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I had quite a lengthy entry for yesterday, but it was lost when the UPS on my workstation failed. ::sigh:: Nice to know that had I been working on something mission critical for work, it would have been utterly lost!

I've got a few musings about the weather. Sometimes I think the weather reporting is 50% voodoo. I drove to work yesterday hearing about a tropical depression that probably wouldn't amount to anything and certainly posed no threat to us. By mid-afternoon, of course, that tropical depression became Tropical Storm Barry. By late afternoon, it was clear that once again, Pensacola was squarely in the strike zone! Now Barry is back to being a tropical depression, but may strengthen during the day.

I know it is absolutely wrong, but I confess, I find hurricanes exciting. I even enjoy them! I guess I shouldn't be so cocky, I only recently realized that when push comes to shove, I actually do live very close to the shoreline and I'm only a few miles from Perdido Bay! But...still...there's something about a storm that thrills me.

For some reason, when there's severe weather off the coast, the skies become strangely, intensely blue. It's like the approaching storm drives away the native clouds, only to bring in its own. When the hurricane is 100 miles out from shore, Pensacola Beach takes on a strange unearthly beauty. The skies are still blue, but you can see the dark storm clouds on the horizon. The normally placid waters of the Gulf of Mexico start to churn. Mist hangs in the air, giving everything a soft focused, dream-like air...

When people from the west coast tell me they fear hurricanes, I have to laugh. You have days and days to prepare for a hurricane. You've got time to prepare, to evacuate, to make your peace with whatever deities you believe in. Earthquakes, on the other hand...

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I feel I have been amiss not mentioning the passing of Poul Anderson. As a child wandering the libraries, I had decided to start at the "A's" and work my way to the "Z's." Poul Anderson's books helped launch my love for science fiction, which was cemented firmly when a little further down in the A's, I stumbled upon Isaac Asimov.

Douglas Adams' passing was also heartfelt. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series remains one of my favorites to this day, and Mike and I still occasionally quote passages at one another.

A Silly Bunny Story

So, the other day, I let Angelbunny out of her cage first thing in the morning before I left for work so she could have some play time. Overjoyed, she ran up the stairs to the second floor and started dashing around, doing the living room, dining room, kitchen circuit. The first dash she started skidding around the kitchen, barely avoiding hitting the cabinets below the stove. The second dash in the other direction, had her running at top speed toward my feet to tease me--to come to a sudden stop at my feet and jackrabbit off again. But Angelbunny miscalculated her velocity and her traction on the carpeting... BAM! Full-tilt-boogie into my shins. Now, she may be a six-pound bundle of fur, but accelerate that mass at full bunny speed, and she makes a healthy bullet. It hurt *ME*! I can't imagine how it felt on the bunny's forehead! After bouncing off, she did the cat-kinda headshake, the "I meant to do that" attitude, and then hopped away.

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On one hand, it's kinda like my old job: I'm being paid money to kill time. We're thinking maybe next week or week after we'll be back on a contract. In the meantime, it's struggle, struggle, struggle to find ways to make time pass. I've watched Robin do his stats homework, create his first Flash animation of a stickman, create intro Flash animations for his family's home page, et cetera... I've been doing the political activist thing, sending out alerts to my fellow Democrats at work, researching cool new webtools "in the name of keeping us abreast of cutting edge technologies," that kinda thing.

We've got our mornings pretty much programmed. We have people in our doorway for most of the morning. In the afternoon, it becomes our turn to be doorway ornaments. This morning we had Charles in the office expounding on the U.S.'s bumbling of foreign policy throughout history (backing the wrong governments). I must say, though, that while I thought he had good insights up to a point, about the time he started quoting Rush Limbaugh at me, my opinion started to slide...

Charles was actually pre-empting Will's normal spot this morning. Will is one of the graphic artists, and he's actually got the 9:00 AM slot... Will and I were grossing each other out yesterday morning with bug stories. I'm not sure who hates roaches more, him or me! :)

Later in the morning we had Tito discussing various beers and booze that he has had the pleasure to partake of around the world and we discussed smoking, quitting smoking, and not starting smoking.

In a bit it will be my turn. I'll go and hang in Tedy's office, and then Mike and Vlad's. Or else we'll all go to Tedy's office. Like as not, Tito will have beaten us to the spot. :)

The graphic artists gather to ooooooh and aaaaaah over the brand-new baby pictures--one of our co-workers just had a baby last night and two graphic artists are pregnant. The estrogen hangs thickly in the air. Luckily, I am immune to baby fever.

(no subject)

THEN

Candidate George Bush, October 2000, Pasco County Florida:
"I’m going to work with Gov. (Jeb) Bush to support an offshore drilling ban in Florida."

Jeb Bush, April 18th Letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton
"My position has been that there should be no such activity in the entire Eastern Gulf. I believe it is prudent. Once development crosses into the Eastern Gulf and pipeline infrastructure is installed, there will be little incentive not to expand production to fully utilize the transmission capacity. Further encroachment towards our beaches will become inevitable."


NOW

July 2, Gov. Jeb Bush and President George Bush announce plans to allow drilling off Florida’s Coast.