Starting to get breezy. You could fly a nice kite with this. We resecured a couple things, moved some boxes around and are basically getting settled in for the storm. Brandy is making cookies. I’m going to clean out my car and bring in the GPS and stuff. Unfortunately, only one of the three cars can be in the garage. The other two will have to take their chances.

After the car stuff, I think that is the last outdoor stuff we’re going to be attempting barring anything unexpected. Then we’ll hunker down and watch the live coverage of the storm while eating cookies and such until the power goes out. After that, we’ll play chess by candlelight while listening to the radio and the small battery powered TV… and eat cookies.

This one is going to be about as bad as Frances. For Frances we ran to New Orleans. For some reason this time we are still here. Gulp. Seems everybody still is. Nobody is leaving. (And they haven’t actually called for evacuation of our specific location, just the barrier islands near here and mobile homes and the like.) Oh well. We’ll be OK I think. But the next 24 hours are going to probably get a bit hairy!

Local noon news just came on. Channel 9 out of Orlando. Chief Weather Dude Tom Terry. I quote his opening statement…

This storm is going to be serious. We’ve already talked a lot about that. This storm is:

#1: About the same size as Frances with the windfield.
#2: This storm is going to be stronger than Frances.
#3: This storm is going to make landfall a little further North than where Frances hit.

Yummy! It is still forecast to make landfall 20 or 30 miles south of us. That is actually a little further away than they were forecasting yesterday, when they were putting landfall right near us. They are saying it may strengthen to a Cat 4 too. But they have it further south, which is good. But it could still shift.

Oh well, time to clean that car. And eat cookies.

Seems like an appropriate time to do another Darkflash… this is what I sent out to friends and family on August 13, 2004 at 17:10 UTC when Charlie was heading our way…

Came home from work for lunch and watched the local news. This morning they had the track of Hurricane Charlie coming on land near Tampa and heading well west of us with Melbourne just on the edge of the area due for tropical storm force winds. Which meant we might get that level of winds, but just barely. They’ve revised the track though, and it is heading further east than they thought this morning. We’re now expected to instead definitely have tropical force sustained winds, and might be on the edge of sustained hurricane force winds.

Last night we were in Tampa to take Amy to a Hillary Duff concert. On the way there the other direction was stop and go evacuation traffic, and on the way home we were stuck in the evacuation traffic for a long time. Since we’re on the other coast, we’re not in any evacuation zone or anything, but they are predicting we will get some pretty serious winds and rain and such.

Right now it is still a beautiful day, but we should start seeing some effects here in Melbourne within the next few hours.

I’ve been in some on what was left of hurricanes by the time they got up to DC or NJ or wherever, but this should be a bit more than that.

Unless it tuns again and misses us completely, which it still could.

Anyway, I’ll report what happens a little later.

OK, no longer just in the bubble, but now near the expected track. Here are the Wunderground Jeanne Computer Models. And here is the NHS Danger Bubble.

OK, enough already! So far here in Melbourne we got a glancing shot off Charlie, Frances hammered the area and we got remnants of Ivan after it made a big loop over the Southeast before going over us back into the gulf to be a Tropical Storm again.

Well anyway, wood is still up. We’ll leave it up until Jeanne is gone. Then it probably will be time to take it down. If this stays a Cat 2, we’ll be staying put behind the boarded windows. If it goes Cat 3 or above and is still aimed at us we might think about going away. Or not. We’ll see.

OK, last year I posted my Tivo Wishlists for the season. The new season is upon us, and it is time to do it again.

This time the list is much shorter. I find now with the job going full swing, and the girlfriend and daughter, and all that sort of thing, I have a lot less time to watch TV than when I was sitting unemployed up in PA. So whereas last year I had 15 shows, 4 keyword wishlists and 3 actor/actresses plus a couple of news shows… I now am down to 10 shows, 2 wishlists and one actor/actress. Plus the news.

Over the last year, I’ve changed the wishlists a few times. In addition to the one time I did a major cutback to the numbers mentioned, I’ve also adjusted what the shows and keywords were a few times. But now it is time for a major revamp for the new season.

Based on this weekend’s Emmy results (which determine 5 of my 10 shows) here will be the new wishlists for the 2004/2005 season!

2004 Emmy Winners:
* The Sopranos
* Arrested Development
* American Masters
* Samurai Jack
* The Daily Show

5 Freeform Show Choices:
* Nova
* Star Trek
* Jeopardy
* Frontline
* Stargate

2 Keywords:
* President
* Yucatan

1 Actor/Actress
* Humphrey Bogart

Then I have it always keep the latest BBC News for global news and the latest Eyewitness News for local news.

I expect a bunch of those to change as the season progresses. I want to catch the new Battlestar Galactica when it comes on in January for instance. And the new Doctor Who when it is out later in 2005. But those are still a bit away. When the time comes, some of my five free choice shows will have to go away to make room. And I want to catch the Earthsea miniseries. Things like that. I could just add more wishlists, but when I do that, I just end up with too much TV. Better to keep the numbers down, and switch them out when I want to.

Shows gone since last year: The West Wing, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Simpsons, Friends, Biography, Futurama, The Late Show, Sex and the City, Doctor Who, Queer Eye, Angel

Keywords gone since last year: Egypt, Iran, Syria, Photo

Actor/Actresses gone since last year: Reese Witherspoon, Amy Sedaris, Drew Barrymore

Also, in addition to my wishlists, Brandy also has 10 shows, 2 keywords and an actor/actress. And there are a few of her shows I watch and a few of my shows she watches. So we actually get a few more than the above. If I get Brandy’s permission I’ll post her list too. I think she has snuck in a few extra wishlists and has more than 10/2/1 right now, but we’ll have to fix that for the new season! :-)

Amy has a bunch of wishlists too for all sorts of shows. But they are on her own Tivo, so we don’t have to wade through the kids shows unless we want to. :-)

For the first time in a number of months, I have updated my chart of how the websites of a few of my friends and family are doing on the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem.

This time around I have included my mother’s Just Peace Advocate website. She hasn’t been updating it much lately because she has been out of the country for the last month, but she just got back, so maybe there will be updates again soon.

Abulsme.com TTLB Ecosystem Ranking

Rebecca’s Cackling Jackal remains far and above the most popular of the sites I am tracking. She’s got lots of folks linking to her. :-) She seems to have peaked in her rankings sometime in June though.