O'Rourke

Ryan turns 4 today, so yesterday, we all met down at the Bay Area Raceway to ride go-carts and play video games. Ryan was the master of this space-race game! 

Forwarded to us via email, and apparently not from Letterman...

10. Decorating the house (with plywood).
9. Dragging out boxes that haven’t been used since last season.
8. Last minute shopping in crowded stores.
7. Regular TV shows pre-empted for ‘Specials’.
6. Family coming to stay with you.
5. Family and friends from out of state calling you.
4. Buying food you don’t normally buy . . . and in large quantities.
3. Days off from work.
2. Candles.

And the Number One reason Hurricane Season is like Christmas: 

At some point you may have a tree in your house!

Well, we did pretty OK through hurricane Ike. Cheryl rode out the storm at Clear Lake Hospital (5 stories high and rated for a Cat 4 hurricane) while I took the girls to San Antoinio to stay at Julie & Dan's bed and breakfast.  Aside from keeping everyone safe, our next biggest fear was flooding from the storm surge. Fortunately the predictions of 18-22 ft storm surge (our house is around 12-17 ft) didn't pan out. Mostly due to a lucky last minute storm jog to the northeast, bringing the eye straight up I-45 instead of just to our south-west.  Also I think the models aren't designed for very wide storms over very shallow water, but that's just the geeky scientist in me talking.

So the worst in-storm experience any of us have to report is that Cheryl was trying to get some sleep during the middle of the night as the storm raged overhead.  And her complaint isn't that she couldn't sleep. She was dead-tired from all the hurricane prep they had been doing, so sleep wasn't a problem. The problem was that the wall started leaking and she and her head nurse had to move to another room. Fortunately for Cheryl, she was actually in a bed. Her boss had drawn the short straw and was sleeping on the floor. Can you say "soggy sleeping bag"? Can you say "bad performance appriasal"? Actually her boss was just thankfull to have the help. 

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From the Washington Post. Also check out the cool time allocation along the bottom.

Obama:

McCain:

Well, everyone had fun at the pool. The girls spent some time talking to some army guys, telling them how their Uncle Dan was an army guy. Allison & Meghan got a good night's sleep, but Cheryl wasn't so lucky between a fire alarm with a battery that decided to die at 1:00 am and Mackenzie tossing & kicking her the rest of the evening. Fortunately she was with it enough to put the fire alarm, and not Mackenzie, in the bushes outside the hotel door.

Took off around 9am, stopped for lunch at McD's but it was raining, so they couldn't get in any leg-stretching time or a zoo trip so everyon elected to press on to Dallas, Ga to visit an old college friend. Yes, Maren I called you old.

Pulled into Maren's around 3:30 or 4:30 depending on if you're on central or easter time. The kids got to spend some time jumping on trampoline and running off the willies. Yay!

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The girls x 4 made it all the way to Hattiesburg, Mississipi. They were only planning on getting as far as Baton Rouge, LA and then stopping to go to the zoo. But when they got there mid-afternoon, the M&Ms (Meghan & Mackenzie) were asleep in the way-back, and it was raining. So Allison & Mom decided to press on through and see how far they could get. They made it to Hattiesburg by dinner time, and found a hotel with a pool and something to eat. Hopefully a dip in the pool will burn off some energy from being pent up in the car all day. The dual-screen DVD player was a big hit.

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Hey, check this out. Jerry Remy Air Guitar prior to the game the other night. Very funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YqA8JKjf7Y

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick yellow dog jumped under the ADHD fox.