, saying that my father was awake and wanted to see me. There's no better way to start your day. :) I'm glad I didn't listen to the nurses and go home.

My father looks good, as best as he can under the conditions. I think he's going to recover well.

3 hours to go until my shift ends...phew!

My father is out, and he's fine!

More later.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. Please keep him in your thoughts while he recovers.

Still no updates yet.

No updates yet on my father

Still about 1 hour to go. He's having heart-valve replacement surgery, which we've known he's needed for about a year, so we've had time to prepare ourselves for this day.

Although nothing prepared me for seeing him in the bed before they wheeled him to the OR. You just have to put your trust in the doctor and the hospital that things will be fine.

My father's been in surgery now for 90 minutes....

....for reference, this was a planned surgery. I'll update the blog when he's out...hopefully in another 2 1/2 hours.

Oh, great...is ANOTHER one coming..?

From the National Hurricane Center's tropical outlook this morning:

A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE HAS REMAINED NEARLY STATIONARY JUST
OFF THE SOUTHEASTERN COAST OF FLORIDA AND OVER THE NORTHWESTERN
BAHAMAS. THIS SYSTEM HAS CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION THIS
MORNING... AND UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE ONLY MARGINALLY FAVORABLE.
HOWEVER...UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE GRADUALLY EXPECTED TO BECOME MORE
FAVORABLE FOR A TROPICAL DEPRESSION TO FORM DURING THE NEXT DAY OR
TWO.

Sounds exactly like how Katrina formed...just a little over a week ago...

Trading one rat for another

So, here I sit at Chuck E. Cheese's, spending the time with the kids running around having a good time....I'd rather be at Disney.

As I sit here, I listen to reports that the death toll from Katrina is going to be in the thousands. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he is estimating somewhere from 5% to 20% of the people that didn't make it out of town or reach a shelter...approximately 60,000 fall into that category...are likely dead. That means 3,000 to 12,000 died, based on those guesstimates.

In the meantime, I went to a friend's house last night for dinner, down in Homestead, which was ravaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. They live about 25 miles south of me, and were not impacted by Katrina, except for some downed trees. Know what a gallon of regular gas costs there? $3.55. By my house, it's $2.93. Why is there a 62 cent price difference? Each place is off an expressway, and each has no limitations on getting to it (i.e. No road debris, etc.). Why? This is nuts. There is definately gouging going on.

Awhile back...earlier this year...I heard a news report which said that $3.75 per gallon was the point at which our economy would suffer major set-backs. Looks like we're just about there.

And now we have thousands dead from a hurricane, mostly due to lack of recovery planning from all government agencies (local, state and federal).

Happy Labor Day. :(

And today's gas price is...

As an old boss of mine used to say on the days where nothing seemed to ever go right, in his best radio personality voice:

"And the hits just keep on coming..."

Gas price update...

I didn't update the gas price yesterday, as it hadn't changed since 8/31. However...today...